A Delicate Negotiated Condition:The Seminar, The Book & The Teaching Outcome

The answer to this question is not simple. The collective realm is seen as a basic element in ensuring positive social relations among individuals, as well as a chance for social inclusion in our cities. However, oftentimes these positive relationships take place less and less spontaneously. Private spaces are replacing public gathering, and when this happens, according to Margaret Kohn’s book, Brave New Neighborhoods: ThePrivatization of Public Space, “the opportunities are diminished.”2 This unbalanced situation is the point of departure of a critical teaching methodology, resulting from the conjunction of a seminar’s research titled “Politics of Balance” which has led to a recently published book: Manhattan’s PublicSpaces, Routledge, 2022. Both this seminar and book unpack architecture as the result of complex and multiple social, cultural, ecological, and economic relations. An idea that focuses on how public spaces manifest larger cultural, socioeconomic, ecological and political processes, and how their design and configuration impacts the nature and character of public experience.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.Teach.2023.70

Volume Editors
Massimo Santanicchia

ISBN
978-1-944214-44-9