Phenomenology of the Winter-city ― Myth in the Rise and Decline of Built Environments

This book explores how the weather and city-form impact the mind, and how city-form and mind interact. It builds on Merleau-Ponty’s contention that mind, the human body and the environment are intertwined in a singular composite, and on Walter Benjamin’s suggestion that mind and city-form, in mutual interaction, through history, have set the course of civilization. Bringing together the fields of philosophy, urbanism, geography, history, and architecture, the book shows the association of existentialism with anguish in Northern Europe at the close of Little Ice Age. It explains the implications of city-form and traces the role of the myths and allegories of urban design as well as the history of gender projection onto city-form. It shows how urbanization in Northern Europe provided easier access to shelter, yet resulted in sunlight deprivation, and yielded increasing incidence of depression and other mental disorder among the European middle-class. The book uses the examples of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky and Kafka, to show how walking through the streets, squares and other urban voids became the informal remedy to mood disorder, a prominent trait among founders of modern Existentialism. It concludes by describing how the connection of anguish and violence is relevant to winter depression in cities, in North America in particular.

Born at Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) in 1948; B.A. (1973) in philosophy, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel; M.Sc. (1977) in environmental planning, University of Calgary, Canada; Ph.D. (1982) in urban and regional planning, University of Waterloo, Canada; Principal Planner, City of Edmonton (Canada) Planning Department (1982-1990); Associate Prof. of Geography and Planning, University of Saskatchewan (1990-1995); Professor of Geography and Planning, University of Saskatchewan (1996 – present); Assoc. Member, Department of Philosophy, Univ. of Saskatchewan (2000 – present); Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada – grant (1992); SSHRC – grant application under review (2014); Fellow: Royal Geographical Society (London, UK); Member: Canadian Institute of Planners; Canadian Population Society.