In our current era of globalization, the increasing influx of immigrants travelling from South Asia to Paris as well as the aggressive expansion of the traditional shoe industry in Elche, Spain has caused radical transformations of urban habitations. While these internal alterations can go unnoticed on the outside landscape, they have the capability of changing the identity of entire urban areas by overlapping the domestic and work spheres of the inhabitants.
The changes made to the internal landscape of the “Les Olympiades” building in Paris, has created a hybrid identity within the primarily Chinese inhabitants. One apparent change to the building’s identity comes from the installation of the Asian architectural pagodas that cover the restaurants. One South Asian migrant expresses his hybrid identity when he introduces himself using both his Chinese name of Wang Shixiong and his French name, Philippe Wang. By forming cultural communities within these urban constructions, the immigrants are able to reside in France while retaining their original South Asian cultural identities.
In Elche, the clandestine shoe industry has created new identities for the woman domestic laborer as her traditional role as the house wife becomes intertwined with her industrial function. These women view this domestic employment as beneficial way to earn money during their free time. In result of the joining of the domestic and work spheres, the home-based shoe industry has transformed the urban landscape of Elche by replacing the large industrial workshops with a dispersion of hidden factory-homes throughout the city. Multiplicity argues that Elche has been transformed into a network of production points that embraces the entire city because the separate steps for creating a shoe, traditionally completed within a single factory, have been dispersed to the various domesticated workplaces.
The members of the Asiatic community in “Les Olympiades” utilized the flexibility of the space in the enormous building complex to establish restaurants and workshops within the same areas of residential apartments. They negotiate between these different spheres by traveling from floor to floor. The inhabitants view this overlapping of spheres as benefit due to its convenience in satisfying all their needs. Wang Shixiong compares his experience to living in a small Asian city that is vertical. The reference of the “Les Olympiades” as a city within a building comes from the self-organized process of transforming the building’s landscape that is also seen in contemporary European cities today.
In our current era of globalization, the increasing influx of immigrants travelling from South Asia to Paris as well as the aggressive expansion of the traditional shoe industry in Elche, Spain has caused radical transformations of urban habitations. While these internal alterations can go unnoticed on the outside landscape, they have the capability of changing the identity of entire urban areas by overlapping the domestic and work spheres of the inhabitants.
The changes made to the internal landscape of the “Les Olympiades” building in Paris, has created a hybrid identity within the primarily Chinese inhabitants. One apparent change to the building’s identity comes from the installation of the Asian architectural pagodas that cover the restaurants. One South Asian migrant expresses his hybrid identity when he introduces himself using both his Chinese name of Wang Shixiong and his French name, Philippe Wang. By forming cultural communities within these urban constructions, the immigrants are able to reside in France while retaining their original South Asian cultural identities.
In Elche, the clandestine shoe industry has created new identities for the woman domestic laborer as her traditional role as the house wife becomes intertwined with her industrial function. These women view this domestic employment as beneficial way to earn money during their free time. In result of the joining of the domestic and work spheres, the home-based shoe industry has transformed the urban landscape of Elche by replacing the large industrial workshops with a dispersion of hidden factory-homes throughout the city. Multiplicity argues that Elche has been transformed into a network of production points that embraces the entire city because the separate steps for creating a shoe, traditionally completed within a single factory, have been dispersed to the various domesticated workplaces.
The members of the Asiatic community in “Les Olympiades” utilized the flexibility of the space in the enormous building complex to establish restaurants and workshops within the same areas of residential apartments. They negotiate between these different spheres by traveling from floor to floor. The inhabitants view this overlapping of spheres as benefit due to its convenience in satisfying all their needs. Wang Shixiong compares his experience to living in a small Asian city that is vertical. The reference of the “Les Olympiades” as a city within a building comes from the self-organized process of transforming the building’s landscape that is also seen in contemporary European cities today.
