UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
Date:______
I, ______, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in:
It is entitled:
This work and its defense approved by:
Chair: ______
Embodying Civil Society in Public Space: Re-envisioning the Public Square of Mansfield, Ohio
A thesis submitted to the
Division of Research and Advanced Studies of the University of Cincinnati
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE
in the School of Architecture and Interior Design of the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning
2005
by
Seth Douglas Wilschutz
B. S. Architecture, University of Cincinnati, 2003
Committee Chair: Gordon Simmons Abstract
Public architecture that frames civic space, enlivens political debate, and
embodies democratic ideals is the focus of this thesis. In the United States, civic architecture historically sought to express the purposes and ideals of the new
institutions of a representative democracy. Civic architecture further shaped and
bounded the civic sphere of public discourse. The decline of the public realm in
the nineteenth century has, by extension, resulted in a decline of the civic realm.
This thesis investigates how civic architecture can best reflect and embody, represent and nurture, a civil society appropriate to a twenty-first century representative democracy, while seeking to frame a contemporary civic realm.
The analysis continues to the symbolic and spatial evocations of civil society ideals within American architecture, and an investigation into the changing concepts of civic architecture. Finally, the design project seeks to express and realize such civil society ideals through an urban design project for the public square of Mansfield, Ohio, and the design of a new county courthouse.
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Table of Contents
List of Illustrations & Diagrams...... 3 Introduction...... 10
PART I: Public Space, Civil Society, Democracy, & Architecture 1: Declining Civic Realms and the Importance of Civic Architecture ...... 14 2: The Public and Civic Realms Inherited...... 22 Historical Developments: The Greek Agora...... 24 The Public Realm in Early American History...... 28 The Contemporary Crisis of Public Space ...... 32 Emerging Technologies and Virtual Space ...... 34 Imagery in Civic Place Making ...... 37 3: Civil Society and Civic Realism...... 46 Civil Society ...... 46 Civic Realism...... 51 4: Civic Realism and Democracy in Practice...... 60 The Piazza del Campo, Siena...... 62 The National Mall, Washington, D.C...... 74 Santa Barbara County Courthouse ...... 85 Marin County Civic Center...... 93
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PART II: Re-envisioning the Public Square of Mansfield, Ohio
5: Mansfield and its Public Square...... 102 Early History ...... 108 The Court Houses of Richland County...... 109 Demographics and Social Conditions ...... 116 Civic Realism in Mansfield...... 121 6: Program for a County Courthouse...... 131 Program Summary ...... 131 Space Requirements ...... 133
Conclusion ...... 148 Works Cited...... 152
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List of Illustrations & Diagrams
Introduction 0.1 The Plaça dels Paϊsos Catalans, Barcelona ...... 10 (University of Virginia School of Architecture [online]) 0.2 Siena’s Piazza del Campo and Palazzo Pubblico ...... 11 (Photograph by QT Luong/terragalleria.com, used with permission.) 0.3 Mansfield’s Public Square ...... 12 (Photograph by author.)
Part I: Public Space, Civil Society, Democracy & Architecture 1: Declining Civic Realms & the Importance of Civic Architecture 1.1 Boston City Hall and Plaza ...... 14 (Bennett, 67) 1.2 Shopping Mall, Connecticut ...... 16 (AP Photograph, Bob Child, 1997, used with permission.) 1.3 Franklin Square Park, Philadelphia ...... 16 (AP Photograph, H. Rumph, Jr,1997, used with permission.) 1.4 Revolution Square, Romania, 1989 ...... 16 (The Embassy of Romania to the Kingdom of Norway [online]) 1.5 University of Virginia Academic Village ...... 19 (University of Virginia Library [online])
2: The Public and Civic Realms Inherited 2.1 Detail, Flagellation of Christ, Piero della Francesca, 1455 ...... 22 (Courtesy of ARTstor Digital Library.) 2.2 Greek Agora Model ...... 24 (Jencks, 11) 2.3 Reconstruction of the Bouleterion ...... 24 (Jencks, 13) 2.4 Athenian Agora Plan, c. 300 B.C...... 26 (Suzanne [online])
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2.5 Independence Square, Kiev, Ukraine ...... 27 (AP Photograph, used with permission.) 2.6 Governor’s Palace Portico, Santa Fe ...... 28 (Greenspun [online], used with permission.) 2.7 Jackson Square, New Orleans ...... 28 (Photograph by Gary Pirnat, used with permission.) 2.8 Mansfield Sanborne Fire Insurance Map, 1850 ...... 29 (Henney, 92) 2.9 US Capitol, West Façade ...... 30 (Courtesy of ARTstor Digital Library.) 2.10 Shopping Mall, Connecticut ...... 30 (AP Photograph, Bob Child, 1997, used with permission.) 2.11 Salon in the Rue des Moulins, Toulouse-Lautrec, 1894 ...... 32 (Courtesy of ARTstor Digital Library.) 2.12 Kennedy-Nixon Debates, 1960 ...... 32 (Courtesy of ARTstor Digital Library.) 2.13 View of National Mall Looking East, 1989 ...... 36 (Longstreth, 246) 2.14 Corridors Diagram ...... 39 (Vale, 424) 2.15 Traces Diagram ...... 40 (Vale, 428) 2.16 Watches Diagram ...... 41 (Vale, 432) 2.17 Mount Vernon ...... 41 (Digital Library Federation Academic Image Cooperative, courtesy of ARTstor Digital Library.) 2.18 Ways Diagram ...... 41 (Vale, 435) 2.19 Boston State House ...... 42 (Courtesy of ARTstor Digital Library.)
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3: Civil Society and Civic Realism 3.1 Civil Society Diagram ...... 46 (Diagram by author.) 3.2 Civil Society Developmental Roles Diagram ...... 48 (Diagram by author.) 3.3 Speaker’s Corner, Hyde Park, London ...... 49 (Photograph by Günter Krumme, used with permission.) 3.4 Skating in Central Park, New York City, 1890 ...... 53 (Courtesy of ARTstor Digital Library.) 3.5 Civil Society Normative Dimensions Diagram ...... 56 (Diagram by author.) 3.6 Civil Society Balancing Tests Diagram ...... 56 (Diagram by author.)
4: Civic Realism and Democracy in Practice 4.1 Correlations Among Dimensions, Balancing Tests, and Architectural Design Implications, and Precedents ...... 61 (Compiled by author.) 4.2 Piazza del Campo, Siena ...... 62 (Photograph by QT Luong/terragalleria.com, used with permission.) 4.3 Aerial Photograph, Piazza del Campo ...... 67 (Photograph by QT Luong/terragalleria.com, used with permission.) 4.4 The Palio in the Piazza del Campo ...... 72 (AP Photograph, Fabio Muzzi, used with permission.) 4.5 Piazza del Campo, Surrounding Buildings ...... 73 (Photograph by QT Luong, terragalleria.com, used with permission.) 4.6 L’Enfant Plan, Washington, DC, 1791 ...... 74 (Longstreth, 174) 4.7 1863 National Mall Photograph ...... 75 (Longstreth, 205) 4.8 Senate Park Commission Plan, 1901, Comparative Details ...... 76 (Longstreth, 208) 4.9 Civil Rights March on Washington, DC, 1963 ...... 79 (Longstreth, 244)
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4.10 Downing’s 1851 Plan for the National Mall ...... 81 (Longstreth, 188) 4.11 Robert Mills’ 1841 Plan for the National Mall ...... 81 (Longstreth, 186) 4.12 View of National Mall Looking East, 1989 ...... 83 (Longstreth, 246) 4.13 Mall Walking Path Adjacent to Reflecting Pool, 1987 ...... 84 (Longstreth, 247) 4.14 Historic Santa Barbara Courthouse and Public Records Bldg. ... 85 (Gebhard, 16) 4.15 Edgar Mathews Competition Entry, 1919 ...... 85 (Gebhard, 17) 4.16 Anacapa Street, Courthouse Design Elevation ...... 86 (Gebhard, 24) 4.17 Santa Barbara Courthouse Plan ...... 86 (Gebhard, 30) 4.18 “Spirit of the Ocean” Fountain by Ettore Cadorin ...... 87 (Gebhard, 36) 4.19 View Through Main Arch ...... 87 (Gebhard, 28) 4.20 Figueroa Wing, Garden Façade ...... 87 (Gebhard, 47) 4.21 Sunken Garden ...... 88 (Gebhard, 56) 4.22 Anacapa Street Photograph, Tower and Entry Arch ...... 90 (Gebhard, 39) 4.23 Old Spanish Days Fiesta, Santa Barbara ...... 92 (Old Spanish Days Fiesta [online]) 4.24 Old Spanish Days Fiesta, Santa Barbara ...... 92 (Old Spanish Days Fiesta [online]) 4.25 Hall of Justice, Marin County Civic Center...... 93 (Bennett, 59) 4.26 Marin County Civic Center Site Plan ...... 93 (Bennett, 59)
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4.27 Administration Building, Aerial View ...... 93 (Bennett, 61) 4.28 Marin County Civic Center “Mall” ...... 97 (Bennett, 61)
Part II: Re-envisioning the Public Square of Mansfield, Ohio 5: Mansfield and its Public Square 5.1 Parking Conditions, Downtown Mansfield ...... 102 (Adapted from Mansfield Alliance, 33) 5.2 Mansfield Carrousel District ...... 103 (Mansfield Alliance, 29) 5.3 Mansfield’s Historic Building Stock ...... 103 (Photograph by author.) 5.4 Ohio State Reformatory, Mansfield, 1980 ...... 103 (Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society [online]) 5.5 Miss Ohio Parade, Mansfield ...... 104 (Lincoln Highway National Museum and Archives [online]) 5.6 Mansfield’s Public Serving Facilities ...... 104 (Mansfield Alliance, 16) 5.7 Zoning, Downtown Mansfield ...... 105 (Adapted from Mansfield Alliance, 27) 5.8 Existing Uses in Downtown Mansfield ...... 105 (Mansfield Alliance, 23) 5.9 Downtown Districts of Mansfield ...... 106 (Mansfield Alliance, 28) 5.10 Richland Carrousel Park ...... 107 (Richland Carrousel Park Inc. [online]) 5.11 Renaissance Theater and District ...... 107 (Mansfield Alliance, 29) 5.12 Industrial Flats District ...... 107 (Mansfield Alliance, 29) 5.13 Mansfield’s First Block Courthouse ...... 109 (Henney, 89)
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5.14 Mansfield’s Third Courthouse ...... 111 (Henney, 91) 5.15 Mansfield Sanborne Fire Insurance Map, 1850 ...... 111 (Henney, 92) 5.16 Mansfield’s Remodeled Third Courthouse ...... 112 (Henney, 93) 5.17 Mansfield’s Fourth Courthouse ...... 113 (Henney, 97) 5.18 Mansfield’s Fourth Courthouse with Mansard Roof ...... 114 (Henney, 101) 5.19 Mansfield’s Fourth Courthouse with Clock Tower ...... 114 (Henney, 103) 5.20 Mansfield’s County Courthouse ...... 115 (Photograph by author.) 5.21 Mansfield’s County Courthouse ...... 115 (Photograph by author.) 5.22 Mansfield Household Change, 1990-2000 ...... 116 (Mansfield Alliance, 59) 5.23 Korean War Monument ...... 117 (Photograph by author.) 5.24 North Main Street Comparison Photographs ...... 118 (Mansfield Alliance, 41) 5.25 Park Avenue Comparison Photographs ...... 119 (Mansfield Alliance, 42) 5.26 City Hall Comparison Photographs ...... 119 (Mansfield Alliance, 43) 5.27 Courthouse Square Comparison Photographs ...... 120 (Mansfield Alliance, 42) 5.28 Civic Realism in Mansfield ...... 121-128 (Compiled by author.)
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6: Program for a County Courthouse 6.1 Court Facility and Circulation Diagram ...... 140 (Adapted from US Courts Design Guide, 3-11) 6.2 Courtroom and Ancillary Facilities, Adjacencies Diagram ...... 142 (Adapted from US Courts Design Guide, 4-7) 6.3 Standard Courtroom Illustrative Plan ...... 143 (Adapted from US Courts Design Guide, 4-15) 6.4 Judges’ Chambers Suite, Adjacencies Diagram ...... 144 (Adapted from US Courts Design Guide, 5-3) 6.5 Trial Jury Room and Support Spaces, Adjacencies Diagram ... 145 (Adapted from US Courts Design Guide, 7-5) 6.6 Grand Jury Facilities, Adjacencies Diagram ...... 146 (Adapted from US Courts Design Guide, 7-7) 6.7 Court Clerk’s Suite, Adjacencies Diagram ...... 147 (Adapted from US Courts Design Guide, 9-3)
Conclusion 7.1 Friday of Dolores Celebration, Xochimilco, Mexico City ...... 149 (Xochimilco Delegation [online]) 7.2 Piazza del Campo, Surrounding Buildings ...... 150 (Photograph by QT Luong, terragalleria.com, used with permission.)
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Introduction
This thesis discusses the making and shaping of urban public spaces that are civic in character. Of importance are how such places are created and the social, political, and cultural circumstances that bring them into Figure 0.1 – The Plaça dels Paϊsos Catalans in Barcelona by Piñón and Viaplana. being. It is about the shape and appearance of such spaces, how they can reflect and embody the ideals of a democratic society, and how the architecture that frames them provides settings for civic debate and civic culture. In short, this thesis is about civic place-making.
The civic realm is a component of the broader public realm and Chapter 1 introduces this distinction as well as the overall decline of the public realm and, by extension, its political component. This chapter further introduces conceptual notions of civil society, the political theory discourse that frames the argument that civic space is a vital component of the public realm in a representative democracy.
Public and civic realms are examined in detail in Chapter 2. Beginning with a discussion of “public,” as framed by philosopher Hannah Arendt, the discussion follows with a historical analysis of the public realm beginning with ancient Greece and proceeding through early American history. The decline of public and civic realms is discussed in detail, as are their contemporary
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manifestations. This chapter asks what it is when we find ourselves together in a
political space that we must recognize as common – both its name and the terms
by which we define it. The last section of this chapter focuses on the affects of
modern technologies, such as the Internet, on the public realm and the role of imaging in the creation of contemporary public space.
Civility in democratic society, and its architectural expression, frame the
discussions in Chapter 3. Using Peter Rowe’s analytical framework, this chapter
seeks to define the dimensions that characterize civic realism, and thus enable
designers, politicians, and the public to create viable civic spaces. Four
normative dimensions and five balancing tests are posited for the social
production of civic space.
With a better understanding of civility,
its architectural realism, and the many
nuances intrinsic to discussions about the
public and political spheres, Chapter 4
undertakes a precedent analysis through
Rowe’s analytical framework outlined in the
prior chapter. Beginning with an example
that has contemporary pertinence and has
withstood the test of time, Siena and its
Piazza del Campo stand out as a place
where civic life, civic imagination, and civic Figure 0.2 – Siena’s Piazza del Campo responsibilities have been inscribed in and Palazzo Pubblico.
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space. The analysis continues with American precedents, including the
Washington Mall, the Marin County Civic Center, and the Santa Barbara County
Courthouse.
Part II focuses on the design project – the
public square of Mansfield, Ohio. The
square, originally a prototypical nineteenth
century American courthouse square,
provides an architectural and urban design
project with which to implement Rowe’s
guidelines to revive the civic character of
Mansfield’s historic city center. Chapter 5
presents a social, historical, and physical
Figure 0.3 – Mansfield’s public square. analysis of the site, while Chapter 6 outlines
the program requirements for a new county
courthouse, a county/city library, and
additional programmatic functions required
to restore civic life and civic aspirations to
Mansfield’s public square.
Part I
Public Space, Civil Society, Democracy & Architecture Wilschutz 14
Chapter 1: Declining Civic Realms and the Importance of Civic Architecture
Civic architecture is a broad topic. Before an examination of civic architecture and its embodiment of democracy can occur, it is necessary to examine “civic architecture” and “democracy.” Each has a range of meanings that are as wide and varied as they are subtle and nuanced. Civic architecture is an extension of the civic realm of public discourse. Thus, an understanding of the decline of the public realm in American cities provides a frame through which to view the more specific topic of this thesis – public architecture that provides settings for civic debate and civic culture. Likewise, if civic architecture is to embody the time and place of its construction, we must necessarily reflect upon the status of the government and society in which it is located. Thus, reflection and analysis of the trends and issues in a contemporary American democracy as they relate to the civic realm are necessary to a study of public architecture.
In The Fall of Public Man, Richard
Sennett, chair and professor of the sociology department at the London School of Economics, explores the psychological depths of public and private and how people participate in the public realms of the city.1 Public space grew in importance
Figure 1.1 – Boston’s City Hall plaza is vast in scale and rarely used by the public.
Wilschutz 15 between the fall of Rome and the eighteenth century, but has been in decline since the rise of secularism in the nineteenth century. Sennett describes a legacy from the nineteenth century crisis of public life: involuntary disclosure of character, superimposition of public and private imagery, defense through withdrawal, and silence. He argues that we have grown accustomed to the supremacy of intimate private life, “the consequences of which may be seen in the ‘dead public spaces’ [Figure 1.1] of our modern architecture that reflect and reinforce our isolation and self absorption.”2
Discussing public life today, Sennett contends that civic affairs have become “a matter of formal obligation. Most citizens approach their dealings with the state in a spirit of resigned acquiescence.”3 The problem is a blurring of boundaries, as the world of intimate feeling is no longer restrained by the public world. He writes of public spaces, specifically:
Intimate vision is induced in proportion as the public domain is abandoned as empty. On the most physical level, the environment prompts people to think of the public domain as meaningless. This is in the organization of space in cities. Architects… are among the few professionals who are forced to work with the present-day ideals of public life, such as they are, and indeed are among the few professionals who of necessity express and make these codes manifest to others.4
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Nathan Glazer argues in The
Public Face of Architecture that a
substantial change has taken place in
the manner of public gathering.5 The occasions and the purposes have changed throughout time, becoming Figure 1.2 – A shopping mall in Waterbury, Connecticut (1997), illustrates one example of the increasingly commercial modes of less political and more commercial public gathering in the United States.
