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Embodied Placemaking through Urban Smellscapes By Sarah Eschenmoser

Abstract

The sense of smell is not only underrepresented in the field of urban studies and urban practice, but also more generally in the world of social science. Despite psychological and

neurological proof of the importance of smells for feelings of well-being and quality of life, odors have been paid less attention than other sensory experiences such as vision and

sounds. This research aims to contribute to the literature of urban studies by showing the

importance of smells for the urban experience through the concept of embodied placemaking, as well as the possibilities smells offer for new practices in urban planning. In order to collect

this data, I organized smellwalks with participants in two cities to track their lived experiences as they were happening. The smellscapes were later visualized in maps. This research project

aims to show the potential that smells have for the process of creating and experiencing places and to inspire a discourse about the potential for the sense of smell in urban practices. This

research will contribute to the body of literature of urban studies and debates over urban sensescapes, the multi-sensory city, and embodied placemaking.

Keywords: urban smellscapes, embodied placemaking, sensory city, sensescapes

Introduction

“Cities are an immense laboratory of trial and error, failure and success, in city building and city design. This is the laboratory in which city planning should have been learning

and forming and testing its theories. […] the practitioners and teachers of this discipline[…] are guided instead by principles derived from the behavior and appearance

of towns, suburbs, […] and imaginary dream cities- from anything but cities themselves” (Jacobs, 1961; 6).

Nearly 60 years later, we are still in the process of adapting to these new principles. As

planning agendas shift towards planning for livability and practicality in cities, urban planners are taking city-dwellers’ lived experiences more seriously. However, urban planners continue

fetishizing aesthetics and privileging the visual over the other senses constitutive of our lived

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experiences. In neglecting the sense of smell, urban studies do a disservice to our everyday

life. As is clear from psychological studies, smells play a bigger role in our sense of well-being and our quality of life than assumed. Odors are connected to pleasure and social behavior

(Smeets et al.; 2009), and strongly associated with memories and emotions (Herz in Rouby; 2002).

The effect of senses on everyday life has entered urban scholarship recently through concepts

such as the multi-sensory city and soundscapes. However, smells have yet to be seriously addressed, neglected not only in the field of urban studies, but also more generally in the world

of social science. When smells are noticed, they are often related to smell contestation (see Tan, 2012; Pettarin et al., 2015; Ajmani et al., 2016), or from a historical urban perspective

(see Henshaw, 2014; Reinarz, 2014; Kiechle, 2017).

This research paper aims to rediscover a place for smell in the realities of living in a densely-

populated urban environment and contribute to the literature of the multi-sensory city: “[…] the meaning of buildings, neighborhoods, and cities is not static but variable in its personal,

cultural, historical, social, economic, and political context” (Sen and Silverman, 2014; 2). An analysis of placemaking that is centered around sensory experiences, and therefore the body,

allows for new perspectives on how these meanings are formed. The research questions for this article are the following: How do individuals experience

places through the sense of smell? What is the role of olfactory experiences in the making of places?

The aim of my research is threefold. Not only do I aim to contribute to the urban studies literature, but I hope to offer urban practitioners a new perspective on an aspect of the

everyday life of city dwellers that is a subtle but essential part of the experiencing of (urban) places. Furthermore, this research aspires to more generally contribute to the significance of

the topic of smells in academia. To answer these questions I compared smellscapes in the cities of Zurich and Berlin, by conducting smellwalks, a method introduced by British artist

Kate McLean in 2010 (Traverso, 2017), and subsequently analyzed the collected qualitative data using a thematic analysis approach (Bryman, 2012).

This paper consists of four sections to investigate the ways in which smells influence our perception of places. First, I position smells in the field of urban studies. In the second section

I discuss the advantages and limitations of smellwalks and a walk-based interview process,

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followed by a section discussing the findings that are inductively extracted by drawing on a

thematic analysis method. Lastly, the findings and limitations of this research are summarized.

Smell - The Forgotten Sense of Urban Studies

Smells can serve as borders in the sense that they can limit our movement within a place - we

might avoid a corner because we anticipate it to smell like urine and spilled beer or decide against walking through a busy market street after closing hours because of leftover fish

remains rotting away at the side of the road. Smell contestations can be an annoyance of urban residency - we might despise the smell escaping from our neighbors’ apartment or be

annoyed by new restaurants and the change of smells they bring to the locality. But smells can also be a pleasant part of moving through the city. They can awaken memories of past

experiences; they can transport us back to different places and times, connecting us to memories and past encounters. A smell of a specific dish might remind one of a past holiday;

the fragrance of a flower can be evocative of a gifted bouquet. Very pungent smells can disrupt

the routine of everyday life and their contestation awakens feelings of anger, discomfort and even disgust. On the other hand, people who have lost their sense of smell “[…] experience

limitations with respect to enjoying food and drinks, socializing, [and] intimate relationships” (Smeets et al., 2009; 410).

The importance of smells for our well-being and quality of life has already been proven by research conducted in the fields of psychology and health studies (see: Frasnelli and Hummel,

2005; Weber and Heuberger, 2008; Smeets and Veldhuizen, 2009; Herz, 2011; Kern et al., 2014) but unfortunately, there has been little theoretical work done on smells, especially in

urban contexts. Sound theories, while still marginal to mainstream scholarship, are more theoretically developed. I will trace the academic and practical trajectory of sound theories

and transpose these insights to develop a more smell-informed perspective and connect the

knowledge gained by psychological and neurological studies with the practical realities of living in a dense urban environment.

