ABSTRACT Many critics have pointed to the failures of modernist urban design, which include its obliteration of thriving neighborhoods, isolation of functions and production of alienating spaces hostile to the human form. Less focus has been placed on defining the source of the modernists’ errors. This essay argues that these errors were in part due to neglect of the nature of fully embodied experience, a neglect manifested in an overwhelmingly visual disposition in embodiment. The author argues that a visual disposition is implicated in the occlusion of place by the modern concept of abstract space. This concept of space and the visual disposition that is implicated in it undergird the utopianism and veneration for abstract forms that characterized the project of modernist urban design. The author concludes by suggesting that the basis for a humanizing urbanism should be the solicitation of all the senses in synesthetic interaction. This phenomenological critique can help us to see precisely where modernist urban design went wrong; it can also help lead us out of the false dichotomy between alienating modernism and orthodox traditionalism by establishing a basis for successful urban environments in embodiment rather than in any rigidly determined formula for urban design.

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抽象城市：现代主义城市设计失败的现象学基础

摘要许多批评家指出了现代主义城市设计的失败，包括对繁荣的社区的破坏，功能的隔离以及对人类形态的敌对空间的产生。人们很少关注确定现代主义者错误的根源。本文认为，这些错误部分是由于对完全体现的体验的本质的忽视，而这种忽视表现在实施方式中绝大多数的视觉倾向中。作者认为，视觉倾向与抽象空间的现代概念牵涉到空间的封闭。空间的概念及其所蕴含的视觉倾向，体现了乌托邦主义和对抽象形式的崇敬，抽象形式代表了现代主义城市设计的特征。作者最后提出，城市化人性化的基础应该是通感互动中所有感官的征服。这种现象学上的批评可以帮助我们准确地了解现代主义城市设计出了什么问题。通过建立成功的城市环境的基础，而不是严格地确定城市设计公式，它还可以帮助我们摆脱疏离现代主义和正统传统主义之间的错误二分法。