Variance in Streets

Assuming american streets are organised in a straight lattice, and European streets are disorganised curves of various lengths.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA

TOULOUSE, FRANCE

American streets draw themselves out towards infinity, more powerful than man, godlike.

European streets, bent, recede and are supplanted by buildings and houses, are more human and mysterious.

   Emotion: to feel human and powerful or feeble, facing the night in the city.

At night, American streets emphasise far-away lights. Each crossing offers mirages built with the accumulation of traffic and street lights off four directions.

The urban pace was latticed for ease of simplicity and to put liveable areas under control. 

The result is an impenetrable infinity, illusionary and magic, a New and Unnatural World.

The European street follows the pedestrian and ascribes familiarity to his journeys (brings easiness of recognition, especially to the natives). The mystery of curves is easily solved (one just has to look around, walk from different sides, to lean,...) and is familiar and harmless. (The European street mystery is in the negative elements: lights, compositions of buildings and surroundings. The American mystery is more obvious, in the buildings themselves: colours, signs,..etc)

The American street is one of the future, functional (effective) and automated: the paintings of driving indications align with electrics wires, pavements: it is an electro-physical field, cultivated, perpetual.

The European street traces its objects almost randomly. Each street and piece of street presents itself as an individual combination. 

American city: a giant organism, neutral at core, accepting, like its inhabitants, thus chaotic.

European city: an image of war, fights between streets and buildings, and buildings between themselves, grown together or against each other.