The View from the Train: Cities and Other Landscapes

by Patrick Keiller

“Robinson believed that, if he looked at it hard enough, he could cause the surface of the city to reveal to him the molecular basis of historical events, and in this way he hoped to see into the future.”

In his sequence of films, Patrick Keiller retraces the hidden story of the places where we live, the cities and landscapes of our everyday lives. Now, in this brilliant collection of essays, he offers a new perspective on how Britain works and sees itself. He discusses the background to his work and its development – from surrealism to post-2008 economic catastrophe – and expands on what the films reveal.

Referencing writers including Benjamin and Lefebvre, the essays follow his career since the late 1970s, exploring themes including the surrealist perception of the city; the relationship of architecture and film; how cities change over time, and how films represent this; as well as accounts of cross-country journeys involving historical figures, unexpected ideas and an urgent portrait of post-crash Britain.

Genres: Nonfiction, Architecture, Travel, Urbanism, Essays, Film, Trains

228 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2013

About the author

Patrick Keiller is a filmmaker whose works include the celebrated London (1994), Robinson in Space (1997), The Dilapidated Dwelling (2000), and Robinson in Ruins (2010). He has devised large-scale installations including Londres, Bombay (Le Fresnoy, Tourcoing, 2006) and The Robinson Institute (Tate Britain, London, 2012), the latter accompanied by a book The Possibility of Life's Survival on the Planet. He was a Research Fellow at the Royal College of Art, London (2002–11), and has taught in schools of art and architecture since 1974.

Reviews

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this, my only critique is that it's a bit repetitive...but with a collection of essays I suppose that's par for the course. I'm a big fan of the Robinson films, and it is so so cool to get some of the thinking behind them and the process of making them -- narrated in much the same fashion. They also start in a very different place, and hold very different assumptions than I do, though our side is the same as is our love of wandering and obsession with the city.

Both London and Robinson in Space had set out with a perception of economic failure, the result of a backward, specifically English capitalism; but in the second film, this gave way to an understanding that the UK's social and physical impoverishment was not a consequence of some inevitable 'decline', but of the successful operation of a particular economic system in the interests of those who own it. The 'problem' that the film had set out to examine was revealed as the result of political decisions that could be challenged' (6).

It is unique and more theoretical (Lefebvre is used in wholly new ways), and at the same time in the same vein of other London writers and 'psychogeographers' (Sinclair especially), which in itself I find fascinating. But they all pull from much the same canon (which I love, but there area few others I might just love more). Two quotes:

--from Benjamin's essay on surrealism, 'where he identifies the revolutionary potential of "everything we have experienced on mournful railway journeys...on godforsaken Sunday afternoon" (4).

--Bernard Tschumi writes that for Bataille 'architecture covers the scene of the crime with monuments' (18).

The rest of the cannon includes De Qincey, Poe, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Apollinaire, Aragon. Among them, as Keiller writes:

The desire to transform the world is not uncommon, and there are a number of ways of fulfilling it. On of these is by adopting a certain subjectivity, aggressive or passive, deliberately sought or simply the result of mood, which alters experience of the world, and so transforms it (9).

I love this formulation of the revolutionary nature of the writers, surrealists, situationists so often cited. I never knew that the surrealists tried to organise a 'tourist' event, on 14 April, 1921. Organised by Breton, it was to bring their insights gained from brothel and suburb exploration to the public, to 'put in unison the unconscious of the city with the unconscious of men' (14). But it rained, no tourists arrived, the rest of the tours were cancelled.

I also love some of the ideas behind the photography:

This visual material deliberately depicts places that are nearly or altogether devoid of human presence and activity, but which because of this absence are suggestive of what could happen, or what might have happened.... The aim is to depict the place as some sort of historical palimpsest, and/or the corollary of this, an exposition of a state of mind (11).

I loved the insights into decline, from 'Port Statistics', a wonderful examination of the docks and in 2001, an interesting foreshadowing of what was to come:

In the UK, wealth is not confined to a conservative nomenklatura, but the condition of, say, public transport or state-sector secondary schools indicates that the governing class does not have a great deal of use for them. People whose everyday experience is of decayed surroundings, pollution, cash-starved public services, job insecurity, part-time employment or freelancing tend to forget about the UK's wealth. We have been inclined to think that we are living at a time of economic decline, to regret the los of the visible manufacturing economy, and to lower our expectations. We dismiss the government's claims that the UK is 'the most successful enterprise economy in Europe', but are more inclined to accept that there might b less money for schools and hospitals, if only because of the cost of financing mass unemployment (46)

From 'The Dilapidated Dwelling':

