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Bridge essay #2: Observations from the readings
Jihyun Park
Integrative Seminar 2
Professor Tulk
Jun 9, 2015
There are many different and interesting observations to be made from the readings. Tony Hiss from The Experience of Place proposes that the position of the sun determines the sense of time for human body. Christopher, in his book, Pattern Language, sheds light on the importance of the position of buildings in creating out-door space. Lastly, in the book titled The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs discusses different aspects of sidewalks: the portrayal of social problem and encouragement of social life among the public.
Hiss investigates in his chapter “Simultaneous Perception” that the “position of the sun in the sky helps us orient ourselves to the time of the day and works to set a series of internal clocks.”[1]To fully understand what Hiss is suggesting, it is important to define what Internal clock is. Internal clock is the body system that determines time and automates the body: governing pattern of day and sleep in an individual. The clock automatically adjusts an individual to when he or she should feel dormant and when he or she should be active. Hiss suggests that the position of the sun helps this internal clock to be set. This statement seeming very plausible, on the other hand, raises a question on instances of jetlag. If internal clock is supposed to accustom to the position of the sun, why do people feel fatigued and sleepy when the sun is high up when they visit different countries? According to his statement, people should feel no difference to the different time zones and be able to adjust their internal clock to the sun right away. People should not take few days from even few weeks to adjust their bodies to the position of the Sun.
Another interesting point, which is mainly about the design of streets, can be observed from Alexander’s book, A Pattern Language. In his book, Christopher interposes an idea that people have to pay attention to how the buildings create out-door space. We can deduce this from his statement: “In positive outdoor space, we have described the fact that building are not merely placed in to the outdoors, but that they actually shape the outdoors. Since streets and squares have such enormous social importance, it is natural to pay attention to the way that they are shaped by building fronts.”[2] Here, he explains that a building is not just placed on a pre-built space, but instead the building is placed on a cleared out space that determines the shapes and spaces of the street that surround it. Then, depending on what shape has been created and how the building is orientated, it elicits a different ambience, making it a different environment. It’s much easier to understand this point by observing the contrast of the streets of two different places, Manhattan in New York and the Parthenon in Athens. In Manhattan, it is fairly effortless to recognize the streets filled with buildings with very small gaps in between them. Roads and spaces around the buildings create uniformed squared shapes which overall create a restricted pattern for people to move around the building, by either going straight, diagonal, or angular. The way the buildings are placed, therefore, delivers a cold and busy connotation to the viewers. On the contrary, Parthenon in Athens is placed in a circular way making its surrounding outdoor front less angled. This unrestricted pattern fairly gives more freedom for people to move without a certain instruction and it, therefore elicits a warmer feeling to the visitors. Another great example is the high line, a famous architecture in New York. An observatory bridge was created on preexisting “rusting steel architectures” which overall “created a nature and city coexisting in an outdoor space.”[3]
Jacobs discusses in her book Death of Great American Cities that “side walk public contract and sidewalk public safety, taken together, bear directly on our country’s most serious social problem – segregation and racial discrimination.”[4] Jacobs comments here that sidewalk portrays social problems such as that of segregation and racial discrimination. This instance can be observed by comparing two distinct places in New York, Upper West and Harlem. Although they are both located in the same city, each part of this city consists of a very contrasting culture. It is crucial to note that this difference is partly to the major race that composites the area. The types of things that each area merchandises are different accordingly. These overall elements can be implied by observing the style of sidewalks of each area. For instance, Upper West mainly contains uniformly shaped and single-colored sidewalks that give off a tidy and formatted feeling. The sidewalks have a more European feeling to it, which has no graffiti and is mostly filled with visitors. On the other hand, Harlem consists more of vibrancy where there are sidewalks painted with colors and graffiti. Some unpolished bricks and cements of the sidewalks give off an antique and affectionate feeling. Here, the sidewalks are mostly filled with neighbors. In a similar context, China faces social issues that are then portrayed similarly by the change in sidewalks. China are “facing issues: struggling with public space, density, how big buildings should they be, should they have history or not.”[5]As city changed as “part of economic development,”[6] the streets got narrower and busier creating crowded sidewalks and all sorts of social issues just like America is facing as described by Jacob in the text. Sidewalks illustrate that there is a social problem existing out there in the city.
In addition to this function of sidewalks, Jacobs, in her writing, supports an idea that “the point of both the testimonial banquet and the social life of city walks is precisely that they are public. They bring together people who do not know each other in an intimate private social fashion and in most cases do not care to know each other in that fashion.”[7] Streets enable people with similarities to bond and communicate to one another. For instance, if the sidewalk is full of supermarkets, people gathered for the same purpose will have a better chance to talk to each other about food and grocery. If the street is full of pet nurseries, there will be people with dogs and cats possibly sharing stories of their pets. According to Chang Yung Ho, a Chinese architect in the Urbanized, he “would take a walk after dinner on summer time and meet people”[8] on the streets. “Friends and relatives…[he] would stop and greet them.”[9] Street was a gathering place for him and his family. Streets and what is on the streets bring people together to communicate whereas they may have not even talked to one another if it weren’t the streets that made them interact. Sidewalks help cities to become a “self organize urbanism”[10] which means that it provides an environment where it “allows for a lot of individual initiative to happen”[11] and make them first approach the others with much less difficultly. In addition, by commuting via narrow sidewalks, people either purposely or accidentally come to interact with another like having a short conversation while waiting for the bus or bumping in to another while going to work.
To sum up, these observations from In the Experience of Place, A Pattern Language and The Death and Life of Great American Cities delivers intriguing perception about the function of the sun in terms of modulating human internal clock, position in creating outdoor fronts, and sidewalks in society. The three sources are interesting because they make the readers ruminate about variety of perspectives of structures that people live within their daily lives.
Bibliography
Alexander, Christopher. A Pattern Language . New York : Oxford University Press, 1977.
Hiss, Tony. The Experience of Place. New York: Alfred A.knopf INC, 1990.
Hustwit, Gary. “Urbanized” Recorded 10 26 2011. Swiss Dots Ltd 02 14 2012. DVD, Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qn8Ja8vFms.
Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities . Vintage Books, 1961.
[1] Tony Hiss, The Experience of Place, (New York: Alfred A.knopf INC, 1990), 23.
[2] Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language , (New York : Oxford University Press, 1977), 593.
[3] Hustwit, Gary, “Urbanized,” Edited by Shelby Siegel&Michael Culyba, DVD, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qn8Ja8vFms.
[4] Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities , (Vintage Books, 1961), 71.
[5] Hustwit, Gary, “Urbanized,” Edited by Shelby Siegel&Michael Culyba, DVD, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qn8Ja8vFms.
[6] Hustwit, Gary, “Urbanized,” Edited by Shelby Siegel&Michael Culyba, DVD, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qn8Ja8vFms.
[7] Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities , (Vintage Books, 1961), 54
[8] Hustwit, Gary, “Urbanized,” Edited by Shelby Siegel&Michael Culyba, DVD, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qn8Ja8vFms.
[9] Hustwit, Gary, “Urbanized,” Edited by Shelby Siegel&Michael Culyba, DVD, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qn8Ja8vFms.
[10] Hustwit, Gary, “Urbanized,” Edited by Shelby Siegel&Michael Culyba, DVD, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qn8Ja8vFms.
[11] Hustwit, Gary, “Urbanized,” Edited by Shelby Siegel&Michael Culyba, DVD, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qn8Ja8vFms.
