Rethinking the Meaning of Place

Conceiving Place in Architecture-Urbanism

Lineu Castello

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754678144
• eBook ISBN: 9781317063841
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Local & Regional Planning Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The spread of newly 'invented' places, such as theme parks, shopping malls and revamped historic areas, necessitates a redefinition of the concept of 'place' from an architectural perspective. In this interdisciplinary work, these invented places are categorized according to the different phenomenological experiences they are able to provide. The book explores how such 'cloning spaces' use placemaking and placemarketing in attempt to replicate the characteristics found in urban spaces traditionally viewed as successful, and how these places can affect society's environmental perception. A range of international empirical studies illustrates how such invented places can be perceived as legitimate urban spaces, and contribute towards the quality of life in today's cities.

Chapter 1
An Introduction to Place

To familiarize the reader with the main conceptualizations of place invoked throughout this book, together with the interpretations adopted of such concepts, they are introduced jointly, always according to the understanding of place in the terms of this present text. More extensive than a simple glossary, this ‘Introduction to Place’ includes excerpts from definitions which are further developed and returned to throughout the text. Prior definition of these conceptualizations is given here to encourage a fuller view of the text as a whole. This preliminary view will generally only address those components playing a more active role in the hypothesis of this book, whose key premise is that the new places created in cities at the turn of the millennium - referred to here as ‘places of cloning’ - may become places endowed with the quality understood as ‘urbanity’.

Why Does this Issue Need to be Discussed?

This investigation arises from the personal concerns of a researcher who clearly hates not understanding things, and who, while coming across people enjoying the experience of living in the new places of contemporary cities today, also finds fierce critics who reject these places as mere products of consumption, classifying them as unable to instil the minimum of consistent existential values. This study therefore seeks to investigate the issue, to then be able to construct a point of view on the topic and raise the possibility of a second opinion - giving some benefit of the doubt to the existence of places of cloning.

It seeks to appraise as impartially as possible the range of contributions to the quality of life of people in cities introduced by the construction of new places and the associated degree of urban development, and to eventually contribute to expanding this quality of life, believing the improvement of life in cities to be imperative. Not by trying to revive an idyllic way of life often stimulated by mere nostalgic aspiration, but rather through trying to find out with increasing coherence what the inhabitants of urban environments want, what kind of place would be most welcome to them, even if these places are sometimes offered indirectly or along lines involving commercial procedures.

Approximately 80 percent of the population of Brazil lives in urban surroundings: the search for a better quality of life in these surroundings is an aim which no one involved in the study and design of the built environment can ever consider avoiding; and at the same time it is thought that a well articulated availability of urban places might open beneficial prospects for improving this quality. It is therefore hoped that this study may be the stimulus for further research into the subject of urban places and particularly into the new types of places being introduced into the urban environment. And that it can contribute to the establishment of bases for working with such a clearly controversial subject, which needs to be addressed through investigations that can avoid stultifying preconceptions, facile apriorisms and hasty prejudice, revealing what it is like to live better in cities in the 21st century, while taking advantage of the benefits offered by places that can be perceived as laden with urbanity.

How can that be done?

The Perception of Place

Although there is a clear physical correspondence between people and spaces, the relationships also involve a strong psychological component. People feel better in certain spaces. In other words, certain spaces stand out within the greater Space in which people circulate and, by standing out, are perceived differently. These are generally spaces perceived to contain certain qualities. Thus it can be said that these spaces are perceived as places by their users. They possess qualities that allow them to be perceived as a place, defined within the greater space of the city as a whole. Which means: they allow a place to be distinguished from a space.

It can therefore be accepted that behind the identification of a place lies a whole process of appreciation of the space, which may well be attributed to the perception that people have (or will acquire) about that space. But from what basis does this perception develop? From the presence of environmental stimuli. From the widest range of stimuli of environmental features retaining a relationship not just with the objective and material nature of the elements of the environment, but also with its subjective nature - immaterial and imponderable. And - substantially - expressed as a product of people’s interactions with the environment.

The urban research projects employed in this study have favoured the use of methodologies and techniques from the field of environmental perception, a field seen to be most valuable in better revealing what happens in people-environment relationships. One of the routes towards identification of places offered by the field of environmental perception comes from expression of the phenomena perceived by users in their existential experience. Studies have therefore acquired a strong phenomenological connotation, referring to the early-20th century philosophical doctrine of phenomenology advanced by the German philosopher Edmund Husserl. As is common among philosophical doctrines, phenomenology also acquired different emphases, styles and schools, principally through the contributions of philosophers like Martin Heidegger (1979) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1996), who introduced considerable changes by moving from the prevailing transcendental direction implanted by Husserl, towards an existential direction.

In the considerably synthesized view of David Seamon (2000), phenomenology is the exploration and description of phenomena relating to things or human experience. In this case,

Any object, event, situation or experience that a person can see, hear, touch, smell, taste, feel, intuit, know, understand, or live through is a legitimate topic for phenomenological investigation. There can be a phenomenology of light, of color, of architecture, of landscape, of place … of jealousy … of economy, of sociability, and so forth. All of these things are phenomena because human beings can experience, encounter, or live through them in some way (Seamon 2000: 3).

