Making Scents of Transition: Smellscapes and the Everyday in'Old'and'New'Urban Poland (original) (raw)

Scents and Sensibilities: Interwar Lublin's Courtyards

Contemporary European History, 2021

From horse dung to garlic, olfactory debates raged in interwar Poland. Smells are ubiquitous and substantially influence how we perceive the atmosphere of a given place. This article focuses on 'smell affairs' and olfactory sensibilities that were emerging in the city of Lublin in Poland after 1918. In particular, it addresses what Lublin's courtyard smells tell us about the condition, development and mindset of a Polish city at that time. On their way into the 'modern' era, Lublin's citizens began to complain about rural elements interfering with the 'metropolitan' character of Lublin as well as how 'ethnic smells' of fellow Jewish citizens would intrude upon the air of 'their' 'Polish' city. Poking one's nose into the air and the 'smellscapes' of the urban courtyard, one can observe what was regarded as a part, or not, of a modern city in independent Poland.

Scents and Sensibilities: The Case of Interwar Lublin’s Courtyard

2017

13-52 Panel: Urban Sensescapes, ASEEES, Chicago/IL, November 2017 The paper introduces smell-issues and olfactory nuisances emerging in East Central Europe in the interwar period, focusing on the city of Lublin in Eastern Poland. The paper discusses urban scents and sensibilities, focusing in particular on what Lublin's courtyard smells tell us about the condition, development an mindset of a Polish city in the interwar period.

The Smellscape of Jewish Lublin––and its Afterlife

Routledge eBooks, 2021

The smell of onion and herring, the distinct hubbub, the crowded streets, these all dominate the narratives about Jewish Lublin before the Second World War. Sensory impressions are an important aspect of urban experience. "We see the city, we hear the city, but, above all, we smell the city" (Henshaw 2014, 4), thus, sticking our nose into the urban is a most rewarding way to understand how odors in particular shape the atmosphere of certain spaces and our emotional attitude towards them. Especially Lublin's predominately Jewish neighborhood Podzamcze was repeatedly addressed for its sensory peculiarities-and nuisances. This article starts with the olfactory perception of Jewish Lublin in prewar sources and asks after the postcatastrophic discourse about Podzamcze's (sensory) topography after the Shoah. In 1942/1943, under national socialist occupation, Lublin's Jewish neighborhood Podzamcze-then part of the ghetto-was cleansed from its inhabitants and radically dismantled. In 1954, this devastated area was made the main stage of the new Socialist regime to celebrate "Lublin of the Future." Podzamcze was to become a modern and spacious place, cleansed of the remnants of the old (Jewish) topography, symbol of backwardness, stench, and crowdedness. The article approaches Podzamcze as a postcatastrophic topography-postcatastrophe as a concept looking at the effects of the catastrophe of the Shoah (see Artwińska et al. 2015; Artwińska and Tippner 2017). Drawing largely on prewar and postwar local Polish newspapers 1 the article takes into special focus the official discourse evolving around the area in 1954 and follows the narrative about Podzamcze until the 1990s. Case Study Lublin: "Jewish Smells" and Urban Order Here Lublin serves as an exemplary case study, depicting the Polish pre and post Second World War situation, representing the troubled, yet in many ways 'ordinary' history of a medium-sized city in East Central Europe. Before the Second World War, Lublin had the typical ethnic structure of a city from that region, with over one-third of the city's population declaring themselves Jewish. 2 After 1918, the city was on its

The 'Lublin of the Future' -Clean, Hygienic, Orderly. Making a Clean Sweep with the Jewish Neighbourhood and its Sensescape

