Place (Architecture)

Environmental and Architectural Phenomenology, spring 2011 issue (vol. 22, no. 2)

by David Seamon

Feature essays: ENVIRONMENTAL AND ARCHITECTURAL PHENOMENOLOGY, spring 2011.

Feature essays in this issue... more Feature essays: ENVIRONMENTAL AND ARCHITECTURAL PHENOMENOLOGY, spring 2011.

Feature essays in this issue of EAP focus on landscape restoration and real vs. virtual animal dissections. 

In the issue’s first essay, Canadian educator Norm Friesen demonstrates how a phenomenological perspective contributes to understanding the lived differences between real and virtual realities. He focuses on laboratory vs. digitally-simulated animal dissections and draws on the ideas of Heideggerian philosopher Albert Borgmann to locate some of the pedagogical strengths and weaknesses of reality-based vs. hyperreal modes of learning.

In the issue’s second feature essay, retired Australian educator John Cameron writes a sixth “letter” from his rural home on Tasmania’s Bruny Island. His focus is the ecological restoration of some 50 acres of overgrazed paddocks, and the difficulties and satisfactions, both philosophical and practical, which arise from his decision to return the land to its “natural state.”

Back issues of EAP are now available at:

www.krex.k-state.edu/dspace/handle/2097/1522

David Seamon
Editor, EAP

Identity of the Modern City

by Jonathan Pyle

A short essay on the nature of Identity in modern architectural situations of the urban context. A short essay on the nature of Identity in modern architectural situations of the urban context.

Marketplace as Place Ballet: A Swedish Example

by David Seamon

Co-authored with Christina Nordin and originally published in LANDSCAPE, 1980, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 35-41.

Using a weekly outdoor marketplace in Varberg, Sweden, as a real-world example, this article explores the... more Using a weekly outdoor marketplace in Varberg, Sweden, as a real-world example, this article explores the phenomenological notion of place ballet--the interaction of individuals' habitual actions and routines in space, which becomes place. Varberg is a coastal town of about 20,000 located about fifty miles south of Goothenburg.  Varberg's outdoor maket has stood in the same place in the center of town for some 400 years and operates throughout the year on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Drawing on photographic, interview, and participant-observational materials, the authors identify two underlying patterns in Varberg's place ballet--regularity and unexpectedness.

Place, Place Identity, and Phenomenology

by David Seamon

A chapter in The Role of Place Identity in the Perception, Understanding, and Design of the Built Environment, Hernan Casakin, Ombretta Romice, & Sergio Porta, editors. London: Betham Science Publishers, 2011. © 2011 David Seamon.

As recent phenomenological studies have demonstrated (Casey 1997, 2009; Malpas 1999, 2006; Mugerauer 2008; Stefanovic... more As recent phenomenological studies have demonstrated (Casey 1997, 2009; Malpas 1999, 2006; Mugerauer 2008; Stefanovic 2000), the phenomenon of place is a multivalent structure sophisticated and complex in its existential constitution. In this chapter, I offer one phenomenological vantage point from which to examine this lived complexity. I contend that, as an integral structure of human life, place can be understood in terms of three dimensions: first, the geographical ensemble—i.e., the material environment, including both its natural and human-made dimensions; second, people-in-place, including individual and group actions, intentions, and meanings; and, third, spirit of place, or genius loci.

Drawing on the conceptual approach of “systematics” developed by the British philosopher J. G. Bennett, I argue that these three dimensions can engage in six different ways, each of which relates to one particular lived mode whereby place contributes to human life. These six modes are: (1) place interaction; (2) place identity; (3) place creation; (4) place intensification; (5) place realization; and (6) place release.

I argue that place identity is important for understanding the nature of place but is complemented by other modes of relationship that together help clarify the complexity and richness of place and place experience.

Merleau-Ponty, Perception, and Environmental Embodiment: Implications for Architectural and Environmental Studies

by David Seamon

chapter prepared for Carnal Echoes: Merleau-Ponty and the Flesh of Architecture, Rachel McCann and Patricia M. Locke, editors, forthcoming, 2012 or 2013. © David Seamon 2010.

In this chapter, I draw on Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy to explore environmental embodiment—the various lived ways,... more In this chapter, I draw on Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy to explore environmental embodiment—the various lived ways, sensorily and motility-wise, that the body in its pre-reflective perceptual presence engages and synchronizes with the world at hand, especially its architectural and environmental aspects. First, I consider Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of perception, giving particular attention to his claim that perception involves a lived dynamic between perceptual body and world such that aspects of the world—for example, the heavy hardness of a granite block or the cool smoothness of a chrome railing—are known because they immediately evoke in the lived body their experienced qualities.

