‘The times they are a-changin’ – Organizational imaginaries as temporal prefiguration

Organizational and urban studies have increasingly explored the logical interplay of people and urban infrastructure, illuminating topologic cities as an organization of urban relations in different time periods. Although these studies unravel the logic of a continuous urban fabric reorganization from spatial imagination, they have ignored the importance of temporal boundaries to organize imaginaries already interweaving and intervening in the vibrancy of cityscapes. Our study investigates how the past, present, and future in the city's topology organize and bring life into the urban fabric, adopting an archival ethnography of five decades of controversies surrounding the Big Worm, a controversial bridge serving as a motorway and recreational space. Our findings show that the chronology of events, facts, and experiences related to the Big Worm organize the space's past, present, and future and compose space-time imaginaries that juxtapose elevated park, demolition, and status quo maintenance possibilities to the same place. We conclude by discussing future, past, and present as boundaries to spatial thinking inclusive of 'hearts and minds' aiming alternative materialities and spatiotemporal imaginaries weaving a diverse, contemporary urban fabric of cities as Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Presented at Subtheme: 76: The Topological Imagination Space, Time, and Organizational Form.