sstillwell thesis article 11-21 sm

The Public Skyline: A Critical Method Thesis Article Fall 2011 Sean Stillwell Public Space: An Introduction Public space is a forum for the process of democracy at its most fundamental level where the "dominating" and the "dominated" occupy the same space and are made apparent to each other and, as described by Michael Sorkin in Politics of Propriquety, where "citizenship [is produced] through the repetitive confrontation of citizens" (Sorkin, 7). This confrontation is best manifested through: "democratic deliberat ion [which] is only possible in an environment that is conducive to both consensus and accident. This continual potential for conflict is vital to deliberation and marks the vigor of deference within culture. The design of urban systems demands a beautifully negotiat ed balance between the predictable and the unexpected in order to produce the largest number of accidental discursive events."(Sorki n, 6) In any site there will be difference of politics; politic being that which is in between people, or how people relate. In this difference there is an opportunity for discourse, resulting at the very best as enlightenment and reconciliation, and at the very least the chance for friction and illumination of that difference. The contemporary manner in which public space has been implemented is often at odds with Sorkin's conception of its most important utility. The 1985 San Francisco Downtown code, as an example, has created public spaces which are disconnected from the public they are meant to serve as well as each other, often inaccessible at off hours and on weekends, and mediated by the security of the building in which they are situated. Rafi Segal and Els Verbakel describe a public space of disper- sal: “Rather than a singular continuous sphere or space, the public today is better understood as a fragmentary interplay of multiple publics and multiple groups. The idea of a public sphere… no longer functions… as a place where opinions and ideas about society and state were formed and discussed… [the “public sphere”] has become an ‘arena for advertising’… [where] critical reasoni ng is seen to have shifted to other group (lawyers, doctors, [politicians, corporate America,] academ- ics) who engage in it un-publicly…” (Segal & Verbakel, 8) This thesis intends to investigate the process of implementation and activation of public space(s) in contemporary cites and how aspects of that process can be hijacked and re-conceptualize d to produce public space that can facilitate the discourse Sorkin describes. For any attempt to be feasible, the process of public space making needs to take into account several requirements: the ability for the space to be occupied by multiple individuals and groups, multiple reasons to occupy that space that will create difference within a broad usership, and a contextual understanding of the city within which these spaces will be situated.

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