There was a recent exhibition at the Glasgow Lighthouse on Cedric Price, and part of this was a handout newspaper on a number of student projects looking at public space in Glasgow. The teams each took a segment of Glasgow, starting from the centre and heading out, to consider public space available, and make interventions.
Cedric Price was a somewhat whimsical theorist, and the interventions were often whimsical.
Nevertheless the point remains, it is public space that makes our modern environment work, or frustrate. And looking at public space it is very often dismal. It is not intentionally bad, it was not designed by some Bond villain to drive us to despair, but it is uninspiring, unambitious, unnoticed, unloved, lacking in ability.
Public space is the space that falls between the bits that anyone cares about. Public space is the bits that we all own, but no one individual owns. Public space is that stuff that no one is proud of. Public space is the bits where we leave the litter to accumulate unless the council come to take it away.
But public space is, it is the space that defines our spaces. The tourists see public space, the visitors see public space, we see public space. It is the public space that creates the image of the city, the town, the village. We expect the bank to look impressive, we expect the expensive houses to look expensive, and run down ones to look run down. But it is the public space that sets the bar.
We should be more ambitious with public space, we should demand more from it. We should take more ownership of it. We should quietly clear away some of the junk and smarten it up.
We should celebrate the public space that works, and complain about the public space that does not.
You can tell when public space works. People walk, or drive slowly, they cycle, they sit. For really good public space people will walk dogs, or play, or sit outdoors eating or stop and talk. Public space can be designed, but it only works when people think it works. Too often it is designed to look good, without actually working. That peculiar branch of ergonomics where street furniture is designed to deter people from sitting too long, or even relaxing. Hence metal seats and stone benches.
It is people that make public space work, and we deserve better, and we should make it better.
