Hauke Odendahl
SMELL OF THE CITY
SMELL OF THE CITY
How to get a grip on a topic which is as complex as smell? How to work with it without professional tools and knowledge? And what is the smell of the city?
To take my first steps in the broad field of scent I developed smell of the city (2018). The results are 3 ideas which are working separate from each other but also all together.
The first concept transfers the three lev- el hierarchy of a traditional perfume to the complex smell of the city. From the fast fading top notes, over the central heart notes forming the core of the smell together with the base. Top notes can easily be detected by any curious person walking through a city. For the heart deeper skills and/or tools are needed while the base consists the factors which are making a city unique.
To discover the more hidden smells which are always around but not easy to detect, I developed a steam glass. Hot steam brings the smell molecules in motion and the glass captures the dust. This tool allows the user to experience a hidden, rare or strange smell in the very moment. You can‘t take the smell with you, but the memory will last forever.
Inspired by the smell prisma of Hans Henning from 1916, I worked on a spheric scale to find a way to commu- nicate the impressions during a smell walk through the city. Describing a smell can be very difficult. To support an intuitive wording for the incoming impressions the 3D scale only displays 4 directions. From bottom to top the smell gets lighter while from left to right the scent gets more pleasent. This setting allows the user to directly write down the urgent impressions. The tool is not meant to show an exact des- cription of a smell but to give an overview and a tendency.
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