by CMYK » Fri Aug 29, 2014 12:57 pm
A question. If cities are very purposefully "designed" or engineered, even if it is meant to produce "vibrant and alive" neighborhoods, isn't that still taking away some degree of agency from those who will be living there? Kind of a "this is pretty and you will like it" determinism.
I have a (undeniably idealistic) vision in which the "ugliness" of modernism and brutalism presents the populace with a unified front to "rebel" against and make their own. That's why I find myself drawn to chipped concrete, shitty graffiti tags, and ledges waxed from skateboarders. Humanity finds a way. Has any thought/work/study been done on this type of thinking (perhaps not to the extreme degree mentioned above)? To me all the beautifully designed towns just seem creepy, insular, and cultish.
(full disclosure, all of my knowledge on this subject was learned from wikipedia pages, so pardon me if this is a dumb question)