All human action is involved with space: conceptual, temporal, social and physical. Every cultural period has its own conception of space. There are several approaches to define space, such as emphasizing the materiality of what we build,...
moreAll human action is involved with space: conceptual, temporal, social and physical. Every cultural period has its own conception of space. There are several approaches to define space, such as emphasizing the materiality of what we build, but the most important aspect can be expressed as a set of qualities that propel the experience of architecture, that introduce the space as a central dimension of built environment. In fact, different people at different times and in different contexts deal with different conceptions of space. Space can be introduced by two aspects: as a three-dimensional geometry, and as a perceptual field. However both of them are abstractions from the intuitive three-dimensional totality of everyday experience, the so called concrete space. Concrete human actions in fact don't take place in a homogeneous isotropic space, but in a space distinguished by qualitative differences, such as up and down , outside and inside (Giedion), or deeper into its structure introducing the concepts of paths , edges , districts , nodes and landmarks , depicting elements which form the basis for men's orientation in space. Eventually space can be defined as a system of places (Paolo Portoghesi), indicating its roots in concrete situations. Though a concrete term for environment is 1 place, that is an integral part of existence. What then do we mean with the word place ? Obviously its meaning goes further than abstract location, therefore a totality made up of concrete things having material substance; shape, texture and color. Together these things determine an environmental character , which is the essence of place, which has a character or atmosphere. With a quick look at mediterranean cities, we notice some of these characters, continuity of settlements, tortuous and irregular paths that lead to a strong individuality , importance of both large urban scale and microscale of the everyday , street life and games ; that conduct to a sense of belonging in a specific place (which Edward Relph evaluated it by a finite list of seven different types of outsideness/insideness). "A foreigner lost in a country he does not know (a passing stranger) can feel at home there only in the anonymity of motorways, service stations, big stores or hotel chains. For him, an oil company logo is a reassuring landmark; among the supermarket shelves he falls with relief on sanitary, household or food products validated by multinational brand names." 2 In late-modern society, architectures such as airports terminals, the vague areas close to highways, suburban sprawl, supermarkets, forgotten backyards, are altering the identity of humankind as place-beings (Marc Augé). What we define negatively as non-place , represents lack of social complexity or architectural form. But wherein city planners and politicians see a social or aesthetic problem and try to fill this gap, an occasional walker could suppose a vague and untouched area as a place for meetings (its power of attraction); that manifest a gap between the perception of an individual and the one of a planner/architect/philosopher. However, as a matter of the fact, the individual's navigation in places is a kind of new space production (Michel de Certeau); where non-places or nowheres-those passages or holes in urban context-emerge as deviations in reading the city signs or simply the act of walking. Moreover, from more recent philosophical contributions, emerge other perspectives of the same issue, such as the lack of place for the woman in the world of the man (Luce Irigaray).
