Yi Fu Tuan Space and Place

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Spaceand

PlaceT he Perspective

Experience


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Spaceand

PlaceThe Perspectiveof

Experience

Y i - F u Tuan

University ofMinnesota PressMinneapolisLondon


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Copyright1977by the Regentsof theUniversityofMinnesota.All rights reserved.Nopartofthispublicationmay be reproduced,stored in aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted, in anyformor by anymeans,electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in theUnitedS tatesofAmericaonacid-free paper.P ublished by theUniversity ofMinnesota Press111Third Avenue South, Suite290Minneapolis, MN55401-2520Library of Congress Catalog Number 77-072910ISBN 0-8166-3877-2EighthPrinting, 2001

The UniversityofMinnesota isanequal-opportunity educator and employer.


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Preface

T

he life of thought is a continuo us s tory, l ike life itself:onebookgrowsout ofanotheras n theworldofpoliticalcommitmentoneaction leadstoanother.Iwrotea bookcalled Topoph ilia out of theneed to sortand order in som e waythe wide variety of atti tude s and values relating to m an's physi-cal environment. While I enjoyed noting the r ichnessandrangeof human environmental experience, Icouldnot atthattimefindanoverarching theme orconceptwithwhichtostruc-turemyheterogene ous m aterial; and in the end Ioften had toresort to convenient and conventional categories (l ike suburb,town,andcity,or the separatet reatm ent of the human senses)rather than to categories that evolved logically out of a rulingtheme.The presentbook is an attem ptto achieve a m ore cohe-rent statement.To do this I narrow my focus to the closelyrelated "space" and "place" components of env i ronment .More importantly, I try to develop my material from asingleperspective nam ely, thatof experience.Thecom plex natureof human experience, which ranges from inchoate feeling toexpl ic it conception, com m ands the subject matter and themesof thisbook.

It hasoften been d ifficu lt for m e to acknowledge properlymy intellectual debts. One reason is that I owe so much to so


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viPreface

many. An even greater problem is that I maywell fail to ac-knowledge people to whom I owe the greatest debt. I havecannibalized them Their ideas have become my own inner-most thoughts. My unnamed mentors include students andcolleaguesat theUniversityofMinnesota. Iexpect themto beindulgent towardanyunconscious borrowing oftheir insights,for allteachersknowit to be the sincerestformofcompliment.I do have specific debts, and it gives m e pleasure to ac-knowledgethem. I am deeply grateful to J. B.Jackson and P .W . Porter for their encouragementof m yfumbling efforts; toSu-changWang, Sandra Haas,and PatriciaBurwell for thedia-gramswhich achieveaformal elegance that in the case of thetext remains only anaspiration; and to Dorian Kottler of theUniversi ty Press for the meticulous job of copyediting. I alsowant to thank the following institutions, which providedmewith the resourcestoworkon Space an d Place with littleinter-ruption in the last tw o years: the Universityof Minnesota fo rgranting me a sabbatical leave followed by a year's leave ofabsence; theUniversityof Hawaii, where Ifirst exploredthethemesofthis bookwithasmall groupofsympathetic graduatestudents; the Australian-American Educational Foundation(Fulbright-Hays program) for an awardto visit Australia; theDepartment of Human Geography at the Australian NationalUniversi ty for providing acongenial andstimulating environ-ment in which to think and write; and the University ofCali fornia at Davis for a year of sunshineandwarmth, humanandclimatic. Yi-FuTuanChinese New Year,1977


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Contents

Preface vIllustrations viii

1 Introduction 32 Experiential Perspective 83 Space, Place, and the Child 194 Body, Personal Relations, and Spatial Values 345 Spaciousness andCrowding 516 SpatialAbility,Knowledge, and Place 677 Mythical Space and Place 858 Architectural Space and Awareness 1019 T ime in Experiential Space 118

10 Intimate Experiences of Place 13611 Attachment to Homeland 14912Visibility: the Creationof Place 16113 Time and Place 17914 Epilogue 199Notes 207

Index 229


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Illustrations

1. Spaceasdefinedby the relative locationanddistanceofplaces.Aivilikmapsoftheirworld.2. The structure of the human body, space, andtime.

3. "Center" implies "elevation,"and vice versa:theexampleof Peking.

