In Aristotle’s view, the city is the place for the symbiosis of all people: a plural and polyphonic space, a space which emerges ‘between’ individuals or groups, and necessarily possesses potential contradictions and conflicts of interests and demands. The space ‘in-between’ should allow contradictions to emerge between its constituent elements. A peaceful emergence of contradictions within the city has been made possible through- out history only through ‘politics’. From such a viewpoint, the art of politics or “techne politike” stems from the city or the “polis”. The formation of politics in the city and the forces that play a role in this have always been dragged by private and public interests, a struggle whose center of gravity is continu- ously displaced by ideologies, social forces and capital. As such, contrary to what might seem at first, a space in the city is not an abstract body or a physical product, and as such cannot be easily theorised. Space is the product of politics and ideology. Production of space is a means of exercising power, attracting several groups to compete over it. In the tumult of this power struggle, there are fields that can- not be easily possessed by different individuals or groups. It is difficult to define their limits and functions and to mark them with clear and definite tags. Naming them as public or private spaces helps little to describe them, since such fluid spaces oscillate in a wide spectrum ranging from public to private. These domains lie between the authority of different groups, between different processes, borders and between objectivity and subjectivity. Sometimes they are the result of correct formulation of urban decision-makers completed through time and through the presence of people. Other times, they deviate from prescribed modes of space production and possess (due to their empti- ness) a potential for imagination within the city and turn into a stage for people’s presence and agency. Regardless of whether such spaces are designed or impro- vised, created by urban institutions or emerged against their authority, whether they are at the city centre or in the suburbs, whether they act as routes or destinations, whether they are ex- posed or hidden in deeper layers, they return the city to people through creating grounds for social interactions and enabling individuals to become citizens. These are spaces that keep people within them more than it is needed, just like an amus- ing party. Many opportunities and events need different layers of in-between spaces for their realisation, that is to say, a place where definitions are not as rigid and definite so as to limit them, allowing them to move and flow. The urban space is mysterious and hard to define, proven by the fact that the ways of seeing it and its defining factors are endless. Its diverse dimensions and aspects, its interdisciplinary quality, and the innumerable subjective interpretations of it, turn ‘public space’ into a slippery term that not everyone uses in the same sense. As a fluid process, the space constantly changes its shape under the pressure of innumerable forces and drags some to the centre while pushing others to the periphery. As such, is the formation of a truly ‘public’ space possible, or should the notion of ‘public’ be understood differently? Do such forces finally reach a balance and find their way under each other’s pressure?
1- In between : براى مطالعه بیشتر در این زمینه رجوع کنید به-2 Pier Vittorio Aureli «Toward the Archipelago». 3- Slippery term
Elahieh Hill, Javad Modarresi, Paradox, 2010