A few years ago, I took one of my many ‘smell-walks’, which I have led in cities worldwide, with an architect. On a bright, early summer’s morning we set off to sniff out the fetid and foul, the tantalising and satisfying, the familiar and surprising in the most normal of English cities. Meandering through streets, squares and partially enclosed arcades, we inhaled deeply, and encountered a rich variety of odours, each characteristic of the different forms, materials and activities of the environments. We detected the spicy, tantalising vapours of cooking and ingredients in the international district; the predominant neutrality of the high street interrupted every few steps by caffeine-laced, soapy or dry heat emissions from store frontages or, on occasion, the dominating gusts of Lush.
Clouds of cigarette smoke, seductive or nauseating depending on your viewpoint, mixed with evaporating alcohol and trails of perfumes in the seating areas outside bars; the nose-numbing acrid sensations of traffic fumes next to a busy road, with the odours hitting the back of the throat like a childhood sherbet-dip; and, the glorious depth and raw variety of the market as one wave of aroma after another attacked our nostrils − some strong enough to make you gag, the salty whiffs of the fish and seafood, the sweet fruit and earthy vegetables, warm wet cardboard and sickeningly pungent cleaning products, chemical traces of plastic and metallic rancid waste.
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