The article focuses on various ways of viewing the city, and their possible consequences for the conception and construction of the urban environment. The approach has involved the development of two ideal type perspectives, represented by two contrasting figures: the flâneur and the planner. The theoreticians discussed here, Walter Benjamin and Le Corbusier, were fascinated and even seduced by the modern era and contemporary technology. But while Benjamin’s fascination was tempered with criticism, Le Corbusier’s enthusiasm was more wholehearted in nature. The aim for the reflection is to discover both how far we can contrast two different kinds of rationalities and also whether some interesting meeting points exist between them. Which possibilities do their perspectives inhabit to open up to a “third perspective”, including acts of sensing the city, as well as social practices and participation in planning and creating cities?
Criticism has been directed at traditional approaches to cultural heritage management, as reflected in legislation and policy, for ignoring elements integral to community perceptions of cultural heritage. Although discussions on the right to define are lively, there has been less focus directed towards the significance which personal affiliations and memory play in the processes of forming people's conceptions of important cultural heritage assets and valuable places. But how does one achieve insight into the subjective appreciations of heritage environments? The point of this article is to show how new subjective methodological approaches, tested by what is identified in this article as the Mall Method, can reveal subjective narratives and perspectives linked to inhabitants' everyday life in urban contexts, and to their memories of places. This article searches for subjective meanings of places and landscapes, realized by a stall in a town mall. The method is evaluated in the light of the importance of situated knowledge and subjectivity.
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