After research over the weeks and the post on the blogs, as our lives separate by two parts, one is our private, domestic domain life and one is our public life.
For people to have public lives meaning there must be some sort of public spaces. In the past public place is consider as a space for people to interact with one and other, for example like the pavilion and market where there are a lots of human activities. Nowadays public space can be a space for memorial, celebration or for political events. Moreover that we can also consider some of ideology for urbanism can be consider as part of public life/space today. Take few examples from the big ideas of urbanism and city, those ideas can reflect to our current public life which build up our current society. Collage city idea from the big idea of city is very important and significant in my point of view, because every city in the world is like the paper collage one layer on top the another one. Cities have been developing for centuries and centuries. Cities have been through different era which different era will have slight different understanding of public life/space.
The nature of the social relationship between human being is simply how we organise ourselves to society, group. The reason everyone have different public life is because we arrange ourselves according to our backgrounds, memories, experience, and ideology towards certain things…. Etc. In my previous blogs that talks about that remember public space for people to go such as the Ground Zero and the Vietnam War Memorial, most people which will go to this place is because they are all sharing something in commend. Take an example from me, the Ground Zero is really meaning something to me, because it brings back my memory when I was travel around New York. The space it means something to my life.
The way those relationships manifest themselves spatially is through some ideology of the current society of that time. People tend to look forward to the future and thinking we will possibly have a better future, this is when Utopia idea comes across. Projects like Ville Radieuse and Ville Contemporaine from Le Corbusier, was Utopia idea that in the future the architecture will form the inner society. His idea is based on the future society everyone should have similar amount of space to live in.
Throughout my research there are something making me understand more about public spaces and architecture itself.
References from Junk Space make me understand more about the other approach looking at our public space and architecture space. As Rem Koolhass has mention on that book “If space-junk is the human debris that litters the universe, junk-space is the residue mankind leaves on the planet”. This statement reflects what he thinks about the public space this century. The building spaces claims to advanced modernisation but not modern architecture but “junk space” (Koolhaas,p175)
In the blog of immersive nature of city that have been discuss about the feature of time square that reflect back nowadays society towards architecture. One of the points that were mention in the blog is that contemporary architecture are mostly driven by economics, therefore without economic there will be less innovative, unlike the 60’s and 70’s. Compare this to the past, most of the architecture are not drive by economics, therefore they are build to symbolise power or with purpose. In the book junk space that Rem Koolhaas has state that many building we have within the city at the 21st century have not purpose. It will just become junk space, but also I did do a reflection response to this statement that Koolhaas has stated. Because of the fast growing of the population on Earth, people have to start building houses to accommodated for those population, however mass produce buildings might lose their architectural quality and become Koolhass’s eye’s Junk space.
In order for us to innovate and adapted the old time to the current, sometimes imagination play a big roles to help us innovate. Another case that imagination is helping us to innovate is the book Invisible cities. By using the object to describe the city we will all get different implication towards it because we all have different way to perceive. Utopia ideas help us innovate as well. It makes us have hope in the future and also make us look forward to the future. In both Ville Contemporaine from Le Corbusier and the Festival of Britain 1951, they both help us to look forward to the future. Especially for the Festival of Britain that is an attempt to give a sense of recovery and hope to Britain after Second World War.
In conclusion I think by understanding the peoples public life make me more understand about the principle of architecture. Which also help me to be more imaginative, as the message that Invisible cities try to deliver, our imagination is not necessarily limited by the laws of physics or the limitations of modern urban theory, which give us an alternative approach the perspective of cities.
Reference:
Koolhaas, Rem (2002) Junkspace. October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring), pp. 175-190.
Calvino, Italo (1978) Invisbile Cities
Atlee, Allan - Cultural Context Lectures