Second, I consider the architectural and environmental significance of what Merleau-Ponty calls body-subject—pre-reflective corporeal awareness expressed through action and typically in sync with and enmeshed in the physical world in which the action unfolds. I focus on the taken-for-granted sensibility of body-subject to manifest in extended ways over time and space. I ask how routine actions and behaviors of individuals coming together regularly in an environment can transform that environment into a place with a unique dynamic and character—a lived situation I term place ballet. For both perception and body-subject, I consider how qualities of the physical and designable world—for example, materiality, form, and spatiality—contribute to the lived body’s engagement with and actions in the world.

Sorcery and spirits: Intercultural housing and place in Aboriginal Australia

by Kelly Greenop

TAG 2011 Session abstract: Exploring academic values and concepts: Have archaeologists lost the capacity to talk about inequality?

by Robin B. Weaver

ORGANISERS: Adrian Davis, University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, (pg329@tsd.ac.uk) and Robin Weaver, University of Birmingham, (rbw444@bham.ac.uk).

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SESSION... more --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SESSION ABSTRACT.

Identity has become a major touch-stone for archaeologists but have we neglected the roles of class and ideology in the construction and expression of different social identities?

Many archaeologists value the multi-vocal and ‘radically open’ character of postmodernism [1]. In academia generally, Marxian grand narratives, such as class, are out; ‘negotiated identities’ are in [2]. Meanwhile, class identity and ideology appear to be important in society: a 2010 study suggests that in Britain “There is high – and growing – concern about income inequality” [3]. Furthermore, 29% of people chose class-based terms (over gendered, age-specific, ethnic and religious identities) as their first choice to describe their social identity [4]. In this session we ask:

• What values do archaeologists hold and how are these generated, conceptualized and communicated to the public?
• Do web technologies really aid multi-vocality and a critical awareness of the past?
• How are class histories and conflicts portrayed by the UK heritage industry?
• Above all, in an increasingly unequal and class-aware society, should we place less emphasis on idealistic ‘being-in-the-world’ and rather more on the material realities of living, labouring and surviving within it?

This panel explores whether we do not actually require the concepts of class and ideology to be able to deal with social identity. Therefore, we ask: has postmodernism impoverished our ability to confront real inequality? The session culminates in a round table discussion of the individual papers and the issues raised, led by Iain Matheson (Philosophy, Glasgow).

References:
1. E.g. Hodder 1999. The Archaeological Process. London: Blackwell.
2. Hobsbawm 2010. How to Change the World. London: Little Brown.
3. National Centre for Social Research. 27TH Annual Report, 2010: http://www.natcen.ac.uk/media/606943/nat%20british%20social%20attitudes%20survey%20summary%201.pdf
4. National Centre for Social Research: British Social Attitudes Survey 2008: http://www.britsocat.com/Body.aspx?control=BritsocatMarginals&AddSuperMap=LBIdent1N&JumpCrossMarginals=yes

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PAPER TITLES AND RUNNING ORDER

1. Adrian Davis and Robin Weaver (Organisers). Introduction: Have Archaeologists Lost the Capacity to Talk About Inequality?

2. Athena Hadji, Open University of Cyprus: Gnosiotopia, the heterotopy of knowledge: archaeological academic practices and the creation of a disciplinary (fantasy) topos.

3. Lorna Richardson, University College, London: The Internet Delusion and Public Archaeology Online

4. Stella Souvatzi, Hellenic Open University: Re-approaching inequality, ideology and identity through contemporary social theory

5. David Sables, Trinity St. David’s: Class, Heritage and the Archaeology of the Peoples’ Century

6. Discussion: Ian Matheson, (Philosophy, Glasgow) as Discussant.

Violence sits in places? Cultural practice, neoliberal rationalism, and virulent imaginative geographies

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2011. Violence sits in places? Cultural practice, neoliberal rationalism, and virulent imaginative geographies. Political Geography. 30 (2), 90-98.

Through imaginative geographies that erase the interconnectedness of the places where violence occurs, the notion that... more Through imaginative geographies that erase the interconnectedness of the places where violence occurs, the notion that violence is 'irrational' marks particular cultures as ‘other’. Neoliberalism exploits such imaginative geographies in constructing itself as the sole providence of nonviolence and the lone bearer of reason. Proceeding as a ‘civilizing’ project, neoliberalism positions the market as salvationary to putatively ‘irrational’ and ‘violent’ peoples. This theology of neoliberalism produces a discourse that binds violence in place. But while violence sits in places in terms of the way in which we perceive its manifestation as a localized and embodied experience, this very idea is challenged when place is reconsidered as a relational assemblage. What this re-theorization does is open up the supposed fixity, separation, and immutability of place to instead recognize it as always co-constituted by, mediated through, and integrated within the wider experiences of space. Such a radical rethinking of place fundamentally transforms the way we understand violence. No longer confined to its material expression as an isolated and localized event, violence can more appropriately be understood as an unfolding process, derived from the broader geographical phenomena and temporal patterns of the social world.