Parallel to the rise of new technologies and noise producers such as factories, automobiles, and trains, discussions about the definition, source, and strategies of combating noise arose

at the end of the 19th century. Their discussion and implementation/actualization, however,

has often been reduced to creating zones or channelizing traffic (Bijsterveld, 2008; 1-4). Within this debate, sounds were (and still are) often categorized as good or bad and the

sounds that have been studied mostly belong to the ‘bad’ category, i.e. noise. There is an

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abundance of literature concerned with noise pollution and its impact on physical and mental

health. Research has been concerned with the impact of noise in the workplace (Kuehn, 2018), the impact on vulnerable groups (van Kamp and Davies, 2013) and children in particular

(Gupta et al., 2018), as well as its impact on the quality of life (Meyer et al., 2006; Roswall et al., 2013; Ahn et al., 2015; Braubach et al., 2015). The little research that has been done on

smells in urban contexts has also emphasized its negative aspects, concerned with contestations surrounding smoke (Tan; 2012), or in connection with air pollution (Pettarin et

al., 2015; Ajmani et al., 2016).

More recently, urban theorists and professionals started to study sounds more holistically as part of urban life, introducing the term soundscape, “the sounds that emanate from a

determinate space“ (Schafer, 1994, as quoted in Berrens, 2016; 76). Conducted research has described soundscapes of places (Yong Jeon et al., 2011; Tse et al., 2012; Chuo and Tsaih,

2018) but also looked at possibilities of how to include soundscapes in urban planning (Vorlaender and Stienen, 2015; Laso et al., 2017; Radicchi, 2017; Xiao et al., 2017). There is

not only empirical and theoretical proof of the importance of soundscapes for urban residents

but also an increasing availability of funded research opportunities in the form of projects, like the SONORUS project, which is funded by the European Commission. The aim of SONORUS

is “to offer young researchers in the early stage of their career the opportunity to develop their knowledge and skills in the area of urban sound planning” (Kropp et al., 2016; 2).

Despite positive theoretical and empirical findings, the field still suffers from a gap between

academia and urban practice. The actual incorporation of soundscapes in urban planning or design is by far less popular and only a few projects utilize the knowledge gained from previous

research. Among these projects are, for example, the MAP project in Dublin, Ireland, and the remodeling of the Nauener Platz in Berlin, Germany (Schluter, 2017).

Worth mentioning is also the intersection between art and city planning. Beyond planning

practice, several public installations utilizing soundscapes include the Sonotopia competition in Bonn, Germany (bonnhoeren.de, last accessed: 16.06.2020), as well as the sound

installation The Overheard planned for the city center of Struer, Denmark in 2020 (cityofsound.dk, last accessed: 12.06.2020).

Smells are similar to sounds in that robust research in the fields of psychology, neurology and

health studies has not yet translated to a place for smells in urban studies. Therefore, it can be argued that in order to give smells a place in urban studies and planning,

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we should follow the same trajectory as sound studies in going beyond the negative aspects

of smells. Like sound studies, this change also starts with renewed terminology. In this article the term smellscape is used to encompass the contributing factors that infuse locations with

a particular smell or a particular set of smells, thereby producing a smell landscape surrounding a place.

Moreover, an urban perspective can add value to psychological theories by incorporating spatial dimensions. Specifically, this means understanding how smellscapes unfold in urban

contexts.

To investigate the question of how individuals experience places through the sense of smell, I will look at the relation between smells and urban places through the lens of embodied

placemaking.

Within urban theory, scholars have carefully navigated and defined their use of the terms space and place. While the term space is on a more abstract level, and a “boundless, empty,

three-dimensional abstraction within which exist a set of interrelated events or objects” (Sen and Silverman, 2014; 2), place is tied to a physical location. However, this location can be

imagined or real, and its meaning reinterpreted. The term placemaking is based on Martin Heidegger’s concept of Dasein1, which describes the relationship between people and their

environment, implying that our existence is inherently tied to the world surrounding us, meaning neither us nor the world can exist independently (Heidegger as cited in Sen and

Silverman, 2014; 3). “In other words, it is only through our consciousness, actions, and interactions that the physical landscape is brought into existence” (ibid; 3). This research

focuses on embodied placemaking, which looks at the mutual relationship between the body

and place, respectively between the body and the surrounding world.

“[…] the physical environment cannot exist without the human inhabitants who

experience it in their everyday lives, and its meaning is dependent upon the larger

political and economic context within which these individuals operate in any specific location” (ibid; 3).

This ties into the larger debate around the necessity for urban studies to include both the

materialities and immaterialities of cities, to move away from “phenomena and processes that are not ‘anchored’ in the lived, material reality of everyday life” (Latham and McCormack, 2004;

704).

1 German term for being-in-the-world.

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Emotions and senses are essential links that tie together body and place. The way we

emotionally charge smells, and therefore connect place and emotion, has an important role in the way that we give meaning to a place and form lived experiences. “[Emotions] are embodied

and mindful phenomena that partially shape, and are shaped by our interactions with the people, places, and politics that make up our unique, personal geographies” (Davidson and

Bondi, 2004; 373). To take seriously the materiality of cities means giving due consideration to the immaterial, which I consciously evoke during the smellwalks as sensory experiences do

not only demonstrate physical phenomena but are also a translation of cultural values and condition how one perceives the world (Howes, 2016). Smells, and therefore the body through

which we experience smells, are always relational to their environment and thus is an often-overlooked dimension crucial for placemaking.

This connection between urbanism and smells is not only important for theory but also to

change normative values about what is considered important enough to include in urban planning practice. By focusing on senses other than vision, I aim to contribute to a broader

shift from a focus on aesthetics to a focus on lived experiences and therefore bridge the gap between theory and practice.

In this sense, this is also a normative case study. Normative case studies “[...] make [...]

contributions by bringing into view situations we had not previously envisioned since normative reflection about such cases can lead us to rethink the ideals to which we are committed [...]”

