CULTURAL ASYMMETRIES OF PUBLIC SPACE 2021 Lecture JONAH ROWEN and CRAIG L.WILKINS

Blog | Sep 29, 2021

LECTURE ABSTRACT: Recent history shows how public space can positively and negatively affect people from different ethnic and cultural groups. Urban areas as symbolic indicators can have high emotional registers and be simultaneously inviting or rejecting depending on the occupants. Discussions renew the debate of the multidimensionality of urban regimes concerning these asymmetries of urban space, especially in different minority groups. Making sense of these differences requires a multidimensional approach to envisioning urban design involving an understanding of the histories, the symbolism and effect of the attached emotional registers on different groups, and the presence of new voices in the imagination of public space. The aggregation of these ideas allows for a deeper insight into how conceptions of public space, urban visibility, and the addressing of public emotional registers in construction, oversight of, ownership of, and intersection with institutional racism. Departing from a preconception of equal access, the panel discusses collective rituals in streets, parks, and squares of city space and the design and management practices that should reflect various cultural experiences. The talk covers the need for designers and managers to know how places may be interpreted differently by different ethnic minority groups and work towards inclusive design.
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