Reflections of Aesthetic Culture Composed by Cultural Memory on the Urban Space

Abstract

The method used in this study comprises of creating a literature research based on the concepts of culture, memory, cultural memory, aesthetics, art as the expression of aesthetics, and aesthetic culture and building a series of conceptual frameworks of aesthetics of urban space as a result of this reading and examining process. The approach that makes the basic proposition of this study is that “the examination of the physical structure that generates the general appearance of a city is insufficient to define urban aesthetics.” While the process and outcomes of the elements directing our culture, such as “social justice, quality of life, and ghettoization,” are the most prominent problems to be solved, we should prefer “innovative” attitudes, behaviors, methods, and means rather than “new” ones for development. Memory provides cultural transfer in every matter together with reminiscence. Cultural memory derives from customs and communication but is not identified by them. While human, capital, and culture mobilization are gaining impetus with globalization, cultural memory elements have become a consumption material and amnesia has risen. When we consider the relations between modernity and memory, we observe a constant progress and “memorylessness.” The real world that has no relation to an ideal has no aesthetical value. When the existence of aesthetics is considered, “criticism must be a vision of the world and a philosophical method.” This does not happen at a moment’s notice. Aesthetic perception is a kind of perception that discovers the infinite secret force that belongs to the object. We flourish as we perceive the richness of our surroundings. Besides, the most ethical judgment is aesthetic judgment. This is the sign that shows how important the concept of aesthetics is in our lives. Although we say there is a relative independence for aesthetic value, it can be a means of exploitation against the pragmatic value of the object it belongs to. In this respect, art as the carrier of cultural memory renews itself for the notion of building the ideal rather than rebuilding the reality. Spatial creations with applied arts reveal not only the technical improvement of a society but also the lifestyle, way of thinking, vision, understanding the ideals, and psyche of different social layers. Aesthetic culture is our way of life, reflected in urban space, that has been passed to us from our ancestors, is revealing our attitude and behaviors toward our surroundings naturally and unconsciously, by the summation of social experience, and is produced socially by our mental structure. Globalization threatens our cultural memory, and the culture industry jeopardizes our aesthetic culture. That’s why, urban aesthetics is under threat. Under these circumstances, reaching the ideal for aesthetics of urban spaces, based on today’s quality of life, the “unique” creativity in the reality of time with fictions, made with the help of art, embracing the self without denying universality, far from individual profit, in accordance with social decisions, must be inevitable.