Two things are needed for a smooth urban neighbourhood: corners and curves. The corners provide orientation, the curves provide momentum. This does not mean wild serpentine lines, but gentle curves with superhuman radii. 

It may be nice for a city's need for self-expression to have a straight arterial road. However, these only make sense if they lead to something significant. The most famous example is probably the Elysian Fields in Paris: they lead from the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe, which was only added later. Perhaps because someone thought: "Something is missing here!". In Moscow, it is the large arterial roads such as Tverskaya or Arbatskaya that lead from the inner circle, the Kremlin, to the outside. The Moscow terminus railway stations are the destinations there: Kievskaya, Beloruskaya, Kurskaya, etc. They are again destinations. Because someone thought: "Something is missing here!", Stalin had his tower blocks built on the rings around the Kremlin. This resulted in the spider's web plan of Moscow. The second ring is the Boulevard Ring. The third ring is the garden ring or, as urban legend has it, the imprint of Stalin's coffee cup. This is because the ring line circles under the Garden Ring and is mocha brown in colour. All of this makes Moscow a frighteningly uncluttered metropolis. From day 2 onwards, you can find your way back to your hotel without a city map - despite illegible signs and "little waters". You simply wander in one direction in the sector where you had dinner until you reach the next main street. These usually have a view of the Kremlin with its towers. So you know immediately where you are in the city centre. The other direction leads to the brown ring road, which you can't miss. It's all very practical, if only we didn't know the brute force with which it was created. So we see the proximity of magistrals and lust for power. Apropos: in Munich, the axis runs from the Feldherrenhalle to the Siegestor and is called Ludwigstraße.

However, we don't want to focus on authoritarian urban planning, but on the neighbourhoods we love. People don't like to walk in a dead straight line. Even when sober, they have a slight undulation. That's why we find it an imposition to have to walk in a straight line. But that's what axes demand of us. When Prefect Haussmann had the dead-straight boulevards hacked into the layout of Paris, he was probably the most hated man in the city. He justified the straight road by reason, because the straight line is the shortest connection between two points. To this day, however, Hausmann's measures are perceived by freethinkers as a form of moderation and authority because they force us to walk straight: Master and servant. This applies not only to authoritarian systems but also to other Western capitals: in Washington, the main thoroughfares were designed by George Washington himself, in Brasilia by urban planner Lucio Costa. The promenade of these routes is perceived as unpleasantly long, although they are much shorter than winding ones. This is because curved streets change perspective every twenty paces, revealing new views that were previously obscured.

A road with a slight bend is exciting because you can't see the end of it. The motif turns with the movement and only gradually reveals the view. The corners of buildings emerge and disappear again. With a strict axis, the view is focussed on a target right from the start. Even gridded city layouts should therefore not be strictly rectangular. The streets have slight bends and curves. 

Let's take a look at Augsburg, the city where I studied. I recommend that visitors take the promenade from Moritzplatz to Rathausplatz. It's best to walk both paths: That's five minutes of world-class urban architecture. The paths follow the curve of a marble. The houses are the guard rails that guide visitors to their destination: the Augustus Fountain, the Perlach Tower and, of course, the world-famous Town Hall. That's what I call momentum and variety! If you look at the satellite image, you will recognise that it has just followed the outline of a whale: head with eyes, belly with intestines.

This is the last great whale. It breaks the gazes, it softens the paths, it spits the citizens in front of their town hall. Because if the town hall does not come to the citizens, the citizens come to the town hall. A lively urban structure needs these two components: Curves and corners. They go together like a bell and a hammer.

***

First published on Facebook on 07.03.2021