The city as an aesthetic space

Abstract

This paper uses the relational space paradigm to bridge some gaps between the field of aesthetics and the field of urban studies. By introducing the concept of aesthetic space, I analyze a particular sort of direct lived experience through which memories of the past, latent reality and the actualized perceived present are conjured together, informing one another. Studying the aesthetic space can help urban researchers better understand how the world becomes internalized or externalized by inhabitants, how they develop a stronger concern for justice, or how novelty is borne from a constant dialogue between the ethical and the aesthetic. Like many other social phenomena, aesthetic categories are emergent, meaning that categories with different qualities appear at each different scale. In this sense, aesthetic appreciation of the city as a whole cannot be solely understood as the sum of the aesthetic appreciations of its separate parts. The production of a scale as a societal problem is analyzed through the concept of style. A few examples are examined.