[Figure 1.2]. Glazer asks what differences exist among streets, hotel lobbies, parks, and the Washington
Mall. J.B. Jackson, teacher of landscape history at Harvard University and UC Berkeley, identifies the specific Figure 1.3 – A homeless person sleeps on a bench in Franklin Square Park in difference between the functioning of Philadelphia (1997). civic spaces today and those of the past. Arguing that contemporary discourse describes the public square, and civic space generally, in terms of gregariousness, or “how it offers a spatial experience shared by a Figure 1.4 – Revolution Square in Romania heterogeneous public which will sooner was the site of the 1989 Romanian Revolution, a week-long series of riots and protests in late December that overthrew the or later go its separate ways; an urban Communist regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu. form which acts to draw people together
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and give them a momentary pleasure and sense of well being.”6 Jackson argues
that such purposes exist, but that there is a fundamental difference in how the
public square functions in a political environment; civic environments assume
that those who come are already aware that they are members of a community,
responsible citizens, and that periodically they will participate in public
discussions and take civic action on behalf of the community.7
Richard Dattner8 makes explicit this connection between public space and
the civic realm. He notes that the privileged have retreated from public spaces,
with the resulting impoverishment of the civic realm. Thus, where public parks
and squares once served as a place for social classes to coexist peacefully,
these spaces are increasingly seen as dangerous precincts occupied by the
homeless and the poor [Figure 1.3]. Dattner advances that such a potential
rendering of the social fabric is the “end of the civic realm as we have known it.”9
Charles Jencks, architectural historian and critic, offers insight into the
connections between civic spaces and democracy when he discusses the role of
the public square in the Romanian revolution of 1989 [Figure 1.4]: “Once again
the public realm, the civic places where the common people could see itself as if
in a mirror, had changed politics. This square, or outdoor room, or forum for
2000 people, or marketplace is the centre stage of all democracy. It legitimizes
what representatives do, it keeps presidents and judiciary in check, and it gives a
lead to parliament.”10
Jencks correctly posits questions about the role of civic space and public architecture in a democracy. Discussion of public architecture as it embodies a
Wilschutz 18
set of aspirations or ideals, must necessarily address those ideals. Thus, before
public architecture and democracy are examined at their many intersections, it is necessary to gain a deeper understanding of democracy and democratic ideals in America today.
Alexis de Tocqueville provides a penetrating analysis of American democracy in 1838. He writes, “Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions… the influence of this fact extends far beyond the political character… it creates opinions, engenders sentiments,
suggests the ordinary practices of life, and modifies whatever it does not
produce.”11
Modern political theory emphasizes the role of civility and civil society as
the backbone of democracy, the public sphere, and good governance. As a
sphere of social interaction between economy and state, including voluntary
associations (political parties, professional organizations, non-governmental
organizations, and institutions) and the structures of public communication and
the public realm, civil society is characterized by open-ended communication and
normative integration.12
Michael Edwards, Director of the Ford Foundation’s Governance and Civil
Society Program, states that the most dominant view in contemporary civil
society thought focuses on associational life, where new evidence suggests that
the synergy between a strong state and a strong society is one of the keys to
sustained, poverty-reducing growth. Networks of associations act as
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counterweights to vested interests, promote institutional accountability among
states and markets, channel information to decision-makers, and negotiate the
social contracts between governments and citizens that development requires.13
Architect Richard Dattner discusses the relationship between civility and architecture when he writes, "… civility is an essential attribute of public architecture, and… public architecture is a powerful means for preserving and nurturing both civility and civilization."14 Thus, architecture is the physical
manifestation of civility, and an expression of a communal faith in the future.15 A
multi-cultural society can withstand multiple interpretations of appropriateness for
civic structures, recognizing that society is evolving, creating itself out of, and in
contradiction to, its social, cultural, and political precursors.
To Dattner, this is best emphasized
by Thomas Jefferson, who as a civil
architect “attempted a society based on
respect for the individual… In a civil
conversation, all the variety of human Figure 1.5 – Thomas Jefferson’s academic village at the University of imagination and aspiration can be heard. Virginia embodies space designed to foster the discourse required of a healthy A civil architecture ultimately aims to civil society.
house, protect, nurture, and ennoble this discourse of civilization. In a world of
endless wonder, where certainty is ever doubted, we can sustain in conversation
a circle of approximate truths surrounding a mystery.”16
Dattner explores the relationships between democracy and architecture
specifically, framing questions of how civic architecture is designed in a manner
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that both reflects and embodies the ideals of society. He asserts that “the future
form of public architecture will depend to a large extent on the current re-
examination of the assumptions on which much of past public architecture was based. It is a debate that also involves public education, religion, multi-
culturalism, post-modernism and our shared cultural values.”17 A re-examination
of public architecture and its effects on civic life first yields questions directing
research, but then suggests broader implications about the state of American
society and the affect of civic architecture on civic life and the public realm.
Which qualities are appropriate for the design of civic architecture today? How
do civic buildings and spaces contribute toward, and foster civic life? How has
this contribution manifested itself throughout history? And what are the
possibilities for contemporary civic design?
Sennett suggests that public life has declined, resulting in an overall
societal decline. Thus, it seems necessary and fundamental to examine civic architecture and its relation to civic life. This includes broader issues of what democratic government is, what it can be, and what it ought to be, as reflected upon and embodied in public architecture that propounds civic aspirations, civic possibilities, and civic imagination. To say more of the civic realm requires a better understanding of the public realm – its history and its redefinition.
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Chapter 1 Notes:
1 Sennett, Richard. The Fall of Public Man. New York, NY: Knopf, 1977, 3-6. 2 Glazer, Nathan and Mark Lilla. The Public Face of Architecture: Civic Culture and Public Spaces. New York, NY: The Free Press, A Division of Macmillan, Inc, 1987, 3. 3 Sennett, 3. 4 Sennett, 12. 5 Nathan Glazer is a professor of education and sociology at Harvard University. Glazer, p. xiii. 6 Jackson, J.B. “Form Follows Function” In The Public Face of Architecture: Civic Culture and Public Spaces. New York, NY: The Free Press, A Division of Macmillan, Inc, 1987, 118. 7 Jackson, 118. 8 Richard Dattner , adjunct professor of architecture at The Cooper Union and the City College of New York, is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and has received the Medal of Honor from the AIA New York chapter and is the 1994 recipient of the AIA’s Thomas Jefferson award for outstanding work in public design. 9 Dattner, Richard. Civil Architecture: The New Public Infrastructure. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, Inc, 1995, 227. 10 Jencks, Charles. “Open Government in a Cynical Age” In Civic Builders. Curtis W. Fentress, ed. London: John Wiley and Sons Limited, 2002. 11 de Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. Craighead and Allen, Printers: New York, 1838, p. ii. 12 Cohen, Jean and Andrew Arato. Civil Society and Political Theory. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1992, p. ix. 13 Edwards, Michael. Civil Society. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, Inc, 2004, 13. 14 Dattner, 226. 15 Dattner, 229. 16 Dattner, 277. 17 Dattner, 229.
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Chapter 2: The Public and Civic Realms Inherited
Author, educator, and political philosopher Hannah Arendt writes that the term “public” signifies two closely interrelated phenomena. First, it means that everything that appears in public can be seen and heard by everybody and has the widest possible publicity.
When private matters are discussed, they are brought into the public sphere and assume a kind of reality that they never had before [Figure 2.1]. Second, Figure 2.1 – Detail of the Flagellation by the term signifies “the world itself, as it is Piero della Francesca, 1455, illustrates Arendt’s space of appearances, where men disclose their uniqueness through public common to all of us and distinguished debate. from our privately owned place in it.”1 Arendt states:
“Only the existence of a public realm and the world's subsequent transformation into a community of things which gathers men together and relates them to each other depends entirely on permanence. If the world is to contain a public space, it cannot be erected for one generation and planned for the living only; it must transcend the life-span of mortal men.”2 If transcendence is essential to the public/civic realm as Arendt suggests, and the design of the civic realms is of interest here, then it is necessary to say more of Arendt’s conception of the public/civic sphere.
Wilschutz 23
The public realm relies on the simultaneous presence of innumerable
perspectives and aspects in which the common world presents itself – Arendt’s
“space of appearances.”3 Once the space of appearances is formed, others can
exercise freely and confidently their power to act and to speak individually and in
concert.4 Arendt states that men reveal their distinctive identities as human
beings in what they do and say: “men disclose their uniqueness as individuals
more fully and surely when they act and speak spontaneously.”5 And,
paradoxically, when men act and speak in human community, they are most truly
free and yet least in control of their own destinies.6
For Arendt, the basis of the human condition is human plurality. Man
alone has the capacity to distinguish himself and to express this distinction – to
communicate him and not merely some shared attribute.7 Arendt writes:
The manifestation of who the speaker and doer unexchangeably is, though it is plainly visible, retains a curious intangibility that confounds all efforts toward unequivocal verbal expression. The moment we want to say who somebody is, our very vocabulary leads us astray into saying what he is; we get entangled in a description of qualities he necessarily shares with others like him; we begin to describe a type or a 'character' in the old meaning of the word, with the result that his specific uniqueness escapes us.8 It is this frustrating inability to discover the “who” that is perhaps the main reason why the world of human affairs in general, and the public, political realm in particular, is so beset with uncertainty.9
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Historical Developments: The Greek Agora
Charles Jencks, architectural historian, writes that the public realm has often been idealized and given expression in historical reconstructions of Greek and Roman architecture: “The agora and forum, and then the piazza, square or
American meeting hall became the architectural expression of 'the people’, because they provided a place for citizens to see themselves speak and act in public.”10
Jencks states that the development of the Greek city-state, or polis, was a keystone in the evolution of democracy. It was in Athens, after the reforms of
Cleisthenes in 507 BC, that democracy Figure 2.2 – Plaster model of the west side of the Athenian agora, second century BC. started to fully develop and gain strength.
Each Greek city had its agora, a place where a distinctly Greek mixture of public activities and buildings sustained Figure 2.3 – Reconstruction of the democracies. The essential characteristic bouleterion, or council chamber, of the Athenian agora. of this city center was the continuity and diversity of activities in it, and the continuous round of daily social life, business and politics in a relatively small space. The agora became the public realm and the nucleus of the city.11
The agora [Figure 2.2] usually contained public buildings, such as the bouleterion (council chamber) [Figure 2.3], the prytaneion (town hall and
Wilschutz 25
executive palace), the stoas (colonnades used for stores and philosophical
debate), and the heliaea (law courts).12 As open space, the agora constituted not
only a symbol, but the possibility of the citizen's power, their right to assemble
freely. It was central to Greek civic life and furthered the “ideal prevailing at the time, restrained, or understated.” The agora was humane, urbane, and delightful.13 It remains the standard for present democracies, a possible place
where the public realm may occasionally come into being at special moments.14
Philosopher Peter Fuss writes that to Pericles the public revelation of
men's unique identities through action and speech was the very content of
politics. “The substance of politics is the space of appearances that
distinguishes yet binds men together and that in its living essence is independent of time, place, and physical circumstances.”15 The Greek polis, as the space of
appearance, had a double political function. First, it multiplied the occasions of
action and speech, affording every citizen repeated opportunity to distinguish
himself in the eyes of his companions. Second, the polis was transcendental:
…men's life together in the form of the polis seemed to assure that the most futile of human activities, action and speech, and the least tangible and most ephemeral of man made 'products,' the deeds and stories which are their outcome, would become imperishable. The organization of the polis… is a kind of organized remembrance…. The polis, is not the city-state in its physical location: it is the organization of the people as it arises out of acting and speaking together, and its true space lies between people living together for this purpose… it is the space of appearance in the widest sense of the word, namely, the space where I appear to others as they appear to me…16
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Charles Jencks notes that the Greek agora suppressed the reality of government. The location of the town hall and the council chamber to the side of the agora understated their role in Athenian democracy [Figure 2.4]. However, this suppression further highlighted the importance of the agora. "What predominates in democratic Athens and the Ionian city-states is the representation of the polis as a totality, the assembly space, the place of everyday life, the heart and 'outdoor room'. This is symbolically appropriate for a democracy, even if the executive and legislature hold the ultimate reins of power: the idea of the people has symbolic priority.”17
Figure 2.4 – Plan of the Athenian Agora, c. 300 BC. The council chamber and town hall (shaded) are located to the side of the agora.
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The irony evidenced by the perishing of the Greek polis and its democratic pluralism is not lost on Arendt. And to Jencks, it partially explains why democratic architecture has remained such a hidden tradition.18 Having gained a
better understanding of the agora as the model of the public sphere in ancient
times, we can uncover its historical expression and contemporary equivalents.
Jencks argues that the Greek
example remains a perceptual
challenge, and its ideal can be
presented and represented in
architecture, both as the equivalent of
the agora, the outdoor room for
assembly and everyday life, and in the Figure 2.5 – Thousands gathered in Kiev’s Independence Square in 2004 following a presidential election widely seen as rigged. symbolism of plural action. Here, The protests triggered another election, where opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko democratic architecture celebrates defeated Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.
difference and makes speech and action significant. “The 'outdoor room,' or open assembly space, remains to this day the primary expression of, and allowance
for, democracy, since without it the public cannot feel its strength and make up its
collective mind [Figure 2.5].”19
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The Public Realm in Early American History
Jencks writes that the public realm, crucial
to the democratic experience, was never
adequately provided for in early American history
by the founders. Not until the emergence of the
Mall in Washington, DC, would a space of
appearances be present in the nation’s capitol.20
Spiro Kostof, professor of architectural history at
the University of California, Berkeley, states that
European colonial towns set the precedent for
public open spaces in America.21
Early Spanish towns often had a large Figure 2.6 – A Spanish plaza rectangular plaza at the center. The survives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where street merchants still set up their stalls in the administrative palace and other public buildings portico of the Governor’s Palace. fronted the plaza, as did the main church.
However, the plaza belonged to the
people for fiestas, customary evening
strolls, and socializing [Figure 2.6].
French town precedents were most
often on rivers, and the town square
doubled as a parade ground Figure 2.7 – Jackson Square fronts the Mississippi River in New Orleans, Louisiana. overlooking the waterfront [Figure 2.7]. The square is fronted by St. Louis Cathedral and has frequently been used for military parades. The surrounding buildings usually
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included a barracks and a hospital.22
However, Kostof writes that
Americans have never been very comfortable with an empty public place, preferring to fill it with a public building.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, in the new railroad towns of the
Midwest and the South, the New
England open green space had found Figure 2.8 – The public square of Mansfield, its counterpart in the courthouse square Ohio, 1850, illustrates the prototypical American courthouse square of the nineteenth century. The courthouse is located on the [Figure 2.8]. It was the central feature northern half of the block. of towns that served as county seats, and it represents an authentic piece of
American urbanism. The courthouse stood in the middle of the one-block square, on a slight rise, surrounded by trees. This leafy oasis was a statement of survival and permanence.23 Kostof summarizes the influence of the early
courthouse square:
So a public, urban place like the courthouse square, in these old days, was the setting where all sorts of people came together informally, where collective civic rituals like markets and parades took place, and where the prevalent values and beliefs of the community where made manifest. The institutional building - courthouse or public library or town hall - dominated. The space was well bounded and its scale intimate; it took its shape form the street pattern. It had many uses, some of them unplanned. But the urban square was above all political territory. Within its confines, people knew their place and found strength in their local tradition.
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The space held them, gave them identity. It is where they learned to live together.24 Boulevards, parkways, and town squares in early American history used stately
public buildings as focal points. In the time between the Civil War and the
Chicago World's Fair, the scale of public buildings steadily increased. By the end
of the nineteenth century a spectacular monumentality had seized our cities,
which made prewar courthouses, state capitols, and colleges look almost
residential by comparison.25
This escalation of public splendor was most evident in the nation's state houses.
Early capitols were fairly modest structures.