4. Ego-andethnocentric organizationsof space.5. From spaceto place: the learningof amaze.6. Distortions indrawn mazes.7. EtakMicronesian celestial navigation.8.Tupaia's conception of the place-filled

space (PacificOcean).9. Mythical-conceptual spaces.

10. Ptolemaic cosmos.11.Courtyard houses: the contrast between"interior"and"exterior" dramatized.12. MongolianyurtandHadrian's Pantheon:the symbolic

domeand itsarchitectural expressions.13. Thehouseascosmosandsocialworld: the exampleof

theAtoni housein Indonesian Timor.14. Pygmycamp: the separationof socialand sacred space.15. Hopi spaceandtime: subjectiveandobjective realms.16.Cosmogonic myth and directed space: mythological

j ou rneysof the ancestralheroes of the Walbiri incentralAustralia.

17. Symmetrical sacredspace (MingT'ang)andasymmetricalCityof Man.18. Placeashighlyvisible public symbol: the "placesroyales"of Paris,accordingto M. Patte'splan.


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19. Enduring places:Ayers Rock and Stonehenge.20. Vi l lage s, m arket town s, and marketing areas: visibleand"invisible"places.21.Movements,time,and place: a. linear paths and places ;

b. circular/pend ulum like paths and places.22. Thegrowth(time) rings of Paris.


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Spaceand

PlaceThe Perspectiveof

Exper ience


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1Introduction

"S pace"and"place"arefam iliar w ordsdenoting common"Sexperiences.We live in space. There is no space for an-


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4Introduction

of the seashorewas agreat event. Much laterTillichchoseaplace on the Atlantic Ocean for hisdaysof retirement, a deci-sionthatundoubtedlyowed muchtothose early experiences.Asa boyTillichwasalso abletoescapefromthenarrownessofsmall-town lifebymaking trips to Berlin. Visitsto the bigcitycuriously reminded him of the sea. Berlin, too, gaveTillichafeeling of openness,infinity,unrestricted space.1Experiencesofthiskindmakeusponderanewthe meaningof awordlike"space" or"spaciousness" thatwethinkweknowwell.

What is a place? What gives a place its identity, its aura?These questions occurred to the physicists Niels Bohr andWerner Heisenberg when they visited Kronberg Castle inDenmark. Bohr saidto Heisenberg:Isn't it strange how this castle changes as soon as one imagines thatHamlet livedhere?Asscientistswe believe thata castle consistsonlyof stones, and admire the way the architect put them together.T hestones, the green roof with its patina, the wood carvings in thechurch,constitute the whole castle. None of this should be changedby the factthatH amlet lived here, and yet it is changed com pletely.S uddenly thewallsand the rampartsspeakaquited i f ferentlanguage.The courtyard becomes anen tireworld,adark corner reminds us ofthe darkness in the humansoul,we hear Hamlet's "To be or not tobe." Yet all we reallyknow aboutHam let isthathis nameappears in athir teenth-centurychronicle.No one canprove thathe reallylived,letalone that he livedhere. But everyone knows the questions Shake-speare had him ask, the human depth he was madeto reveal,and sohe,too,had to befound aplaceon earth,here in K ronberg . And oncewe knowthat,Kronbergbecomesquitea dif feren t castle fo r us.2

Recentethologicalstudies show that nonhuman animals alsohaveasenseof territory and of place. Spacesare marked offanddefended against intruders. Placesarecentersoffelt valuewhere biological needs, suchasthose for food, water, rest,andprocreation,are satisfied. Humans sharewith other ani-malscertain behavioral patterns,but as thereflectionsofTillichandBohrindicate,peoplealso respond to spaceandplaceincomplicatedways that areinconceivable in theanimalworld.How can the Baltic Sea and Berlinbothevoke asenseof open-nessand infinitude? How can a mere legend haunt KronbergCastle and impart a mood that infiltrates the minds of two