European Review, 2022

Regulating and disciplining the urban environment, especially the sensory improprieties of a city, have always been a crucial means to demonstrate new political orders. This article examines how various authorities attempted to regulate and reshape the Old Town neighbourhood of the Polish city of Lublin during the first half of the twentieth century and how a continuous discourse on order and cleanliness reinforced ethnic, class and political prejudices. It shows how the sensory mapping of the city in prewar times, including noisome odours, crowdedness and unsightly buildings related, more often than not, to the area's 'Jewishness'. The profound changing of the Old Town neighbourhood after the Second World War was a major symbolic act of the new communist regime to make a clean sweep of unpleasant legacies to create the 'Lublin of the future'. Getting the City and its Sensescapes under Control 'You would be astonished to see your old neighbourhood today; we are certain you would not recognize it. [ : : : ] At the place of former Podzamcze, its shacks and ruins, one of the most beautiful parts of Lublin came into being' a local newspaper answers an émigré reader's letter in 1957 (KL 23 July 1957: 21). Throughout history, cities and their cityscapes have been exposed to various attempts to reshape, regulate and discipline the urban environment. Both the physical and ideological takeover of cities are usually marked by the new regime's control and regulation of urban space. Sensory information, that is, visual, olfactory, sonic and haptic features, play a

TOWARDS A SOCIOPOLITICAL AESTHETICS OF SMELL

2021

The relationship between smell and politics could appear obscure; and yet, when it comes to smell, questions about freedom and constriction, social and ontological mingling or distinctions, clearly arise. In this paper, I will especially focus on the domain of food as a clear example for describing some of the political ambivalences characterizing the sense of smell. The aim is to pave the way for a more detailed 'sociopolitical aesthetics of smell' to come. I will stress epistemological and social features of odors in order to highlight their ambivalence in knowledge and community life. Perceivers and odors will emerge as mingled bodies, highlighting an ongoing process of material as well as emotional affection. Moreover, I will present some relevant examples of smell as social status symbols in relation to the aesthetic values linked to class hierarchy. Consumerism and scented goods will be lastly discussed in order to shade light on contemporary perceptual phenomena and their role in the socioeconomic dimension.

“Cold, stony, dehumanized”: Unexpected outcomes of revitalization on the sensory landscape and ambience of public space: The case of Cathedral Street (Ulica Tumska) in Płock

Urbani izziv Volume 31, No. 1: 66-77, 2020

This paper shows how changes to the appearance of a street after the revitalization process influence the perception of the street, its sensory landscape and atmosphere. The example of Cathedral Street (Ulica Tumska), the high street in Płock, an average-sized town in Poland, is used to prove that such changes may bring some unexpected results by evoking negative emotions among the residents. The results of the study conducted using focus groups show that the contemporary ambience of Cathedral Street cause negative sensations perceived in four dimensions: touchscape, seescape, soundscape, and smellscape. Those feelings seem to be even stronger taking under consideration positive memories of the street before revitalization. As a result of the negative atmosphere of Cathedral Street and the unpleasant emotions it evokes, the residents’ activities conducted on the street are reduced only to fulfilling the most necessary needs. Such conclusion results in a postulate that when designing or redesigning public spaces we should always be aware of the consequences for the ambience of the street and the need to generate positive emotions.

The Topography of Smell as A Place-Making Subject

SPACE International Journal of Space Studies in Architecture and Urban Design, 2021

A person can perceive a place from different angles with different senses. The sense of smell produces permanent information in human memory depending on certain temporal and spatial factors. Place-making can be considered alert physical and mental relationships established with space, containing habits and subjectivities. In the context of place-making practices, experiencing a part of the city via smell-walking creates a smell topography. Even if the smells are the same, the smell topographies of the users produce subjective information for the same space. Questioning the subjective contribution of smell topographies to place-making constitutes the main issue of this study. Within the scope of the study, smell walks were carried out by different participants in Kadıköy Pier and Bazaar. One of the study results is that while smell topographies are the object of the place, it is also the subject of the place-making

The Metropolis and Nose Life. Sensory Memories, Odors and Emotions

Simmel Studies, 2020

Following Simmel's legacy, the present paper shows how 'sensory memories' and emotions are related to the meanings attributed to the smells of human and nonhuman entities in the metropolis. Based on the findings of a larger research project on urban youth in Mexico City, the article emphasizes how even though the smell is one of the most undervalued senses; it has a significant presence, not only unpleasant but also pleasant memories. In other words, these findings show how 'sensory memory' permits a 'somatic work' (Vannini et al. 2012) on the sensations and emotions that have persisted in our sensitive bodies, in which smell is not necessarily a "dissociating sense" as Simmel believed, even in the metropolis.