The U.S. Capitol, started in 1792, provided the archetypal model for the state capitol: a Figure 2.9 – The US Capitol has building with balancing chambers on either balanced chambers on each side of the entry portico. side of a domed rotunda, with a portico entry
[Figure 2.9]. Usually made of brick or wood, covered with scored stucco to imitate masonry, these structures were intimate.26
However, beginning shortly before the Civil
War and especially following the war, Figure 2.10 – The same monumental dress originally reserved for civic “architecture and bureaucracy combine[d] to structures now covers banks, shopping malls, and clubs. distance us from this homey feel of the
democratic process.”27
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Kostof writes, “A similar distancing was taking place between our daily
rituals and their aggrandizement through architecture. Reading, shopping,
traveling were now being ensconced in luxurious settings, far grander than the
functions themselves called for” [Figure 2.10].28 He states that by the end of the
nineteenth century, public libraries of many large cities were so monumental and
ornate that they tended to intimidate the average user and discourage casual
visits. This monumentality of American cities was two-pronged. First, “railroad
stations, department stores, and office towers set up a colossal public domain
that overwhelmed the once dominant scale of churches and public buildings.”29
Next, government turned progressively more impersonal as it expanded:
Traditionally steeples and domes punctuated the skyline of American cities. The domes which rose over government buildings were a feature of the nineteenth century… What happened is that the same monumental dress covered a whole range of buildings, banks as well as state capitols, clubs and apartment houses as well as town halls; the same puffed up scale might prevail in the business district and upper-class residential avenues beyond. It was hard in this grand unity of the monumental townscape to assign symbolic priorities among individual institutions.30
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The Contemporary Crisis of Public Space
German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas details the emergence of the public sphere in the eighteenth century with the rise of bourgeois culture. The rise of the novel and the press and, alongside, spaces for their reading and discussion in the family Figure 2.11 – Salon in the Rue des Moulins, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1894. home and public spaces (salons [Figure
2.11] and coffee shops), formed an audience-oriented subjectivity, where people became accustomed to using logical, reasoned arguments in public debate. Habermas argues that the Figure 2.12 – The Kennedy-Nixon literary focus on personal experience presidential debates of 1960 are widely credited with transforming how politicians became a “training ground for critical appear in public. public reflection” in the political, public sphere, and that this critical process of public communication can still be used to gauge the process of democratization.31 A public consciousness developed in the public sphere of civil society which articulated the concept of and demand for general and abstract laws and which ultimately asserted itself as the only legitimate source of this law.32 Habermas delineates the weakening of the public sphere since the
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eighteenth century, but holds hope for the critical public reflection in the political,
public sphere elaborated then.33
Marcel Henaff and Tracy Strong34 frame the contemporary crisis of the
public sphere, arguing that the formulation of political space as a strategy of
appearances meant that power could no longer be separated from the display of
its legitimacy. "The paradoxical consequence was that power was all the more
dependent on those for whom its show was designed. The self-staging of power
was an admission that power was subject to judgments, toward an evaluation by
public opinion, the support of which was important to secure. The theatrical qualities of power lead necessarily in a politically democratic direction."35
According to Henaff and Strong, what has not been thought through, then,
is how this transfer of power affects the essential requirement of public space –
free information:
What changed or rather disintegrated was the perspectival reference point. In the past seventy years, new media (newspapers, radio, and above all, television) have transformed the way in which politicians (the holders of power) appear in public [Figure 2.12]. It is from a mass of details that a positive or negative image emerges and imposes itself on public opinion. There is no longer a single and privileged stage specific to the political realm. Political activity, instead of being framed from a perspectival point, is nothing more than another opportunity for images, which may come from any and every realm of life. While this phenomenon may be the basis of entertainment, it becomes unbearable when it is a political matter, that is, a matter of public responsibility. Hence information cancels itself through overinformation. Political public space dissolves into overexposure of the social. Public and private
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are mixed, as are role and individual, the essential and the anecdotal, major decisions and 'news in brief.' […] Once everything can be seen, there is no longer a domain specific to the visible… we must reexamine the nature of the political in the modern period, acknowledging that its classical forms are extinct and considering entirely new conditions for the exercise of democracy.36 The result is that the main public space of our time is that of consumption.
Here, images displace arguments, and the political stage tends to be just one of many – so much so that the claim of politics to be something else loses all validity. However, Henaff and Strong do note that citizens have not allowed themselves to be identified with consumers, and the political has remained the specific form of expression of the community as a whole.37 This suggests two questions. First, what is it when we find ourselves together in a political space that we must recognize as common – both its name and the terms by which we define it? And, what effects do modern technologies have on the quality and possibilities of public space, especially on the characteristics of time and space?
Emerging Technologies and Virtual Space
Henaff and Strong examine whether virtual space has become public space. The Internet and other similar networks clearly indicate that we are in a world of virtual communities. Strong and Henaff argue that in this space no one is simply a passive receptor and that, in this sense, there is clearly a decisive step toward a democratic norm. "Virtual space" designates a space that is not physically locatable, thus not perceptible, "but which, thanks to the tools of communication, exists as a network of relations. There is a paradox here: these
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technologies make concrete and effective or active relations that were until now
only virtual. But because they operate on a larger scale and their density
continues to increase, one attributes them the status of 'virtual,' which
nevertheless, they continually make actual."38
Thus, if today we take particular notice of these communities it is because
modern technologies make actual these relations that until now remained only
virtual. Henaff and Strong state, "What is new is not the network of relations but
the possibility of making them active, or reinforcing them, of extending them by
the tools of communication and representation. What materializes with and as
the Internet is, first of all, existing institutions and communities of exchange that
were waiting for a means to become actual. The Internet makes real the virtual,
not the reverse."39 Contemporary technologies, therefore, do not displace
society from more natural original and concrete manners of being in the world.
Public space has been understood as monumental, or a way of attaching
oneself to the global or universal. "It is now possible to conceive totality not as pre-existing, but as constituting itself in the sharing of singularities."40 It is
conceivable that, for the first time since the ancient city, direct democracy is
technically feasible. Every citizen (with proper digital security measures in place)
could vote directly on all matters important and relevant to him. However, as
Henaff and Strong note, "democracy is not, first and foremost, free and solitary
voting by each individual but rather public and agnostic debate, argument in and
between a community of citizens."41 The new agora is a public network of singular sites - virtual or concrete.42
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Similarly, Peter Rowe, professor of architecture and urban planning and
dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, argues that it is not appropriate to
retreat into the rapidly expanding virtual worlds of information and
communication, "in spite of their superficial egalitarian appeal and apparent
ideological freedom."43 He states that it is not yet clear that present disparities
between "haves" and "have nots" will
not become further exaggerated, and
by contrast that it is "reasonably
obvious that particular regimes control
these information-based worlds, thus
not structurally altering the existence Figure 2.13 – Bodily engagement is central to the experience of the National Mall in of power arrangements and their Washington, D.C. expressive needs. Furthermore, the 'talking heads' aspect of this mental habitat effectively denies the bodily engagement with public space so essential to a full liberating and edifying experience of the public realm" [Figure 2.13].44 Thus, it is
necessary to explore the relationship between urban architectural expression and
democratic sociopolitical practices.
Rowe argues that as the world changes, architectural expression does not
necessarily organically follow. Rather, there is a discontinuous cultural
development that takes place. "Until relevant and coherent aesthetic principles
are devised or appropriated new expression cannot be given to broad and
perhaps mounting societal pressures… Instead, nothing much will happen, or
there will be simply an extrapolation of past aesthetic practices, often with
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strained effects like the classical postmodernism and reduced modernism of
recent years."45
Imagery in Civic Place Making
If the primacy of the image in modern life is to be considered more
directly, as suggested by Henaff and Strong, then there must be relevant
coherent and aesthetic principles for new expression. Urban historian Sam Bass
Warner Jr. and Lawrence Vale, professor of urban studies and planning,
approach imagery in civic place making. They state that urban projects at all
scales proceed amid a “blizzard of visual and verbal images.”46 To Warner and
Vale there is nothing new about contemporary urban life lived among the play of
social knowledge, stereotypes, sharp observations, and metaphorical pictures,
but they identify two new elements. First, the mix of the visual and verbal has
changed. Fused images of pictures and words are commonplace and visual
image-making has exploded. Second, the popularization of these fused images
have spawned a vast industry of advertisers and public relations propagators as
well as sustained artists, writers, and architects. Thus, they pose the question of
how the public interest is discovered amidst the overwhelming imagery, and how
it is expressed so that competing publics might attend to it?47
The word “image” has many meanings. Warner and Vale identify mental
representations, conjured from memory by sensory stimulation; physical
likenesses that are consciously produced by designers, from architects and urban designers to set designers and web site designers; and symbolic and
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metaphorical embodiments, as when “democratic” or “fascistic” are associated
with particular places. They argue that today the term “image” has become a
verb as well as a noun. “To a greater extent than ever before, places no longer
simply have images; they are continually being imaged (and re-imaged), often in
ways that are highly self-conscious and highly contentious.”48
Thus, city imaging is the process of constructing visually based narratives
about the potential of places. “City design, understood like this, is a process of
brokering the best metaphor, in ways that will shift or consolidate public
sensibilities and invent the possibility for new kinds of place attachments... The discovery and elucidation of the public interest among these actors and their conflicting values and images constitutes the art of city planning and the central challenge of city design.”49 It is this image conflict that is a central part of
democratic planning.
One approach is to create settings that allow visitors the freedom of their
own interpretations. For Vale and Warner, city designers will increasingly use
the built world in combination with new kinds of virtual space. In “New Public
Realms: Re-imaging the City-Region,”50 Lawrence Vale attempts to sketch out a
new set of possibilities to conceptualize, and design for, the public realm. He
states that the planning concept of zoning has caused designers and developers
to insert new public space into districts that were single use, bounded, centered,
product oriented, efficiently driven, and almost always resistant to change.51
Vale states that the greater our success in building ideal districts of this kind, the more critical we have become of about the sterile environments they promote.
Wilschutz 39
He writes that several new kinds of public realms are emerging that are more
value-laden and more meaningful to the people who live and work within them
than the single use, static environments provided by traditional zoning
practices.52 These new public realms require a new set of design, planning, and
political principles. Further, they can move beyond merely accommodating their
users; the public realms can change, educate, and empower their constituents.53
Vale identifies several emerging types of new public realms that are worth watching and nurturing, categorizing them as corridors, traces, watches, and ways. They are “multiple use, unbounded, decentralized, organized around information and ideas, more inclusive in their efficiencies, differentially imageable, and expected to change.”54
Corridors [Figure 2.14] are organized around transportation routes,
including canals, roads, rivers, and
railroads. The routes provide “a vehicle for
the interpretation of a region's multiple
pasts and presents and a locus for
organizing diverse resources.”55 The Figure 2.14 – Vale’s corridors are organized around transportation routes. corridor is a linear form at the scale of an
automobile and enables the creation of an
interlocking system of natural, cultural, and recreational landscapes. Thus,
corridors not only provide the means to move through or across a landscape, but
also permit a passersby to pause and partake in a variety of opportunities. Here,
“the new public realm can appear more as a network of linked places, in which
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the links are defined not by linear proximity but by the particular shape of the
individual or group interests. The result is not a corridor but a kind of
metropolitan palimpsest, a trace.”56
Traces [Figure 2.15] organize multiple places, buildings, and activities around a concept or a constituency. What is created, then, is a cognitive link among locations that have no actual physical contiguity. Traces are defined by selective recognition by constituencies, not universal Figure 2.15 – Traces organize multiple places, buildings, and activities around a concept or constituency. recognition. Vale identifies congressional initiatives oriented toward organizing the interpretation of American industrialization as examples. “Instead of visiting a single museum in a single city, these traces organize disparately located ‘primary source’ sites, racing themes across a variety of cultural landscapes.”57 Such traces use narrowcast media and imaging to build positive connectivity and are
greatly facilitated by the emergence of the Internet and the “corresponding
temptation to sort one's life by keyword searches.”58 Vale suggests that many of
these traces may be designed for single visits; for sustained vigilance, he
identifies watches.
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Watches “are districts defined by the eye; the boundary is the viewshed around a valued community asset.”59 [Figure 2.16]
Interested parties assume responsibility for ensuring the stewardship of a resource. Figure 2.16 – Watches are organized around a valued community asset, and This new public realm goes beyond mere require sustained vigilance. recreation and has a strong educational component. Not only concerned with protecting shared space, watches are also concerned with demonstrating that protection of common interests is in the public interest. Vale identifies watches Figure 2.17 – George Washington’s Mount Vernon is a site of cultural concerned with particular buildings or sites significance and an example of a watch. of cultural significance (George
Washington's Mount Vernon [Figure 2.17], for example), and with preservation of natural resources, such as rivers and watersheds. Vale writes that the result can be a re-imaging of the resource itself.60 Figure 2.18 – Pedestrian-oriented ways The final emerging public realm that create a walkable trace and allow exploration. Vale identifies is the concept of ways.
[Figure 2.18] Ways are pedestrian in nature and allow exploration of places revealed
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through a system of way-finding aids. To an
extent, a way is a walkable trace that
facilitates a particular thematic vision of a
place. Ways help visitors “extract a partial
slice from the overwhelming sensory Figure 2.19 – The Massachusetts overload of the city. It is a tool to nurture State House in Boston, designed by Charles Bulfinch and completed in 1798, is one stop on the Boston focus but need not - and should not - control Freedom Trail, a 2.5 mile walking path that creates an overall image of interpretation of what is seen… They do not Revolution-era Boston, illustrating Vale’s concept of ways as an emerging public realm. suggest what to think but they do suggest
what to think about.”61 Vale identifies Boston's Freedom Trail as one example
[Figure 2.19]. He states that visitors will not be able to construct an overall image
of Revolution-era Boston, but that even a partial re-imaging of a city can be
powerful. Further, for residents, the presence of the Freedom Trail provides an
organizing force, “a periodic reminder that parts of the twenty-first century city
have been superimposed upon a seventeenth-century street pattern and were
once home to seminal events in the nascent nation's development.”62
Corridors, traces, watches, and ways have enough constraints and focus to permit them to gain new structure, identity, and a set of meanings. Further, these places are generated and sustained by a variety of overlapping interest groups. “Even as we lament the substitution of media-scripted environments for direct sense experience of neighborhood and community ties, there seems ample evidence that city designers can still help citizens image the cities and regions they desire. It is time to design a new set of public realms.”63
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Chapter 2 Notes:
1 Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1958. 2 Arendt, 55. 3 Arendt, 56. 4 Fuss, Peter. “Hannah Arendt’s Conception of Political Community.” In Hannah Arendt: The Recovery of the Public World. Melvyn A. Hill, ed. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1979, 173. 5 Fuss, 151. 6 Fuss, 151. 7 Fuss, 160. 8 Arendt, 181. 9 Fuss, 161. 10 Jencks, Charles. “Open Government in a Cynical Age.” In Civic Builders. Curtis W. Fentress. London: John Wiley and Sons Limited, 2002, 20. 11 Jencks, Charles and Maggie Valentine. “The Architecture of Democracy: The Hidden Tradition.” In Architectural Design. Vol. 57, No. 9/10, 1987, 10. 12 Jencks, 1987: 10. 13 Jencks, 1987: 12. 14 Jencks, 1987: 11. 15 Fuss, 167. 16 Arendt, 187. 17 Jencks, 1987: 12. 18 Jencks, 1987: 13. 19 Jencks, 1987: 11, 16. 20 Jencks, 1987: 21. 21 Kostof, Spiro. “The Public Realm” In Writings About Art. Carole Gold Calo, ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994, 277. 22 Kostof, 278. 23 Kostof, 279. 24 Kostof, 280. 25 Kostof, 285. 26 Kostof, 286. 27 Kostof, 286.
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28 Kostof, 289. 29 Kostof, 292. 30 Kostof, 292. 31 Hyland, Paul, Olga Gomez and Francesca Greensides, eds. The Enlightenment: A Sourcebook and Reader. New York, NY: Routledge, 2003, 386. 32 Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1989, 36-38. 33 Hyland, 386. 34 Marcel Henaff is a philosopher, anthropologist, and professor at the University of California, San Diego. Tracy B. Strong is a professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. 35 Henaff, Marcel and Tracy B. Strong, eds. Public Space and Democracy. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2001, 23. 36 Henaff and Strong, 23. 37 Henaff and Strong, 27. 38 Henaff and Strong, 222. 39 Henaff and Strong, 224. 40 Henaff and Strong, 225. 41 Henaff and Strong, 228-229. 42 Henaff and Strong, 230. 43 Rowe, Peter G. Civic Realism. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997, 35. 44 Rowe, 36. 45 Rowe, 36. 46 Vale, Lawrence J. and Sam Bass Warner Jr., eds. Imaging the City: Continuing Struggles and New Directions. New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, 2001, p. xiii. 47 Vale and Warner, p. xiii. 48 Vale and Warner, pp. xiv-xv. 49 Vale and Warner, pp. xv-xix. 50 Vale, Lawrence J. “New Public Realms: Re-Imaging the City-Region.” In Imaging the City: Continuing Struggles and New Directions. New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, 2001, 419-438. 51 Vale, 421. 52 Vale, 422. 53 Vale, 423.
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54 Vale, 423. 55 Vale, 423-424. 56 Vale, 428. 57 Vale, 429. 58 Vale, 430. 59 Vale, 432. 60 Vale, 434. 61 Vale, 435. 62 Vale, 436. 63 Vale, 437.
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Chapter 3: Civil Society and Civic Realism
Civil Society
Political theorists Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato define civil society:
We understand ‘civil society’ as a sphere of social interaction between economy and state, composed above all of the intimate sphere (especially the family), the sphere of associations (especially voluntary associations), social movements, and forms of public communication.1 Figure 3.1 illustrates the
components of civil society as
defined by Cohen and Arato.
Michael Edwards, Director of the
Ford Foundation’s Governance and
Civil Society Program, discusses
the history of civil society as an
idea. Beginning in antiquity,
Figure 3.1 – Civil society is composed of the philosophers saw civil society as a intimate sphere, the sphere of associations, social movements, and forms of public communication. way to understand the nature of the good society, the rights and responsibilities of citizens, and the practice of politics and government. It represented how we might live together peacefully by reconciling our individual autonomy with our collective aspirations, balancing freedom and its boundaries, and marrying pluralism with conformity so that complex societies can function with both efficiency and justice.2 Thus, in classical thought, civil society and the state were seen as indistinguishable. Both
Wilschutz 47
referred to a type of political association governing social conflict through the
imposition of rules that restrained citizens. In Aristotle's polis, the state
represented the 'civil' form of society and 'civility' described the requirements of
good citizenship.3
During the Enlightenment, between 1750 and 1850, ideas about civil
society took a fundamental turn in response to a perceived crisis in the ruling
social order. Here, civil society was viewed as a defense against unwarranted
intrusions by the state on newly realized individual rights and freedoms,
organized through voluntary associations.4 Thus, civil society was a self- regulating universe of associations committed to the same ideals that needed to be protected from the state in order to preserve civil society’s role in resisting despotism. This argument was echoed in the Federalist Papers by James
Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay – and furthered by Alexis de
Tocqueville. The dominant theme here is the value of voluntary associations in
curbing the power of centralizing institutions, protecting pluralism, and nursing
constructive social norms. Civil society was the foundation of a stable
democratic polity. Edwards writes that this tradition is particularly strong in the
US today as it “dovetails naturally with pre-existing traditions of self-governance,
suspicions about the state, and concerns about public disengagement from
poetics and civic life.”5
Contemporary discourse on civil society focuses on three schools of
thought: civil society as a part of society (the neo-Toquevillian school that
focuses on associational life), civil society as a kind of society (characterized by
Wilschutz 48 positive norms and values), and civil society as the public sphere.6 The most dominant view in contemporary thought centers on associational life; new research suggests that the synergy between a strong state and a strong society is one of the keys to sustained, poverty-reducing growth. Networks of associations act as counterweights to vested interests, promote institutional accountability among states and markets, channel information to decision- makers, and negotiate the social contracts between governments and citizens that development requires.7
Edwards identifies three developmental roles of civil society as associational life: economic, political, and social [Figure 3.2].
