Editing Public space (section)

==In design theory==
Public space, as a term and as a concept in design, is volatile. There is much conversation around what constitutes public space, what role it plays, and how design should approach and deal with it.

===Historical shift===
Historically, public space in the west has been limited to town centres, plazas, church squares, i.e. nearly always engineered around a central monument, which informs the program of the space. These spaces acted as the '[[common land|commons]]' of the people; a political, social and cultural arena. Of the thirteen colonies that became the United States, three were comprehensively planned with integrated physical, social, and economic elements. These planned colonies of Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Georgia each placed emphasis on public space, in particular the public square. The plan for Georgia, known as the [[Oglethorpe Plan]] created a unique design in which a public square was created for every ward of forty residential lots and four civic or commercial lots. The design has been preserved in the [[Savannah Historic District (Savannah, Georgia)|Savannah historic district]].<ref>Fries, Sylvia. ''The Urban Idea in Colonial America''. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1977. Chapters 3 and 5 discuss the designs of Pennsylvania and Georgia</ref><ref>Wilson, Thomas D. ''The Oglethorpe Plan''. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2012. See chapter 3 for design details.</ref><ref>Rivers, William J. ''A Sketch of the History of South Carolina''. Charleston: McCarter and Co., 1856. See pp. 358–394 for design details; Carolina thus far has received less attention in the urban design literature than Pennsylvania or Georgia</ref>

[[Jürgen Habermas]]' concept of the [[public sphere]] links its emergence with the development of democracy.<ref>Jurgen Habermas, ''The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society'' (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989)</ref> A good example of this is the [[New Deal]] projects. The New Deal was a brief period in the US under Franklin Delano Roosevelt's government that produced a huge number of public works in an economic effort to boost employment during the depression. The result, however, was more than this. They constituted a legacy of what has been called the cultural infrastructure underlying American public space.<ref>Robert D. Leighninger, Jr., 1996, 'Cultural Infrastructure: The Legacy of New Deal Public Space', ''Journal of Architectural Education'', Vol. 49, No. 4 (May, 1996), pp. 226–236</ref> The New Deal projects have been credited with significantly contributing to the quality of American life and encouraging unity between all aspects of the community. It has been recently argued, however, that the democratic ideal of public life through the use of public space has deteriorated. As our cities accelerate towards segregation (social, economic, cultural, ethnic), the opportunity for public interaction is on the decline. John Chase writes, "The importance of voluntary and obligatory participation in civic life has been usurped by the consciousness of the arbitrary nature of assigned cultural meanings and by the increasingly important role that consumption of goods and services plays in the formation of individual identity."<ref>John Chase, "The Garret, the Boardroom, and the Amusement Park," JAE 47/2 (November 1993)</ref>

===Modern critique===
Modern architectural critics have lamented on the 'narrative of loss' within the public sphere. That is, modern society has withdrawn from public life that used to inform city centres. Political and social needs, and forums for expression, can now be accessed from the home. This sentiment is reflected in Michael Sorkin's and Mike Davis' declaration of "the end of public space" and the "destruction of any truly democratic urban spaces."<ref>Michael Sorkin, "Introduction", and Mike Davis, "Fortress Los Angeles: The Militarization of Urban Space," in Michael Sorkin, ed. Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992)</ref>  Another side of the debate, however, argues that it is people who apply meaning to public space, wherever it may be. It has been suggested that the concepts of public, space, democracy, and citizenship are being redefined by people through lived experience.<ref name="MargaretCrawford">Margaret Crawford. 1995, "Contesting the Public Realm: Struggles over Public Space in Los Angeles", Journal of Architectural Education, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Sep, 1995) pp. 4–9</ref> Discussion has surfaced around the idea that, historically, public space has been inherently contradictory in the way that it has always been exclusive in who has been able to participate. This has caused the "counterpublics", as identified by Nancy Fraser,<ref>Nancy Fraser, "Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy," in Bruce Robbins, ed., The Phantom Public Sphere (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993)</ref> to establish their own public spaces to respond to their own concerns.  These spaces are in constant flux, and in response, its users restructure and reinterpret physical space. An example of this is in the African-American neighbourhood, [[Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles]]. Here, a parking lot has evolved into a scene of intense commercial and social activity. Locals gather here to meet and socialise, sell and consume goods. The example has been used to illustrate that the historical ideal of fixed public space around a monument is not viable for a contemporary diverse social range as "no single physical space can represent a completely inclusive 'space of democracy'."<ref name="MargaretCrawford" />

===Art===
[[File:CESENA-3497.jpg|thumb|right|250px|[[Piazza del Popolo, Cesena|Piazza del Popolo]] in [[Cesena]] with the artistic ''Fontana Masini'']]
[[File:Projections of fire and text onto the National Theatre London by Public Artist Martin Firrell.jpg|thumb|250px|[[Martin Firrell]] The [[Royal National Theatre]] [[London]] 2016]]
{{Main|Public art}}{{See also|Anti-monumentalism}}
This sense of flux and change, informs how contemporary public art has evolved. Temporal art in public spaces has been a long established practice. But the presence of public art has become increasingly prevalent and important within our contemporary cities. Temporal public art is so important because of its ability to respond to, reflect, and explore the context which it inhabits.  Patricia Phillips describes the "social desire for an art that is contemporary and timely, that responds to and reflects its temporal and circumstantial context."<ref>Patricie C. Philips, 1989, "Temporality and Public Art", Art Journal, Vol. 48, No. 4, Critical Issues in Public Art (Winter, 1989), pp. 331–335</ref> Public art is an arena for investigation, exploration and articulation of the dense and diverse public landscape. Public art asks its audience to re-imagine, re-experience, re-view and re-live. In the design field, a heavy focus has been turned onto the city as needing to discover new and inspired ways to re-use, re-establish and re-invent the city, in step with an invigorated interest in rejuvenating our cities for a sustainable future. Contemporary design has become obsessed with the need to save the modern city from an industrialized, commercialized, urban pit of a death bed.{{Citation needed|date=January 2019}} In some cases, dance, music and other cultural events organised by the local community have been crucial in the process of revitalisation of some decayed public spaces.<ref>Gutiérrez, F., Törmä, I. Urban revitalisation with music and dance in the Port of Veracruz, Mexico. Urban Des Int 25, 328–337 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41289-020-00116-8</ref>

===Approaching urban design===
Contemporary perception of public space has now branched and grown into a multitude of non-traditional sites with a variety of programs in mind. It is for this reason that the way in which design deals with public space as a discipline, has become such a diverse and indefinable field.

Iris Aravot puts forward an interesting approach to the urban design process, with the idea of the 'narrative-myth'. Aravot argues that "conventional analysis and problem solving methods result in fragmentation...of the authentic experience of a city...[and] something of the liveliness of the city as a singular entity is lost."<ref>Iris Aravot, "Narrative-Myth and Urban Design", Journal of Architectural Education, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Nov., 1995), pp. 79–91</ref> The process of developing a narrative-myth in urban design involves analysing and understanding the unique aspects of the local culture based on Cassirer's five distinctive "symbolic forms".<ref>Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man (New York: Bantam, 1970)</ref> They are myth and religion, art, language, history and science; aspects often disregarded by professional practice. Aravot suggests that the narrative-myth "imposes meaning specifically on what is still inexplicable", i.e. the essence of a city.