Moving Landscapes, Making Place: Cities, Monuments and Commemoration at Malizi/Melid

by Ömür Harmansah

Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 24.1 (2011) 55-83.

The urbanization of Syro-Hittite (Luwian and Aramaean) states is one of most complex yet little explored regional... more The urbanization of Syro-Hittite (Luwian and Aramaean) states is one of most complex yet little explored regional processes in Near Eastern history and archaeology. In this study, I discuss aspects of landscape and settlement change in northern Syria and southeastern Anatolia during the Early Iron Age (ca. 1200–850 BC), and suggest that the emergent geo-politics of the region involved the foundation of cities and construction of specific types of commemorative monuments including rock reliefs, steles and city gates. While defining new forms of territorial power, these monuments linked local polities to a shared Hittite past through their literary and visual rhetoric, and a discourse of inherited agricultural land. To contextualize the subject matter, I first discuss the gradual southward shift of an imperial Hittite center of power from central Anatolia towards Karkamiš and Tarhuntašša at the end of the Late Bronze Age, arguing against the widespread models of a sudden collapse of the Hittite Empire followed by dark ages. Furthermore, I present archaeological
and epigraphic evidence for the formation of the regional state Malizi/Melid. This Syro-Hittite kingdom established itself in the Malatya-Elbistan Plains in eastern Turkey during the first centuries of the Early Iron Age as one of the earliest political entities to emerge from the ashes of the Hittite Empire. Monuments raised by Malizean ‘country lords’ in rural and urban contexts suggest a picture of a fluid landscape in transition, one that was configured through the construction of cities, and other practices of place-making.

Global competitiveness versus community identity: Can culture be the answer to managing this uneasy balance in towns and cities?

by Andres Coca-Stefaniak

Editorial article published in Journal of Town and City Management (http://www.henrystewart.com/jtcm.aspx)

City management partnerships as shapers of urban strategy and providers of cost-effective solutions to local problems

by Andres Coca-Stefaniak

Editorial article published in Journal of Town and City Management (http://www.henrystewart.com/jtcm.aspx)

Uncomfortable strategic truths: A time to pause, reflect and ponder on the need for meaningful change in our towns and cities?

by Andres Coca-Stefaniak

Editorial article published in Journal of Town and City Management (http://www.henrystewart.com/jtcm.aspx)

From Artwork to Place: Finding the Voices of Moreelse, Bacon and Beuys at the Hermeneutical Intersection of Culture and Nature

by Forrest Clingerman

Published in Environmental Philosophy 8, no. 1 (2011): 1-24.

Please contact me for an electronic copy.

This essay investigates the correlation between theological investigations of culture and those of the natural world.... more This essay investigates the correlation between theological investigations of culture and those of the natural world. A fruitful question emerges when reflecting on how theological thinking resides between these subjects: how does our theological reflection on art meaningfully inform our consideration of nature? The path to exploring this question takes the form of questioning three different works of art: Willem Moreelse’s A Portrait of a Scholar, Francis Bacon’s Landscape, and Joseph Beuys’ Lightning with Stag in Its Glare. Exploring the interconnection between these works, a hermeneutical mediation between art, place, and the spiritual is suggested.

Grasping the Dynamism of Urban Place: Contributions from the Work of Christopher Alexander, Bill Hillier, and Daniel Kemmis

by David Seamon

Originally published as chapter 7 in Tom Mels, editor, Reanimating Places: A Geography of Rhythms, London: Ashgate,2004 (pp. 123-45).

In this chapter, I examine how the ideas of three current researchers—architect Christopher Alexander, architectural... more In this chapter, I examine how the ideas of three current researchers—architect Christopher Alexander, architectural theorist Bill Hillier, and political philosopher Daniel Kemmis—provide important new insights for understanding the urban lifeworld and for making more vibrant places. I argue that these thinkers’ conceptions of place, though considerably different in some ways, can be drawn together to offer a powerful understanding of how physical-spatial and human worlds might mutually sustain each other by bringing human beings together informally and thereby generating a sense of togetherness, particularly in cities. In turn, this possibility of spontaneous geographical gathering can support a liveliness of place and one kind of implicit environmental belonging.

