Art Living the Good Life: Term Paper

Total Length: 2141 words ( 7 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 1+

Page 1 of 7



Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter argued in Collage City that the designer should intervene in the existing city by adding to and adjusting what is already there, a process more like collage than any other art form. (Barnett, 1996, p. 185)

The city as "collage" is possibly the finest metaphor for the urban world. Nowhere else do so many different people and purposes come together as in the city. No other place cries out so much for art, and is itself, an inspiration to create art. The realization that cities are living entities has initiated a renewed interest in the preservation and development of their respective parts. So much of Modernist Theory favored the abandonment of the past. It was as if we were all residents of some totally new age that bore virtually no relation to any past era. Were we born long ago and teleported to our present locations? Cities, like people, have their family histories. They have "memories" that are important to them, and stages of life that bring a smile to the face, or even a tear to the eye. Old neighborhoods can be restored to their formal glory. Old buildings can be put to new uses. Renovating the city is akin to visiting a favorite place after many years' absence, and suddenly discovering, in the same scene, things that you had never seen before.
City planners must look at,

Cities as 'cultural crucibles' and the contribution of their innovative milieu... consider town planning and urban design or the spatial relationship and locational issues between cultural facilities and places of entertainment and consumption, and the city polity and development. (Evans, 2001, p. 28)

Thus one sees art everywhere in the city. The city itself is the canvas. The many different, and often very different, men, women, and children who inhabit the modern city, must be given free rein to express their individuality, for it is this that makes the city livable. The more human the urban space, the more inviting, and invigorating it will be. The great triumph of urbanity comes in the carefully balancing of the needs of single individuals with the needs of many individuals i.e. society. If this is done successful, a place is created where in all the wonderful crosscurrents of culture and society continually intermix, and renew themselves. The city is not some sort of museum of sterile, "official" art - it is the creative heart of humanity......

Show More ⇣


     Open the full completed essay and source list


OR

     Order a one-of-a-kind custom essay on this topic


sample essay writing service

Cite This Resource:

Latest APA Format (6th edition)

Copy Reference
"Art Living The Good Life " (2005, April 24) Retrieved May 3, 2024, from
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/art-living-good-life-66458

Latest MLA Format (8th edition)

Copy Reference
"Art Living The Good Life " 24 April 2005. Web.3 May. 2024. <
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/art-living-good-life-66458>

Latest Chicago Format (16th edition)

Copy Reference
"Art Living The Good Life ", 24 April 2005, Accessed.3 May. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/art-living-good-life-66458