The Theater of War
The streets have been the space that citizens have occupied for demonstrations for hundreds of years. Whether it’s protests for policy, human rights, or outright war, humans have utilized this infrastructure as a means to express their beliefs. I find it interesting that historically our cities were areas of strategic conquest for economic devastation or military strategy more than anything else. Watching the invasion of Ukraine, Russia is demonstrating the tremendous cost civilians are paying in an effort to reunite the Russian Empire. The Russians have captured the port city of Kherson cutting off access to the coastline severely wounding the economy. Additionally, Russian forces are fighting in Enerhodar, a city that produces 25% of Ukraine’s energy. At this point, the collision of architecture and politics is happening in a sovereign country’s cities with critical infrastructure. In a 21st century society where our systems of communication and critical infrastructure are closely linked, what does it mean for politics and war to play out over control of infrastructure and resources when it means that thousands of innocent civilians are the ones who bear the consequences?
Source: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-a3092d8e476949ed7c55607a645a9154
Great post Colin,
ReplyDeleteIts certainly interesting the role of cities as a resource. A different perspective than the average citizen probably takes. We tend to think about cities in architecture as places for community, diversity, and maybe abundance or density. However cities are what's fought over during war. The interesting idea is that everyone is probably assuming at some point Russia will overtake Ukraine if they aren't supplied with considerable enough aide however the strong resistance from the people indicates that they may occupy the territory for a certain period of time but they won't have the backing of the people.