City stage, Noto

I usually feel unease in city centres that lack a sense of purpose and everyday. The typical european city often has a centre where even residents feel like tourists. Leisure shopping and well-to-do people have taken to much space from making, doing and living.

Noto is a baroque city built pretty much from scratch. An unusually complete baroque vision that has taken the city as a stage to a place where I begin to see the attraction. In a time where economy and technology continue to undermine the fully lived city and turn more and more city centres into leisure parks Noto offers a vision where even shopping is minimised. It's almost a pure stage for seeing and being seen. When pragmatic concerns and everyday life has been abandoned to this degree even I see the attraction.