The phenomenological approach has been applied to topics in the field of architectureurbanism and has made useful contributions in detecting the phenomena affecting the perception of this quality known as ‘place’, so ardently sought by urban designers. This methodological approach acquired stronger emphasis following re-examination of the paradigms forming the distinctive outlines of the modernist visions from the first half of the 20th century. A considerable increase in new paradigmatic theorizations began to flourish alongside these revisions in thematic discussions in the realm of what is known as postmodernism, many of which have been imported from other disciplinary fields. As Kate Nesbitt has noted in a substantial anthology on the theory of architecture,

One aspect of this interdisciplinarity is the reliance of architectural theory on the philosophical method of inquiry known as phenomenology. … this philosophical thread underlies postmodern attitudes towards site, place, landscape. … Recent theory has moved towards … the body’s interaction with its environment. Visual, tactile, olfactory, and aural sensations are the visceral part of the reception of architecture, a medium distinguished by its three-dimensional presence (Nesbitt 1996: 28).

The Genesis of Place

Accompanying the pioneering approaches of Kevin Lynch (1968), in 1960, the highlight of which was to isolate the important environmental quality he termed ‘imageability’,1 some revisions and new propositions have been tested in other disciplinary fields, all aimed at constructing a definition of place. One of the most celebrated comes from psychology, with David Canter explaining on the first page of his famous book The Psychology of Place in 1977 that the discussion ‘…is about those units of experience within which activities and physical form are amalgamated: places’ (Canter 1977: 1), in other words, place would be a socio-physical unit of environmental experience, forming an eco-behavioural pattern in the environment. Another equally well disseminated contribution comes from geography, with Edward Relph (1976) observing that the significance of place, although anchored into physical configurations and activities, is not the property of these features, but rather of the intentions and experience of the people who occupy them.

Figure 1.1 Rome, Italy

It can therefore be stated that place is a qualified space, or rather a space that comes to be perceived by the population through the motivation of human experiences based on the apprehension of environmental stimuli. These stimuli can be very diverse - as diverse as the relationships between people and the environment. Nonetheless, a few brief examples can be introduced to help illustrate how a place may come about. A place may therefore come about in the following ways.

Through a narrative: Comments about the pleasure of having visited the ‘Fontana di Trevi’, in Rome, Italy (Figure 1.1) may become a point of common interest, for example.2

Through reputation: The sum of many narratives may result in one city space acquiring a reputation, of which quite a rich example can be provided by Copacabana Beach, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Source: Photo by Melissa Castello.

Figure 1.3 Bombinhas, Brazil

Through natural assets: enjoyment of the beautiful scenery of Bombinhas, a small beach in southern Brazil, provides plenty of natural stimuli to assist in the occurrence of a favourite place (Figure 1.3).

Through association with a historic building: public markets in most major cities, like the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey (Figure 1.4), are located in historic buildings and generate a highly concentrated point of social contact and activities.

Through association with political actions: rallies and demonstrations have been tested in Tian’anmen Square, Beijing, China (Figure 1.5), stimulating the perception of this ‘political space’ of the city as a place.

Through association with local tradition: the ‘Englischer Garten’ in Munich, Germany (Figure 1.6) has become a traditional meeting place for locals and visitors alike.

Through a building with emotive connotations: such as that experienced by people when meeting at the Pyramids and Sphinx at Giza, Cairo, Egypt (Figure 1.7), a place full of emotion and highly evocative of human culture and civilization.

Through the construction of a fantasy, an illusion, an ‘image’: Bavaria is a magic name, full of associative imagery. To stand in front of the fantastic fairy-tale ‘Schloss Neuschwanstein’, near Füssen, Germany (Figure 1.8), creates an image closely evocative of fantasy, transforming that space into a place impregnated with romantic illusions.

Figure 1.4 Istanbul, Turkey

Figure 1.5 Beijing, China

Figure 1.6 Munich, Germany

Figure 1.7 Cairo, Egypt

Figure 1.8 Bavaria, Germany

Figure 1.9 San Francisco, USA

Through the availability of sensory enjoyment and comfort: enjoyment of the waterfront breeze, the sounds of seagulls and sea lions, the clear sunlit views and seafood aromas together suggest provision of a place for sensory pleasure, such as the Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39 in San Francisco, USA (Figure 1.9), famous as one of the most appreciated places in the city.

Through the availability of goods, services or technological facilities: finally, the custom of frequenting convenience facilities, such as the ubiquitous AM/PM stores in any major world city may lead to the creation of places of intense social contact.

A list like this can of course very easily become endless. To avoid excessive development, however, we can concentrate on some of the categories, approaching them through their mutual affinities. It can therefore be said that the perception of a place may for example occur through apprehension of socio-cultural stimuli (which would cover such sections as narrative, history, tradition); or morphological-imaginary stimuli (natural assets, beauty, reputation, representation of fantasy, among others) or finally, enjoyment-functional stimuli (services, utilities, sensory enjoyment, comfort, pleasure).

In this way we would have three groups of source stimuli for three main stems, tentatively classified as socio-cultural; morphological-imaginary; enjoyment-functional; but all resulting from the interaction between people and environment. It is particularly interesting to consider places perceived through an association of these types of stimuli, to thus be able to approach them more systematically, and consequently attempt to establish more acute theoretical reflections.

Types of Places

One group of interactions between people and their surroundings features the role of the spatial dimension, involving phenomena relating to the physical nature and material constitution of places, their objective morphology - accentuating the experiences related to an ‘aura’ surrounding the place, even if this is sometimes just an ‘abstract’ aura, no more than an invisible halo caused by interactions between people and surroundings, yet sufficient to leave a mark on the place. Material or abstract, this aura will have been acquired as a result of natural, enjoyment, sensory or landscape qualities, and will therefore be an aura stimulated by elements of the local spatial collective imagination.

In another situation the relationships between people and...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 An Introduction to Place
• 2 The Conceptualization of Place
• 3 The Investigation and Design of Place
• 4 Variations in Perception of Place
• 5 Illustrations of Places in Rio Grande do Sul Cities
• Conclusion Learning from the Places of Cloning
• Bibliography
• Index