The crisis of homogeneous space

The crisis of dimension thus appears as the crisis of the whole or, in other words, as the crisis of the substantial, homogeneous space, inherited from archaic Greek geometry, to the benefit of an accidental, heterogeneous space where parts and fractions become essential once again. Urban topology has, however, paid the prize for this atomization and disintegration of figures, of visible points of reference which promote transmigrations and transfigurations, much in the same way as landscapes suffered in the face of agricultural mechanization. The sudden breaking up of whole forms and the destruction of the entity caused by industrialization is, however, less perceptible within the space of the city – despite the destructuring of suburbia – than it is in time, in the sequential perception of urban appearances. In fact, for a long time now transparency has replaced appearances. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the depth of field of classical perspective has been renewed by the depth of time of advanced technology.

Paul Virilio, 'The Overexposed City' in Architecture Theory Since 1968 (Columbia Books of Architecture, 1998) p. 549