Public Space and Relational Perspectives

Chiara Tornaghi, Sabine Knierbein

"Traditional approaches to space tend to view public space mainly as a shell or container, focussing on its morphological structures and functional uses and ignoring its ever-changing meanings, contested or challenged uses, and the fact that is an outcome of contextual and on-going dynamics between social actors, their cultures, and power relations. The key role of space in determining the structures of opportunities for social action, the fluidity of its social meaning and the changing degree of "publicness" of a space remains a highly neglected field of academic inquiry and professional practice. As Lefebvre identified, there are segmented and segmenting approaches to analysis and conceptualisation of space among (and within) academic disciplines, but particularly in architecture, planning and the social sciences. Four decades later, these dilemmas are still relevant. The editors...