Inspiring Shanghai - Inspiring your Next City Walk ?
Date：2023-10-10
The publication of Inspiring Shanghai coincides with a special attention on the cyberspace to the notion of “city walk”.
We have asked David Gosset, editor of Inspiring Shanghai, his views on the notion of city walk.
Here is his reaction:
“In the essay I have penned for our book, I refer to Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) who studied the figure of the flâneur, inseparable from our modern societies.
Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), German Jewish cultural critic.
Flâneur is a French term that is not easy to translate. We could say that the city walker is a flâneur, someone who practices flânerie, moves slowly and takes pleasure in observation. A flâneur is a moving spectator.
It is obvious that Shanghai, like Paris, is made for the citywalk flâneur.
One can walk in its museums, in its parks, in its large shopping centers, in its bookstores, in its streets with beautiful architectures talking about the past as much as the future, along its different waterways but especially the Suzhou river and the Huangpu.
One can also bike in Shanghai but flânerie presupposes a slow pace, precisely, the pace of a walk.
Walter Benjamin even noted that for a brief moment in Paris in the 19th century, it was considered elegant to take a tortoise out walking. It gives an idea of the tempo of flânerie …
A flâneur does not necessarily look for novelty but she or he knows how to appreciate the variations of things, that is, the same place under different lights, under different circumstances appearing in different ways. Nuances are a feast for the flâneur.
I think that our book can be understood, in a sense, as a companion for city walks in 21st century Shanghai.
Each essay offers a certain perspective on the city. I am sure that the intellectual city walks of the 30 contributors will make the experience of our concrete city walks richer. “