(Thacher, 2006; 1632). A normative case study seems an appropriate approach to “[...] contribute to an existing body of normative theory [...]“ (ibid; 1660), like the body of literature

that exists about odors in psychology and health studies, “[...] and do so by drawing out the

implications of normative observations” (ibid; 1660). These normative observations will also serve as the basis for practical suggestions for the inclusion of smells in urban planning

practice through collecting and mapping spatial data on smellscapes, i.e. where are smells located, and visualizing the smellscapes of defined routes. The investigation of lived

experiences and the analysis of embodied placemaking that is centered around sensory experiences will be the bases to investigate how individuals experience places through smells,

and how they influence the making of places.

Methodology: Smellwalks through Smellscapes

In order to collect my data, I conducted 20 semi-structured interviews in Zurich and 16 in Berlin.

The volunteer participants had lived in the respective city for at least six months to ensure that they had enough time to settle down and form a

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relationship with the city. Participants were found through snowball sampling. I tried to find a

mix of participants with different ages, nationalities, and backgrounds to represent different urban experiences, but while the age and nationality of the respondents are fairly diverse, their

socio-economic background is similar, and it would have been desirable to find participants from a wider variety of professions and social classes. Most of the participants were either

students or had achieved a higher level of education (see also Appendix A and B). The smellwalks - a concept first introduced by British artist Kate McLean in 2010 through

her Sensory Map project (Traverso; 2017) - were conducted in two German-speaking cities: Zurich and Berlin. Smells are intensely personal, and my decision to compare these two cities

was influenced by my ability to speak German, which would allow me to access and better relate to participants' internal affective descriptions.

In the Sensory Map project, McLean organized walks in different cities with groups of participants who were equipped with pens and a card where they could map the smells they

noticed, as well as their intensity. These walks allow for live tracking of participants’ sensory experiences at the moment they happen and make it easier in general for interviewees to

“verbalise attitudes and feelings when ‘in place’” (Hitchings and Jones, 2004 as cited in Evans and Jones, 2011).

Since it is generally difficult to remember and describe sensory experiences after they have happened, this approach allows for the recording of observations in real-time. At the same

time, this method allowed me to help and guide the participants. Since any kind of sensory walk can be very overwhelming due to the number of different triggers we experience at once

in an urban environment, a guided walk helps participants to focus on specific aspects. In

order to discuss personal experiences appropriately during the walk, all smellwalks were held with individuals.

The smellwalks were held on a route of about 1.2 km through highly diverse neighborhoods

with several different spatial characteristics and functions (see Map 1 and 2) in the Kreis 5 neighborhood in Zurich and the district Neukölln in Berlin. The route included parks, residential

areas, and commercial streets with bars, restaurants, and shops. Some of the streets had light traffic and mostly bikes and pedestrians, others had medium to high levels of traffic, while

some parts were entirely closed off for motorized vehicles. There were several construction

sites, a large playground, and a market during certain days. In both cities, the areas where I did the smellwalks are known to have a higher percentage of immigrants and younger people,

both students and young families, and both areas are currently undergoing gentrification.

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Map 1: Route Smellwalk Kreis 5, Zurich

Map 2: Route Smellwalk Neukölln, Berlin

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When choosing the route, I tried to cover as many different usages as possible to include the

various smells emanating from the different uses of the city. Each smellwalk started with a short interview consisting of four questions to encourage the participant to start reflecting on

smells, their past experiences with urban smellscapes and most importantly, to start getting familiar with language they could use to describe and talk about smells. The introduction

interview was kept rather short as to leave enough time for the smellwalk and the follow-up interview, and to keep the whole process under 45 minutes.

My first question was always whether participants considered themselves sensitive to smells, and if they answered yes, the follow-up question identified where they noticed that sensitivity

during their everyday life. I followed up by asking about the smells they associated with cities in general and more

specifically, with the city where we did the smellwalk. This question was intended to draw their

attention to the city to reflect on their initial impressions and assumptions. After the walk, I asked if the experience of the walk and the smells they noticed was different from their

expectations or if it had met them completely. And lastly, I would ask them about their relationship with the city we were in. Many of the participants had lived in those cities for a

fairly short time and had grown up in completely different corners of the world. Since I had an interest in the ways smells influence our perception of a city, I found it important to hear how

they would describe their feelings toward the city.

After this short interview, which lasted mostly between five to ten minutes, we would go on the walk together. During the walk itself, the conversation was left unstructured. Discussions

would develop from the participant’s experiences and remarks during the walk. While some

participants never really started to go deeper than this descriptive stage, others would get into fairly extensive discussions with me.

After the first few walks and recognizing that some people tended to focus more on visual input to guide their sense of smell, I started to also add a remark that they should trust their

nose and try not to let visuals impact them too much. Another remark I found necessary to add was regarding the language. As I will describe in the following section Limitations, many

people had difficulties describing and talking about smells due to a lack of vocabulary. Each smellwalk was followed by another interview to reflect on the walk and their conclusions.

The interviews were coded by using a thematic analysis approach (Bryman; 2012), which

involves the search for reoccurring patterns of meaning in a data set across interviews or texts (Braun and Clarke; 2006). The thematic analysis method was chosen due to its theoretical,

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analytical, and epistemological flexibility (ibid).

After data collection, I went through the steps of thematic analysis according to the instructions by Braun and Clarke (2006). However, the emerged themes were first and foremost

dependent on earlier choices - they are also influenced by the pre-selected route I chose for the smellwalks and based on the decision to connect and spatialize psychological theories of

smell. The first step after the data collection was to familiarize myself with it through the transcription

of verbal data. This was followed by coding the data while looking for the themes that had emerged from the literature review. Since the research consisted of qualitative data, most of

the themes emerged inductively by searching for repeating patterns while coding. While some themes, such as emotions or memories, were based on existing literature, many of the themes

emerged through the smellwalks themselves, and through the systematic re-reading of the

transcripts. In total, I found 18 reoccurring themes, which were illustrated in a matrix, containing the themes, and the codes from the transcripts. An overview of the themes can be

seen in Table 1. After naming the themes and re-reading the codes, connections between the themes became visible, which lead to the summarization of the 18 themes into four main

themes. These are discussed in the next chapter, Findings.

