ABSTRACT
The exercise gym and the idling centre, as spatial epitomes of intellectual conceptions of the body, exist in an urban context that may be described as having been constructed through degrees of care. Care giving, no doubt stemming from parental care, is fundamental to human communities; what is interesting is not the act of giving care, but the forms in which care is given. The differences between the traditions of wall building in Europe and China seem to be those between ‘frontier defence’ and ‘corporeal defence’. Frontier defence requires pushing of the ‘safety zone’ to the furthest edge; the ultimate goal – that of the perpetual peace – would be the disappearance of the frontier. One of the recent mass strategies to reinvent the protected home in the contemporary context of high-rise residential buildings is to build metal cages around the apartment.
