August 11, 2003
kissing in public places
If we live in postmodern times and the texture of our everyday lives is being reshaped lives, then in what we are our cities being shaped?
We can begin to get a handle on this in two different ways.
There is the relationship between competitive markets and our attachment to places. The competitive market overides places and this overriding shapes our urban form through the constant rebuilding of our cities. For developers buildings are a product, equivalent to Scotch Tap, since it is all about selling and renting space to be financially successful. The postmodern bit comes in with the signature building designed by superstar or celebrity architects to clearly separate the signature building out from the standardized and monotonous international package (eg., of a MacDonalds).
Secondly, we have the relationship between public and private. Here the hard oppositions of the past are easing and there is a blurring between private and public. A great illustration of this blurring is provided by David over at City Comforts Blog: kissing in public spaces.
Kissing in public spaces. Romance helps to make a public spaces our own place. As Harriet Festing says:
"The point is that people like places that they can make their own; places that they can shape, mold and influence. And most public spaces are heavily controlled; by designers who create paths where no-one wants to go; managers who won't let you touch the water; and by the lack of imagination of the people who put the space there in the first place."
A successful city is one that has popular public places where people gather and interact. It is not just about building more and more car parks so that people can shop in the CBD rather than in the suburbs.
Let's have more kissing in public spaces to keep them safe as non-market urban forms. This counters the transformation of public spaces along a waterfront or beach into an emporia of mass consumption and luxury residences as exemplifed in Holdfast Shores Development in Glenelg, Adelaide below:
That coupled with this is the form of pleasurable life of the postmodern market. It represents the encroachment of private institutions on public spaces.
What we have here is a city in full renewal mode. It ain't all that good. Not enough public spaces for kissing.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at August 11, 2003 04:00 PM | TrackBack