The economic role of civil society focuses on services where states and markets are weak. Voluntary associations (such as non- Figure 3.2 – Civil society as associational life has three developmental roles: social, political, and governmental organizations, or economic.
NGOs) are significant service providers, and are increasingly becoming the preferred channel for such services in deliberate substitution for the state.8
In the social role, civil societies are seen as a reservoir of caring, cultural life and intellectual innovation, where people are educated and the skills of citizenship help nurture a collection of positive social norms that foster stability.
Wilschutz 49
Often termed “social capital,” it is seen as the key ingredient in promoting
collective action for the common good.9
In their political role, voluntary associations are seen as a crucial
counterweight to state and corporate power. They are a crucial element in promoting transparency, accountability, and other aspects of good governance.
Edwards writes:
…it is civil society that provides the channels through which most people can make their voices heard in government decision- making, protect and promote their civil and political rights, and strengthen their skills as future political leaders. Arguing from democratic theory, a strong civil society can prevent the agglomeration of power that threatens autonomy and choice, provide effective cheeks against the abuse of state authority, and protect a democratic public sphere in which citizens can debate the ends and means of governance [Figure 3.3].10 The concept of a public that cares about the
common good and has the capacity to
deliberate about it democratically is central to
civil society thinking. In its role as the public
sphere, civil society becomes the arena for
argument and deliberation, and for association Figure 3.3 – Speaker’s Corner in and institutional collaboration. It is a non- Hyde Park, London, illustrates an example of dialogic politics and the political role of civil society as legislative, extra-judicial, public space in which associational life.
societal differences, social problems, public policy, government action, and
matters of community and cultural identity are developed and debated.11
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Philosopher Hannah Arendt and sociologist Richard Sennett lament the
decline of the public sphere as a result of the increasing self-absorption and the commercial colonization of the media, a school of thought continued today through the work of Harry Boyte and Sara Evans, who see civil society as an autonomous space for generating democratic ideals.12 Habermas further
delineated this civil society as a component of the public sphere. The public
sphere is manifested as a place of appearance, representative publicness and
publicity among private citizens. It includes the public sphere of politics, the
public aspect of voluntary associations, as well as “town life” in general. Civil
society is an organizational construct within this public sphere, where people
band together with common interests and as “a corollary of a depersonalized
state authority.”13
Theories of the public sphere provide a powerful framework for
interpreting the role played by civil society in social change. A functioning public
sphere rests on civil society as a healthy associational ecosystem and as
institutional actions in the search of the good society. Edwards writes:
…the public sphere is more than a combination of 'forms' and 'norms,'14 because it is explicitly concerned with fashioning a democratic framework for the development and expression of collective visions about the basic 'rules of the game' - the judgments, priorities and trade-offs that guide the evolution of all successful societies. Theories of the public sphere demand a return to the practice of politics, not as an elite occupation in which the public takes part once every four or five years through elections, but as an ongoing process through which 'active citizens' can help to shape both the ends and means of the good society.
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The theory of the public sphere… is the basis for the current and widespread interest in direct, deliberative or participatory democracy, or ‘dialogic politics,’ as an essential complement to the representative components of political systems…15 Dialogic politics offers a route, perhaps the only route, to reach a legitimate normative consensus around the plurality of interests and positions, assuming that there is an equality of voice and a minimum of censorship. Protecting space for diversity, while negotiating common rules and standards, is the most important role for a revitalized public sphere.16
Edwards identifies two methods toward nurturing civil society. The first is
to strengthen the preconditions in which the interactions between associational
life, the public sphere and the good society are favorable to goals of peace,
democracy, and social justice. The second is to support innovations in
associational life that encourage citizen action in service of the good society via
the public sphere.17
Civic Realism
Realizing civility through the design of public buildings and spaces
becomes the focus of architects, planners, and designers. Peter Rowe identifies
spaces that are civic in character as those belonging to everyone and yet nobody in particular. Of importance to Rowe are how such places are created and the
specific social, political, and cultural circumstances that bring them into being.
Also important is the shape and appearance of civic places and how they
simultaneously represent, constitute, and enhance the daily lives of citizens.
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Rowe states that civic place-making cannot occur successfully without a
“propitious conjunction of local opportunity, community wherewithal, and design
capability.” 18 The effort, then, is to find spaces where civic life, civic aspirations,
and civic responsibilities are manifested and inscribed in space.
Ultimately, Rowe seeks to enable design practices, through which the
decline in the presence of viable civic realms might be redressed constructively.
He argues that many publicly accessible spaces can and should have a civic
orientation that is direct, palpable, and there for the purposes of reminding us both of who we are and who we might become.19 In this effort, Rowe focuses on
civic realism. He writes, “… it is along the politico-cultural division between civil
society and the state that the urban architecture of the public realm is made best,
especially when the reach of both spheres extend simultaneously up to a
civilization's loftier aims and down to the needs and aspirations of its
marginalized populations.”20 Thus, to Rowe the “perceived” crisis in public
space-making is often less a matter of inadequate design technique, more a
muddled uncertainty about the appropriate relationships between the state and
civil society.21 He further notes that using past formulae for making public spaces is inadequate, as the time and contexts have changed.
Rowe believes that the concept of “civic” lies somewhere “between the private realm of one's existence and the public domain of officialdom. More important, it is produced by both spheres of activity and influence.”22 He identifies publicity as an important aspect of the civic realm. Thus, from Arendt’s perspective, “things civic bring people together and give them a sense of
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something permanent in common, while also maintaining in this convergence, or
expression of sameness and significance, a human plurality and diversity of
viewpoint.”23 The civic dimension of life is entirely necessary for holding public
institutions accountable and for ensuring a diversity of individual rights and
freedoms – a democratic ideal.24
Rowe states that “realism” does not easily lend itself to definition, which in
turn makes “architectural realism” even more difficult. However, he describes the
crux of realism as a “probing concern with everyday life and a simultaneous
interest in advancing the medium involved in its representation. Both a
'verisimilitude of content' and a 'verisimilitude of genre'… are required.”25
The verisimilitude of content, or a probing concern for everyday life, posits
two questions. First, what is “everyday life”? And, what is a “probing concern”?
Rowe states that defining everyday life raises ideological issues about which
scenes, what characters, and which environments are to be included. He states
that the subject matter must be more general, or part of a more widespread set of
social concerns. Thus, the subject matter should be representative of prevailing
circumstances and not nostalgic in longing
for some former time, and it should not be
overly futuristic in advancing a cause that is
not really present.26
Rowe writes that the probing concern Figure 3.4 – Skating in Central Park in realism immediately “equates with (1890). The design of Central Park accommodates everyone with a sociopolitical forms of criticism to be found in probing concern for everyday life.
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verism…”27 Here, there is an attempt to reveal underlying social processes.
Rowe offers the design of Central Park in New York City as an example [Figure
3.4]. He writes that the “design clearly recognized and yet deliberately
transcended the underlying social differences and potential for conflict among
New York's disparate population groups.”28 The park was successful precisely
because of its capacity to harmoniously accommodate everyone. Rowe notes
that this sentiment is difficult to translate into architecture, but states that a
housing scheme, for instance, that explicitly accounts for the potential reality of
urban violence in its design and yet provides positive community space, clearly embraces such an outlook.29
What is important in a realist project then is the balancing between a
concern for content and a concern for medium. Rowe states that realism still
depends on criteria supplied by a specific time, place, and circumstances. The
introduction of civic space as the focus for realism thus places importance in
everyday public life and the places where individuals meet or encounter one
another, as well as where civil society and the state transact their business.30
Rowe expands upon everyday environments, writing:
…[they] can bring people most directly into contact with the essence of things and thus provide them with an excitement about the world they inhabit. Furthermore, if daily spatial experience can be well rendered in ordinary terms, both the meaningfulness and congeniality of public life will be enhanced appreciably. Far from being merely mundane, this ordinary spatial experience provides a close natural relationship to the world and a broad basis for turning back nagging doubts about the existence of that world…31
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One problem posed by the relativism of contemporary media and ever-
changing conceptions of civil society is its potential conflict with the enduring and static quality of architecture. “It [architecture] can hardly be expected to metamorphize in step with definitions of civil society, which change rather more quickly, or as the temporary frames of reference defining particular other forms of reality come and go.”32 Thus, the question emerges: how can architecture and
urban design rise to such inherently relativistic occasions? Rowe answers that it
can do so by appearing to be very specific and palpable at a particular time and
place. Further, Rowe argues that architecture is more constitutive of people's lives than strictly representational of their actions, and where “a particular reality
and its corresponding architectural presence stands a good chance of being
remembered during one period, it probably means it will be recognized under
somewhat different social or political circumstances in another period, and thus
continue to help define emerging senses of civic realism.”33
Rowe offers four normative dimensions, the combination of which constitute civic realism:
..a dimension that can be graduated from abstract to naturalistic with regard to shape and appearance; a dimension that can be graded from individual, everyday, and ordinary occurrences to collective and transcendental experience; and a dimension that spans from simple representation of authority, power, and related social facts to the physical constitution of a place for similar effects; as well as a dimension that allows comparative differences in the sponsorship of urban projects between civil society and the state to be reflected fully. In short, civic realism is conceptually defined by
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the four dimensions of appearance, experience, effect, and sponsorship [Figure 3.5].34
Figure 3.5 – Four normative dimensions – Figure 3.6 – Five balancing tests focus on appearance, experience, effect, and sponsorship the dynamic tension required in each of the – compose Rowe’s civic realism. four normative dimensions.
Rowe further identifies five balancing tests for defining and maintaining civic realism and for initially helping to bring its qualities to the fore during the social production of urban space. Figure 3.6 illustrates the correlation between
Rowe’s balancing tests and his normative dimensions; each balancing test focuses on a dynamic tension required for each gradated normative dimension.
The first balancing test: “civic realism represents or expresses a pluralism of attitudes, credos, and other human characteristics inherent in society and yet also fosters a convergence or distinctiveness of viewpoint about what the urban realm should be like.”35 Such projects are inclusive, but affirmative and relatively singular.
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Second, civic realism presents a challenge and a critique to established
orders and prevailing authority, but also expresses a sense of common accord.
A viable critical dimension can be carried in an architectural work by what is included, excluded, expressed, celebrated, or downplayed in more strictly sociopolitical terms.36 Rowe notes that in US courtroom design there has been a
certain amount of experimentation with the relations of the actors in a judicial
proceeding, sometimes with the aim of helping to realign the perception of power
and authority.
The third test of civic realism is that it is capable of reflecting many
changeable aspects of society and possesses Arendt's transcendental quality.
“In effect, there is enough of an architectural framework provided to
accommodate different functions, modes of behavior, and expressive proclivities
as well as to maintain a lasting and significant presence beyond those specific
functions, modes, and proclivities.”37
The fourth test is a concern with everyday life and its depiction, but in a
manner that is not nostalgic, while still maintaining a certain familiarity and
recognizabilty in its formal expression. And, the final test of civic realism is that it
accommodates collective practices and rituals, while remaining congenial for
individual habitation and experience.38 Rowe summarizes, “…a good work of
civic realism is at once familiar, pluralistic, and critical… it is also specific, socially relevant, transcendental, and concerned with everyday life… Furthermore it is inextricably bound up with the continual advancement of the expressive means
by which it is made and elaborated.”39
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Chapter 3 Notes:
1 Cohen, Jean and Andrew Arato. Civil Society and Political Theory. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992, p. ix. 2 Edwards, Michael. Civil Society. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, Inc, 2004, 6. 3 Edwards, 6. 4 Edwards, 7. 5 Edwards, 8. Note that Hegel critiques this conceptual notion of civil society, noting the inequalities that exist between different economic and political interests within civil society require constant surveillance by the state in order for the 'civil' to remain. This thesis acknowledges this critique and will focus on a synergy of strong civil society as associational life, and an integrated component of the public sphere, in combination with a strong state, as advocated by Edwards (2004) and Chambers, Simone and Will Kymlicka (2002). 6 Edwards, 10. 7 Edwards, 13. 8 Edwards, 14. 9 Edwards, 14. 10 Edwards, 15. 11 Edwards, 55. 12 Edwards, 56-57. 13 Rowe, Peter G. Civic Realism. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997, 63. 14 Edwards describes forms as channels that are not completely captured by states or markets, where inclusive and objective public deliberation is feasible. Further, what takes place in the public sphere is assumed to be marked out by the normative values of the good society, like tolerance for dissent, a willingness to argue, and a commitment to telling the truth. Such norms are crucial if problems are to be genuinely resolved, since there is no other way the public interest can be defined. Edwards, 58. 15 Edwards, 59. 16 Edwards, 71. 17 Edwards, 95-96. 18 Rowe, 6. 19 Rowe, 9. 20 Rowe, 34.
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21 Rowe, 34. 22 Rowe, 66. 23 Rowe, 66. 24 Rowe, 66. 25 Rowe, 117. 26 Rowe, 117. 27 Rowe, 118. 28 Rowe, 118. 29 Rowe, 118. 30 Rowe, 121. 31 Rowe, 193. 32 Rowe, 207. 33 Rowe, 207. 34 Rowe, 209. Emphasis added. 35 Rowe, 214. 36 Rowe, 215. 37 Rowe, 216. 38 Rowe, 217-218. 39 Rowe, 218. Emphasis added.
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Chapter 4: Civic Realism and Democracy in Practice
With a better understanding of the civic realm as part of the broader public
realm as outlined in Chapter 1, we explored the decline of the public realm, and
subsequently the civic realm, in Chapter 2. That civic realms help nurture healthy civil societies appropriate to representative democracies was the focus of
Chapter 3, as were the normative dimensions and balancing tests that allow us to extract principles from successful civic spaces in order to aide in the production
of new spaces. This chapter provides a mix of urban-architectural precedents,
comparing Rowe’s balancing tests with real civic spaces. It should be noted that not all projects are equally successful along all five tests. More importantly, the balancing tests seek a dynamic, ever fluctuating tension between two extremes.
For example, the first balancing test – civic realism represents or expresses a
pluralism of attitudes, while fostering a convergence of viewpoint – contains an
inherent paradox. Civic realism rests on both sides constantly pulling and the
ever-shifting balance point in the middle. Figure 4.1 illustrates the connections
between the normative dimensions; the correlating balancing tests; the urban-
architectural implications, whether formal, programmatic, sociocultural, or
aesthetic; and urban-architectural precedents that exemplify each of the
balancing tests. Following Figure 4.1, four urban-architectural projects (Siena’s
Piazza del Campo, the National Mall in Washington, Santa Barbara’s County
Courthouse, and the Marin County Civic Center) are examined in detail using all five balancing tests.
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Figure 4.1 – This table illustrates the urban-architectural design implications related to the five balancing tests, and one precedent that exemplifies each.
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The Piazza del Campo, Siena
Peter Rowe posits Siena’s Piazza del
Campo [Figure 4.2] as a place where civic
life, civic imagination, and civic
responsibilities have been inscribed in
space. A brief history of Siena’s
Figure 4.2 – The Piazza del Campo, development, and a thorough analysis of Siena. the Campo, using Rowe’s five tests for the bringing about of civic realism,
illustrate that the Piazza del Campo expressively captured the life, times, and
civil circumstances of Siena, while reminding the Sienese of who they were and
what was expected of them.
Siena’s Historical Development
During the thirteenth century, amidst the struggle for power between the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire, there emerged a durable civic phenomenon
– the comuni, or communes, of northern and central Italy. Highly urbanized, populous, wealthy, and enterprising, the two most influential communes were the republics of Venice and Florence.1
Yet the smaller rival of neighboring Florence, Siena, developed an extreme form of popular government, committee rule, and communal municipal administration. The city, for a period of roughly three hundred years, between
1255 and 1555, tenaciously held onto its republican independence and a belief in
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civic virtue.2 On the ascent during the thirteenth century was a mercantile
culture, paralleled with an increase in individual land ownership. The commune
that developed was a fusion between city and countryside; the two became one,
with smaller towns and surrounding rural areas replicating the political and social
qualities of the larger city-state. 3
During this period of growth, Siena was both bourgeois and enterprising.
With the rise of mercantile ventures and banking, Siena was land owning and
profitably territorial. Geographically, the city-state of Siena encompassed a
sizable area of central-western Italy, roughly 50 kilometers in every direction.
With Florence close to the north, Sienese influence spread south, east covering
the Tyrrhenian Sea, and to the metal-bearing hills west of the city.
Administratively, the contado – the larger territory of Siena – was
subdivided into three parts. At the center was the city itself, under direct rule of commune authorities. The suburbs, or borghi, incorporated the shantytowns that
grew up outside the walls of Siena and surrounding townships dating from earlier
periods. Often taxed separately, the suburbs were administered directly by the
city. The third broad administrative unit was composed of the remaining mosaic
of towns and countryside. Often, such areas had partial autonomy in return for
allegiance to Sienese authority. 4
Before the Great Plague of 1348, the population of the entire city-state was approximately 100,000. The population was far from homogenous, composed of nobles, merchants, tradespeople, industrialists, day laborers, clergy, and others from a broad range of callings, as well as foreigners and
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immigrants. Siena’s society was classified into four reasonably distinct groups.
First were the casati, the noble houses and families of aristocratic bearing. Next
were the popolo grasso, composed of upper-middle class bankers, merchants,
and industrials, as well as retailers, goldsmiths, judges, doctors, and academics.
