Experience Tourism and the Everyday in Luxembourg City
Michel de Certeau once wrote of the melancholic feeling of observing the world around you but being completely removed from it (de Certeau, 1984, p114). He was recalling the sensation arising through a glance out of an airliner’s window, yet you don’t need to be 35,000 feet above the ground to experience this sensation. Luxembourg City — the capital of the nation that bears its name — is one such arena where this ‘melancholic’ sensation arises with ease. In fact, it’s a defining characteristic of the city.
First and foremost this city is classically beautiful, with well worn, deeply set in place architecture which stands alongside the modern ever present combination of wood, concrete and glass. This city embalms an ever emerging aesthetic which has been draped over the valley on which it is built. This valley, like many other beautiful cities across the globe — the majestic Ronda in Andalucia springs to mind — provides a sense of drama and pseudo-precarity to the experience of the city. To peer over the drop induces vertigo, to look up from the floor arouses feelings of dread; for it’s a hell of a walk back to the hotel room… Yet, this trudge back can be nullified, via the implementation of two lifts. Through this unique form of public transportation, two faces of contemporary urbanism are revealed.
Let’s start with the better known of the two: the lift of experience. Experience from both the internal and external. For those looking down, up or into this creation, it appears as a middle finger to the hardship created by its surroundings, for a lift exists to alleviate the barrier created by verticality. Apartment blocks, office buildings and mineshafts all have lifts and are all defined by their ability to rise high above, or burrow deep into the ground. The lift renders the physical challenge of climbing or descending 10 or more stories mute by doing the hard work for you. In fact the lift has completely and utterly altered the aesthetic qualities of what it is to be urban; a Google image search of the word “urban” highlights this — all you see are skyscrapers. All skyscrapers are serviced by lifts.
The lift of experience is encased in a wall of glass and juts out of the valley, proud, modern and overwhelmingly observable. This lift has a name which reveals the true essence behind its existence, The Pfaffenthal Panoramic Elevator. Its name doesn’t disappoint, with panoramic views being offered from both the viewing/waiting platform (the horizontal) and the lift itself (the vertical). Yet, how many lifts in the world are panoramic? Only those that cater to experience, to the transformation of the mundane into the profound. This lift is purposefully visible and acts as a tourist attraction where the city utilises its natural surroundings as a means of experience generation.
The Pfaffenthal Panoramic Elevator (above)is the physical embodiment of a contemporary element of urbanism. For, the generation of experience is a central component of 21st century tourism. If a city has an easily accessible experience for visitors to enjoy, it can build and develop its brand and disseminate a positive image across the oceans of social media. Amsterdam are the kings of city branding, with the I Amsterdam signs and swing atop the A’DAM Building being comparative power stations in the production of social media exposure. Interestingly, the name A’DAM is a colloquialism used by British tourists when they discuss an upcoming trip to the city, thus using tourist lingo for a decidedly tourist activity. The experience lift exists as it does to cater for those visiting Luxembourg City, and I, as a tourist greatly enjoyed the views and experience provided. However, it was the other lift that truly impressed me.
After an ill advised, rain soaked trek down into the Grund district on the valley floor of the city, myself and my girlfriend were cold, wet and pretty tired. So, being good tourists we went into an English pub and watched the Six Nations rugby. Yet, whilst we were in the village-like setting of the Grund district — almost as if we were in a completely different location — a shadow cast over us, with the promise of a hike back up the valley in the rain looming large. We left the pub and crossed a bridge over the Alzette river, looking up and around at the stunning presence of the city above which in return looked back. Whilst crossing this bridge we noticed what amounted to a man made cave — its walls lined by gig posters and street art — and ventured inside. Venturing deeper into this subterranean aboration, we found what felt like the holy grail; a lift! We hopped in and before we knew it, a walk of 45 minutes to an hour in the rain was cut to ten minutes. The differences between the experience lift and this one of necessity was obvious. The former juts out proud and obvious, a purposeful, deliberate effusion of the city’s uniqueness, the latter, hidden and made of polished metal much like those found in multi-storey car parks, except this one didn’t smell like stale piss. This is the lift of the everyday.
These two lifts provide the same function, i.e. to go up and down at a command. Yet, their positioning and the context which drove their realisation was vastly different. The former is glass walled and a piece of statement architecture for those visiting the city, for the generation of experience. It is the architectural equivalent of a sharp suit one wears to present the best side of themselves at a job interview or on a first date, i.e. a means to impress someone you don’t know that well. The latter is functional, basic and bloody useful. It is the comfy sweatshirt and jogging bottoms we wear at home when we are hungover and don’t care about impressing anyone. Yet, it solves a generally limiting factor in the city’s unique make-up and does so as efficiently and humbly as possible.
As mentioned above, the Grund district looks like a model village from above and feels like an actual village when you are situated within it. Experienced from above or on the ground, these two points of view could render it external within the confines of the city, but with the addition of these lifts, it very much becomes a functional part of the city as a whole. Luxembourg City is as I said at the start is beautiful, yet it is a functioning city with the same issues facing cities which are not so renowned. Citizen mobility is an issue faced by global cities as well as provincial capitals and Luxembourg has managed to partially solve these issues in a contemporary manner; by providing an everyday, essential service for its citizenry whilst also putting on a show, an experience for those who visit it.
Bibliography
de Certeau, M, 1986., The Practice of Everyday Life, University of California Press, Berkely
By Will Brown
Doctoral Researcher
Loughborough University
w.brown@lboro.ac.uk
