Sometime ago, during wartime, among different camouflage methods for military objectives, it exists the proceeding of creation of vast "smoke curtains", using special machineries. At these curtains' protection military troops could easily move away, stick together, and attack. Contemporary technology annihilated the efficiency of the occlusion of the "natural" observation in this context.
We usually understand smoke either like an autonomous object, perceptible despite the lack of precision as an entity, or like a medium. The same happens for mist (or clouds) and for vapours of any kind. The hypostasis above approaches rather the concept of limit, "after" but not "in" which what happens remains hidden. However, this quality implies the appearance of special relationships between objects. Limit supposes discontinuity, therefore differentiating between what lies on one side and on the other. Differentiating may signify hierarchisation, depending on who and what is establishing the border: those who launch the smoke curtain are, obviously, privileged. On the other hand, discontinuities should not be total. Limits are barriers as well as thresholds, more or less easily passed over.
The cliché of the brave alpinist climbing on solitary peaks, beyond the clouds covering the valley of the daily life, ranges within this family of representations. We however chose the military image because on one hand it implies constructing the given limit, and on the other hand the groups separated in this way are not so strictly different, which facilitates the analogy with phenomena of the urban life.
Obviously, the dialectics of opening and closing, of substance and form, of inner and outer, of public or private character of the space has generally not much to deal with this metaphor. "To see and to be seen", or "to see without being seen" are comportamental archetypes. We however can discuss the closing and the screening of those spaces, whose public character usually implies openness and accessibility.Beside marble, "smoky glass" remains one of the favourite finishing materials in the last 9 years Romania. Long before the invasion of proper curtain-walls, the shop windows of the first chic restaurants, of the hotel halls and even of some agencies, banks or shops benefitted this treatment. Meanwhile, this became so usual, that we are even no more asking why public spaces, normally accessible to anyone, make no attempt to lure their customers showing off their interiour charms, they carefully hide behind some protective membranes.
It is not just about the steel and glass image of the West adapted to local possibilities; a stronger lightening inside and a impressive signboard would be much more efficient in this sense. It seems even that no intention exists to attract the client from the street. The particular place is no more an extension of the urban space, but rather a sanctuary for the chosen ones. Things happening there are wrapped in mystery, about them veritable mythologies are woven: the delirious prices at Velvet (the prototype of the whole category), the fascinating and sinful universe of the Odobesti House, the money cathedral named Victoria Business Plaza.
These phenomena do not justify proletarian wrath originated criticism. Spatial discrimination is positive in itself. On the other hand the opacity in cause is rather manifested at a visual level, obviously symbolic (analogous to smoke curtains). And the modern component of the model however perverted, is however preferable to the megalomaniac tendencies of a national pompous type. However, when perceiving these objects the sensation is annoyingly like the conversation with someone who keeps his sunglasses on his nose.
The described tendency could be only a reflection of a mentality belonging to some social categories. This would be if we looked at the town in a materialism dialectic perspective only like a materialisation of the "will of dominant classes". Or maybe we are only dealing with a face of the evolution towards the Rem Koolhaas's Generic Town - a collection of isolated introverted objects, upon which a system more and more complex of networks is superimposed from which the urban space disappeared.
Koolhaas elaborated his model starting from an extrapolation of contemporary Megalopolis, especially of those from the full developing South Eastern Asia.I think it could act as a comforting reflection during future wanders through the centre of Bucharest.