The majority of citizens, including craftsmen, clerics, farmers, masons, and
soldiers, comprised the popolo minuto. Finally, non-citizens without complete
rights, such as servants, foreigners, and some day-laborers, made up the
majority of the population.5
The casati were expressly forbidden from holding high state or municipal office for fear of a return to feudalism. However, the new bourgeois families did not see themselves at odds with the older magnate families. Family life was patriarchal and extended to include relatives, retainers, servants, and even business associates. Moreover, lending assistance to needy or less fortunate family members was widely seen a duty and, thus, commonplace.6
Until 1290, the predominant impression of the city, apart from the cathedral, was one of dwellings with towers belonging to the casati. As both a defense and a symbol of rank, the towers could be destroyed by the commune in
punishment for transgressions by a noble family. The unconstrained evolutionary
development that characterized the city ended in 1290, when Siena elected three
public officials and gave them control over all new construction in the city and
responsibility for guiding routine inspections. Legislatively, the city took control of
development, mandating that the demolition of old buildings and their
reconstruction had to be completed in a timely manner and to the commune’s
Wilschutz 65 satisfaction. Moreover, the taking of private property for public purposes became an established, well-respected practice.7
Politically, the terzi – or tripartite division of the city – was further subdivided into popoli and contrade. The popoli were administrative districts, drawing their names from parish churches, while the contrade were smaller and more numerous neighborhoods.8 The contrade were social as well as political entities, and neighborhood competition was intense with membership granted only by birth right.
By the middle of the thirteenth century, a populist government emerged in
Siena. It was not strictly democratic, but was antimonopolistic, representative, republican in spirit, and a strong departure from the former feudal system. There was a broadly based council with citizen representation form the terzi and popoli.
A Podesta, who was by constitutional prohibition non-Sienese, headed the
Council and was the commune’s supreme magistrate. There was also a ruling oligarchy, whose members were frequently sequestered in the Palazzo Pubblico to avoid bias and corruption. Beginning in 1278, and lasting for seventy years, the Regime of the Nine, or Noveschi, began. Given sweeping powers and responsibilities, these nine governors strongly influenced the governmental structure and processes in Siena until long after the fourteenth century.
Participatory processes, and an emphasis on civil society, established by the
Nine, created a public sphere in Siena’s Piazza del Campo that remains today. 9
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The Piazza del Campo
The Piazza del Campo, analyzed through Rowe’s five balancing tests, illustrates the successful attributes of civility and civil society embodied in the plaza.
1) Civic realism represents a pluralism of attitudes, credos, and other
human characteristics in society, while fostering a convergence of
viewpoint and being relatively singular –
The authorship of its overall layout, spatial definition, decoration, and
use was a mixed enterprise, involving both the government and civil
society. In the mid-thirteenth century, the Campo was originally divided
into two parts, a lower Campo del Mercato, or marketplace, and the upper
Campo di San Paolo. At the time, the church of San Paolo and a thin row
of houses ran roughly through the middle of the present piazza.10
However, even in its piecemeal form, the Campo was the meeting
place of the terzi, the three major political divisions of the city, and literally
the symbolic and geographic center of the city. This period also roughly
coincided with the rule of the Nine – Siena's most influential government
regime – and corresponding displays of public wealth and grandeur. For
the first time, the commune and other state-sponsored cultural activities
began to rival and outstrip the building program of the church and nobility.
A mixed scheme of government and participation allowed sponsorship and
civic placemaking to occur in a plural way, but toward a singular vision – a
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civic plaza for the exercise of participatory government, for ritual, and for
everyday individual experience.11 The buildings that bound the plaza are
stylistically similar (height, decoration, perforation, frontage), while all pay
respect to the Palazzo Pubblico in scale. The buildings allow for variation
in use and ownership, with some serving as restaurants and retail, while
the Palazzo Pubblico is used for government functions.
Figure 4.3 – Aerial photograph of the Piazza del Campo. Note the radiating lines that divide the plaza into nine sections.
2) Civic realism presents a critique to the established orders and
prevailing authority, but also expresses a sense of common accord –
Gradually, the commune adopted a series of regulations regarding the development of the piazza. The heights of the surrounding buildings, and
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the conditions of entry and egress were laid out in a set of nineteen
articles in 1262. Later, in 1297, the commune started requiring certain
architectural features, such as bifurcated windows. The adjoining Palazzo
Pubblico forms the frontispiece to the piazza along the south and is the focal point for the radial paving pattern and general layout of the Campo
[Figure 4.3]. It was originally occupied by offices of the Podesta, the Nine, and other magistrates. In 1325, the cornerstone was laid for the elegant tower rising over 80 meters to one side of the palazzo – the Torre del
Mangia. Thus, civil society took control of the Campo, issuing a subtle but strong challenge to the power and authority of the Sienese nobility and clergy.12
But beyond the initial, and consistent, challenge to government, the
Campo embodies a sense of common accord - civic engagement.
Historically, civic values and aspirations permeated practically all aspects
of Sienese life. Not only was civic duty required of all citizens, but it was
rendered with pride and enthusiasm. Local factionalism still presides over
the Sienese, remaining a defining aspect of life and a driving force behind
Siena’s strong sense of civic pride.13
In 1346, the surface of the piazza was paved in a fishbone pattern of
brick, divided into nine segments radiating from a sculptured central drain
at the lowest point on the site. This simple move illustrates the power of
simple urban design elements such as paving changes to tie the site
together, while referencing Siena’s rich history. The Fonte Gaia – fountain
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of joy, originally constructed in 1343 – was relocated in the middle of the
radiating segments of paving opposite the drain. Clearly, the nine-part
division is a direct reference to the Noveschi. Only a little less directly, it
also reflects the symbolic and geographic joining of the terzi at this central location within the city.14
The surrounding architecture further provides a broad historical narrative, a common thread of which was civic pride, independence, and duty. This served to be a constant reminder to future governments and societies of their civic responsibilities. Rowe summarizes, “In other words, the urban and architectural expression of the Campo presented an interpretable and rather constant challenge to governments, while holding fast on the very idea of civil rule itself…”15
3) Civic realism is capable of reflecting many changeable aspects of
society, but possesses a transcendental quality –
Rowe states that the Campo represents processes of constant
renewal, the triumph of life and death, and the longevity of the republic.16
Arendt notes the importance of this transcendental quality for the emergence of civility and the public sphere. The Campo serves as a reminder to the Sienese population of civic responsibility and duty, but one that is interpretable and changes with the times and circumstances.
Throughout history, the Campo has served many different uses,
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accommodating them through evolution and the continual give and take
between civil society and government. Many of the original institutions
from the early republican period still exist, including a university, a
continuing legacy of good government, and socially cohesive
neighborhoods with their own symbolic identities.17 The plaza is not so
arranged as to limit it to a single, predominant use, but rather provides space that is flexible for evolving functions. For example, the edge is used primarily for restaurant seating, but during the annual palio [horse race] it is easily transformed into audience bleachers.
4) Civic realism is concerned with everyday life –
The uses of the Piazza del Campo have historically been, and continue to be, numerous and varied. Historically, it was used an open-air hall or church where clergy would conduct discussions and give sermons, frequently used for secular ceremonies, and used as a political forum.18 In
the everyday life of the medieval Sienese, the Piazza del Campo was the
site of “war games” – a ritualized, organized fistfight that took place
between sparring factions, invariably representing different contrade or
neighborhoods. Each faction, at a prearranged signal, would enter the
pizza from the main streets and try to force the opposing faction to retreat
and “abandon the field.” Afterward, participants would join hands and
dance as a sign of camaraderie. The Campo was also the site of the
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occasional bull race and other spectator sports that occurred on a regular
basis.19
Beyond serving as a stage for games, the Campo was a regular
marketplace and an informal meeting place for individuals from all walks of
life. Today, the Campo maintains a similar character, and serves a similar
function, as the site for café life, as a venue for promenading well-to-do
Sienese women, or simply as a refuge amidst the crowd. Rowe states, “In spite of the paving, it also preserves in use its original field-like quality, with tourists often found picnicking on the Campo floor as they might in an
open field.”20
5) Civic realism accommodates collective practices, while remaining
congenial for individual habitation and experience –
While the Campo is congenial for individual habitation, it remains the
site of festivals and public ceremonies, and is probably best known for its
horse race – the palio. First held in 1594, and a regular event in the years
following 1802, the palio is a symbolic ritual for the Sienese. Over the
years, additional palia have been held to celebrate extraordinary events,
such as the end of World War II, the 600th anniversary of Saint
Catherine's birth in 1947, the lunar landing in 1969, and the 500-year
anniversary of the Monte dei Paschi bank in 1972.21
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Today the palio is contested by
ten of the seventeen contrade in a
horse race run three times around
the Campo in a clockwise direction
[Figure 4.4]. The event begins days Figure 4.4 – The palio in the Piazza del earlier with ceremonies and trials. Campo.
The Campo is transformed for these events. The race track is covered
with sand, while barricades and viewing platforms mark the course and
bring a semblance of order to the enormous crowd of spectators. Race
day beings with a spectacular parade and once the race begins, teamwork
often takes place among representatives of strongly allied contrade,
especially when one neighborhood is perceived to have a much stronger chance of winning.22 Thus, it is the Campo’s strong spatial definition and
open, paved plaza that allows it to easily function for large civic events,
while its human scale (both in plan and in section), its everyday uses, and
its flexibility for individual habitation allow it to function equally as well on a daily basis.
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The Campo is space contained by a ring of
architecturally cohesive buildings [Figures
4.3 and 4.5]. “It may be strikingly beautiful like an illuminated script from the early period, but it also requires contemplation,
knowledge, and a sense of architectural Figure 4.5 – Buildings surrounding the Piazza del Campo are of similar style and form to be interpreted thoughtfully. The height, giving the plaza an architectural cohesiveness. realism is thus removed and representational in one sense, and alive, literal, and constitutive in another.”23 Rowe says that sustained local use, collective
comprehension, memory, and attachment are necessary in the creation of the
campo and all other viable civic spaces. In summary, the Piazza del Campo
produced “…an aura, recalled fine moments from the past, and provided
palpable guidance about what form of public behavior was not only acceptable
but preferred. In short, it was civic.”24
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The National Mall, Washington, D.C.
Historical Development
Pierre Charles L'Enfant envisioned the National Mall as a four-hundred- foot-wide “Grand Avenue” one and one-half miles long, and intended it to be lined by important civic buildings and cultural institutions [Figure 4.6]. However, topography terminated L'Enfant's vista at the shores of the Potomac River.
Moreover, L'Enfant's plan was modified by countless nineteenth century projects, including those of James Renwick, Andrew Jackson Downing, and the insertion of railroad tracks on the Mall [Figure 4.7].25
Figure 4.6 – Attributed to Pierre L’Enfant, Plan of Washington, DC, 1791.
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However, at the turn of the
twentieth century, the Mall was
reconceived by the Senate Park (also
known as McMillan) Commission.
Initially charged only with creating a park Figure 4.7 – View of Mall looking east from Smithsonian Institution Building, c. 1863. system to beautify the District of Railroad tracks are visible at left center. Columbia, the Commission was influenced greatly by a tour of the great
European capitals, Italian gardens, and the American colonial communities of
Annapolis and Williamsburg. The design consultants – Daniel H. Burnham,
Charles F. McKim, Frederick Law Olmstead, Jr., and Augustus Saint-Gaudens –
urged the restoration of Pierre L'Enfant's plan, but modernized to meet the
expanded needs of the federal government.26
Based on their recommendations, L'Enfant's great central avenue was to become an attenuated greensward, offering an impressive prospect from the
Capitol to the Washington Monument. The Commission’s reverence for federal
America and for the ordered splendor of Baroque Europe influenced their view of the space as an axis around which all else would be oriented. Museums and other cultural institutions would replace the picturesque Smithsonian Institution buildings and other inappropriate structures [Figure 4.8]. The Commission also extended the east-west and north-south axes over the silted-up riverbed, greatly increasing the size of the Mall, while punctuating the two vistas with architectural icons – later realized as the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. Cynthia R. Field of
Wilschutz 76 the Smithsonian Institution and Jeffrey Tilman, professor of architecture at the
University of Cincinnati, wrote that the new formulation was “at once formal and romantic.”27
Figure 4.8 – Senate Park Commission Plan of 1901-1902, models showing 1900 conditions [left] and treatment proposed [right].
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Architect Robert A.M. Stern views the reconceived Mall as a combined
civic and cultural center that is at once a national front lawn and an imperial
forum. It is a wide swath of open space, something between a park and a
boulevard, and serves as a sacred enclosure and a temenos [temple] for a
democracy. It is a calculated expression of centralized power, but it also
represents a fundamentally optimistic vision of democracy – a forum for debate and public gathering.28
Civic Realism
1) Civic realism represents a pluralism of attitudes, credos, and other
human characteristics in society, while fostering a convergence of
viewpoint and being relatively singular –
Richard Longstreth, associate professor of architecture history and
director of the graduate program in historic preservation at George
Washington University, states that the National Mall has developed in
many varying, sometimes divergent, forms during the two hundred years
since L'Enfant's plan was prepared.29 He writes:
In its parts, its ordering, and its character, the Mall embraces a number of different and potentially divergent aspects of thought and landscape in the United States. Some of the allusions are literal, others abstract. Some of the facets are placid, others highly active. Some are rooted in centuries of tradition, others appear much newer. Not the least of the
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Mall's salient attributes is that this spectrum of components, this multitude of qualities exist in a compatible relationship. There is ambiguity in places, sometimes tension, but on the whole harmony prevails and to such a degree that one is often scarcely conscious of how varied the particulars are.30 The Mall is a product of continuous struggle between different
visions and varied sponsors. Struggle has occurred not only over what has been implemented, but also what has been rejected. Proposals for
more monuments, more buildings, more sculpture, more trees, more
water, and more amenities have been constant throughout the Mall's
history.31
The Mall in scale is emblematic of the vast reaches of the country
itself. In two centuries of development and change, the Mall still
represents one vision of a public forum and national lawn to the country.32
The elm trees tie the Mall together, while nicely segregating the space into shaded seating space at the edges, and open expanses of grass at the center. Wide paths break the green spaces into manageable spaces for programmatic functions, allowing individual plots to be used for civic or sporting events. Stern writes that the restoration of the National Mall represented the maturation of America, the possibilities for American civilization to realize more than L'Enfant could have possibly imagined, and gave architectural expression to America's self-conception as the inheritor of Western civilization.33
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2) Civic realism presents a critique to the established orders and
prevailing authority, but also expresses a sense of common accord –
Charles Jencks writes that the
Mall emerged spontaneously in the
twentieth century as Arendt’s
‘space of appearances,’ when the
public claimed it for themselves. Figure 4.9 – Civil Rights March on ‘Hoovervilles,’ ad hoc camps of Washington, aerial view looking northeast from above Lincoln Memorial, unemployed families during the 1963.
Depression, appeared on the Mall, and in 1932, the Bonus Marchers,
an army of 20,000 jobless veterans, camped on the Mall to force
Congress to give them their benefits. In 1939, Eleanor Roosevelt
attended a concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial by singer
Marian Anderson, who had been denied access to the Constitution Hall
by the Daughters of the American Revolution because of her race.
Martin Luther King, Jr’s 1963 march on Washington culminated on the
same site, where he preached his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech [Figure
4.9].34 The Mall became a forum to challenge authority, while
expressing a common accord of freedom and debate in a democracy.
Additionally, the provision of such a vast space dedicated to the public
realm at the core of the nation’s capital issues a strong challenge and
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critique to government – public space fronts, ties together, and is at the
center of the representative democracy.
3) Civic realism is capable of reflecting many changeable aspects of society, but possesses a transcendental quality –
The Mall is not a static space, but continues to change and be subject to many proposed changes. Andrew Jackson Downing's 1851 Plan
[Figure 4.10] and the development of the Mall as a botanical garden illustrate that the purpose and articulation of the Mall have changed dramatically throughout history. Therese O'Malley, a specialist in
American garden history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, describes Downing's plan as having six parts, each serving as an exemplary garden type. Downing's design was similar to Robert Mills' plan for the Mall of 1841 [Figure 4.11], in that it encompassed the entire public grounds and contained a sequence of linked units, each one appropriate to a different functional and architectural component of the
Mall.35 Downing's plan was eradicated in the Senate Park Commission
Plan of 1901-1902, along with other projects placed on the Mall during the nineteenth century. “The Mall hence became a proving ground, not only for ideas but for actual work, which would subsequently influence a chain of events whereby the large municipal park would emerge as an essential component of the urban landscape in the United States.”36
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Figure 4.10 – Andrew Jackson Downing’s Plan of 1851, illustrating the proposed layout of the Mall grounds.
Figure 4.11 – Proposed plan by Robert Mills, 1841.
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The Mall has demonstrated that it can accommodate change without a
subsequent loss in vitality, purpose, and symbolic power, giving it a
transcendental quality. It is an ongoing phenomenon and recent efforts to revive its character and control its development illustrate its importance to the citizens of Washington, D.C. Longstreth writes, “Today, one's perception of the Mall in both its tangible and associative dimensions, is of continuity. Not fully aware of the Malls' complex history, many people refer to the area more as a product of L'Enfant than of his numerous successors, in part because of the desire to believe that all this work has been built on a vision established at the time of the city's founding.”37 The
Mall's physical character has emerged as sufficiently strong and lucid to embrace deviations. As the Mall draws from many historical precedents, and as it incorporates many aspects of the landscape into its fabric, so it transcends the specifics of time, personality, and place to embody a nation far greater than the sum of its parts.38
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3) Civic realism is concerned with everyday life –
Tourists come to the mall in
droves, but area residents also
frequent the Mall, and many use it as
a municipal park. Both organized
and spontaneous sporting events Figure 4.12 – View of the Mall looking take place routinely [Figure 4.12]. east, from Twelfth Street, 1989.
Thousands of people work along the Mall or pass through it in the course
of their daily business. The Mall allows people, more than buildings,
sculpture, or landscaping to dominate the scene.39 The design of the Mall
makes explicit this formal concern for the everyday. The planned seating
spaces at the sides, as well as its park-like setting allow the everyday functions to dominate, while still making the Mall available for civic events.
4) Civic realism accommodates collective practices, while remaining
congenial for individual habitation and experience –
In the Mall, orchestrated events involving thousands of people or spontaneous ones with just a few participants are equally fitting. Space here is ever-changing, never limited to a single or predominating use.
