"From the panorama of the city we can only learn that incoherence is a collection of false appearances in which the gigantism of new technological buildings (steel bridges, gas tanks, smoke stacks) lay next to the antique habitat on a human scale." Represented by moments of suffocating crowds or desolate emptiness, urban space has been the object of many narrations that underline this uneasiness and alienation, the loss of historical meaning and the insensibility and absurdity of clashing elements. To new groups of intellectuals and architects, reason and geometric forms seem to be a remedy for the illness plaguing the metropolis. New stable reference points are sought after. The surrealistic approach links roaming around the city to the surfacing of the subconscious. These visionary reconstructions are in conflict with rational programming. In short, "order and chaos have become the complementing and interactive forces of the big city scene".

From: The urban imagery of George Orwell by Vittore Collina

Plus:Political Writings of George Orwell