...under advanced capitalism it is increasingly difficult to produce and maintain the dwelling. This is especially odd given that dwelings constitute the greater part of the built environment, that they are the spaces where most people spend most of their time, and where arguably the real 'work' of society is done. Modernity, it seems, I exemplified not so much by the business park or the airport, but by the dilapidated dwelling (54)

Interestingly though, we differ greatly in the meaning of home and the meaning of dwelling. I myself love these old houses, these Victorian and Georgian rows. I dream of a city where the are neither dilapidated nor obsessively maintained to historic code by the wealthy. But I would welcome genuinely new architectural designs for homes and common living, and agree that none have been forthcoming, at least not here. Written in 1998,this comes before the majority of the 'loft' and 'luxury flat' development for wealthy young professionals emerging from regeneration. Part of me thinks they deserve those boxy and unimaginative and shoddily-constructed status symbols, if only the rest of us didn't have to look at them. If only to build them, they didn't first have to destroy. For myself, and perhaps from the vantage point of the next generation, it is hardtop imagine this:

The volume of new construction is now less than it used to be, and western cities have not change anything like as much as was expected in, say, the early 1960s (70).

But gentrification is in here:

in London now, psychogeography leads not so much to avant-garde architecture as to gentrification
.... The great irony of the UK's psychogeography phenomenon is that its invocation of the flaneur only narrowly preceded and almost immediate commodification of café culture (71).

The same idea in relation to psychogeography's surrealist and situationist antecedents:

At the time [1990s], I suggested that their purpose had been overlooked: the derive and psychogeography were conceived, in a more politically ambitious period, as preliminaries to the production of new, revolutionary spaces; in the 1990s they seemed more likely to be preliminary to the production of literature and other works, and to gentrification, the discovery of previously overlooked value in dilapidated spaces and neighbourhoods (186).

This brings us to the urban and capitalism:

Capitalism both destroys and creates places, but the places it creates seem always, at least to begin with, less substantial, less rich, than the places it destroys...On the other hand, modern capitalism also gives place high value--partly by making its sought-after qualities scarce, partly by concentrating power in the global system in particular places: New York, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Paris, London, and so on. In the interstices of all this--in more or less dilapidated domestic spaces, as 'consumers' (neither passive nor docile)--we live our lives (73)

And finally just the voice:

--'The UKs production of desirable artefacts is certainly lamentable (and confirms the stereotype of a nation run by Phillistines with unattractive attitudes to sexuality' (45).

--repression and S&M hunt the Conservatives in a way that cannot be put down simply to the influence of the public schools (48).

This is just an odd collection of thoughts to do with what I am working on now, but there is so much more here on film and SF and an entertaining narrative of a trip to Rochester and some modern pictures inset with old pictures matched perfectly to the streetscape in ways that destabilize our sense of reality -- the strength of film and photography perhaps as he argues.

[cypt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kaip ir visur - retai kada geras kūrėjas būna ir geras teoretikas, tai labai daug nesitikėjau ir knyga nustebino. Keilleras yra PUIKUS teoretikas (be to, kad stato jėginius filmus) - skaičiau ir žavėjausi, kaip jis sugeba, kalbėdamas tipo tik apie savo patirtis - kaip statė filmus, rinkosi lokacijas, ką norėjo pasakyti (take that, struktūralistai) - sugeba padaryti rimtus ir tikrai neakivaizdžius apibendrinimus. Konkrečiai - labiausiai patiko, kaip jis aiškina apie erdves, užstatymą, architektūrą, miestovaizdžio formavimą ir tiesiog integraliai pereina prie politinių, demografinių, socialinių dalykų. Kaip labai paprastai parodo, kaip tai susiję. Mes turbūt pernelyg jėga buvom mokomi ir mokomos iš pradžių vienaip, po to kitaip (menas nėra politika!!! mene niekas neatsispindi!!!), ir dabar tą jungtį padaryti, kai reikia, yra labai sunku.

Žinoma, nebūtų Verso produkcija - labai kairuoliškas-lefevriškas-antikapitalistinis ir net revoliucinis. Bet jam tokie vaizdai ir įdomūs - apleisti, išnaudojami, naikinami. Akademinis must readas domintis erdve.

[Alex Sarll]

