Thoughts Apropos of Martijn de Waal’s The City as Interface

Text: Imre Bokányi

In a study published in 2014 in Rotterdam, de Waal projected the software parallels well-known from the specialist literature dealing with the smart cities to the complex systems of cities. The city as interface is the place where independent systems meet, interact with each other, and communicate. According to de Waal, the operation and maintenance of cities may be rated as an interface back in the previous historic eras, but digital media technologies brought about visible changes in quality in the experience of urban spaces. It is an issue, though, how these technologies interfere in the multiple layers of the urban fabric.