'The city without the child’s particular motion is a malignant paradox. The child discovers its identity against all odds, damaged and damaging in perpetual danger and incidental sunshine. Edged towards the periphery of attention, the child survives, an emotional and unproductive quantum. When snow falls on cities, the child, taking over for a while, is all at once Lord of the city. Now if the child, thus assisted, rediscovers the city, the city may still rediscover its children. If childhood is a journey, let us see that the child does not travel by night. Where there is some room, something more permanent than snow can still be provided as a modest correction. Something, unlike snow, the city can absorb; and not altogether unlike the many incidental things already there the child adapts anyhow to its own needs at its own hazard'.
Aldo Van Eyck (1956) Aldo Van Eyck’s Works, Compilation By Vincent Ligtelijn, Birkhauser Publishers, Basel, 1999
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