A collection of essays by the man probably best known for the Robinson films, which in turn I came to via St Etienne and the more whimsical end of psychogeography. This, though, if not without a certain lightness of touch, is for the most part a far more academic exercise, albeit never one which disappears into obscurity for the sake of seeming important. At times Keiller's claims do seem a little outlandish, the sort of thing which might work better delivered in a wry Paul Scofield voiceover – are de Quincey, Baudelaire and Bataille really required reading for shopping mall designers? But more often he succeeds in throwing fresh light on urban life, from the obvious centrepieces to the least regarded of edgelands. They're not old pieces by any real standard, running from 1982 to 2010, but the sense is often of a past distinctly shabbier than the last couple of decades (albeit, now, so much brighter than the future). In places he's downright prescient, being ahead of the crowd in recognising the problems with housing supply and demand in San Francisco, or anticipating and discarding many of the late pre-Event objections to those young people and their screens: "Photography, or the Surrealists' frisson, or some drugs, revealed things as they could be, but two-way electronic connectedness seems to enrich experience of things as they are." Alas, in a sense he also anticipated the Event itself, noting the way, if not the degree and speed, with which the virtual world's growth could easily hollow out city centres. As can often happen with a collection of essays not originally intended to go together, there are sections of repetition, as in two consecutive pieces about the 'phantom ride', or films shot from the front of a moving vehicle – but I'd never encountered this handy term before (nor the early 'cinema of attractions' of which they were a part), and they do have different things to say, so I can't complain too much. It's not a book which feels like it could ever be a crossover hit; when Keiller offers an account of a journey, as in 'London - Rochester - London', it feels a lot like Iain Sinclair with, for better and worse, much less dramatic and mythic overlay (and I'd love to read their paired accounts of the same trip, Bad Wisdom-style). I would also, more than ever, love to find his film about my own manor, Norwood. But in the meantime, while I barely feel part of the city, it served as a bittersweet reminder and explication of the possibilities and problems of the built environment – and, now we can only watch on the small screen, also an excavation of the history and ceremony of film. Though the last piece's doomed hope that something new might arise from the wreckage of the 2008 crash seems even more poignant now that has been revealed as mere foothills to the current peaks. Still, we're definitely going to 'build back better' this time, right?

[Deborah J · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't give this book more than 2 stars because I didn't enjoy it that much. However, I accept full responsibility for that: I found that it went into too much detail about things I wasn't particularly interested in. I loved the Robinson "films" and had thought it might be further exploration of the same, but I confess that much of this was too high-falutin' for me. However, it gave me lots of pointers to other writers and topics I could be interested in, so it's done its job in that sense. I read Poe's The Man of the Crowd as Keiller mentioned it, as had Geoff Nicholson. I guess it's fate when two books in quick succession mention one particular story.

I found the parts about the built environment of London - its renewal or otherwise - fascinating, as was the section on "space" and film noir, and it made it me want to brush off copies of Baudelaire, Apollinaire and Aragon.

I think it's great that people write books like this.

[Pete Green]

Not exactly sparkling prose, but some brilliant insights on our relationships with cities, the built environment and economic systems, so probably a major contribution to debates around psychogeography and whatnot.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential reading if you wish to know the exact thoughts, details and creative process followed when making the films we are familiar with.

[Sophy H · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very intellectual and academic style look at representation of space, architecture and meaning of place.

Patrick Keiller is a great writer but I do have to pay attention to what I'm reading with him, due to his academic style of writing.

Of interest to me was his scathing review of both Tory and Labour governments, and their lack of commitment to affordable social housing, either new build or renovation of dilapidated buildings that stand empty for decades. Empty space in this day and age is one of my bugbears, especially when so many people struggle to get on the property ladder whilst multiple ownership landlords exploit the situation with extortionate rents and impossible criteria.

Keiller also reviews his previous works including the films London, Robinson in Space and Robinson in Ruins. It's interesting to hear his process, particularly of how he developed the imagery first and then overlaid a written script to match the images.

Recommended for any architecture/spatial use fans.

[Bablu · Rating 3 out of 5]

nice film theory, architecture writing, historical materialism and lit crit dude. be a shame if someone...trashed it online

keiller the architect picks up on the truth of british ppl's willingness to spend money, time, care, etc on making their place of work turn them on, be really spiffy and contemporary and then just going and living in old houses, which i guess might be what's at the heart of austerity. the chapter on ports and former ports was really interesting

[Ruby · Rating 5 out of 5]

very hard to read because sentences are too good.

[Joshua Line]

'Like repression, deregulation inflicts pain and suffering. Unemployment, increased inequality, low wages and longer working hours all lead to depression, ill health and shorter life expectancy.'

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most prose books by artists aren't very good. Keiller, however, is a perceptive and knowledgeable writer: perhaps he should have been a journalist or a historian instead?

[Tiarnán · Rating 3 out of 5]

Keiller is a great artist (maybe the greatest living British visual artist who engages with politics?) and an okay writer. As this is an edited collection and Keiller has the artist's typical habit of focusing on a narrow yet evocative range of motifs and references there is an unfortunate degree of repetition throughout. There are however some some stand-out chapters on the dilapidated state of the British housing stock, the disjuncture between the UK's financialised global dominance and the absence embodied in so much of its urban spaces, and Keiller's own roundabout pathway into visual art and psycho-geographic imaging. A recommended read for any frustrated flaneur, wannabe situationist, or view-from-the-train lover.