A main criticism of the thematic analysis is common to most qualitative research methods - that it is generally an unclear process and not ‘real’ research. But while it is true that qualitative

and quantitative research cannot be judged by the same criteria, qualitative research does “provide methods of analysis that should be applied rigorously to the data” (Braun and Clarke;

2006). A limitation of the method encountered during the research was the difficulty to maintain continuity. How many repetitions of a topic are necessary for it to qualify as a theme? This

also relates to the problem that it is difficult to maintain focus and easy to get stuck in the repetitive analysis of the transcripts, thereby coming up with more irrelevant themes.

Furthermore, the interpretation of the data depends strongly on the researcher, so reliability

is a concern.

Themes Themes based on literature review

Themes based on smellwalks

Themes based on transcripts

Air Purity x Associations to other places

x

“Emotional” responses to smells

x

Food x Home x

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Intensity/Familiarity x Language x Memories x Nature x Negative smells with positive associations

x

“Neutral” city smell/ Background smell

x

People x Public Transport x References to other senses

x

Smell Reputation x Smell Pollution x Statements about places

x

Statements about smells in other places

x

Table 1: Overview Reoccurring Themes

Limitations It is important to note that experiences can never be fully replaced by words, just like the complexity of social reality cannot be fully theorized independent of context (Flyvberg, 2006;

223). This is why linguistic descriptions are always imperfect representations of sensory experiences.

A significant limitation of the smellwalks and interviews was that smell experiences are reliant

on linguistic representation, which is often inadequate in expressing emotions relating to smells or describing the smells themselves.

Due to a lack of practice, most participants felt they were missing the language to talk about smells.

“But unless it's an obvious smell that I can pinpoint to something, I think I have a hard time actually describing the smell itself. And what characterizes a smell. I do think it is

easier to get a smell and then bring it to whatever…like, something that is familiar to that smell as opposed to the smell itself” (B.T;6).

For most participants, the smellwalk was one of the first times that they consciously reflected

about smells. This not only meant that they were sometimes hesitant to try and describe smells,

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but also that some of the participants seemed to get stuck in their attempts to describe the

smells and didn’t engage in a reflective discussion. I did try to address this problem by encouraging participants to describe smells however they

wanted, meaning they did not necessarily have to draw up an accurate comparison and explain where the smell originated or what it smelled like exactly. Rather, they were free to

use any adjectives, such as “warm”, “cold”, or “metallic”, which are not traditionally used to refer to smells

Interestingly, some participants mentioned after the walk that they had felt insecure for not

smelling more and were pressuring themselves during the walk to smell more. “Yes, in between I was just thinking ‘I NEED to smell something’ or ‘did the others also have times

where they didn’t smell anything?” (F.; 5).

Prior to this feedback I had not considered this to be a possible scenario since there are no right or wrong answers or a correct number of smells to notice.

Similarly, several people were not native German speakers and had moved to either of those two cities fairly recently, meaning they had to speak about smells in a second or third language,

which worsened the problem of not being able to describe smells in the way they wanted to. While some of the participants adapted by saying specific descriptive words in their own

language, I suspect others would have been able to talk about smells much more eloquently if the smellwalk could have been offered in their native language.

A second limitation is the fleeting nature of smells. There are so many uncontrollable factors

that influence smellscapes that comparative research should be conducted within a short

timeframe. Weather and temperature have a big influence on smellscapes, which meant that conducting the smellwalks during spring and summer would most likely have resulted in a

different outcome. It is also more difficult to talk about smells during colder weather. Smells are generally lighter

and less intense during the colder months, and together with the lack of practice of talking about it, I did notice theoretical saturation was reached after fewer interviews in Berlin, where

smellwalks were conducted between December and February.

Lastly, the locations of smells were tracked through verbal remarks, and later manually

transferred to a map to visualize the data. This approach is less precise than the alternative, geotracking, since the researcher’s concentration is primarily responsible on the interview,

and verbal tracking of locations may get forgotten. Geotracking would allow for much more

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precise mapping of smellscapes. However, this was not a possibility for this project due to the

lack of technical equipment. In the case of further research, this could be a great improvement in the creation of detailed and consistent smellmaps.

Findings

In many aspects, the smellwalks in both cities led to similar results while still showing two

culturally similar cities with substantial socio-economic and spatial differences, that were revealed in the different ways that smells were discussed and experienced by participants.

The intensely personal experience of smelling meant that smells could not be discussed without considering the cultural and geographical context a person grew up in.

As mentioned in the methods chapter, the thematic analysis ended with the summarization of 18 themes into four topics: smell reputation, multi-sensory city, emotions and memories and

cultural influences.

The findings are analyzed according to themes that emerged out of the juxtaposition of both cities, which I will show were similar in many instances, yet significant differences were still

observed.

OL-Factor While trying to visualize the smellscape of the two cities it became evident that we are missing

a word to describe the sensory impact on individual perception. Many of the words used to describe impact are based on the visual, such as conspicuity, or conspicuousness.

In order to start a discussion about the language surrounding smells, I would like to suggest the term Ol-Factor to describe the olfactory impact factor of a place. The Ol-factor is used to

describe the places which were most often noticed and pointed out by participants in regards to smells. The figures Map 3 and Map 4 depict the places that have been named the most

frequently by participants during the smellwalks and are therefore the most perceptible from an olfactory perspective. Categorized as places with high Ol-Factor were places with seven

or more mentions. Places with five to six mentions were categorized as having a medium Ol-

Factor, and between 3 and five mentions as having a low Ol-Factor. This categorization is by no means complete, and the point of this example is rather to introduce a new term and show

an example of how the concept of the Ol-Factor could be instrumentalized.

