Yoojin Soh

Dimendberg, “The Will to Motorization: Cinema, Highways, and Modernity”

 

By developing the notion of “centrifugal space,” Dimendberg challenges the conventional understanding of a metropolis.  In this article, he puts emphasis on the expanding and sprawling characteristics of territorial units.  From this 20^th century perspective of mobility in “time, speed, and distance,” he furthers his arguments about cinema, Futurama, and highways in Germany and the United States.

 

Dimendberg observes that Germany and the United States had different goals in their construction of highways, with German emphasis on aesthetics and the US design on commerce.  As Bitomsky visualizes in his film Reichsautobahn (1986), Autobahn manifests both “a building feat and a labor of representation” (95).   Aspiring to grasp the unified territory image of Germany, Hitler and the National Socialist regime tried to propagandize its construction by producing documentary films.  Besides featuring “three women driving to the country for a picnic,” the visual commitments included the documentaries and photos conjuring up the “technological romanticism” by combining German nationalism with modern technology.  In particular, Autobahn bridges modeled after Roman monuments in grandeur, and distracting things such as billboards and advertisements were forbidden.  Additionally, Autobahn routes were selected for their physical beauty.  All these architectural aesthetics promote the blurring between nature and technology, congealing German history with natural world.  As Todt said, “the open road forces the gaze in its direction” (110), Autobahn has been used as a political tool to unite Germany in the wake of the First World War.

 

In contrast, we see how the United States pursued its commercial interests by referring to the “Futurama” designed by Bel Geddes.  At the New York World’s Fair in 1939, visitors were transported in “rubber-tired trains,” and they enjoyed the panoramic view of cities, farms, and highways of the future.  An interesting point in this Futurama is that the flow and attention of visitors were under the control of the company, being told the corporation’s story as their chairs rotated (121).  While Autobahn tried to achieve the geographical entity by molding to the local landscape, the highways in the United States stressed uniformity “functioning in exactly the same way” (123) all over the country.  Going for speed on the route of the highway, Bel Geddes puts the highway as the public sphere promising national integration and the development of a commodity world.

 

Both Autobahn by Hitler and Futurama by Bel Geddes navigated the same line in proposing optimistic visions for highways, even though they differ in the way they inscribe the national integration due to their countries’ different desires for aesthetics or commerce.  Nevertheless, they are similar in distancing themselves from the dark side of highway construction such as “shovel disease,” the laborers in poor working conditions, the abuses of prisoners of war and Jews (Autobahn), labor conflicts, unemployment, poverty, urban blight (Futurama), etc.  For example, Plunder Road (1957) by Cornfield depicts the pleasure from velocity, the truck’s relative invisibility and unfixed itinerary (134).  Nevertheless, the centrifugal space prevents the criminals from further escape when the highway is restricted by the traffic jam.

 

While we can endorse the panoramic view on the highway for its mobility, speed, and expansion, we notice its restriction that the autobiles have a “track.”  Can we say that Hitler and Bel Geddes were aware of this and tried to intoxicate people and put drivers under their control?  Why did Hitler and Bel Geddes have to pursue different approaches in aesthetics and commerce for the same goal of national integration?