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The bar at August Antwerp forms a pleasing rotunda around the former chapel’s altar alcove, placing it at the aesthetic centre of the artfully desaturated former cloister. Golden stained-glass reflections and bulbous lamps in Vincent van Duysen’s dark bespoke fittings illuminate the white marble countertop.

The mood is demure. Everyone is at dinner, leaving the bar to the dedicated few who skip it all in favor of a prompt digestif. The barkeeper is working a solo shift. His heavy-set frame, colourful tattoos and overall unkemptness add a welcome edge to the slightly too sober sage-green staff uniforms. Drinks are processed expertly and not without flair, in a mesmerizing swaying choreography between freezers, cutting boards and the stately, four-story bar shelf.

Bites appear on the counter: Sardines in oil, capers and shrimp croquettes, crispy fried bread, Bellotta ham. Their inherent naughtiness is effectively balanced by August’s soft architectural dignity and the flawless etiquette of its patrons, who nonchalantly handle advanced seafood and amber-hued alcohol in civilized ways.

From the dining-room, an older man in a brown glencheck sport coat and an angular moustache approaches. After some deliberation and sweeping gestures, first a ladder, then a stately bottle of scotch is procured from the topmost echelons of the shelf. Informed about its price per glass, the gentleman carefully puts down the bottle and elects to go for something more quotidien.

A well-appointed middle-aged couple finally empties their margaritas, finding each other’s eyes and their room key with some determination. As they leave, two scooped-out maracuja shells are filled with vodka and ignited, a subtle act of riot and mixologist pyrotechnics that is left uncommented by everyone.

August Bar, Zuid, Antwerp.

Viewed from the coast, the atlantic ocean is a singularity. It has no end and no dimension.

Alvaro Siza carved a pool into the void – human ambition inserted into the unending sea. Ultimately, Piscina das Marés is a vantage point: A place to observe, and a place to dip into a singularity on a hot day.

The basins and all infrastructure are built using concrete that has been made from rocks of the coast, ground down to silicate sand. The structure may be the only one on the planet that is literally spliced into itself.

Only part of the main pool is built. Rather, it is grafted onto a natural fundament. Its built components remain gestures that add edges and plinths to rocks and sand. Their expression is structural, visual appeal emerging from precise emptiness. As structural interventions, they appear as sculpture without gestalt. They are closer to land art than architecture.

As all swimming pools, Piscinas das Marés is fundamentally about the body, and about the beach as environment for the relationship of bodies. A stage for the bared human form, observed between rocks, from platforms and planes. The body is put to use, to measure the basin, to define its blurry dimensions by traversing it, to draw dotted lines between the realm of modernity and the vast entropy that expands at its edge.

Swimming is measuring: by using the pool, by crossing the water and by walking its perimeter, measurements are taken unconsciously. Using Piscinas das Marés defines its blurry dimensions, draws dotted lines between the realm of anthropocentric modernity and the silent entropy beginning at its edges.

The basin’s water is clear and salty – sourced from the atlantic ocean, filtered and cleaned. It is an odd sensation to swim in this type of water – an unnaturally clear simulacrum of sea water contained in a basin within itself. It feels oddly artificial, a simulated liquid lapping the granite rocks that form part of the main pool. Every dive, its saltiness is a new surprise. This water brings to mind memories of the pure, clean and deadly desert, rather of other oceans.

The atlantic ocean was still during my most recent visit. Piscinas das Marés by Alvaro Siza is, of course, the most beautiful swimming pool ever built.

Ich hege eine gewisse Zuneigung an das Zurückkehren, an den zweiten Blick auf einen Ort. Markiert der erste Blick einen Punkt, das Eintreten des Neuen, beschreibt der zweite Blick eine Strecke: Sie schließt ein psychologisches Dreieck zwischen der ersten Wahnehmung, dem zurückgelegten Weg und dem zweiten Besuch. Erst das Wieder-Erkennen eines Ortes stellt eine Relation her, die über bloßes Betrachten hinausgeht¹. Einmal irgendwo gewesen sein bedeutet nichts. Zurückkehren bedeutet alles.

Ich habe Oporto häufig besucht, einige Male der Liebe und der Arbeit wegen. Ich kehrte zurück wegen Álvaro Siza, Serralves, der Topographie und der Bruchteile verwitternden Grandeurs. Schließlich wegen des seltenen Verständnisses: Diese Stadt ist mir zu eigen. Da ist eine Version dieser Stadt für mich, und eine Version von mir für diese Stadt.

