Autopia: Cars and Culture

This collection of roughly 50 essays covers a broad range of topics.

For example, Jane Jacobs considered the subtleties of how people could better interact with cars in urban centers; Geremie Barme discussed the “revolutionary” nature of car cultures in China; David Brodsly offered an “appreciative essay” about Los Angeles freeways; and Roland Barthes compared a Citroen to a Gothic cathedral.

Essays are interspersed with high-quality photo features. The prose can sometimes soar into academic-style obtuseness, but for those with patience this can be a rewarding read.

Autopia: Cars and Culture

• Peter Wollen and Joe Kerr, eds.; 2002
• Reaktion books, London

“The car is a ready measure of our selfishness; at the same time, it reminds us of other road users who may get in the way. ‘Accidente’ means ‘Hell’ in Italian, a reminder of Satre’s Existentialist conundrum that Hell is other people.” (p. 58)

“Moscow driving is uniformly aggressive. Lane discipline is almost non-existent. Drivers weave in and out of lanes on either side with just inches of clearance, cars will overtake in either lane, while at the same time quite flamboyant and breathtaking U-turns are undertaken and contribute to the mysterious anarchism of traffic snarl-ups.” (p. 160)

“To think of city traffic problems in oversimplified terms of pedestrians versus cars, and to fix on the segregation of each as a principal goal, is to go at the problem from the wrong end. Consideration for pedestrians in cities is inseparable from consideration for city diversity, vitality, and concentration of use. In the absence of city diversity, people in large settlements are probably better off in cars than on foot.” (p. 264-265)

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