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5Introduction

famousscientists? If our concernwiththe natu re and quality ofthe human environment is serious, these are surelybasicques-tions.Yet they have seldom been raised. Instead we study ani-mals suchasratsand w olves and saythat hum an behavior andvalues are muchliketheirs. Or w e m easure and m apspaceandplace, and acquire spatiallawsand resou rce inventories for ourefforts. These are important approaches, but they need to becomplemented by experiential data that we can collect andinterpret in m easu red confidence because we are human our-selves. We have privileged access to states of mind, thoughtsand feelings.W e have an insider's view of human facts,a claimwe cannot makewith regardto other kindsoffacts.People sometimes behave l ike cornered and wary animals.On occasion they m ay alsoact l ike cool sc ien tists dedicated tothe task of formulating laws and m apping resou rces. Neitherposture holds sway for long. People are complex beings. Thehum an endowm ent includes sen sory organs sim ilar to those ofother prima tes, but it is capped by an exce ptionally refinedcapacity for symbolization. How the human person, who isanimal, fantasist, and com puter combined, exper iencesandunderstands theworld is the central theme of this book.

Given the human endowm ent, in whatwaysdo people attachm eaning to and organize spaceand place?When this questionisasked,the social scie ntistis tempted to rushto cul ture as anexplanatory factor. Culture is uniquely developed in humanbeings. It strongly influe nce s human behavior a nd value s. TheEskimos'senseof spaceand place is very differen t from that ofAmer icans.This approach is valid, but it ove rlooks the problemof shared traits that transcend cultural particularit ies and maytherefore reflect the general human condition. When note istaken of "universals," th e behavioral scientistis likely to turnto the analogueof primate behavior. In this book our animalheritage is assumed.The importance of cul ture is taken forgranted; culture is inescapable, and it is explored in everychapter.But the purpose of the essayis not to produce a hand-book of how cultures affect human att i tudes to space andplace.The essay is, rather, a prologue to cu lture in its cou ntles svariety; it focuse songeneral questionsof human dispositions,


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6Introduction

capacit ies,and needs, and on how culture emphasizes or dis-torts them. Three themes weave through the essay.They are:(1 ) Thebiologicalfacts. Human infants haveonlyvery crudenotionsofspaceandplace.Intime they acquire sophistication.Whatare thestagesoflearning?Thehuman body lies prone,orit isupright. Upright it has top andbottom, front andback,right and left. How arethesebodily postures, divisions, andvaluesextrapolatedontocircumambient space?(2) The relations of space and place. In experience, themeaningof space often mergeswiththatofplace. "Space" ismore abstract than "place." What begins as undifferentiatedspacebecomes placeas we get to know itbetter andendow itwithvalue. Architects talk about thespatial qualitiesof place;they can equally well speak of the locational (place) qualities ofspace.Theideas"space"and"place" require each other fordefinition.From the security and stability of place we are awareof theopenness, freedom,andthreatofspace,andviceversa.Furthermore, if we thinkof spaceasthat which allows move-ment, then placeispause; each pausein movement makes itpossiblefor location to betransformedintoplace.(3) The rangeof experienceor knowledge. Experience canbe direct and intimate, or it can beindirect and conceptual,mediated bysymbols.Weknow our home intimately;we canonly know about our country if it is very large. A longtimeresidentof Minneapolis knowsthe city,a cabdriver learnstofindhis way in it, ageographer studies Minneapolis andknowsthe city conceptually. Theseare three kinds of experiencing.One person m ayknow aplace intimately aswell asconceptu-ally. He can articulate ideas but he hasdifficultyexpressingwhatheknows through hissensesoftouch, taste, smell, hear-ing, andeven vision.

Peopletend to suppress that which they cannot express. Ifan experience resists ready communication, a common re-sponseamong activists ("doers") is to deem it privateevenidiosyncraticandhence unimportant. In the large literatureonenvironmental quality, relatively fewworks attempt to un-derstand howpeople feel about spaceandplace, to takeintoaccountthe different modesofexperience (sensorimotor, tac-