Oporto hat in den letzten zehn Jahren eine beständig wiederkehrende Rolle in meinem Leben gespielt, leise und absichtslos². Ich werde nun also eine Zeit dieses an Zeiten nicht eben armen Jahres dort verbringen. Ich bereue, das Neubauten-Konzert in der Casa da Música um ein Jahr zu verpassen. Ich freue mich auf all die Aussicht, und die Nacht in der Straße. Ich erinnere mich an den Text über Xmal Deutschland, den ich in der Nacht an der Kammer am Fluss schrieb, und an den Tag danach, die Hallen von Campanhã. Mehr, eine entschiedenere Linie beschreiben.

1. Ich neige dazu, signifikante Wege in Städten immer wieder zurückzulegen. Vermutlich ist es der Versuch, durch das Überlagern ganz verschiedener psychologischer Zustände und sich verändernder Orte eine Linie zu erzeugen, die aus großer Ferne sichtbar bleibt: Markierung und Verbindung von Raum und Zeit und Selbst. ↩

2. Überrascht stelle ich fest, dass ich das vor sieben Jahren bereits ähnlich sah. Es ist irritierend und kostbar wenn sich Dinge meiner Entscheidungswut widersetzen. ↩

Wind over water at the unornamented mirror lake of Menara Gardens. Built afar, adjacent the olive grove, by an imagined beduin cult of brutalist worshippers.

There is no photographic image, no advertisement, no glowing condensed corporate typography. Buildings seem to emerge directly from the reddish-brown ground, molding into soft cubes and boxes. The cityscape does not pry for attention, its decidedly nonmodern psychogeography seamlessly merges into a pastoral sprawl inflated to vast dimension and density.

I have a great affection for cats, as all tasteful and self-respecting humans do. Particularly, I cherish their arcane capability to offer a particular kind of intense, but silent companionship. Observing a city beneath a full moon, low and heavy, in quiet unison with a cat is a privilege quite uncomparable to anything else.

Palais el Badi: Afroeuropean Mythologies

A gleaming S-Class in black and chrome is parked next to a reddish clay wall, passed by a kid on a creaking bicycle and a handsome old man in a grey kaftan (I take special note of his accurately groomed, short grey beard). The limousine’s presence marks the place as psychogeographic science fiction. It is an intruder, an object from another time and universe, one I seem to be strangely familiar with: NFC readers, softly organic trainers, caftans, dust, cooked wool, satellite dishes, Buckydomes, walled gardens, fliphones, iPhones, hairstyles, all somehow materializing in an unexpected kind of 2020.

Urban Moroccan housing defaults to a subtle ledge starting on the first floor. It offers shade to the life in the street, increases the size of the living quarters (ground floors are mostly used for storage or workshops) and lends an element of decided, simple ornamentation to the otherwise plain cube. This is usually mirrored by the roof construction: the top floor is reduced to about a third of the ground floor area, creating a large terrace. From this, the shape of the residential unit emerges: a soft-edged rectangular box, defined by two interrelating incisions.

A bed in the desert, nature in perfect silence. There is the soft sound of flocks of small puffy birds passing overhead, and a warm breeze. Sun sets over the ranges, the desaturated Atlas mountains loom in the background. Life is forced into equilibrium. Many ways to go from here. (02/10/20)

In Casablanca, architecture appears to be more substance than artefact. It seems to bee perpetually melting, flaking, merging with nature and civilisation. Many buildings echo a faint Art Deco heritage, misunderstood even by the foreigners that brought it to these parts. Since, the idea of the graceful line seems to have evolved into something more organic, matching northern African sensibilities and energies. Here, the new and modern appears as just another iteration, reintegrated into the profoundly social mechanics of the medinas and markets, all refinement reserved for two-storey courtyards, areas of consultation and quietness.

What would you go to Casablanca for? For two days? — Ingrid

It’s remarkably silent as we slowly cross Beethoven Street. I ponder the gradually passing shadows and whether they are the most real thing I’ve seen today. Dry-clean smell permeates this black Kia Optima. We keep inching along Culver. Finally, the freeway sprawl, in front of us. I servo down a window in anticipation – only to find the freeway packed with the afternoon jam, and myself in stasis again.

Jon said that Uber has put a layer on top of the city, opened it up. It provides no freedom, replacing one rigged system with another. New economics, but no new access (economics newer create new things). Nothing improved, it’s a stall, sideways momentum. My driver is a quiet, chinese man, entirely clad in beige. He puts a Muji tray of caramel sweets on the handrest. I take one and never eat it.