Longstreth writes, “In this sense, the Mall's space is neutral, allowing people freely to engage themselves in myriad ways, from revering national
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heroes to challenging national policy, from learning about artistic and
technical achievements to competing in games, from paying homage to
the dead to celebrating matrimonial ties, from gathering for mass
spectacles to retreating for solitary contemplation.”40
Yearly the Mall is used for Smithsonian cultural events, historic
commemorations, and annual celebrations. The year of 2004 bore
witness to the National WWII Reunion, honoring the veterans of the war
and the unveiling of the National WWII Memorial; the Smithsonian Folklife
Festival, a celebration of the culture and music of many ethnicities;41 the
First Americans Festival, sponsored by the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian with Native American musicians, dancers, and storytellers from approximately 40 Native communities;42 and the annual
Fourth of July fireworks celebration.
The Mall also remains congenial for individual habitation. While large in overall scale, the Mall incorporates the use of elm trees and benches to provide shaded, protected, and comfortable space for individuals [Figure
4.13]. The National Mall thus embodies Rowe's principle of civic realism.
Figure 4.13 – View adjacent to Reflecting Pool, looking west, 1987.
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Santa Barbara County Courthouse
Historical Development
In 1875, the County of Santa
Barbara built a Classical Revival style
courthouse, with an entrance façade that
featured a Greek pedimented portico.
Although this building remained in use until
1925, an adjacent public records building Figure 4.14 – 1875 Santa Barbara County Courthouse [right] and adjacent Public was required to accommodate growing Records Building, 1925 [left].
county needs. Built in the Queen Anne
style, the public records building lacked
harmony with the courthouse [Figure
4.14].43
Following World War I, both the
1875 courthouse and the public records Figure 4.15 – Drawing of winning entry for a new courthouse and public records building were considered inadequate, and building, 1919.
in early 1919 the county held a competition for the design of a new courthouse.
The entries reflected a desire to build in the Spanish style, but due to funding
problems, the winning entry by Edgar A. Mathews was never implemented
[Figure 4.15].44 However, on June 29, 1925, an earthquake heavily damaged
both the courthouse and the public records building, making the construction of a new building imperative.
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The trend toward a Spanish style in Santa Barbara was solidified with the
May 1925 building code ordinance that dictated the use of concrete and stuccoed
masonry. Architect William Mooser designed a courthouse complex fitting such
an image [Figure 4.16]. Mooser’s civic structure contains a hall of records, a
service building, two courtroom/office wings, a jail, a law library, and the outdoor sunken garden [Figure 4.17].
Figure 4.16 – William Mooser’s drawing of the Santa Barbara County Courthouse Anacapa Street elevation.
Figure 4.17 – Santa Barbara County Courthouse plan.
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The focal point of the composition is the entry arch on Anacapa Street with a four-story tower, a fountain, and a view to the garden and distant hills beyond [Figures 4.18-4.19]. The clock tower draws attention to the arch, and Figure 4.18 – “Spirit of the Ocean“ Fountain flanking the main arch on the left, the balcony provides a panoramic view by sculptor Ettore Cadorin. of the city, foothills, and islands across the Santa Barbara Channel. The
Anacapa wing contains the main lobby, information booth, and new courtrooms on the main floor, the Mural Room,
County Clerk-Recorder’s office, and the court clerk’s office on the second floor.45
The Figueroa Wing houses courtrooms on the ground floor and a law library on the second floor. The Figure 4.19 – View through main arch wing’s garden façade has a minimum of showing landscaping and horizon beyond. openings, but has a grand entry emphasized by a second doorway located on a balcony above the first
[Figure 4.20]. This wing contains multiple entry points, including a public Figure 4.20 – Figueroa Wing, viewed from garden.
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entrance and a more private entrance for attorneys.46
The sunken gardens and semi-
enclosed courtyard complete the
composition. The arrangement of
plantings, having matured since the
courthouse completion, includes towering Figure 4.21 – Sunken gardens and landscaping at the Santa Barbara County trees, palms, lush flowering foliage, and Courthouse. expanses of green lawn. Tropical and sub-tropical plants, many imported, were
used to provide a more authentic Mediterranean feel [Figure 4.21]. The plantings
are generally large in scale; they define exterior spaces and highlight or frame
entries and other features in the architecture.47
Civic Realism
1) Civic realism represents a pluralism of attitudes, credos, and other
human characteristics in society, while fostering a convergence of
viewpoint and being relatively singular –
Donlyn Lyndon, professor of architecture at the University of
California, Berkeley, writes that the Santa Barbara County Courthouse
has no distinct form, but wings and open corridors that are arranged
around the edge of a county-scaled courtyard, “like a thick wall open
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on the end to views of the surrounding town and mountains.”48 The
assemblage of white forms opens itself up to the landscape in a
singular fashion, asserting itself as a backdrop and transforming the
landscape in the process.49 However, while projecting a singular
vision of the city and county, the courthouse also embodies pluralism,
presenting an open face to the city and connecting the state to civil
society.
2) Civic realism presents a critique to the established orders and
prevailing authority, but also expresses a sense of common accord –
The Santa Barbara County Courthouse eschews the traditional
elements of building ordinarily associated with government. The forms
associate with an idealized Spanish past; the Court House is a glorified
hacienda built on a scale that Spanish California never knew.50
Hispanic architecture had been officially adopted shortly before the
construction of the county courthouse as the model for rebuilding
Santa Barbara following the 1925 earthquake. The courthouse is in
this adopted style, and there are few overt, conventional symbols of
American government found in a Greek classical revival style. Lyndon
writes:
…the memorability of the place has to do with your experience in it. The court becomes a center of experience in the town because it is nicely made and can be richly
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inhabited. It fosters the dignity of all who enter there. Registering these qualities can lead to a respect for the place and for the government that it represents. The most overt symbol is itself one that refers to the larger setting – a grand arch that forms the entry, not into the building, but into the courtyard, with a magnificent view of the Santa Barbara mountains framed through the opening as you pass under it. This is a building that serves its purposes by reminding us of the place to which it belongs51 [Figure 4.22].
Thus, the Santa Barbara County
Courthouse is itself a critique of historic
government buildings and more
conventional symbols, while providing a
singular vision of Santa Barbara as a
historic Spanish town.
Figure 4.22 – Anacapa Street façade. The clock tower and entry arch are visible.
3) Civic realism is capable of reflecting many changeable aspects of
society, but possesses a transcendental quality –
While a product of its time and place, the county courthouse
transcends these limits and embodies the city and county of Santa
Barbara today. Making connections with the natural landscape and
Santa Barbara’s historic ties, the courthouse has withstood local
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development pressures and programmatic changes without a loss of
vitality, potency, or appropriateness. The courtyard space has enough
programmatic flexibility, and enough dignity from the expression of the
county courthouse, to serve fittingly as a space for more formal uses
(such as weddings and city/county events) as well as individual,
everyday uses (such as lunch breaks).
4) Civic realism is concerned with everyday life –
The landscaping in, and breathtaking views from, the semi-
enclosed courtyard, along with the favorable climate of Santa Barbara,
allow the space to be used as a municipal park and be frequented by
tourists.52 Presenting an open edge to the city, the gardens are at
once open and secluded, inviting and protected. The courtyard relates
well with surrounding streets and built context; the space is
appropriately scaled when compared with the surrounding
development (in plan and in section), and is simultaneously bounded
and open to the city.
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5) Civic realism accommodates collective practices, while remaining
congenial for individual habitation and experience –
While the breathtaking views and the beautiful landscaping allow
individuals to casually meander through the courtyard, the space also
accommodates collective practices and festivals. From civil marriage
ceremonies to the Old Spanish Days Fiesta [Figures 4.23-4.24], that
recognizes the culture, history, and traditions of Santa Barbara, the
partially enclosed space is congenial to both individual and collective
habitation and experience.53
Figures 4.23 & 4.24 – Old Spanish Days Fiesta, Santa Barbara, 2004.
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Marin County Civic Center
Frank Lloyd Wright was concerned with the possibilities of creating a democratic architecture.
Wright had the opportunity to express his democratic ideals in one of his great public projects, the Marin County Civic Figure 4.25 – Marin County Civic Center. The Hall of Justice is in the foreground, heading back toward the public library. Center (1957-1969). Located in San
Rafael, California, the project brings together the county Administrative
Building and a Hall of Justice to house the functions of municipal democracy
Figure 4.25]. The two wings are anchored to a public library [Figures Figure 4.26 – Site plan, with the Administration Building and Hall of Justice 4.26-4.27]. [bottom center], fairgrounds, and art museum.
Figure 4.27 – Aerial view of Administration building with Hall of Justice in the background [back left]. Illustrated are the skylights over the interior “mall.”
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Civic Realism
1) Civic realism represents a pluralism of attitudes, credos, and other
human characteristics in society, while fostering a convergence of
viewpoint and being relatively singular –
In his book When Democracy Builds, Wright states, “Where and
whenever democracy is… understood and practiced, the part is as the
whole no less than the whole is as the part.”54 Wright observed a
connection between the structure of human life and organization and that
of architecture: “All architectural values are human values, or not valuable.
Human values are always life-giving, never life-taking.”55 Thus, the
individual’s value as part of the whole inspired Wright to state, “Our ideal
is Democracy, the highest possible expression of the individual as a unit
not inconsistent with a harmonious whole.”56
Wright designed horizontal and vertical circulation within the Civic
Center to represent this plurality. Visitors must pass through the
Administration building to reach the library. The circulation embodies
Wright’s belief in the symbiotic relationship between part and whole, but
does so in a composition that is read and understood singularly. Having
to pass the Administration building and government offices, library visitors
are placed into physical contact with the government of Marin County.
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2) Civic realism presents a critique to the established orders and
prevailing authority, but also expresses a sense of common accord –
Robert A.M. Stern states that Wright internalized the ideal of the Mall,
but inverted its hierarchy. The shallow-domed library occupies the
dominant position in the composition (reserved for the Capitol building on the Mall), and government offices line the sides.57 Thus, the building acts
as a subtle critique of power – placing the source of knowledge, the
library, at the center of the composition.
3) Civic realism is capable of reflecting many changeable aspects of
society, but possesses a transcendental quality –
While retaining a transcendental quality associated with its symbolic
messages, the Civic Center is not adaptable to change in the sense of the
Piazza del Campo or the National Mall. The building is wedged between
two hills, and makes no attempt to provide either an exterior or interior
gathering space, nor does it provide any space that is adaptable to
multiple uses.58
4) Civic realism is concerned with everyday life –
The site is meant to be approached from and experienced by car.
Thus, with the exception of the library, the Civic Center provides little
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interaction for citizens on a daily basis. Charles Moore refers to the
complex as a “drive-in Civic Center,” noting:
…for a county filling up with adjacent and increasingly indistinguishable suburban communities, quite without a major center, [this Civic Center] was going to be the center for civic activities, the public realm, one would have supposed, for which a number of public-spirited leaders in the community had fought long and hard… [However,] it demands little of the people who float by, and gives them little back. It allows them to penetrate its interior from a point on its underside next to the delivery entrance, but further relations are discouraged, and lingering is most often the result of inability to find the exit.59 Thus, in the spatial arrangement of the spaces provided, as well as in
their intended use, the Civic Center makes little attempt to adequately
provide for everyday experiences.
5) Civic realism accommodates collective practices, while remaining
congenial for individual habitation and experience –
The Marin County Civic Center provides little welcoming space that is congenial for individual habitation. The spaces, although nicely lit by skylights, are too narrow to be used effectively for anything but a corridor
[Figures 4.27-4.28]. The building fails on the more fundamental levels of allowing for the assembly of citizens and encouraging speech and
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participation. The Planning Commission Hearing room and Meeting Room
is at the extreme end of the second floor, preceded only by a small lobby.
These precedents illustrate the difficulties of successfully embodying civic realism at all five levels. However, in stressing the dynamic tension required for civic realism to simultaneously (1) connect with the individual and with the collective,
(2) to embody a critique and a common accord, (3) to be congenial for the individual and for collective events, (4) to be concerned with the everday and do so in a formal non-nostalgic manner, and (5) to express pluralism and singularity, Rowe’s analytical framework allows for evolving civic spaces where Figure 4.28 – The open, sky-lit interior mall connects the the state and civil society are constantly government offices with a circulation space. negotiating, the balance is constantly shifting, and civic realism is constantly bringing palpable civic qualities to the city.
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Chapter 4 Notes:
1 Rowe, 8. 2 Rowe, 8. 3 Rowe, 9. 4 Bowsky, William M. A Medieval Italian Commune: Siena Under the Nine, 1287-1355. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981, 1-2. 5 Bowsky, 20-21. 6 Rowe, 15. 7 Rowe, 17. 8 Bowsky, 13. 9 Rowe, 19. 10 Rowe, 29. 11 Rowe, 25. 12 Baumgart, Fritz Erwin. A History of Architectural Styles. New York, NY: Praeger Publishers, 1970, 272. 13 Rowe, 23-24. 14 Rowe, 26. 15 Rowe, 38. 16 Rowe, 31. 17 Rowe, 34. 18 Rowe, 28. 19 Rowe, 29. 20 Rowe, 28. 21 Rowe, 30. 22 Rowe, 31. 23 Rowe, 8. 24 Rowe, 7. 25 Stern, Robert A. M., with Gastil, Raymond W. “A Temenos for Democracy: The Mall in Washington and Its Influence.” In The Mall in Washington, 1791-1991 [Studies In The History of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Symposium Papers XIV]. Richard Longstreth, ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002, 263.
Wilschutz 99
26 Field, Cynthia R. and Jeffrey T. Tilman. ”Creating a Model for the National Mall: The Design of the National Museum of Natural History.” In Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 2004 Mar, v.63, n.1, 52. 27 Field, 52. 28 Stern, 263. 29 Longstreth, Richard. “Introduction: Change and Continuity on the Mall, 1791-1991.” In The Mall in Washington, 1791-1991 [Studies In The History of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Symposium Papers XIV]. Richard Longstreth, ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002, 263. 30 Longstreth, 15. 31 Longstreth, 15. 32 Longstreth, 14. 33 Stern, 263-264. 34 Jencks, Charles and Maggie Valentine. “The Architecture of Democracy: The Hidden Tradition.” In Architectural Design. 1987, v.57, n.9/10, 21-22. 35 O’Malley, Therese. “A Public Museum of Trees: Mid-Nineteenth Century Plans for the Mall.” In The Mall in Washington, 1791-1991 [Studies In The History of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Symposium Papers XIV]. Richard Longstreth, ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002, 66. 36 Longstreth, 12. 37 Longstreth, 13-14. 38 Longstreth, 15. 39 Longstreth, 11. 40 Longstreth, 15. 41 Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. 2004 Smithsonian Folklife Festival [online]. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2004 [cited 7 February 2005]. Available from the World Wide Web: (http://www.folklife.si.edu/festival/2005/index.html) 42 Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. National Museum of the American Indian: About the First Americans Festival [online]. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2004 [cited 7 February 2005]. Available from the World Wide Web: (http://americanindian.si.edu/opening/festival/) 43 Gebhard, Patricia and Kathryn Masson. The Santa Barbara County Courthouse. Santa Barbara, CA: Daniel & Daniel Publishers, 2001, 17. 44 Gebhard, 17-18. 45 Gebhard, 40. 46 Gebhard, 47.
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47 Gebhard, 56. 48 Lyndon, Donlyn. “Public Buildings: Symbols Quantified by Experience.” In The Public Face of Architecture: Civic Culture and Public Spaces. Nathan Glazer and Mark Lilla, eds. New York, NY: The Free Press, A Division of Macmillan, Inc, 1987, 168. 49 Moore, Charles W. “You Have to Pay for the Public Life.” In The Public Face of Architecture: Civic Culture and Public Spaces. Nathan Glazer and Mark Lilla, eds. New York, NY: The Free Press, A Division of Macmillan, Inc, 1987, 390. 50 Lyndon, 169. 51 Lyndon, 169. 52 Lyndon, 169. 53 Courthouse Interpretative Center, County of Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara County Courthouse Official Website [online]. Santa Barbara, CA: Courthouse Interpretative Center, 2004 [cited 8 February 2005]. Available from the World Wide Web: (http://www.santabarbaracourthouse.org/sbch/) 54 Wright, Frank Lloyd. When Democracy Builds [Revised Edition]. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1945, 9. 55 Wright, 1945: 60. 56 Wright, Frank Lloyd. “In the Cause of Architecture, First Paper, March 1908.” In Frank Lloyd Wright: The Complete 1925 “Wendingen” Series. New York, NY: Dover Publications, Inc, 1992, 13. 57 Stern, 271. 58 Moore, 388. 59 Moore, 388.
Part II
Re-envisioning the Public
Square of Mansfield, Ohio Wilschutz 102
Chapter 5: Mansfield and its Public Square
Mansfield, Ohio, provides an architectural and urban design project with
which to implement Rowe’s guidelines to bring palpable civic qualities back to our
cities. Mansfield is the central city in a metropolitan area that includes Ontario,
Shelby, and Galion; the city and its suburbs serve as an economic hub for the
broader region that includes Richland County and the surrounding six counties.
Like many cities in Ohio and throughout the nation, Mansfield is struggling from a
stagnant economy, cuts in state and federal funding, and unfunded mandates.1
Downtown Mansfield has struggled with competitive retail pressures, but remains the center of government and cultural activity in Mansfield and Richland County.2
Stemming from urban flight, there has been a subsequent decline in urban density. Mansfield’s historic district is easily accessible by car and parking abounds [Figure 5.1].
Figure 5.1 – A plan of Mansfield’s historic downtown district illustrates a lack of urban density, as evidenced by the volume of available parking. Surface parking lots and garages are shaded in red; street parking is shaded in blue. The project site is located toward bottom center and shaded in grey.
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However, while Mansfield fights urban flight, and to support a struggling industrial sector, there are many positive signs.
