The Everyday Aesthetics of Public Space

• Authors: Mateusz Salwa
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The main claim of the article is that everyday aesthetics conceived as a philosophical analysis of everyday objects and situations offers a theoretical perspective that may be applied to the aesthetics of public space. Analysed in aesthetic terms, the public space may be thought to be a space that offers an aesthetic experience to the widest possible public. I contend that the aesthetic quality of public space should be a quality that favours positive experiences of the everyday, banal practices taking place in it. Accordingly, designing public space should consist in making it “everyday experience-friendly.” My argument will be illustrated by the example of a site-specific installation, the Oxygenator, created in Warsaw by Joanna Rajkowska, whose intention was to offer people an ordinary place where they could meet in a “healthy atmosphere.”

Keywords

EN

aesthetics; everyday aesthetics; public space; Joanna Rajkowska

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Philosophica. Ethica – Aesthetica – Practica
• Year: 2019
• Issue: 33
• Pages: 75-89

Dates

published

2019-06-30

Contributors

author

Mateusz Salwa

• University of Warsaw, Institute of Philosophy

• https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4988-8912

References

• Bal, Mieke. Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2002.
• Berleant, Arnold. “Ideas for a Social Aesthetic.” In The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by Andrew Light and Jonathan M. Smith, 23–38. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
• Berleant, Arnold. Re-thinking Aesthetics: Rogue Essays on Aesthetics and the Arts. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.
• Berleant, Arnold, and Allen Carlson, eds. The Aesthetics of Human Environments. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2007.
• Di Stefano, Elisabetta. Che cos’è l’estetica quotidianaa. Roma: Bulzoni, 2017.
• Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich. “Aesthetic Experience in Everyday Worlds: Reclaiming an Unredeemed Utopian Motif.” New Literary History 37, no. 2 (Spring, 2006): 299–318.
• Haapala, Arto. “On the Aesthetics of the Everyday: Familiarity, Strangeness, and the Meaning of Place.” In The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, edited by Andrew Light and Jonathan M. Smith, 39–55. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
• Leddy, Thomas. The Extraordinary in the Ordinary: The Aesthetics of Everyday Life. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2012.
• Light, Andrew, and Jonathan M. Smith, eds. The Aesthetics of Everyday Life. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
• Müller-Salo, Johannes. “Informed Aesthetic Consensus and the Creation of Urban Environments.” Polish Journal of Landscape Studies, no. 3–4 (2018).
• Oldenburg, Ray. “Our Vanishing “Third Places.” Planning Commissioners Journal 25, (1996/1997): 6–10.
• Olwig, Kenneth R. “Recovering the Substantive Nature of Landscape.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 86, no. 4 (1996): 630–653.
• Rancière, Jaques. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible, translated by Gabriel Rockhill. London: Continuum, 2006.
• Saito, Yuriko. Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and World-Making. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Saito, Yuriko. Everyday Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Sartwell, Crispin. Political Aesthetics. Ithaka: Cornell University Press, 2010.
• Shaftoe, Henry. Convivial Urban Spaces: Creating Effective Public Places. London: Earthscan, 2008.
• Świtek, Gabriela. Gry z architekturą. Nowoczesne powinowactwa i współczesne integracje. Toruń: Wydawnictwo UMK, 2013.
• Yuedi, Liu and Curtis L. Carter, eds. Aesthetics of Everyday Life: East and West. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholar Publishing, 2014.
• “Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage,” http://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/ Accessed December 15, 2018.
• Gorządek, Ewa. The Oxygenator – Joanna Rajkowska, posted January 2015, https://culture.pl/en/work/the-oxygenerator-joanna-rajkowska Accessed December 15, 2018.
• Obieg 1–2 (81–82), Dotleniacz /Oxygenator, 2010.
• Oxygenator. Grzybowski Square in Warsaw, documentary film by Joanna Rajkowska, 18:05, 2007, Poland. https://artmuseum.pl/en/filmoteka/praca/rajkowska-joanna-dotleniacz-plac-grzybowski-w-warszawie Accessed December 15, 2018.
• “Oxygenator 2007, Grzybowski Square, Warsaw; Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle.” http://www.rajkowska.com/en/projektyp/63 Accessed December 15, 2018 [the archival Rajkowska’s website still available at http://www.rajkowska.com/en/
• “The European Landscape Convention.” https://www.coe.int/en/web/landscape/about-the-convention Accessed December 15, 2018.
• “The International Protection of Landscapes conference results in Declaration on Landscape,” posted September 21, 2012. http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/943/ Accessed December 15, 2018.

Identifiers

DOI

10.18778/0208-6107.33.06