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 1time and society. An urban artefact that has been determined by one functiononly, will not necessarily survive if the function changes. The continuity ofan artefact depends closely on the development of its function over time. Inthis perspective the concept of primary elements refers to a historicallyrelatively permanent, geographically identifiable, and, in relation to material,form and function, transformable relation that is closely related to theconstitution and further development of the city.The way I here read Rossi, primary elements like The Roman Forum areparticular urban artefacts: a synthesis of place, architectural form andcollective function with a particular primary position in the urban society at acertain time (and therefore also an important element in the collectivememory). Over time society transforms, so does the architecture of the city(seen as a transformable structural environmental tool). Even the primaryelements might change both physical form and program. What does notchange, is what makes the primary elements to primary elements: thedialectic relation between particular urban artefacts (synthesis of place, formand function) and the general life of the city. The localization of The RomanForum has not changed through history. Its architectural form (the buildingssurrounding the open plaza and even the form of the open square) has beentransformed as the program of the Forum has changed. But the spatialorganization of the Forum as a scene for a major collective events, closelyrelated to the role of Rome in relation to its environment (as a capital in TheRoman Empire, as a global tourist attraction etc.), has been resistant to someaspects of urban transformation, and accelerated others.Lefebvre’s triad of socio-spatial dialecticsIn The Production of Space Lefebvre emphasizes that architectural space isnot space itself, but only a way of looking at space – or aspects of the “real”space, which is the space of social practices. 122 But in the same way asarchitectural space only represents some aspects of space, the representationsof space made by social scientists, psychologists and other researchers willalso only give access to some (but fairly different) aspects of the “real” space,i.e. the space of social practices.In contrast to urban sociologists that have sought to provide architects andurbanists with a scientific understanding of the constraints of urban life andthe city (the Chicago school of sociology etc.), which actually quite easilycould have been translated into normative theories of urban form, Lefebvrefirst of all describes the city and urban life as a dynamic dialectic process ofpossibilities and encounters. His more overall theory of spatialisation can be122 Lefebvre 1991, p.18.63