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7Introduction

tile, visual, conceptual), and to interpret space and place asimages of com plexoften am bivalent feelings. P rofessionalplanners,with their urgent need to act, movetoo quickly tomodels an d inven tories. The layman acce pts too readily fro mcharismatic planners and propagandists the environmentalslogans he m ay have picked up through the m edia; the richexpe riential data on which these abstractionsdepend are eas ilyforgotten. Yet it is possible to art iculate subtle hum an expe ri-ences.A rtists havetriedoftenwithsuccess. In worksof litera-ture as wel l as in humanistic psychology, philosophy, an-thropology and geography, intricate worlds of human experi -ence are recorded.This book draw s attention to questions that hum anistshaveposed with regard to space and place.3 I t attem pts to sys -tematize humanistic insights, to display them in conceptualf rames(here organized aschapters)so that their importance isevident to us notonly asthoughtful people curious to knowm o re a bo u t our own n a t u r e o u r p o t e n t i a l forexper iencingbut alsoastenants of the earth practically con-cernedwiththe design of a m ore hum an habitat. The app roachis descriptive,aim ing m ore often to su ggest than to conclude.In an area of study where so much is tentative, perhaps eachstatementshould endwitha que stion m arkor be accompaniedby qualifying clauses. The reader is asked to supply them. Anexploratory work suchasthisshould havethevirtueofclarityeven if this calls for the sacrifice of scholarly detail and qual-ification.Akeyterm in the book is "experience." What is the nature ofexperience and of the experiential pers pe ctive?


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2Experient ialPerspect ive

E xpe rience is a cover-all term for the various m odesthroughwhich a person knows and constructs a reality. Thesemodes range from the more direct and passive sensesofsmell, taste, and touch, to active visual perception and theindirect modeof symbolization.1Experience

sensation, percep tion, concep tion EMOTION emotion

thought THOUGHT

Emotion tints all human experience, including the highflightsofthought.Ma thema ticians, for example, claim thatthedesign of their theorems is guided by aesthetic cri terianotions of elegance andsimplicity that answerahuman need.Thought tints all human experience,includingthe basic sensa-t ions of heatandcold,pleasure andpain. Sensation is quicklyqualified bythought as one of a specialkind. Heat is su f focat-ing or prickly; pain is sharp or dull, anirritating tease or abrutal force.

8


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9Experiential Perspective

Experience is directed to the externalworld. Seeing andthinking clearly reach out beyond the self. Feeling is moreambiguous. As Paul Ricoeurput it, "Feeling is ...withoutdoubt intentional: it is afeeling of 'something'the lovable,the hateful, [for instance]. Bu t it is a ve ry strange intentionalitywhichon the one hand designates qua lit ies felton things,onpersons,on theworld,and on the other hand manifestsandreveals the way in which the self is inwardly affected." In feel-ing "anintentionand anaffection coincide in the sameexp eri-ence."2Experience has a con notation of passivity;the word suggestswhat a person hasundergone orsuf fered.An exper ienced m anor woma n is one to whom m uch has happened. Yet we do notspeakof the p lant 's experience s,and even of the lower anim alsthe word "experience" seems inappropriate. Theyoung pup,however, is contrasted with the experienced mast if f ; andhuman beings are m ature or im m ature depending on whetherthey have benefited from events.Experience thus implies theability to learn from w hatone hasundergone.3Toexpe r ience isto learn; it means actingon the givenandcreatingout of thegiven. The given canno t be kn own in itself. What can be knownisa reality that is a constructofexper ience,a creation of feelingandthought.As S usanne Langerpu t it: "Theworldof physicsisesse ntiallythe realworldconstrued bym athem aticalabstrac-tions,and theworldofsense is the realworldconstrued by theabstractions which the sense organs immediately furnish."4Experience is the overcoming of perils. Theword "experi-ence" shares a com m on root (per) with "experiment," "ex-pert," and"perilous."

5 To experience in the.active sense re-quires that one venture forth into the unfamil iar andexpe ri-mentwiththe elusive and the unce rtain. To become a n expert

onemust dareto confront the perilsof the new.Why shouldone so dare? A human individual is driven. He is passionate,and passion is a token of mental force. The emotional reper-toireo f a clam is very re str icted compared withthatof apuppy;and the a ffective lifeof the chim panzee seemsa lmostasvariedand intense asthatof a hum an being. A human infant is distin-


