Reading Socio-Spatial Interplay - Arkitektur- og designhøgskolen i ...

R E A D I N G S O C I O - S P A T I A L I N T E R P L A Y P A R T 1urban landscape experiences encounters with others. The first part ofØsterberg’s socio-material interpretation of the Oslo-area is kept on a globallevel and is a description of four overlapping archaeological sediments: Theissue is “Oslo” as a whole – and the four-step history of the development ofthe city is presented: from the 17 th century city with about 3,000 inhabitantsbehind the city-walls to a commuting region with a radius of at least 50kilometres and one million inhabitants in the late 20 th century. The differentparts of this socio-material environment, as they exist today, are seen asfragments of different layers produced under different regimes. The secondpart of Østerberg’s socio-material interpretation takes the oppositeperspective. Although both parts contain fragments of each other, he herewrites from the perspective of the individual walker in the city. In this lastchapter of his book the occasionally touches upon issues related to bothtransformation and the potential development of the urban area, but toØsterberg these issues do not seem to be a central field of interest. His projectis to provide a synthesis of different possible interpretations of the urbanlandscape, and in this way to identify aspects of the urban area that mightincrease our consciousness about both qualities of and problems in, likes anddislikes about, the city of Oslo. Østerberg does however present somebeautiful impressionistic descriptions of socio-material situations in Oslo.Indirectly, this kind of communicated experiences can inform debates aboutboth local urban qualities and the urban situation and urban development inOslo and elsewhere, even though they don’t represent an analysis of theurban structure or urban transformation.Østerberg identifies qualitative (symbolic, aesthetic and functional)characteristics of places, buildings and areas in Oslo that affect his own, andtherefore probably also other user’s interpretations of possibilities andconstraints in their environment – and by this their use of the materialstructure. Whether there are differences in how individuals and social groupsactually appreciate, benefit from, or are limited by, different aspects of thesocio-material field, does not seem to be important issues for Østerberg. Tothe extent that such issues are addressed, they are class related: workingclass, rented domicile, collective ways of life in the East, and capitalist,owned domicile, individual ways of life in the West. This sociologicalinterpretation of the Oslo-agglomeration sheds light on aspects of thearchitectural (and programmatic) landscape of Oslo that may affect both theimage and experience of, and practices in, the urban landscape. But any otherwalker-in-the-city would probably not read exactly the same symbolicqualities into the urban landscape of Oslo as a well mannered, well educatedand Foucault-inspired Dag Østerberg does, not even those who have beeninformed about the meaning of historical symbolic value by reading hisanalysis. Østerberg’s analysis gives privilege to symbolic, power-related25