AESTHETICS AND THE URBAN

Abstract

Although responsible for the formation of a concentrated habitat, the built artifact is just an external feature and is not capable of defining a city by itself. What provides the sense of the urban is the internal face of the object. This brings one to the philosophical debate on the circular relations between invention and necessity, between production and consumption. To deal with new social concerns and themes, such as those of environmentalism and sustainability, one must rethink the role played by aesthetics in giving a sense to the urban and also analyze the ideologies that aesthetics contain. In a time when statements such as “the world moves towards an urban society”, or “culture is the strategy of late capitalism” are becoming increasingly common, it is important to consider an earlier philosophical movement, that propounds not only that art takes place in the city, but, also, that the city itself takes place in art.