Mansfield’s Carrousel District redevelopment has received national acclaim [Figure 5.2], the city’s town square Figure 5.2 – Mansfield’s historic Carrousel District has received national is one of the most attractive in the state, acclaim for its intensive redevelopment efforts. and much of the historic building stock in
Mansfield has survived [Figure 5.3]. There are five venues within 20 miles of Mansfield that have an annual attendance of over
250,000 people3:
• Mid-Ohio Race Course 1,000,000 Figure 5.3 – The historic building stock that remains throughout much of • Mohican State Park 500,000 downtown Mansfield is in good condition for reuse. • Malabar State Farm 250,000
• Richland Carrousel 250,000
• Kingwood Center 250,000
The Ohio State Reformatory [Figure 5.4], the Mansfield Memorial Museum, the Miss
Ohio Pageant [Figure 5.5], the Renaissance Figure 5.4 – The Ohio State Theater, the Lincoln Highway National Reformatory, now a museum, in an aerial photograph, 1980. Museum and Archives, the Great Mohican
Indian Pow-Wow, the Mohican Blues
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Festival, and Amish country also draw significant tourism.4
The presence of public serving facilities, whose presence is vital to fostering civil society, is another positive force for redevelopment. Figure 5.6 Figure 5.5 – The Miss Ohio Parade, held during Miss Ohio Week, travels through Mansfield’s public square. illustrates the high concentration of public serving facilities within close proximity to the public square. This design project reflects a concomitant belief that civic pride and civic aspirations can be revived in Mansfield’s historic town center.
Figure 5.6 – Public serving facilities, important to a viable civic realism, are concentrated in downtown Mansfield.
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Figure 5.7 – Existing zoning within Mansfield. The project site (circled) is located within the Central Business District (red).
Figure 5.8 – Existing uses surrounding the site are a mix of commercial and institutional.
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Figure 5.9 – Five distinct districts exist in downtown Mansfield. The Carrousel and Downtown Residential Districts have been the subject of intense redevelopment efforts. The 2003 Mansfield Strate gic Redevelopment Plan focuses on the Renaissance District and The Square.
Bounded by Main Street on the West, Diamond Street on the East, and
North and South Park Avenues, Mansfield’s public square is at the heart of the
Mansfield Central Business District [Figure 5.7]. The existing uses adjacent to
the square are primarily commercial or institutional [Figure 5.8]. The 2003
Mansfield Strategic Redevelopment Plan identifies five districts and associated
landmarks within downtown [Figure 5.9]. The Carrousel District has benefited
from a recent private-public partnership that successfully revitalized this area with
a series of retail stores and restaurants. The focal point is the carrousel at the
Wilschutz 107 southwest corner of the intersection of
Fourth and Main Street [Figure 5.10].
The Renaissance District contains the landmark Renaissance Theater building
[Figure 5.11] and is one of the few entertainment destinations in downtown Figure 5.10 – The restored carrousel is the focal point of the revived Carrousel District. Mansfield. The Industrial Flats consists of light industrial and warehouse buildings [Figure 5.12]. The Central Park
Historic District is organized around the park with a number of landmark buildings, including the Richland Bank,
First United Methodist Church, City Hall, Figure 5.11 – The Renaissance Theater building fronts the “Miracle Mile,” an entertainment district to the west of the the County Courthouse, and the former public square.
Reed’s department store. This district is also elevated, increasing its prominence within the city.5 Mansfield’s early history is one key to a better understanding of how the public square developed over time, and illustrates Mansfield’s changing Figure 5.12 – The Industrial Flats District is perceptions of the square, its relation to at a lower elevation than the other four downtown districts, with light industrial and warehouse as the primary use. the community, and the role of the
County Courthouse.
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Early History
Mansfield, Ohio, is the county seat of Richland County, with a history
dating to 1807.6 Named for Jared Mansfield, Surveyor General of the United
States, the city was surveyed by James Hedges and John Larwill, pupils of
Mansfield.7 By 1815, Mansfield consisted of twenty-two houses, the first
belonging to Rev. William James, a Methodist pastor.8
Incorporated as a village in 1828 with a population numbering 7119, the first mayor was Jacob Lindley. 10 In 1857, the village was incorporated as a
city.11 The first civic projects in Mansfield occurred in 1865 with the construction
of the city’s first public library and a Young Men’s Christian Association
building.12 With a growing need for a new state prison, the Ohio State
Reformatory cornerstone was laid in Mansfield in 1886, and the first group of
inmates were transferred a decade later from the Columbus State Penitentiary.13
Mansfield’s Central Park received its first ornament with the introduction of
a fountain by David and Jane Vasbinder in 1881.14 Since then, numerous
monuments have been placed in the park. A monument to John Chapman
(“Johnny Appleseed”) was dedicated on November 8, 1900. The Soldiers’
Monument to the 120th Regiment O.V.I. was dedicated on August 22, 1908,
honoring Mansfield’s soldiers in the Civil War.15
The 1938 issue of Liberty Magazine states, “Mansfield is frankly industrial.
From its busy factories flow tires, sheet steel, brass goods, motors, pumps,
bathroom fixtures, and farm machinery – the products of more than eighty
industries.”16 In 1942, Walter Mickey’s Government and Politics of Mansfield,
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Ohio notes that the most vital industry for Mansfield is the Merchandising Division
of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, employing 33 percent
of Mansfield’s labor force – 3,000 people.17 The second largest employer in
1942 was Mansfield Tire and rubber Company with 1500 employees.18
The Court Houses of Richland County
Mansfield has seen five separate
county courthouses; they yield valuable
information in analyzing the pride
Mansfield has associated with their
courthouses, and in illustrating Figure 5.13 – Mansfield’s first Mansfield’s evolving perceptions toward courthouse.
their town square. During the War of 1812, two blockhouses were built in
Mansfield, one on the village green, now known as Central Park. Mansfield was in the jurisdiction of Madison Township in Knox County.19 When Richland
County was formed in 1813, the court was established on the second floor of the
blockhouse, with a prison housed on the first.20 The blockhouse served as the
courthouse for three years [Figure 5.13].
The second courthouse was built in 1816, when the county commissioners
entered into a contract for $1,990 to build a new courthouse and jail of hewn
logs. The first story was again used as a jail and the second story as a
courtroom. Juries at that time had to find quarters in private homes or barns for
Wilschutz 110 their deliberations.21 This courthouse stood from 1816 to 1827, when population, wealth, and court proceedings increased.
A third courthouse was erected in 1827 at a cost of $3,000. An editorial in the Mansfield Gazette of June 15, 1826, states:
Our county Commissioners at their June session ordered a tax of 1½ mills on the dollar of the grand levy, for the purposes of raising funds to build a new court house, including the necessary county offices. This tax is so very inconsiderable that no person will feel it, yet by this means $1,400 will be raised. With this sum in advance the commissioners will be able to commence the building with energy next spring, and prosecute it to completion in a reasonable time.
We should be very unwilling to lend our aid, or even give our sanction to raising money unnecessarily – in the present case it is absolutely necessary, and should be submitted to with pleasure. The present Court room is so small and incommodious that business cannot be transacted with any degree of comfort, or with that facility which suitors demand and are entitled to have justice at the hands of our officers.22
This courthouse stood in the center of the north half of the public square.
It was a brick building, nearly square and two stories tall. The building served as the courthouse from 1827 until 1851, when it was remodeled [Figures 5.14 and
5.15].23
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Figure 5.14 – Mansfield’s third courthouse [left].
Figure 5.15 – A Sanborne Fire Insurance map (1850) illustrates the position of the third courthouse, centered in the northern half of the Public Square.
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In 1851 Richland County Commissioners were pressured by residents to remodel the courthouse into a more elaborate building. The roof was raised and
Greek Temple porticos added to each end. The columns were made of brick, and were often covered with advertising and other announcements. This courthouse in the public square stood until 1873 [Figure 5.16].24
Mary Jane Armstrong Henney notes that on three different occasions prior to 1869 a vote was defeated on the question of erecting a new courthouse. In
1869, Ohio passed a state law authorizing county commissioners to erect new courthouses and jails, and in that year
Richland County Commissioners Figure 5.16 – The remodeled third courthouse, with portico [left]. purchased land at the corner of East
Diamond and Market Streets (now Park Avenue East) for the construction of a new courthouse.25 A contract for the new courthouse was signed in 1870, the building completed in 1872, and the dedication held in 1873. The architect was
H. E. Meyer of Cleveland.
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An article form the Mansfield Daily Shield on April 22, 1894, states:
Our court house is one of the best, most imposing and substantial court houses in the state. For 21 years its walls have heard the thrilling tones of eloquence, the fiat of the law, the appeals for justice; the trials for murder and larceny, divorce and betrayal, backed by eloquence in all its branches. In the county office, the tax payers have annually grumbled, the deeds of all the lands have been recorded, all the accounts pro and con have been audited, and the bashful swain has often come… by procuring a marriage license26 [Figure 5.17].
Figure 5.17 – The fourth courthouse [second building from left] was the first built off of the Public Square.
The courthouse, originally with a clock and bell tower and two smaller towers, would lose favor by 1902. Henney notes that city residents were worried that the courthouse towers might be struck by lightning or be blown over by the wind.27 With pressure mounting, the county commissioners removed all three
towers, and gave the building a mansard style roof [Figure 5.18].
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In 1907, the county held an election to determine if any exterior modifications should be undertaken on the courthouse. The November 28th,
1907, issue of the Richland Daily Shield reads:
The commissioners have not made a move towards carrying out the wishes of the people of the county as expressed at the last election, that a heating system be placed in the court house and a clock tower be placed on top of the building…28 By 1909 the renovations would be completed with the addition of a clock tower topped by a small dome and a Goddess of Liberty statue [Figure 5.19].29
In her compendium of Ohio county courthouses, Susan W. Thrane writes:
Controversy surrounded the demolition and replacement of the deteriorating fourth courthouse. Some in the county maintain that the old stone edifice was destroyed primarily because no one rallied public opinion to save it, and county officials reportedly wanted to reposition the courthouse at its present site. In the end, 1960s functionalism prevailed over a costly preservation effort.30
Figure 5.18 – The remodeled courthouse Figure 5.19 – The second remodeling of with a mansard style roof. the courthouse with the addition of the clock tower.
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The current Richland County Courthouse is located on the same site, but south of the prior courthouse and does not front the public square. Constructed in
1967 by Thomas G. Zaugg and Associates, the courthouse is built into the side of a hill. The front is three stories, and the rear five. The building features precast concrete arches forming a portico across the front façade. [Figures 5.20-
5.21]
Figure 5.20 – Mansfield’s current county courthouse, front façade, 2004.
Figure 5.21 – Mansfield’s current county courthouse, west façade, 2004.
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Demographics and Social Conditions
The city of Mansfield’s population numbered 51,600 at the time of the
2000 census. This is an increase of 1.9% from 1990. Over the same period,
Richland County grew by 2% to slightly less than 129,000.31 The population of
Mansfield is aging at a rate faster than the national pattern. The city’s elderly
population, those 65 and over, accounts for approximately 15.5% of the total
population, compared with 12.4% nation-wide. The city also has a high proportion of under-25 (33% of the population in 2000).32
Mansfield had 20,182
households according to the recent
census, a figure essentially unchanged
from 1990. However, while the
number of households has remained
stable, the spatial distribution of Figure 5.22 – A map of the rate of household change in Mansfield and surrounding areas households has moved away from evidences that households have moved out of downtown Mansfield. Red represents a loss of downtown. Figure 5.22 illustrates the households over the past decade; orange represents no significant change; moderate growth of 5-15% is illustrated in light blue; and rates of household growth during the dark blue indicates significant growth above 15%. past decade. Of particular note is the
loss of households at the core of the city, indicated in red.
Mansfield’s median income during 2000 was $30,176, an increase of 34%
from 1990, but well short of the statewide increase of 43% during the same
period. In 2000, nearly 5% of all Mansfield households received some public
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assistance, and 16% of city residents reported income below the poverty level.33
Manufacturing still dominates Mansfield’s economy, at 26% of the labor force. It is trailed by state and local government jobs at 15%, retail at 13%, and health care at 12%. While manufacturing still dominates the economy of Mansfield, it is well below 1990 levels and continues to fall; this is facilitating a change toward a service based economy. Mansfield is much more ethnically diverse than the surrounding counties, and the State of Ohio as a whole, with 23% of the population as non-white. This ethnic population has increased measurably over the past decade.34
Mansfield’s proximity to key
transportation routes and the multitude
of tourist attractions in the area
indicate that Mansfield is primed for
significant growth. This is evidenced
by the restoration of the Carrousel
District, the Main Street façade Figure 5.23 – A monument to the Korean War is one of many important monuments in restoration program, and the proposed Mansfield’s public square.
2003 redevelopment of the “Miracle Mile.” Mansfield has also noted a need to redesign the public square, offering significant design opportunities. The public square has a rich history, as evidenced by the historic fountain, the role of the
public square and the county courthouses, and the numerous war memorials that
are present on the site [Figure 5.23]. This history is further illustrated in the
Wilschutz 118 following comparison photographs [Figures 5.24-5.27] and must be celebrated in a non-nostalgic way, and with a renewed focus on civic life and civil society.
Key Map, Figures 5.24–5.27 – The placement and orientation of the municipal building and county courthouse do not frame the eastern edge of the Square.
1
3
2 4
1 Figure 5.24 – North Main Street
Historic photograph. 2003 photograph.
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2 Figure 5.25 – Park Avenue
Historic photograph. 2003 photograph.
3 Figure 5.26 – City Hall. The 2003 rendering illustrates the proposed municipal Justice Center addition at the site of the current municipal parking garage.
Historic photograph. 2003 rendering.
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4 Figure 5.27 – Courthouse Square.
Historic photograph. 2003 photograph.
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Civic Realism in Mansfield
Figure 5.28 illustrates the connections between Rowe’s balancing tests and their applications to redesigning Mansfield’s Square.
Deliberately reach out through program, shape, and iconography to various constituencies, while proposing something singular in vision
design (Test #1).
Program – The project will feature a redesign of the public square, along with the following programmatic spaces: a library (adapting the existing county courthouse), restaurants, a community center, county offices, a new county jail, and a new county courthouse. The mix of state and private interests create a healthy tension along the square.
Existing Uses Proposed Uses mansfield
Civil Society: State Adaptive-Reuse, New Public Library Civil Society: Associational Life New Richland Commercial County Courthouse and County Jail
One possibility is to connect the institutions of the state with those of associational life and the private industry. The illustration at the left illustrates important connections – possible paths, sight lines, or visual references (height, tower references, etc).
Figure 5.28
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continued...
Shape – Mansfield’s square must be strongly defined and highly perceptible; this requires a strengthening of the edge. Thus, the new county courthouse will provide a strong edge to the south side of the square. The planned municipal Justice Center addition will strengthen the NE corner. The weakest edge remains the eastern side.
A figure-ground diagram of the existing square reveals that the square’s definition needs improved on the eastern edge, and the northeast and southwest corners.
The proposed municipal Justice Center addition will strengthen the presence of the northeast corner. mansfield Existing square edges (black) strongly define all cardinal directions except the eastern edge.
The southwest corner offers opportunities for stronger definition.
Corner articulation helps define the edges of the square and has the potential to make references to Existing Possible existing towers in the square. Corners Corners (Adapted from Childs, 139.)
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continued...
Thresholds are important in defining the square. They slow incoming automobile traffic, and highlight the significance of the square. Paving changes, at pedestrian crossings and square edges, can help define the square.
Constricting automobile traffic flow at pedestrian intersections further strengthens the spatial definition of the square. mansfield
Gateways can strongly increase the sense of entering the square, especially when an edge is not defined by building mass. Historically, Mansfield’s Park Avenue was lined with decorative arches that contained lights (right). Such references to history, reinterpreted as a gateway, provide a strong sense of having entered the core of Source: Mansfield Alliance, 75. downtown Mansfield.
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continued...
Iconography – The monuments and memorials contained within the square offer strong design possibilities for reflecting the rich history of Mansfield, for providing spaces for individual habitation, and for designing spaces for critical reflective thinking.
One design possibility is to create a smaller monument square within the larger square, or a monument path (the latter
mansfield is illustrated to the left). The monuments could be gently lit at night from the pathway edges, increasing their importance within the square.
The historic fountain offers another point for design expression. Placing the fountain centrally within the square (top left) draws attention to it as a historic landmark. Another possibility is to draw attention through the placement of the fountain at the intersection of new paths (bottom left).
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Provide a critique to established order (Test #2). design
Critiquing the prevailing authority – By making the square once again the heart of downtown Mansfield, a subtle critique is issued to state and county government. A square for the people of Mansfield allows places for assembly, transparency, and checks on power. The design of the courthouse as a stately edge to the south side of the square also provides significant opportunities in design.
The lobby and public spaces within the courthouse must front both the square and the courtrooms. It provides a buffer between the outdoor space and Courtrooms the indoor space for collective assembly. It must be stately in presence and dignified.
Support spaces, such as jury mansfield rooms and county spaces, should also be prominent; they should front the lobby and the courtrooms. Outdoor Collective Space In section, design possibilities exist to issue a subtle critique (below). Public spaces can be Indoor Lobby/Public Space integrated with courtroom facilities to increase Courtroom Courtroom transparency and to engender Courtroom new thoughts about jurisprudence.
The outdoor collective space must connect with the lobby space and indoor collective space of the courthouse (above). The courtrooms should also connect spatially to the lobby.
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Celebrate everyday life and its depiction (Test #4). design
Celebration of the everyday – Creating spaces for outdoor restaurant seating, for picnicking, and for using the existing bandstand – combined with a strengthening of the edge and increasing everyday use – will enhance the importance of the square as a space for everyday events.
The proposed creation of a pedestrian sidewalk and restaurant seating space at the northern edge of the square provides an enhanced experience for everyday encounters.
mansfield
Walking aisle. Cafe Planters
Bollards
Adaptive reuse of existing building stock for restaurants and new retail. (Adapted from Childs, 173.)