Under the street lights, a Volkswagen Passat stops to pick me up. Its interior smells of industrial strawberries, the stereo playing progressive sidechain arpeggios. There is a moody iridiscent sliver in me that enjoys how well this music matches the ride, the nighttime tunnel flow. We are traversing the dark city in an almost meditative state. Gasoline Zen, I post to Twitter.

The music selection is an integral part of every ride, in a very different way than during Berlin Taxi rides. American radio stations somehow seem to have access to a deeper archive of 1980s rock classics, inacceptable music that seems strangely adequate in Californian air. Toto, Stones, The Wings, they all seem to complete a cliché that may be more real than the actual city.

Thomas is driving me. He is in a palm tree-patterned daishiki. He is listening to The Wave radio at full volume, some black-eyed R’n’B, and keeps humming along. The ever-present industrial strawberry smell mixes with his vanilla perfume. All of this is highly pleasant.

This one blasts trap beats, the stereo’s volume perfectly tuned. As the sun casts soft shadows onto my ankles, I notice yet another variant of the faint dry clean/dried fruit scent that I am unable to place (this country’s olfactory industry has long since emancipated itself from the limited selection of fruit available on earth, I scrawl into my notebook). The car is en route to Los Feliz, where I’d like to visit Ennis House, and stare at the cityscape in dusk and sun. On Glendower Avenue, the door closes and the Prius hums away. I remain by myself on a steep road, next to a vaguely Aztec structure.

Dieses Jahr hat in Los Angeles begonnen, nachdem die ersten beiden Monate in einer Art Druckwelle an mir vorbeigezogen waren, nachdem WAF GMBH ihre Existenz rechtsgültig begonnen hatte. Es war eine Rückkehr an einen Ort, den ich während meiner vorigen Besuche nicht verstand, aber mich stets fasziniert zurückließ. Das fundamentale Versagen dieser Stadt, eine Stadt zu sein¹, ihre psychotische Dunkelheit, die Geometrie ihrer Schatten im immerzu perfekten Licht – mein Versuch, eine Perspektive auf Los Angeles zu finden hält an und findet inzwischen in einem Are.na-Channel statt: Parsing L.A..

Seit meiner Rückkehr habe habe ich nicht aufgehört, über diese projizierte Stadt und ihre Orte nachzudenken. Ebenso habe ich nicht aufgehört, Boy Harsher zu hören. Die dunkle Campyness des Projekts aus (enttäuschenderweise: Massachusetts) fließt gleichermaßen in den schwarzen Sonnenschein, der so spezifisch für Los Angeles ist. Diese Musik füllt Industriebrachen und flutet die mit 20 Meilen pro Stunde vorbeiziehenden leeren weißen Kuben, die Gebäude sein sollen. Wie so vieles in den Vereinigten Staaten ist sie eine Rekonstruktion europäischer Affekte mit amerikanischen Mitteln. Wie so vieles in Los Angeles speist sich ihre Anziehungskraft aus eben dieser monumentalen Fakeness.

Ich habe die Alben und LPs von Boy Harsher mehr gehört als viele andere Musik in diesem Jahr. Los Angeles blieb und die Stimmung blieb und die Erinnerung an das Licht und die Menschen blieb. Es ist schwer, sich der Sleaziness zu erwehren, dem Eingeständnis einiger Kaputtheit und der Weite und Freiheit, die von dieser Musik ausgeht. Das hat viel mit Jae Matthews‘ Gesang zu tun, geschult an der Attitüde und Anziehungskraft der europäischen Goths (Siouxsie Sioux, Anja Huwe, man muss die richtigen YouTube-Videos kennen).

Motion, Westerners und Morphine (ey, diese Titel) haben mich durch einige Härten halluziniert, als Narrative einer Welt, die es nur ausgedacht gibt, und halt in Los Angeles, wo alles erfunden ist. Es ist großartige Musik, wie L.A. eine großartige Stadt ist, wie es nichts sharperes gibt als eine Truckerjacke aus gewachstem Twill im richtigen Licht.

Boy Harsher wurden zum Kristallisationspunkt meiner Beach Goth-Playlist, vermutlich der reinste Ausdruck meiner Lust an brachial doofer Affirmation, zu der ich in diesem Jahr gefunden habe. Diese Playlist bedeutet mir viel – ebenso wie Los Angeles und meine Perspektiven in der Stadt, denen Boy Harsher Raum und Permanenz in 2019 gegeben haben, auch auf dem kalten Boden der Tatsachen zum Ende der Dekade.