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guished from other m am m alian young bothby hishelplessne ssand by his fearsom e tantrum s. The infan t's em otional range,f rom smi le to tantrum, hints a t hispotential intellectua l reach.Experience is compounded of feeling andthought. Humanfeeling is not a succession ofdiscrete sensations; rather mem-ory and anticipation are able to wield sensory impacts intoashifting strea m of expe rience so that we m ay speak of a life offeeling as we do of a lifeofthought.I t is a com m on tendency toregard feel ing and thought as opposed, the one registeringsubjective states, the other reporting on objective reality. Infact, they lie near the two ends of an e xperiential continuum,andboth are waysof knowing.Tosee and tothinka re close ly related p rocesse s. In Eng lish,"I see" means"I understand." Seeing,it has ongbeen recog-nized,is not the simplerecordingoflightstimuli;it is aselec-tive and creative process in which environmental stimuli areorganized intoflowing structures that provide signs meaning-ful to the purposive organism. Are the senses of smel l andtouch informed by mentality?Wetendto slight the cognitivepower of these senses.Y et the French ve rb"savoir" (to know)is closely related to the English"savour." Taste, smell, andtouch are capable of exquisite refinement. They discriminateamong the wealth of sensationsand articulate gustatory, olfac-tory,and textural worlds.The s t ructur ing o f wor lds calls for intell ige nce . Like theintellectual actsof seeingandhearing,the sensesof smel landtouch can be im provedwithpractice so as to disce rn significantworlds . Hum an adults can develop extraordinaryse nsitivityto awide range of f lowe r f ragrances.

6Although the human nose isfar lessacute than the canine no se in de tecting certain odors oflow intensity, people m ay be responsiveto a broader rangeofodors than dogs are. Dogs and young children do not ap-preciate f lower fragrances in the wayhum an adultsdo. Youngchildren's favorite odors are those of fruits rather than flow-ers.7 Fruits are good to eat, so preference for them is un-derstanda ble. Bu t what is the surviva l value of sens itivity to the

chemical oils wafted byflowers ? No clear biological pu rpose isserved bythis sen sitivity. Itwouldseem that our nose, no less


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than our eyes, seeks to enlargeand comprehend theworld.Some odors do have potent biological m eaning. Body sce nts ,for exam ple, ma y stim ulate sexual activity. Why, on the otherhand, domany human adu ltsfindthesm ellofdecay repulsive?Mammalswith noses fa r keener than the human tolerate andeven appreciate carrion odors thatwoulddisgust men. You ngchildren also appearto be indif ferent to fetid smells. Langersuggests that the odors of decay are memen to mori to grownpeople but carry no such meaning to animalsand small chil-dren.8 Tou ch articulates another kind of com plexworld.T hehuman hand is pee rless in its strength,agility,and sen sit ivity.Primates,includingman,usetheirhandsto knowand comfortmembers of their own species,but m an also uses hands toexplorethephysical env ironm ent, care fully differen tiating it bythe feelof barkand stone.9H um an a dults disl ike having stickymatter on their skin, perhaps because i t destroys the skin'spower fo r discernment. Sucha substance,like dirtyspectacles,dulls a faculty of exploration.The m odern architectural environm ent m ay cater to the eye,but itoften lacksthepungent personality that variedandpleas-antodorscan give. O dors lend characterto objectsand places,making them distinctive, easier to identify and remember.Odors are important to hum an beings. We have even spokenof an olfactoryworld, but can fragrance sand scents constitutea world?"World"suggests spatialstructure;anolfactoryworldwould be one where odors are spatially disposed, not simplyone in which they appear in random successionor as inchoatemixtures. Can senses other than sight and touch provide aspatially organized world? It is possible to argue that taste,odor,and even hearing canno t in them selves give us asenseofspace.10 The question is largely academic, fo r most peoplefunct ion with the five senses, and these constantly reinforceeach other to provide the intricately ordered and emotion-chargedworld in which we live. Taste,for example, almostinvariably involves touch and smel l : the tongue rolls aroundthe hard candy, exploring itsshape as the olfactory senseregis-ters the caram el f lavo r. If we can hearand sme ll som ething wecanoften also see it.


