Some about "The relationship between buildings, monuments, and the public square" in The City Reader

Original article from Camilo Sitte

Observation is a priority for humans. Watching people, walking streets and recognizing areas are naturally activities wich citizens can do only in cities. The creation of urban space is often expressed through real elements. "Urban designers often criticize how badly the built enviroment fits human needs; ugly, impersonal, dirty, dangerous, dysfunctional, race and render segregated areas dominate many large cities today"(...)".

From classical Greece and Roma, structures built human scale and public spaces. Sitte found the physical form of squares and plazas, the outline of cathedrals and public buildings, the location of statues and fountains. Moreover, he thought about scale and building materials, views and elevations, the perfect integration of ornamental features with functional buildings.

There are two powers in space, temporal and spiritual. Temporal is represented by factual elements. Spiritual is represented by mind conections. Buildings lay claim to so many satatues that comissions are needed to find new subjects to be represented. There is an enclosed character of the public square. Lynch says that we are continously engaged in the attempt to organize our sorroundings, to structure and identify them.

In fact, we conclude civic life in designed urban spaces can create a posibility to integration, recognition and evoque human scale. "If we could but stop again at those places where beauty never satiates, we could bear many dreary hours with new energies". It will be an emblematic time when we will have walked in the streets.

We can remake this issue in a near future...

text by Mateo Ramirez M.

06 - 03 - 2011