There was a moment among the abstract government buildings. I was very tired, the mournful groove of Boy Harsher oozing from my wireless earpiece, an electric scooter zooming past. I realized where I was, which world, how far I had walked. Let’s save this particular now. (Berlin, September 2019)

• Boy Harsher – Careful, LP, Nude Club Records, 2019.
• Boy Harsher – Yr Body is Nothing, LP, DKA Records, 2016.
• Boy Harsher – Country Girl (Uncut), 12″, Ascetic House, 2019.

1. Traversing the airspace above L.A. and the valley beyond makes the vastness of this country apparent. It is, fundamentally, still the far west, unclaimed nature, emptied of its original inhabitants, painted with a thin layer of civilisation and semi-permanent architecture. Were the people settling here to leave, it would turn full western-trope ghost town of monumental dimensions. ↩

The coordination between hues of orange of about 24 vintage Polyside Chairs arranged around square plastic tables, four oversized umbrellas advertising SION KÖLSCH and the swooping letterforms so tastefully deployed to the menu headers of Café Hallmackenreuther is ever so slightly off, and thus achieves a kind of perfection any Pantone folder would ruin. The palette is positively exciting, reframing the scenery as an episode of quintessential 1973ish West-Germanness.

A table over, one of the quarter’s apparent doyens is holding court. With white-bearded smiles, patrons, strangers and acquaintances passing the square are waved over – while multiple magazines, tiny glasses of white wine and an eager young labrador keep being miraculously juggled. „Flat white, in a cup“ is the order, which is swiftly downed upon arrival.

Beyond the leafy courtyard, the café itself has opened its glass front, providing ample space to bustle about for a pair of stewards that tends to the crowd reclined in polyethylene. One is green-eyed, lanky and bumbling, a shoddy bowler hat hiding strands of streaky blonde hair and yesterday’s night out. His partner – all sagging thrashed denim and big-haired, nose-pierced, crop-topped street cred – is doing a considerably more professional job, inserting some urban eroticism into an otherwise almost pastoral scene. French, Italian and Kölsch are spoken among maple trees, all softly blending in the most pleasant summer air.

Hallmackenreuther, Belgisches Viertel, Cologne.

The mezzanine level of Sightglass is bustling at this time of the day, making the fact that the lower floor is designed to hold a maximum of ten patrons at full capacity all the more commendable.

Along the bar, a free as in coffee startup consultation is taking place, the vocal fry soothing over whatever deep domain experience, human ressources and management background is relayed to two young trucker-jackeded entrepreneurs. The phrase fermented time is uttered and followed by a pause for added effect.

Despite the amount of business conducted in the former warehouse, the overall mood remains calm and Californian. It’s friday after all. Down below, the barista adjusts the small red comb in his sizeable afro after pulling what is presumeably the four hundred twenty second espresso shot of the day. He wipes a hand on his Queen shirt, skull motif. It has been a long day. Outside, the clouds lay heavy and low on the sightlines to downtown and Telegraph Hill. A single slim figure disappears into the haze. The dogs keep barking and a week proceeds to wind down.

Sightglass Coffee, SoMa, San Francisco.

The thing is, everybody wears very good sneakers: With tight fitting sweatpants, peaking below striped djellabas and dashikis, combined with dresses, tracksuits and leggings are the chunky, the limited and the collaborative, gleaming white or radiating volt, pink and, sometimes, a multitude of iridescent. Intermediate-level Vapormaxes (Utility, Flyknit, Plus) seem to be stakes to play dans la rue, one-upped by 720s, Kiko Kostadinov’s Gel-Delvas and the bulbous sculptural offerings Han Kjøbenhavn and Puma have been putting out lately. The general selection slants soccer and running, mediterranean street kid and La Haine. Athletic footwear choices speak of discernment and respect for the urban space: look good when stepping outside, you owe the streets of Marseille.

Marseille is an impressive, varied assembly of architecture. Both the elevated and the mundane are housed in thoughtful (or at least, deceisive) structures that weave into a gritty, dense fabric that presents its scars as proudly as its triumphs.

A young man passes, his architecturally sculpted upper body squaring Rue d’Aubagne. Grey technical fabric spans voluminius chest muscles, disproportionally slim legs stick out from boxer’s shorts in shiny leggings, their panelling suggesting a martial future for everybody. His hair is cropped into a precise fade. Above the left ear, a succession of shaven vertical lines combine with a longer horizontal one: a thick barbell, the straightest possible, most elegant commitment to his sport, to be renewed daily, during morning routine.