Jean Robert: A poetics of place

Abstract

Jean Robert’s work as a thinker, activist and “de-professionalized architect” can be conceived as a series of derivations of the act of walking–of practicing it, thinking about it, describing it, theorizing it–and of creating the conditions in which more and more people can exercise it. In this article, the genealogy of the act of walking is traced, both as an ethical and aesthetic gesture and in its political dimension. The author reflects on how this configures his thinking about the space/place opposition, as well as the effects of motorized mobility in human coexistence.