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Accommodate collective practices, while remaining congenial for individual habitation (Test #5). design
Space for collective events – Creating a larger space than the two halves that currently comprise the square will allow it to function better for the many collective events of Mansfield and Richland County. This will restore the square to its role in nurturing a healthy civil society.
Different square orientations provide different alternatives for collective events. The illustration at top left is typical of a traditional nineteenth Collective century courthouse square, where the Space square is dominated by collective space.
A second option (bottom left) illustrates collective space more closely tied to the proposed County Courthouse.
Note: Open, field-like collective space is also easily adaptable to change, and when tied together and mansfield celebrated for its importance in nurturing civil society, is also transcendental (Test #3). Collective Space
Flags lining Park Avenue, Main Street, and Diamond Street will tie the square together while advertising collective civic events.
Wilschutz 128
continued...
Space for individual habitation – Although this early conceptual design scheme will change dramatically before the project is complete, it illustrates potential spaces that are congenial to individual habitation. Such spaces should encompass a variety of choices, including the proportion of shade and sunlight, elevation changes in the ground plane, variations in fixed and movable seating, and differences in ground surface treatment. All spaces for individual habitation should be human in scale, and a subset of the larger square.
Open to the sides, but covered above, a proposed outdoor market near the relocated Tables and movable chairs on historic bandstand provides paved surfaces for outdoor restaurant seating. space for individuals to gather in small groups.
mansfield
Planting beds and shaded benches in a slightly depressed monument square offer a more secluded individual space for interpreting Mansfield’s rich history.
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Chapter 5 Notes:
1 Reid, Lydia J. “2003 State of the City.” Address presented to Mansfield City Council, Mansfield, OH, 2003, 1. 2 Mansfield Alliance with First Avenues and Kizelman Kline Gossman. Mansfield: Downtown & The Miracle Mile: Strategic Redevelopment Plan [online]. Mansfield, OH: [cited 27 April 2005]. Available from World Wide Web: (http://www.downtownmansfield.com/MansfieldStrategicRedevelopmentPlan.pdf), 5. 3 Mansfield Alliance, 17. 4 Mansfield Alliance, 17. 5 Mansfield Alliance, 28-29. 6 Graham, A. A. History of Richland County, Ohio: Its Past and Present. Mansfield, OH: A. A. Graham & Company, Publishers, 1880. 7 Mickey, Walter W. Government and Politics of Mansfield, Ohio. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University, 1942, 1. 8 Mickey, 1. 9 Henney, Mary Jane Armstrong. From the Annals of Richland County, Ohio. Mansfield, OH: The Richland County Genealogical Society, 1996, 67. 10 Mickey, 2. 11 Mickey, 2. 12 Mickey, 2. 13 Mickey, 3. 14 Mickey, 4. 15 Mickey, 5. 16 Mickey, 7. 17 Mickey, 7. 18 Mickey, 7. 19 Henney, 87. 20 Henney, 87. 21 Henney, 89. 22 Henney, 89. 23 Henney, 90. 24 Henney, 93. 25 Henney, 96.
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26 Henney, 97. 27 Henney, 101. 28 Henney, 102. 29 Henney, 103. 30 Thrane, Susan W. County Courthouses of Ohio. Indiana University Press: Bloomington, IN, 2000, 247-248. 31 Mansfield Alliance, 57. 32 Mansfield Alliance, 58. 33 Mansfield Alliance, 60. 34 Mansfield Alliance, 62.
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Chapter 6: Program for a County Courthouse
Program Summary
Space Quantity SF NSF Public Spaces Lobby 1 4000 4000 Dining Room 1 2000 2000 Meeting Rooms 12 500 6000 Community Center 1 4000 4000 Courtrooms and Support Spaces Large Courtroom 1 3000 3000 Small Courtroom 2 1800 3600 Trial Jury Rooms 3 650 1950 Grand Jury Room 1 600 600 Courtroom Waiting Areas 3 400 1200 Judges' Chambers 3 2480 7440 Judges' Robing Room 3 250 750 Attorneys' Lounge 1 500 500 Attorney Work Areas 6 100 600 Jury Dining Room 1 800 800 Judges' Dining Room 1 500 500 Kitchen and Food Service 1 800 800 Main Security 1 200 200 Witness Rooms 6 150 900 Court Receptionist Room 3 150 450 Court Typist Room 3 100 300 Clerk's Offices and Support Spaces 1 4400 4400 Exhibit Storage 5 100 500 Equipment Storage 5 100 500 County Offices Board of Elections 1 2000 2000 Jail Holding Cells 30 90 2700 Security Desk at Holding Cells 1 200 200 Kitchen and Food Service 1 800 800 Dining Room 1 500 500 Recreational Rooms 3 500 1500 Security Office 1 500 500 Locker Rooms and Showers 2 500 1000 Secure Locker Rooms and Showers 2 300 600
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Program Summary, continued
Libraries Law Library 1 5000 5000 Public Library 1 8000 8000 Media Hub Broadcast Center 1 1200 1200 Newspaper Headquarters 1 3000 3000 Support Spaces Restrooms 10 200 2000 Storage 10 200 2000 Mechanical (20%) 15198 Circulation (15%) 8999 Total NSF 100,187
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Space Requirements
Public Spaces
Lobby 4000 sq. ft. Function: The lobby is a symbolic and functional space. It must serve as a gathering space for exhibitions and special events, as well as a congenial space for individuals. Special Considerations: Accommodation must be made for exhibition space. The lobby must be in proximity to restrooms and the information desk. Security Concerns: A security desk with magnetometers and X-ray machines is required to screen visitors passing through the lobby into the courtroom spaces. Occupants: All building occupants and visitors will pass through this space.
Dining Room 2000 sq. ft. Function: Public and staff dining room. Special Considerations: Proximity to kitchen and food service. Occupants: Cashier, food service staff, and visitors.
Meeting Rooms (12 at 500 sq. ft.) 6000 sq. ft. Function: Space available for meetings, conferences; available by request. Special Considerations: Conference tables. Occupants: 20 maximum in each room.
Community Center 4000 sq. ft. Function: Community center to foster community awareness and charity events. Special Considerations: 2 offices at 150 sq. ft.; 2 meeting rooms at 300 sq. ft.; 1 multi- purpose room at 2500 sq. ft.; restrooms at 400 sq. ft., and storage at 200 sq. ft. Occupants: Community center staff and visitors.
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Courtrooms and Support Spaces
Large Courtroom 3000 sq. ft. Function: Courtroom space for large court proceedings. Special Considerations: For typical layout, see Figure 6.3. Security Concerns: Separate, controlled access for judges, accused, witnesses, and visitors. Occupants: Judge, law clerk, deputy clerk, court reporter, interpreter, witnesses, attorneys, defendants, jury members (18), visitors (100 maximum).
Small Courtrooms (2 at 1800 sq. ft.) 3600 sq. ft. Function: Courtrooms for small court proceedings. Special Considerations: For typical layout, see Figure 6.3. Security Concerns: Separate, controlled access for judges, accused, witnesses, and visitors. Occupants: Judge, law clerk, deputy clerk, court reporter, interpreter, witnesses, attorneys, defendants, jury members (9), visitors (50 maximum).
Trial Jury Rooms (3 at 650 sq. ft.) 1950 sq. ft. Function: Jury rooms for trial jury deliberations. Special Considerations: For spatial adjacencies, see Figure 6.5. Room must have access to a separate restroom, as well as multimedia equipment and a conference table. Security Concerns: Secure and sound proof with jury custodian/security guard station. Occupants: Jury members (2 rooms with maximum of 9 jury members, 1 room with maximum 18 jury members).
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Grand Jury Room (1 at 600 sq. ft.) 600 sq. ft. Function: Jury room for grand jury hearings. Special Considerations: For spatial adjacencies, see Figure 6.6. Room must have access to a separate restroom, two witness rooms, as well as multimedia equipment and a conference table. Security Concerns: Secure and sound proof with jury custodian/security guard station. Occupants: Jury members, witnesses, attorneys, defendants, security guard.
Courtroom Waiting Areas (3 at 400 sq. ft.) 1200 sq. ft. Function: Public lobby space for each courtroom while court is not in session. Security Concerns: All screened visitors have access. Occupants: Visitors, attorneys, media.
Judges' Chambers (3 at 2480 sq. ft.) 7440 sq. ft. Function: Judges’ work space for conference, study, and deliberation. Special Considerations: For spatial adjacencies, see Figure 6.4. Security Concerns: Secure and restricted to judges and legal assistants only. One adjacent to each courtroom, with study, conference room, and secretarial office. Occupants: Judge, law clerks (3), and secretary.
Judges' Changing Rooms (3 at 250 sq. ft.) 750 sq. ft. Function: Judges’ robing room. Special Considerations: Directly adjacent to courtrooms. Adjacent to courtrooms and judges’ chambers. Security Concerns: Restricted to judges only. Occupants: Judges.
Attorneys' Lounge 500 sq. ft. Function: Lounge space for attorneys. Special Considerations: Lounge tables, chairs, and media access. Security Concerns: Restricted circulation. Occupants: Attorneys and staff.
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Attorney Work Areas (6 at 100 sq. ft.) 600 sq. ft. Function: Space for attorney research and preparation. Special Considerations: Adjacent to law library and in proximity to courtrooms. Internet access and desk space required. Security Concerns: Restricted to attorneys. Occupants: One attorney per room.
Jury Dining Room 800 sq. ft. Function: Secure, private dining space for jury members. Special Considerations: Proximity to courtrooms, jury rooms, kitchen, and food service. Security Concerns: Restricted circulation and access. Occupants: Jury members.
Judges’ Dining Room 500 sq. ft. Function: Dining space for judges. Special Considerations: Proximity to kitchen and food service. Security Concerns: Restricted circulation and access. Occupants: Judges.
Kitchen and Food Service 800 sq. ft. Function: Food preparation and service space. Special Considerations: Need for storage and pantry space. Proximity to loading dock for deliveries. Security Concerns: Restricted circulation. Occupants: 10 maximum for the preparation and serving of food.
Main Security 200 sq. ft. Function: Office for monitoring and security control. Special Considerations: Secure monitoring of courthouse facilities and necessary radio equipment. Locking file systems required. Security Concerns: Secure and restricted to security personnel only. Occupants: Two (2) security officers.
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Holding Cells (1 security desk at 100 sq. ft. and 6 cells at 90 sq. ft.) 640 sq. ft. Function: Security desk for monitoring of holding cells. Special Considerations: Monitoring equipment required. Security Concerns: Desk within sightlines of holding cells and entry corridor Occupants: One (1) officer.
Witness Rooms (6 at 150 sq. ft.) 900 sq. ft. Function: Preparation of, and discussion with, witnesses. Special Considerations: Adjacent to courtrooms with a conference table. Security Concerns: Restricted. Occupants: Witnesses, attorneys, security officer.
Court Receptionist Rooms (3 at 150 sq. ft.) 450 sq. ft. Function: Recording of court transcripts and proceedings. Special Considerations: Desks with recording equipment and monitoring stations. Security Concerns: Restricted to court staff. Occupants: One (1) court receptionist per room.
Court Typist Rooms (3 at 100 sq. ft.) 300 sq. ft. Function: Typing of court records, inputting of data into court databases. Special Considerations: Typing desk required. Security Concerns: Restricted to court staff. Occupants: One (1) court typist per room.
Clerk’s Offices and Support Spaces 4400 sq. ft. Function: Court records recording, processing, and storage. Special Considerations: For spatial adjacencies, see Figure 6.7. Inactive record storage, equipment storage, exhibit storage, evidence vault, private offices (3), secured record storage, active record storage, copier and storage rooms, open clerical space, conference room, public queuing space and information desk, and financial vault. Security Concerns: Restricted. Occupants: Clerical staff (20), visitors, security officer.
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County Offices
Board of Elections 2000 sq. ft. Function: County board of elections. Special Considerations: Offices (4), conference room, copy/storage room, and information desk required. Occupants: Staff and visitors.
Libraries
Law Library 5000 sq. ft. Function: Library with law reference materials. Special Considerations: Book stacks and study tables. Reference desk. Security Concerns: Restricted circulation. Occupants: Judges, attorneys, visitors, and library staff.
Public Library 8000 sq. ft. Function: City library, or branch library, with general reference materials available for public use. Special Considerations: Book stacks, reference desk, study tables, and group study rooms. Occupants: Visitors and library staff.
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Media Hub
Broadcast Center 1200 sq. ft. Function: Media broadcast center for satellite/Internet connectivity. Special Considerations: Access to satellite services and Internet required. Security Concerns: Media pass required. Occupants: Media staff.
Newspaper Headquarters 3000 sq. ft. Function: Local newspaper headquarters, Mansfield News Journal. Special Considerations: Offices (5) and open staff space with Internet and TV access. Proximity to media spaces. Occupants: Newspaper staff and visitors.
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Figure 6.1 – Court facilities and circulation diagram.
Note: Restricted circulation is generally used by judges, courtroom deputy clerks, court security officers, authorized visitors, and administrative or clerical support staff. Secure circulation is for prisoner movement; secure circulation must not intersect public or restricted circulation.
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Key to Symbols, Figures 6.2 – 6.7
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Figure 6.2 – Courtroom and ancillary spaces, adjacencies diagram. (For symbol key, see page 141).
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Figure 6.3 – Standard courtroom plan.
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Figure 6.4 – Judges’ chamber suite, adjacencies diagram. (For symbol key, see page 141).
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Figure 6.5 – Trial jury room and support spaces, adjacencies diagram. (For symbol key, see page 141).
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Figure 6.6 – Grand jury facilities, adjacencies diagram. (For symbol key, see page 141).
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Figure 6.7 – Court clerk’s suite, adjacencies diagram. (For symbol key, see page 141).
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Conclusion
The creation of public architecture that propounds civic aspirations, civic
possibilities, and civic imagination is an issue that is broad and complex, subtle
and nuanced – but increasingly one of significance. In Chapter 1, sociologist
Richard Sennett states that the decline in public life has led to a subsequent
decline in society overall, where civic affairs have become a matter of formal obligation. Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas (Chapter 2) discuss the decline of public and civic realms in detail, noting that Arendt’s space of appearances is increasingly lost as the public realm becomes more commercial and less physical.
The five balancing tests put forth in Chapter 3 contain inherent paradoxes, a series of dynamic tensions which architecture and urban design must address if they are to contribute toward the practice of civic realism. Further, there is another paradox evidenced in the idea of a strong local urban-architectural tradition, implying various forms of contextualism and vernacular. “When such tradition is primarily a source of cultural continuity, this local orientation can be well worth pursuing and perpetuating. When, however, this resort to tradition results in nostalgia and making a fetish of the past it is clearly an undesirable course to follow.”1
Xochimilco, one of the last remnants of the Aztec empire in Mexico City,
illustrates an example of cultural continuity explored and adapted in new and
ingenious ways [Figure 7.1]. This essential feature of Mexico’s cultural heritage
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was rescued from near total
destruction by the aggressive efforts
of city officials and community leaders
between 1987 and 1995, resurrecting
it as a public park and ecological
reserve. However, instead of Figure 7.1 – In the Friday of Dolores replicating historical circumstances, Celebration in Xochimilco, allegorical canoes offer the Flower of the Ejido. The park integrates cultural tradition with contemporary new uses and park landscapes were Mexican festivals.
incorporated into the overall plan. Mario Schjetnan designed a new lakeside
park with daring reinterpretations of the site’s myths and realities. Archaeological
discoveries were incorporated into the park’s broad educational and environmental themes. Thus, a landscape architecture of contemporary Mexico
was integrated with tradition, combining cultural relevance and the park’s former
splendor.2
Resolution of these paradoxes in a constructive way requires a tempering
of any prevalent singular ideas about style, such as modernism, postmodernism,
or deconstruction in any orthodox sense. Such seemingly complete positions
almost seem doomed to failure by favoring one essentially global and potentially
totalizing side of issues about people and places. Rather, such paradoxes must
be resolved through the deliberate deployment and use of heterogeneous
references. However, a well-grounded contemporary heterogeneity also argues
against overly self-conscious forms of localism, regionalism, tradition, and
vernacular as being potentially culturally calcifying and class-bound. These
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approaches run a high risk of not belonging to this day and age. Representing
plurality in a singular way, by reinterpreting and adapting sources of cultural
continuity as applied to contemporary environments and conditions, seems better suited to account for style, theoretical propositions, and historicism – what Rowe calls a “well-grounded contemporaneity.”3 More importantly, it can transcend all
three, resulting in something else, something more complex and more real.
Architecture and urban design can
contribute to civic realism by working to be
in a position of reorienting the
programmatic, formal, and other aesthetic
judgments of a particular time and place.
Siena’s Piazza del Campo (Chapter 4) Figure 7.2 – Siena’s Piazza del Campo celebrates everyday life, contains evolved partly as a high-style celebration of numerous historical references to civic responsibility, and promotes a healthy municipal life, and partly as a vernacular civil society.
response to the practical circumstances of the time [Figure 7.2]. Although at a
more fundamental sociopolitical level, a society’s capacity for the self-
organization and propagation of associations, relations, and other transactions –
which constitute civil society – are beyond the scope of urban-architectural
design, the way we design the public realm can help or hinder broader efforts to
create a stronger civil society. The focus of Chapters 5 and 6, an urban-
architectural project to revive the civic character of Mansfield’s public square,
rests on a concomitant belief that the design of public realms is a dimension of
this larger concern with bringing back palpable civic qualities to our cities.
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Conclusion Notes:
1 Rowe, 220. 2 Rowe, 220-221. 3 Rowe, 223-224.
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Works Cited
Public & Civic Realms
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Civil Society and Democracy
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Wilschutz 153
Chambers, Simone and Will Kymlicka, eds. Alternate Conceptions of Civil
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Civic Architecture
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Wilschutz 154
The Embassy of Romania to the Kingdom of Norway. History of the Romanians
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Wilschutz 155
Kostof, Spiro. “The Public Realm” In Writings About Art. Carole Gold Calo, ed.
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Wilschutz 156
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Mansfield, Ohio
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Wilschutz 157
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