Park Aesthetics Between Wilderness Representations and Everyday Affordances

Bibliographic Data

ID4159577
AuthorsTea Lobo (0000-0002-5975-4638, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) , Switzerland, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume63
Issue3
Pages369-380
Publication date2023-07-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe British Journal of Aesthetics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-0904 • E-ISSN: 1468-2842
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/aesthj/ayac063
OpenAlexW4377133965
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited13

Scholars criticize privileging aesthetics over social and ecological considerations in park design. I argue that the real culprit is not aesthetics, but aestheticism. Aestheticism treats aesthetic objects as if they were ontologically distinct from everyday objects. Aestheticism in park design-treating parks like artworks to be admired like paintings-dovetails into treating parks like representations of a romanticized wilderness: of pristine, untouched landscapes. I argue that aestheticism is a means of constructing an ontological distinction between the beholder and the beheld, for landscapes are not truly pristine if they are sullied by human presence. As an alternative, and while drawing on the works of John Dewey and Yuriko Saito, I argue for a continuity between everyday objects and aesthetic objects. I also draw attention to the question of whose every day is privileged and propose to introduce Wittgenstein's concept of multi-aspectivity in the analysis of everyday affordances

Aestheticism · Aesthetics · Affordance · Art · Epistemology · Everyday life · Human–computer interaction · Painting · Sociology · Visual arts · Wilderness · Computer Science · Ecology · Environmental Philosophy and Ethics · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Philosophy · Urban Green Space and Health

Tools

Open DOI