Citizens' as others in public design

Abstract

Background Since the mid-2000s, has popular in South Korea. However, public design has been receiving criticism in South Korea since 2011, after being in vogue only for five or six years. The reasons for the decline are changes in the political geography, ignorance of the public, design practices without reflection, and so on. The planners and executors of public design misunderstood the meaning of or exploited the word for their profits. This study aims to uncover problems related to the concept of public design to understand and to interact with citizens and to propose a desirable model to relate with citizens. Methods Relevant literature was utilized to identify issues related to public design in this study. On the basis of these materials, not only the citizens but also the planners and executors in public design were studied by the critical narrative method. Results It was a big problem for the planners and executors of public design to consider public design as an activity to satisfy the eyes of people who experience the city in the context of its aesthetics. They understood a city as a target of spectators rather than as a space for life. However, a city is a space of life and citizens. ‘Citizens’ does not refer to community members to share their tastes, values, ideals, and so on. Citizens, who are not homogeneous members in a community but heterogeneous members in a society, do not share them. The planners and executors of public design can be divided into three types according to ways how they understand citizens. First type of planners and executors do not perceive the existence of the others. Second type of planners and executors know the existence of others, but they are considered as a problem. Third type of planners and executors understand the existence of others and explore how to communicate with them. The first type of subject is naive and ignorant. The second type of subject is self-centered and self-righteous. Not only politicians but also political designers correspond to one of two types. They have spoken as if the citizens were a single community with the term citizen. Then they superimposed their desires on the needs of citizens. It is not for citizens but for the subject of public design. These impure approaches have distorted public design practices. Conclusion Public design by a subject who does not perceive the existence of others or considers others as problems can easily degenerate into a work which embodies the subjects tastes, values, and interests. Only when citizens meet the subject who understands the existence of others and explores how to communicate with them, it becomes possible for public design to gain publicity. This type of subject can emerge only when we meet the citizens with interest, engagement, affection, and care like the relationship between a mother and her baby.