Author:

Keywords:

public space, spatial metaphor, interspace, spatial interface, heterotopia

Abstract:

Sandercock’s conviction leads urban designers, artists and planners into a position which invites them to engage beyond the physical and to deal with - or rather start from – mental and social dimensions of space and its uses. This paper considers a phenomenon of heterotopia in contemporary public spaces and sketches a methodology which enables designers to take into consideration human dimensions of hopes, fears, desires and memories. Transforming space throughout history, people assign new meanings to the artifacts by metaphorical transfer. Spaces in transition with undefined physical articulation and spontaneous use often enabled heterotopias, which influence feelings and change minds, attitudes and, finally, urban practices. These are communicated by spatially embodied images and imagined spaces. The paper introduces an idea of the research, inspired by findings of semiotics (F. de Saussure, R. Barthes, J. Lotman, B. Uspensky, U. Eco), symbolic anthropology (C. Geertz) and cognitive linguistics (G. Lakoff). Such research has to investigate, on the basis of selected case studies, the correlation between the metaphorical nature of an “embodied mind” [12] and spatially incarnated metaphor, to apply semiotic (semantic + syntactic + pragmatic) approach to urban planning, to elaborate appropriate research methodology and graphical tools (“semiotic mapping”). Using metaphor as a key for reconstructing human logic of built space, “city makers” together with politicians and artists as well as a diverse participation of the ordinary people, would be able to design identity (social and individual), feelings of Home, belonging and solidarity.