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Map 3: Smellscape Kreis 5, Zurich

Map 4: Smellscape Neukölln, Berlin

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The most commonly-named points with a high Ol-Factor were in both cases connected to food

and car exhaust. In Zurich, there was a total of 16 points that were frequently mentioned by participants, while there were only 12 points mentioned in Berlin. This is most likely due to the

fact that data was collected during the wintertime, meaning the smellscape is generally less dense.

Smell Reputations In the initial interview before each walk, I asked each participant about their relationship to Zurich or Berlin.

While some participants were born in Berlin and had lived there for a portion of their life, most of the participants had moved there recently. Many of the participants voiced a clear love for

the city and consider it their Wahlheimat 2 . Participants generally showed a stronger attachment to Berlin than participants did in Zurich. The Berlin lifestyle, standing for freedom,

culture, and art, was named as a strong pull-factor, while participants in Zurich had moved

there almost exclusively for educational or professional reasons, except for those who were born in Zurich. Many of the expats in Zurich talked about difficulties to integrate into Swiss

social life, which could indicate a weak personal connection to the city that goes beyond occupation.

The most common smell association participants had with Berlin was related to public

transport, especially the underground metro system.

“I think the U-Bahn station itself has also a specific smell in Berlin. When you walk down the stairs [into the station] it just smells like U-Bahn. I can’t really describe the smell, but

it is U-Bahn and you also smell it, when the train drives into the station” (A.K; 1).

Both architectural and social aspects influence the Ol-factor of public transport stations. The

first aspect of the metro system in Berlin that led to a heightened Ol-factor at stations was that they are located underground. In Zurich, where the most common public transport system are

trams and buses, which both operate overground, including the stations. This means that there is usually good air circulation at the tram and bus stops. While trams in Zurich were

occasionally described as smell-contested, it happened far less frequently than in Berlin.

2 German for home-of-choice.

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Secondly, metro stations in Berlin are not only utilized for transportation but are instead

somewhat of a public place. They are accessible without a ticket, have very long opening times (sometimes up to 24 hours), and there are usually small food shops like bakeries, or

take away restaurants in the stations that also contribute to their high Ol-factor.

A reoccurring topic during the interviews in Berlin was the smell of homeless people. There is also a large number of homeless people in Berlin and as the underground metro stations of

Berlin are open nearly 24 hours, many of them take shelter in stations during the winter. This smell of homeless bodies was considered as one of the biggest factors for smell contestation

in Berlin by many participants:

“When I take public transport to work in the morning, and someone is standing next to

me, who I don’t want to touch. I mean, I feel sorry for that person, they certainly don’t want to walk around like this, but if there is someone with open wounds who smells bad

or someone that already peed their pants, and when I have to go to work in the morning, I freak out, and it has happened several times that I left the train because I couldn’t deal

with [the smell] anymore. But…that’s a structural problem” (F.G.; 5).

Since homeless bodies were absent in Zurich, smells emanating from and associated with homeless bodies were absent as well.

People are responsible for some of the nicest and worst smells in cities. They do not only contribute to smells in the public transport system but are an essential part of urban

smellscapes. We have body odor, we use scented products like perfumes, we bake and cook,

both at home and on the streets, we drink alcohol, smoke, have pets, drive cars, and many other things that leave an olfactory footprint.

The city of Berlin is divided into different neighborhoods, which contain smaller Kiez3 - busier

areas with apartments, shops, and restaurants. Participants in Berlin tended to frequent a few preferred neighborhoods and avoid others: “I feel very connected to Berlin, but only to specific

places of Berlin. […] more to West-Berlin. We actually don’t really differentiate anymore, but that is where I feel comfortable” (L.L; 1).

3 A term mostly used in Berlin to describe an island-like area within a larger neighborhood.

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Participants’ observations and judgments of smells they encountered were dependent on their

expectations of the neighborhood preceding their smellwalks. In this sense, each neighborhood is associated with smell reputations.

While it already became clear in Zurich that certain areas of the city have smell reputations,

this was much more obvious in Berlin. Already during the initial interviews, it was clear that Neukölln’s smell reputation mainly

reflected its general reputation. Some of the most common smell associations in Neukölln were urine, spilled beer and cigarette smoke. While many of the participants in Zurich could

not remember any smell reputation for specific areas during the initial interview, it did occur several times that people would suddenly refer to the typical smell of Langstrasse4, which was

partially included in the smellwalk route, while we were walking along this street. The

Langstrasse had a particularly prominent smell reputation as its associated smells were not considered representative of Zurich, but an outlier. Perhaps due to its uniqueness, the

smellscape of the walking route corresponded with its reputation as a culturally diverse, lively, and young area.

„Here it smells like on holidays, abroad. A diverse mix of smells, that only a city can offer, where […] many different cultures live together” (H.B.; 3).

No matter whether participants considered themselves sensitive to smells or not, a majority of participants expressed surprise about the smellscape they experienced, as opposed to what

they had expected.

Based on the interviews, it seems that “bad” smells are much more commonly remembered

than pleasant smells, or perhaps we have more practice at talking about smells we consider irritating. During the interviews, it almost never happened that participants would speak about

a “good” smell reputation of a neighborhood. If it did happen to an area, it would usually be a park.

“For example in Spandau […], there is […] Jungfernheide5. And that area still has a lot

of nature, so you don’t really notice bad smells; instead, it smells more like a forest. Or like a meadow in the summer. It is definitely more pleasant” (L.L; 1).

4 An infamous street in Zurich where many bars, clubs, restaurants, and brothels are concentrated. 5 A large public park in the Spandau district of Berlin.

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Interestingly, when asked about their expectations before and after the walk, and whether they

were met, participants often altered their expectations and replied afterward that their expectations were met, despite the actual smell often being significantly different than

anticipated in the initial interview. Despite Neukölln’s fairly bad smell reputation, all the participants talked about the fairly

neutral basic smell of the city during their walks. Many of the participants voiced their surprise that Neukölln did not smell nearly as bad as they had anticipated.

