Re: The private mall as public space.

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Subject: Re: The private mall as public space.
Date: 24 Apr 1996 15:57:33 GMT
Organization: University of Colorado at Boulder
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Jeremy,

>I don't know if the meaning of public space, what it means, what it does, how
>it is created, has ever been recently discussed in a sociology publication. If
>it has, I would very much appreciate anyone pointing me in the right
>direction.
        There is an author who will contribute incalculably to your
understandin of public as it exists as separate from private.  Her name
is Hanna Arendt.  Two works in particular stand out in my mind:  _The_
Human_Condition_ and _Hanna_Arendt,_the_Recovery_of_the_Public_World_.

        I think it is terribly exciting that you have turned to
sociology to solve your architectural problems.  Archetecture is an
exercise in soliology and the best architects new that.  The
relationship between form and function is only a guide if one truly
understands the function, and the question of what is a public space is
exactly the right question to get to that understanding.


>1) What are a mall's responsibilities to be a public space? Does it have any,
>or is it strictly there to make money?
        A mall is inherently a public space and making money a public
endeavour, because money only has value as defined by a society, and
because the rhetorical interaction between customer and client is prior to
the economic transaction.

>2)What does the future hold? As people face inwards and homewards (which
>includes the spread of the 'Net btw) will even this form of public space
>survive?
        Humans, as social creatures, must have a public life.  It can be
at a mall if you like, or it can be in a chat room online (there are new
issues when the public space becomes virtual, however)

>3)Does anyone want to comment on the Ancient Greek Agora, a place where the
>Stoa was not only a place for philosophy, but also one for economic and
>financial purposes? Is the mall simply a slickly modern update on this? What
>about the Roman Forums, the covered gallerias of the eighteenth and nineteenth
>centuries, and the early department stores (Journain, Eiffel,
>Richardson, Sullivan?).
        I think if you look at the differences, it comes in the
character of the interactions that take place there.  If you can find an
archetectural link to the changes, I would very much be interested in
seeing your analysis.  Let me suggest one that might get you thinking
(this might come, in fact from Arendt's analysis).  The Greek homes
(palatzas) of antiquity faced inward toward their court yard.  This was
a private space and the walls of the house helped to ensure it.
Conversely, There were no walls in the public spaces.  In modern homes in
the United States, there are large picture windows at the front in which
people can peer and see how beautifully furnished the houses are.  European
homes (built mostly centuries ago) still have the closed off features,
separating them distinctly into private spaces and public spaces.  It is
obvious the difference between the town square in Venice and the homes.  It
is also obvious the difference in the town square in downtown Boston and
homes, because the homes were build (some of them) a century ago.
        The question:  what happened in the last fifty years to the
character of public interaction that caused a shift in our understanding
of public and private, and how did architectural changes reflect that
shift?  Is part of the shift reflected in the shift from pedestrian
malls to strip malls, or from downtown shops to mega-malls?

        Good luck.  I would be very interested in your findings.

                                Yours,
                                Jim Boyd
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