Space of Flows

Manuel Castells, 1996

Space, time, society

Space, time, society

“Space is not a photocopy of society, it is society.”

“Space is cristalized time.”

“Space is the material support of time-sharing social practices.”

Function of space“Space brings together those practices that are simultaneous in time.”

“In Information Age material support does not rely on physical contiguity.”

Our society

“Our society is constructed around flows: flows of capital, information, technology, organisational interaction, images, sounds and symbols”

“Flows are the expression of processes dominating our life.”

Space of flows

“The space of flows is the material organisation of time-sharing social practices that work through flows.”

3 layers of material support

1 Circuit of electronic exchanges

2 Nodes and hubs

3 Spatial organisation of the dominant elites

1 Circuit of electronic exchanges “A spatial form, just as it could be the city or the region.”

“No place exist by itself - the positions are defined by the exchange of the flows in the network.”

2 Nodes and hubs

“Hierarchically organised according to their relative weight in the network.”

“In some cases, the most unlikely sites become nodes.”

3 Spatial organisation of the elites

SoF is dominant, because it is spatial logic of dominant interests in our society.”

Elites are cosmopolitan, people are local.”

“People still live in places - but abstracted from power and separated from knowledge.”

Architecture in Space of flows“Post-modern: ahistorical, acultural.”

“Architecture of nudity – so neutral, so pure, not pretend to say anything. The message is silence.”

“You are alone, in the middle of space of flows, suspended in the emptiness of transition, there is no escape.”

„Unless cultural, political and physical bridges are built between those spaces, we may be heading toward parallel universes.”