“Honestly, I would have thought Neukölln smells more like piss. […] But maybe that’s a

stereotype that one connects with Neukölln. It’s pretty asi6 here during the summer. It’s a cool neighborhood, but you really see people in every fucking side alley that return

from parties, or people who are completely wasted, homelessness, these things. Or you

yourself piss in some corner. And I thought this could also be smelled, which is why I had to smirk when I thought about doing a smellwalk in Neukölln” (A.K.; 5).

While participants in Berlin were surprised by how much more pleasant Neukölln smelled than

they anticipated, the opposite was the case in Zurich. After the smellwalk through Kreis 5, many of the participants voiced their surprise about the

fact that they had smelled much more than anticipated, and that the smellscape was far from neutral. However, many did also mention that this route was not representative for Zurich’s

general smellscape. The most often-associated smell described by participants was a “neutral” smell, or rather, the

absence of intense smells, industrial pollution, and car emission. “[…] the air here smells very

pure in the sense that I don’t smell much car exhaust or industrial smell“ (C.B; 1). This absence of smells was often associated with clean and fresh air, and with nature. Natural and “green”

smells were other associations that were mentioned frequently by participants in the initial interviews and noticed by all participants at some point during the smellwalks. Furthermore,

the lake of Zurich, as well as the river, the Limmat, were also named by several participants as prominent smells in Zurich.

Compared to Zurich, natural smells were generally talked about in very few instances during the smellwalks in Berlin. Most smells that were mentioned by participants were of artificial

origin - meaning for example cooked foods, car exhaust or people. However, in the follow-up

interview with participants, many of them mentioned the desire for more greenery in the city

6 Short form of asocial. German slang word that is similar to ratchet.

19

for environmental, visual, and olfactory reasons. In both cities, natural smells are considered

healthy, calming, relaxing, and cleansing from the car exhaust and other smell contestations. Greenery seems to be one of the easiest examples for participants to imagine influencing

urban smellscapes. I mentioned the idea of choosing public greenery according to smells instead of visuals to create a changing, developing urban smellscape, which was positively

received by all participants I mentioned it to. This could be an accessible starting point to discuss policies to intentionally influence urban smellscapes.

Multi-Sensory Smellscapes In the follow-up interview after the smellwalks, the majority of participants mentioned how

strongly the sense of smell is connected with other senses, in particular to the visual sense. A few participants even went as far as describing the sense of smell as a “background sense”

for vision. Many of the participants expected to notice a smell shortly after seeing specific shops or items

along the way. This seems to imply that visual input anticipated the expectation of smelling,

rather than the other way around.

How important the visual impact is can also be demonstrated by another reoccurring phenomenon: negative smells with positive associations. What happened in both Zurich and

Berlin was “bad” smells were associated with good emotions. This was strongly linked to a past multi-sensory experience that produces a memory. This led to a multi-sensory experience

in the present where a smell was connected with the memory of other pleasant sensory experiences. One example that was mentioned by several participants were nightlife smells.

Spilled beer or stale cigarette smoke would objectively speaking be considered unpleasant smells by most people. However, due to personal pleasant memories of nightlife experience,

these smells were associated with having a good time.

“Smoke, cold smoke, definitely typical after a night out in Berlin. […] It’s always funny at

work or at uni because you know who went out last night, and who didn’t. I actually like that [smell], too. In a weird way. But maybe that’s why. Because you know that you went

out last night and had a good experience” (M.A; 4).

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Feeling Smells: Places, Smells, Emotions and Memories A variety of emotional aspects has been researched in connection with smells. It was

determined that smells can influence mood (Lehrner et al., 2005; Goel and Grasso, 2009), some aspects of human behavior (Millot and Brand, 2001), as well as cognition (Millot et al.,

2002; Herz, 2004 and 2011). Furthermore, stimulation through odors can trigger positive, as well as negative affects (Ehrlichman et al., 1988).

The wealth on literature about the emotional impacts of smells led to the expectation of frequent emotional responses during the smellwalk, but in both Zurich and Berlin, emotional

reactions to smells and smell-related memories happened less frequently than expected.

As argued by Herz (2002), the familiarity of smells that we encounter strongly influences

whether or not a memory is triggered by a smell, and how precise this memory is: “[…] frequently experienced odors such as coffee lose their ability to elicit specific associations,

and rather evoke general hedonic responses” (Herz in Rouby et al., 2002; 162). In the cases where participants did experience a memory triggered by smell during the walks, the memory

was of more general nature, like for example a holiday, or a generic memory of one’s grandmother.

Particularly in Switzerland the participants who experienced a memory triggered by smell were usually Swiss or had been living there for a number of years. This might be due to the relatively

neutral smellscape of Zurich. Since intense smells are rather uncommon to encounter, they are perceived more strongly by those participants who are used to a neutral ambient smell.

The participants who are still used to a more intense smellscape from other cities will not be

able to smell scents that are considered intense in Zurich, as they still pale in comparison to the smellscapes of many other cities.

If a smell triggers a memory, the emotional attachment to this memory might lead to changes in mood and emotional response. Since emotional responses to smells are inextricable from

the places where they were experienced, this leads to two ways in which place, smell, memory, and emotion are connected, as demonstrated by this instance of a participant talking about a

smell-triggered change of mood:

“I think, we often suppress this sense [of smell] somehow; you probably notice things subconsciously […], but I think, you don’t notice why. For example with this Bangkok-

smell, it triggered a really good feeling in me. And I think usually I just would have noticed

that I feel good somehow, but wouldn’t know why” (E.K; 6-7).

