The Fragile Night

Abstract

Infrastructure systems are inherently fragile. Their functioning depends on routines of repair, replacement, and strategic management. Infrastructure networks also embody networks of political power, capital, and territorial reconfiguration. They are material agents in transforming space and form the backbone of our planetary urban condition. Through instrumentalising the concept of fragility, I examine how fragile infrastructure systems can radically influence the public realm and how, through failure, they restructure space, economies, and culture. I use Johannesburg as a case study focusing on public lighting infrastructure. A city where infrastructure was used to divide the city and subjugate black residents deliberately today faces different infrastructural challenges but with similar effects. The night is itself a fragile time-space rendered publicly tenuous by lighting failure. By examining alternatives to inelastic infrastructure backbones, I argue that architects should embrace repair and fragility to transform brittle infrastructure dependencies.