Urbanism as musical score: how improvisational behavior in cities can be documented and implemented

The great French theorist Henri Lefebvre famously argued that urban space is socially produced. German theorist and composer Christopher Dell proposes that, today, Lefebvre’s argument must be refined: while the term “production” traditionally has a teleological connotation, the city can no longer be defined as a teleological process. Based on Dell's concept of the “open-ended city score,” The Improvisation of Space studies the improvisational possibilities of cities in relation to planning. Drawing on his training as a composer, Dell shows how various types of creative notation can be used to track the indeterminate behavior of citizens, and how models of improvisation, indeterminacy and stochastic theory from avant-garde music (Xenakis, Berio, Earle Brown) can be applied to urban analyses, also drawing on situationist dérive theory and the work of Rem Koolhaas.

Christopher Dell is the author of Haus Ideal – The Making Of, ReplayCity and La Ville comme partition ouverte.