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In the initial interview, the participant talked about a holiday in Bangkok and the intense,

diverse smellscape that they remembered of this place. During that holiday, memories were formed and connected to positive feelings, as well as the intense smellscape of the city. During

the walk in Zurich, the participant noticed a smell that triggered the memory of this holiday in Bangkok, and in the follow-up interview, they talked about how this memory had influenced

their mood - a process that would usually happen unconsciously. Places and the ways we experience them influence the memories we build. These memories

become associated with the places’ smellscape and when we encounter smells of this local smellscape in a different place, they have the possibility to trigger the memory of past places

we visited, and the experiences we had in those places. As smells stimulate the experiencing and re-experiencing of memories, places become linked through smell and through time.

Learned Smells The ability to smell used to be essential for our survival. Through smells, we were able to

detect life-threatening dangers, such as rotten and poisonous foods, fire, and sickness. In

cities, many of the existing, artificial smells are much more intense than natural smells and have the potential to threaten our well-being. The most frequently noticed smells in both cities

were of food, cigarettes and car exhaust. Differences emerged between participants from different backgrounds. In Zurich, participants

with a background from larger, more industrial cities, such as Sao Paolo, or Buenos Aires often mentioned the cleanliness of the air in Zurich, the neutral smellscape and pleasant

smells of nature, while Swiss people complained often about the smell of exhaust in the inner city, where the smellwalk was conducted. There was a clear divide between Swiss people and

expats as Swiss people were much more sensitive to intense smells, and would often react emotionally and express feelings of disgust and irritation towards a larger variety of

smells: “[…] it was just too much. I think it was very intense; a little bit spicy, sweet, heavy.

Yes. I feel more harassed than pleasant. And I can still smell it” (C.B; 3). In the follow-up interviews, a few participants expressed surprise about the number of times

they noticed exhaust smells, despite cars being strongly concentrated on one short part of the route.

Our cultural background and socialization influence not only which smells we notice, but also how we experience smells and how tolerant we are of which smells.

Smell preferences are in fact not physiological but learned. We develop a functional olfactory system while still in the uterus, and research suggests that our olfactory preferences start to

22

develop with leftover flavor compounds of the maternal diet in the amniotic fluid and breastmilk

and continue all through life (Herz in Rouby, 2002; 160-161).

Formerly, cultures were seen as mainly tied to place and nation, meaning German culture was tied to Germany, Korean culture to Korea, etc. “This correlation among firmly bounded

concepts of place, nation, and culture rendered the cultural production of place an essentially local and national practice[…]” (Sen and Silverman, 2014; 7). Today, the fluidity of culture,

people and ideas is accepted as the norm, and culture is no longer limited to one place. Rather, “explorations of how people react physically and emotionally to the places they inhabit provide

powerful evidence of how cultural ideas travel and how human beings mediate between multiple cultures” (ibid; 7). This cultural diversity was often talked about during the walks,

especially in Zurich. Most of these discussions were based on food smells. In general, food

smells are considered positive, and as one participant expressed, a sign of thriving neighborhoods: “Definitely a good association between food smells and nightlife smells. It's a

part of the feeling of a lived-in place” (J.Z; 4). Food smells are also representative of the population that lives in an area. Depending on the

cuisine, the smells of the ingredients and spices used vary a lot. in Zurich, this varying smellscape consisting of the smells of different cuisines was considered representative of the

reputation of the neighborhood of being culturally diverse.

“[…] I think the smells that I smelled match Kreis 5, this stereotype that one has of the area. Many different restaurants next to each other, a lot of different people, everything

a bit chaotic, but still close. You can somehow smell that here. The centrality, and the

mixed cultures, because we did smell different cuisines” (M.L; 5).

Interestingly, in both cities, participants could describe food smells with greater detail if the food and dishes were from foreign cultures. Otherwise, participants tended to describe the

smell like a generic food-smell.

What became obvious through many different aspects is that we get used to smells, no matter how intense they are, or how we rate them. The longer we stay in a city, the more familiar we

become with its smellscape and the less we notice it. Only when we leave the city and travel

to a less smell-contested place do we start noticing how strong urban smellscapes are through the absence of them. What we consider the most annoying smells are often smells that we

are unfamiliar with, such as this participant:

23

“The other thing, which is specifically a Europe-thing is that more people smoke. That was actually the first thing that…when me and my mum first came to Zurich, for the first

week where she was helping me move in, we were like 'huh, you are always smelling cigarette smoke'. It's just way less prevalent in the US” (B.T, 8).

Many of the smells that were described as annoying were very different from the background

smell, which could indicate that a neutral smellscape leads to a lower tolerance of smells and a heightened sensitivity to strong smells, both of which could be observed on the smellwalks

in Zurich. This opens up the question to whether it could be desirable for parts of the city to be neutral olfactory places, to give our nose a break and to regain its olfactory sensitivity.

In both Zurich and Berlin, during large parts of the route, the smellscapes were relatively

neutral. The difference between Zurich and Berlin was that participants in Zurich were able to identify, or at least speak about, a large number of very subtle smells, which were often

connected to nature. In Berlin, on the other hand, many of the identified smells were “artificial” - meaning the smells did not come from untouched objects but were often connected to heat

in some way. Cooked food, lit cigarettes, or pedestrians wearing perfume were some examples of smells noticed in Berlin. Objectively speaking, there was no big difference in the

smellscapes in Zurich and Berlin. The difference was in the way that participants remembered the smellscapes, and in the smell reputation associated with the two neighborhoods.

Instead, a real difference could be observed in the way smells were experienced by those

participants who grew up in a similar spatial and cultural environment, and those who had

recently moved to Zurich and Berlin respectively. The larger and more populated a city is, the more muted our sense of smell becomes - this was especially recognizable in Zurich, where

large differences were visible in the olfactory sensitivity of participants growing up within Switzerland and those who had moved there recently.

While smells used to be an essential part of survival, it now seems as if the opposite is the

case. As cities grow and become more densely populated, this will also influence urban smellscapes. More people, more traffic, more international travel, and movements mean that

the smellscapes of our cities will become increasingly diverse and more intense.

