Peter Smithson on 'Belonging'

A narrow street in Dharavi. Source: "Dharavi: Documenting Informalities"

In a book called "Dharavi: Documenting Informalities" a group of artists from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm document the results of their collaborative engagement with residents from the well-known Dharavi settlement in Mumbai. Addressing the dual representation of the settlement as eye-sore to some and home to others, the authors go back in time to the words of British architect Peter Smithson:

"'Belonging' is a basic emotional need — its associations are of the simplest order. From 'belonging' — identity — comes the enriching sense of neighbourliness. The short narrow street of the slum succeeds where spacious redevelopment frequently fails."

Peter Smithson at the Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne in Aix-en-Provence, France, 1953 (via "Dharavi: Documenting Informalities," 2008, pp. 25)

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