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A review by mchester24
City Squares: Eighteen Writers on the Spirit and Significance of Squares Around the World by Catie Marron
4.0
I've always been interested in the layouts of cities, the contrast between old and new, how one would go about designing a city from scratch and how that differs from organically evolved cities, and the general masses of people living in on area-- the the point I sometimes question whether I should have studied that more in my education. This book does a great job on touching on many of these aspects of urban design, centered on the 'city square' and how it affects and shapes a city's culture and how the culture comes back and shapes the square.
The main themes in this book are how squares have always been around and always had a political tilt-- both in the democratic sense of people protesting and overthrowing those in power or the converse where dictatorships utilize the squares to demonstrate their military might over the people. It's a story that's been told 1,000 different ways throughout various lands and times. This book does a good job of going through varied different countries, eras, and cultures and hands the reigns on writing about those squares to different authors with personal connections to them. The downside to this is that sometimes the authors seem to assume a base knowledge about a specific era of history that I didn't always have, but their expert insights and firsthand experiences were worth the momentary catching up I always felt I had to do.
Some interesting other tidbits, in no particular order, I made notes of:
- Social media is the new virtual square, and that's both exciting and scary. Physical squares as a means of gathering people were structured and evolved over many many years, but with cyberspace being the new place for people to rally around a single cause the question arises-- who controls the architecture of that square? And does it help unite us or are we only digitally discussing with people who agree and shouting insults at those who don't?
- Many times dictators have used the square to demonstrate their strength, but time and again it becomes apparent that they don't realize the danger squares have on their unquestioned power.
- A square is porous and has a focal point, it is not where people come to escape a city (like a park) but rather where they go to be inside of it and see the hustle and bustle around them outside the square.
- The 21st century is the first urban century, where people are moving downtown in droves for the pleasures and benefits of culture exchange, walkable streets, parks, and public squares.
- The miracle of cities is that they exist both in the past and in the now, and a public square is key to that.
- "In democratic cities, political life takes place mainly in Houses of Parliament, government offices, courtrooms, polling places, and Twitter, not in city squares. Great European squares are now magnets for tourists and locals to be out in the open and take in the human scene. People in Beijing, Tehran, Cairo, or Baghdad might regard this absence of public debate and action as a luxury."
The main themes in this book are how squares have always been around and always had a political tilt-- both in the democratic sense of people protesting and overthrowing those in power or the converse where dictatorships utilize the squares to demonstrate their military might over the people. It's a story that's been told 1,000 different ways throughout various lands and times. This book does a good job of going through varied different countries, eras, and cultures and hands the reigns on writing about those squares to different authors with personal connections to them. The downside to this is that sometimes the authors seem to assume a base knowledge about a specific era of history that I didn't always have, but their expert insights and firsthand experiences were worth the momentary catching up I always felt I had to do.
Some interesting other tidbits, in no particular order, I made notes of:
- Social media is the new virtual square, and that's both exciting and scary. Physical squares as a means of gathering people were structured and evolved over many many years, but with cyberspace being the new place for people to rally around a single cause the question arises-- who controls the architecture of that square? And does it help unite us or are we only digitally discussing with people who agree and shouting insults at those who don't?
- Many times dictators have used the square to demonstrate their strength, but time and again it becomes apparent that they don't realize the danger squares have on their unquestioned power.
- A square is porous and has a focal point, it is not where people come to escape a city (like a park) but rather where they go to be inside of it and see the hustle and bustle around them outside the square.
- The 21st century is the first urban century, where people are moving downtown in droves for the pleasures and benefits of culture exchange, walkable streets, parks, and public squares.
- The miracle of cities is that they exist both in the past and in the now, and a public square is key to that.
- "In democratic cities, political life takes place mainly in Houses of Parliament, government offices, courtrooms, polling places, and Twitter, not in city squares. Great European squares are now magnets for tourists and locals to be out in the open and take in the human scene. People in Beijing, Tehran, Cairo, or Baghdad might regard this absence of public debate and action as a luxury."