The idea of time travel is typically associated with Sci-Fi, but walking through vastly different spaces can almost give the same effect. As I moved through the medieval town of Asolo and the postmodern city of Milan, I experienced two different examples of movement through space.
Street Layout & Navigation
When walking through Asolo, there are cars, but since the streets are so small and the city itself isn’t very big, the preferred method of transportation is walking. There are no buses, no trains, no other kind of readily available transportation apart from manual movement (walking, biking). The streets of Asolo are narrow, winding, and follow the natural curves of the land. They weren’t designed for vehicles or efficiency, but for walking and defense. The built environment forces slow movement, promoting exploration and presence. The skinny streets don’t allow for the mixing of work and life, keeping businesses and homes seperate, mainly because they probably don’t fit on the same street.
In contrast, Milan’s streets are wide, flat, and often follow a grid. This postmodern layout is designed for cars, bikes, and metro systems. Movement is linear and fast, prioritizing efficiency and productivity over presence or reflection. The city has been planned out and zoned, meaning the streets were built to accommodate urban sprawl and mass movement.The wider streets make room for businesses and homes to intermingle in the busy streets, mixing work and life.
Transportation
In Asolo, transportation is almost entirely manual, with walking and biking being the only real options. Cars are used, but the skinny streets and lack of parking space make it hard to accommodate. The city’s size and design make it difficult for buses or cars to be popular. This is a reflection of the medieval logic: people mainly stayed in their towns and didn’t go far. Also, the medieval towns were not meant to house buses or cars, so it is increasingly difficult to traverse the medieval space utilizing those methods.
Since Milan is significantly larger than Asolo, modes of transportation vary; cars, the metro, trains, buses, and bikes are all utilized to move quickly. It offers an entire network of transportation. In Milan, movement is significantly easier and even encouraged. Since it is a bigger city, things are further away and more spread out, and so the need for efficient movement using transportation is evident.
Relationship to the Body
In Asolo, the body is the central focus of movement. We are utterly reliant on ourselves to move around in this medieval space. People move slowly through the streets, and in turn they feel grounded in their surroundings. The lack of postmodernism allows people to truly feel the history and physical reality of Asolo.
In Milan, postmodern movement frequently removes the body from being the focus of movement. Applications like Uber and even Postmates grant us the ability to move without really moving. The The new surgance of technology has facilitated our need for movement, but the result of this is a sense of detachment from space and from our surroundings.
Movement as Experience vs Function
Movement in Milan is functional. It is about getting from point A to point B as efficiently as possible. The city becomes a space for functional movement, not just for dwelling. Jean Baudrillard writes in Simulacra and Simulation that, “…it is the reflection of a profound reality” (6) in reference to the first order of simulation. This is applicable to moving through the postmodern space because the space becomes a sort of simulation of something else. Movement is made efficient and there is a disconnect, so it is as if you’re simply passing through, barely engaging your surroundings. When we move through this space, we are guided by signs and technology instead of using our bodies and natural surroundings. Movement in Milan reflects a simulation of reality in the sense that the postmodern aspects of the city were created specifically to be eccentric.
On the other hand, walking through Asolo is an immersive experience. There are centuries of history in absolutely everything from the stone walls to the fountain in the square. When I was there, it felt as though time moved slower because I was fully present. Movement is an experience in itself here, not just a means of going somewhere.
Observations
In How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics Literature, and Informatics , N. Katherine Hayles states that, “…the unfolding story of how a historically specific construction called the human is giving way to a different construction called the posthuman” (2). She is discussing how our understanding of what it means to be human has changed. She is suggesting that the once human is now replaced by the posthuman, which embraces both human and technology/machine.
This shift is visible in how we move through space. In Asolo, the human body was still at the center of movement (walking, hiking, climbing, biking). In Milan, movement has been optimized to get through the space as quickly as possible to the point where we no longer engage with the space.
By comparing how we move through these two cities, we don’t just see a difference in design, we see a difference in worldview. Asolo invites us to slow down, to be present, and soak in the rich history. Milan pushes us to move quickly, efficiently, and without looking back. Through this, movement through space becomes more than the physical act, but rather a way to understand how different societies imagine life, time, and our movement as the space changes.
Bianca's thoughts 