But while smells can have a variety of positive influences on our well-being, oftentimes bad smells are noticed and talked about more frequently and remembered longer. In order to be

able to ignore a majority of smells that contest cities, be it the smells of car exhaust, the

24

homeless in public places, or simply the intense smellscape emerging from crowded places,

we need to develop selective smelling skills. The skill to ignore contested smellscapes is necessary to live comfortably in densely populated cities.

Conclusion

Smells are a tricky research subject. There are many factors that cannot be controlled, such as weather, seasons, or traffic levels. This research is contingent on participants’ individual

life histories and the particular situations we encountered on each smellwalk. In order to generalize the results, longitudinal research would be needed to see how different factors

influence smellscapes in turn. Furthermore, this research covered a number of topics, but during the data collection there were indications for other aspects of smellscapes, and the way

they are experienced that were beyond the research questions of this paper. This is no more than the starting point of rigorous olfactory research that has been sorely neglected not only

by urban studies, but by most of social science.

The morphology and infrastructure of a city influence the smellscape. The main modes of

transportation, wide or narrow streets, building height and architectural features such as arcades all influence local smellscapes, which was especially visible in the public transport

systems of Zurich and Berlin. Certain places within a city have a smell reputation that could actively influence decisions on whether to visit a certain neighborhood or not, despite not

necessarily reflecting the actual smellscape. Memories play a huge role in the way smellscapes are perceived and tied to place. As we

partake in an activity, we build a memory. This memory is tied to the smellscapes. If we happen to notice this smell in a different time and place, it can either transport us back to the memory,

or lead to a change in mood in the present. This works with both positive and negative memories, and negatively-perceived smells can even be balanced out with a positive memory.

This also demonstrates how closely sensory experiences are tied together.

Olfactory experiences are intertwined with other sensory experiences. For example visual impacts combined with former experiences produce the expectation of certain smells.

Lastly, the way in which smells are perceived strongly depend on one’s cultural background and socialization. Whether a smell is liked or not, its associations, and whether we even notice

it are all impacted by previous experiences, memories, and preferences. In short, this research is centered around the body; the findings cannot be looked at outside of the social, cultural,

and physical context the body is placed in.

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The role of smells has changed and will continue to change in an increasingly urbanized world.

Smells used to be essential for our survival and warned us of dangers such as fires, or bad food. In growing cities with an increasing population, it can be

expected that the smellscapes become more intense and more contested. The skill to smell selectively is needed to live comfortably in these environments. But as we notice smells less,

and our sensibility to smells becomes muted, the question arises on whether it is necessary, to reconnect with our sense of smell.

Smells have the potential to be included in urban practice in a number of ways, from choosing greenery according to smells, to creating smell neutral zones that allow urban residents to

regain their olfactory sensitivity. But to start the discussion about smells, we need better ways to describe and analyze them.

I therefore propose the theoretical concept Ol-Factor to describe the olfactory impact a place

has. Many further aspects of smells and urban smellscapes impact the ways we reinterpret places.

But more importantly, this research can be a starting point for further discussion on smells, their potential for our well-being, and for more linguistic confidence and comfort in the

discourse on the multi-sensory city.

Appendix

A. Participants Zurich

Date of Walk Initials Age Place of Origin

Profession Time lived in Zurich

01.09.2019 C.B. 26 Switzerland Journalist 5 years 02.09.2019 R.W. 23 Switzerland Student 1.5 years 04.09.2019 O.M. 28 Brazil Projectorist 9 years 05.09.2019 T.R. 21 Switzerland Student 6 months 06.09.2019 A.T.-B. 21 Argentina Student 6 months 06.09.2019 J.B. 23 Netherlands Student 9 months 07.09.2019 C.B. 22 Belgium Student 4 years 07.09.2019 S.C. 25 Italy Student 6 months 09.09.2019 J.W. 22 Germany Student 3 years 09.09.2019 K.B. 23 Switzerland

(grew up in China and UK)

Student 3 years

11.09.2019 B.T. 26 USA Student 13 months 11.09.2019 M.L. 28 Switzerland Student 5 years

26

12.09.2019 H.R.E. 35 Brazil Environmental Engineer

1 year

13.09.2019 S.Z. 23 China Student 2 years 14.09.2019 H.B. 50 Switzerland Director 41 years 16.09.2019 E.K. 36 Germany Doctor 13 years 17.09.2019 S.B. 23 Switzerland Student 5 years 18.09.2019 S.S. 25 India Student 2 years 18.09.2019 V.S. 26 India Engineer 5 years 20.09.2019 S.M 51 Switzerland Law Secretary 21 years

B. Participants Berlin

Date of Walk Initials Age Place of Origin

Profession Time lived in Berlin

10.12.2019 A.K. 26 Germany Student 15 months 03.01.2020 E.C. 31 Turkey Marketing 1 year 04.01.2020 A.M. 35 Iran Software

Developer 2 years

07.01.2020 A.M.H. 41 Germany Diplomat 6.5 years 19.01.2020 C.S. 33 Mexico Freelancer 3.5 years 19.01.2020 M.M. 29 Germany Student 16 months 20.01.2020 F.G. 32 Germany Student ? 23.01.2020 L.L 25 Germany Student 25 years 28.01.2020 M.A. 24 Germany Student 5 years 28.01.2020 J.Z. 29 Malta Sustainability

Engineer 17 months

30.01.2020 S.L. 24 Germany Student 19 years 07.02.2020 D.B. 25 Germany Student 8 years 15.02.2020 J.?. 24 Germany Student 6 years 17.02.2020 V.G. 34 Germany Student 12 years 21.02.2020 L.S. 33 Germany Graphic

Designer 13 years

21.02.2020 A.K. 28 Germany Student ?

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Maps

Maps 1-4: Basemap ArcGis; Author: Sarah Eschenmoser