Back to Phenomenological Placemaking

Once the main issue on the agenda of urban design, placemaking has lost its central position, although it is still an unaccomplished endeavour. This paper describes the metamorphosis of urban design at the beginning of the 1990s, and argues that the process involved disillusion and discreditation of phenomenological placemaking. Close examination shows that the criticism, although compelling, does not preclude the possibility of phenomenological investigation of place. In this respect, attention is directed to Merleau-Ponty. Potentially, this may both satisfy the request for open-endedness and constant re-interpretation of urban places, and provide insights for new creation.

[1]  R. Varkki George,et al.  A procedural explanation for contemporary urban design , 1997 .

[2]  H. Molotch,et al.  Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place , 1987 .

[3]  Franco Borsi,et al.  Architecture and Utopia , 1997 .

[4]  Charles Jencks,et al.  The language of post-modern architecture , 1977 .

[5]  Gordon Cullen.  The Concise Townscape , 1971 .

[6]  E. Blakely,et al.  Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States , 1997 .

[7]  Kevin Lynch,et al.  A Theory of Good City Form , 1981 .

[8]  James S. Duncan,et al.  The Power of Place: Bringing Together Geographical and Sociological Imaginations , 1989 .

[9]  J. Habermas.  Theory of Communicative Action , 1981 .

[10]  E. Relph.  Place and placelessness , 1976 .

[11]  Simon Sheikh.  The Production of Space , 1996 .

[12]  Ali Madanipour,et al.  Design of Urban Space: An Inquiry into a Socio-Spatial Process , 1996 .

[13]  S. Langer.  Feeling and Form , 1953 .

[14]  Maurice Merleau-Ponty.  Phenomenology of Perception , 1964 .

[15]  M. Sorkin.  Variations on a Theme Park , 1992 .

[16]  G. Broadbent.  Emerging concepts in urban space design , 1990 .

[17]  R. Home,et al.  Inner City Regeneration , 1982 .

[18]  Christopher Alexander,et al.  The Timeless Way of Building , 1979 .

[19]  David Harvey,et al.  Social Justice, Postmodernism and the City* , 1992 .

[20]  J. Jacobs.  The Death and Life of Great American Cities , 1962 .

[21]  Richard Kearney,et al.  Poetics of Imagining: From Husserl to Lyotard , 1991 .

[22]  J. Lang,et al.  Urban Design: The American Experience , 1994 .

[23]  D. Massey.  Space, Place, and Gender , 1994 .

[24]  Gregory Ashworth,et al.  Book Review: Selling places: the marketing and promotion of towns and cities 1850–2000 , 2000 .

[25]  J. T.,et al.  Creative Evolution , 1911, Nature.

[26]  Jonathan D. Sime,et al.  Creating places or designing spaces , 1986 .

[27]  Nigel Thrift,et al.  Dead Geographies—And How to Make Them Live , 2000 .

[28]  A. Duany.  Towns and town-making principles , 1991 .

[29]  D. Harvey,et al.  The Condition of Postmodernity , 2020, The New Social Theory Reader.

[30]  M. Boyer.  The city of collective memory , 1994 .

[31]  Y. Tuan,et al.  Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. , 1978 .

[32]  C. Norris,et al.  Deconstruction: Theory and Practice. , 1983 .

[33]  R. Sennett.  The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities , 1991 .

[34]  Bill Hillier,et al.  The social logic of space: Contents , 1984 .

[35]  D. Hendrick,et al.  Introduction , 1998, Thorax.

[36]  Thomas W. Schurch,et al.  Reconsidering urban design: Thoughts about its definition and status as a field or profession , 1999 .