A Lived Hermetic of People and Place: Phenomenology and Space Syntax

by David Seamon

Published in: A. Sema Kubat et al., eds., Proceedings, 6th International Space Syntax Symposium, vol. 1, pp. iii-1-16. Istanbul: ITU, Faculty of Architecture (2007).

This paper examines ways in which a phenomenological approach might contribute to space syntax research, drawing on... more This paper examines ways in which a phenomenological approach might contribute to space syntax research, drawing on three themes that mark the heart of phenomenological investigation: (1) understanding grounded in real-world experience; (2) human immersion in world; and (3) describing the lifeworld—a person or group’s everyday world of taken-for-grantedness of which the person or group is typically unaware. A major phenomenological question is how space syntax concepts, particularly the spatial configuration of the “deformed grid,” point toward a particular kind of place structure in which the spatial-temporal regularity of individual participants potentially coalesces into a larger environmental dynamic—what is termed “place ballet”—that both sustains and is sustained by an attachment to and a sense of place.

Key words: body, body-subject, deformed grid, phenomenology, place, place ballet

Interpreting Heaven and Earth: The Theological Construction of Nature, Place, and the Built Environment

by Forrest Clingerman

Published in Nature, Space and the Sacred. Edited by Sigurd Bergmann, Peter Scott, Heinrich Bedford Strohm and Maria Jansdotter, Ashgate Publishing, 2009.

Walking into the Frame: A Theological Exploration of Pilgrimage along Anton Mauve’s A Dutch Road

by Forrest Clingerman

Published in Literature and Theology: An International Journal of Religion, Theory and Culture 23, no. 1 (March 2009): 18-32.

To offer a contemporary theological interpretation of pilgrimage, how might we describe the meaning of journeying and... more To offer a contemporary theological interpretation of pilgrimage, how might we describe the meaning of journeying and illustrate its spiritual depth? Integrating insights from the theology of culture and the theology of place, a philosophical theology of pilgrimage defines spiritual journeying as a uniquely dialectical movement of place and movement, being and action, dwelling and mobility. To show this, the first part of the essay provides an interpretation of a work of art, by investigating the unlikely but evocative description of pilgrimage found in the painting by Anton Mauve called A Dutch Road. In a reflection on this painting, the meaning of pilgrimage is found by walking into the frame of the canvas. Second, a more critical examination of a Christian theology of pilgrimage is developed as a response to Mauve's painting. The movement of the traveler can be shown as the identification of the Christian with the communio viatorum, as well as in the movement between journey and destination. Thus, within the surface of a painting, we find an important portrayal of the relationship between finite and infinite as it appears in human journeys.

The Intimate Distance of Herons: Theological Travels Through Nature, Place, and Migration

by Forrest Clingerman

Published in Ethics, Place & Environment: A Journal of Philosophy and Geography 11, no. 3 (October 2008): 313-25

In a theological understanding of nature, what is the significance of herons? This article reflects on the question of... more In a theological understanding of nature, what is the significance of herons? This article reflects on the question of herons by first describing how bird migration can be included in a theological approach to nature. To explore the theological meaning of migration, theology must model nature as defined by the idea of 'emplacement'. Next, it investigates how the migration of herons challenges and complements our sense of dwelling by detailing the different ways that herons are emplaced as migratory birds. It concludes by offering three insights into the place of herons in a philosophical theology of nature. First, migrating herons and other non-human animals penetrate into nature as both radically particular creatures and anonymously general ones. Second, herons push us to understand the theological meaning of the otherness of Otherness. Third, non-human animals remind us to move beyond solipsistic views of our emplacement. Together with a general description of the elements of emplacement that are added by the migration of herons, we see how we are theologically influenced by the 'intimate distance' of herons.

Reading the Book of Nature: A Hermeneutical Account of Nature for Philosophical Theology

by Forrest Clingerman

Published in Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology 13, no 1 (2009): 72-91.

How can we read nature as a revelatory text? This essay argues for a re-opening of the Book of Nature for... more How can we read nature as a revelatory text? This essay argues for a re-opening of the Book of Nature for philosophical theology. I first will summarize the traditional use of the metaphor of the Book of Nature. But this “book” was closed when science discarded the metaphor of divine authorship as unnecessary. We can re-open nature as a text by discovering the textuality of nature, which in turn presents a reemergence of text itself. From this, we can point to a revelatory nature of nature. The import of the text of nature comes from a reflexive, meditative reading, which sees the way in which the world of the text—and simultaneously the world as text—interacts with/as the world of the reader. The world that we encounter through reading is the very world of our existence—we are encountering the world that forms the foundation of the world from which we read.