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What sensory organsandexperiences enable human beingsto havetheirstrong feeling for spaceand for spatial qualities?Answer : kinesthesia, sight, and touch.11 Movements suchasthe simpleabilityto kick one's legs and stretch one's armsarebasic to the awarenessof space.S pace is experienced directlyashaving room inwhich tomove. Moreover, byshifting fromone place to another, aperson acquiresa sense of direction.Forward, backward, and sideways are experientially dif-ferentiated, thatis,known subconsciouslyin the act ofmotion.Space assumes a rough coordinate frame centered on themobile and purposive self. Human eyes, which have bifocaloverlap andstereoscopic capacity, provide peoplewithavividspace in three dimensions. Experience, however, is necessary.It takes time and practice for the infant or the person bornblindbutwithsight recently restoredtoperceivetheworldasmadeup ofstable three-dimensional objects arrangedinspacerather than asshifting patterns andcolors. Touching and ma-nipulating things with the hand yields aworld of objectsobjectsthat retaintheirconstancy of shape and size. Reachingfor things andplaying with them disclosetheir separatenessand relative spacing. Purposive movement and perception,bothvisualandhaptic,give human beings their familiarworldofdisparate objectsinspace.P laceis aspecialkindofobject. Itisa concretion of value,thoughnot a valuedthingthat can behandled or carried about easily; it is an object in which one candwell.Space,wehavenoted, isgivenby theabilityto move.Movementsareoften directed toward,or repulsedby,objectsandplaces. Hence space can bevariously experienced as therelative location ofobjects or places,a s thedistancesand ex-pansesthat separate or linkplaces, andmoreabstractlyasthe areadefined by a network of place(Fig. 1).Taste,smell, skin sensitivity,andhearing cannot individually(nor perhaps even together) make usawareof aspaciousex-ternal world inhabited by objects. In combination with the"spatializing"facultiesof sightandtouch,however, thesees-sentially nondistancing sensesgreatly enrichour apprehensionof the world's spatial and geometrical character. Taste labelssome flavors "sharp," others "flat." The meaning of these


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A. Space defined by relative locationof trading posts (Aivilik woman) B. Bounded space of AivilikEskimo hunter

Figure 1 Spaceasrelative locationand bounded space.The Eskimo (Aivilik)woman's spaceisessentially defined by the locationanddistanceof significantpoints,mostlytradingposts(A), asperceived fromthe home baseonSouth-ampton Island,whereasthe ideaofboundary(the coastline)isimportantto themale Eskimo's sense of space(B). Edmund Carpenter, Frederick Varley, andRobertFlaherty,Eskimo (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,1959), page6.Reprintedwithpermission fromthe University ofToronto Press.

geometr icaltermsis enhancedbytheir metaphorical use in therealm o f taste.Odor is capableofsuggestingmassandvolume.Some odors, like musk or tuberosa, are "heavy," whereasothersare"delicate,""thin,"or"light."Carnivores dependontheir acute sense of smell to track down prey, and it m ay bethat their nose is capableo f articulating aspatially structuredworldat least one that is differentiatedbydirection anddis-tance.Thehuman noseis a much atrophied organ.W edependon the eye to locatesourcesofdangerandappeal,butwiththesupportof aprior visual world thehuman nosetoo can discerndirection and estimate relative distance through thestrengthofan odor.


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Aperson who handles an objectfeelsnotonlyits texture butitsgeom etric properties of size and shape. Apa rt from m anipu-lation,does skin sens itivity itself contribute to the human spa-t ial exp erience? Itdoes,though in limitedways.Theskin regis-terssensat ions.Itrepo rtson its own state and at the same t imethat of the object pre ss ing against it. The skin is not, however,a distance sensor. In this respect tactile perception is at theopposite extreme of visua l perception. The skin isable tocon-vey certain spatial ideas and can do sowithout the support oftheother senses, depending onlyon thestructureof the bodyand the ability to move. Relativelength,fo r example, is regis-tered whe n dif feren t partsof the body are touched at the sametime.The skin can convey asenseofvolum e and mass.No onedoubts that "entrance into a wa rm bath gives our skin a m oremassive feeling than the prick of a pin."12 The skin, when itcomesincontactwithflattish ob jects,canjudge approxim atelytheir shape and size. At the micro level, roughness andsmoothness are geometric properties that the skin easily rec-ognizes. Objectsare also hard or soft. Tactile perception dif-ferentiates these chara cteristicson spatio-geometric evidence.Thus a hard object retains itsshape unde r pressurewhereasasoft object doesnot.13Isa senseof distance and of spacecreated out of the abilityto hear?Theworldo fsoun d would appearto be spatially struc -tured,though notwiththe sharpnessof the visualworld.It ispossible thattheblindm an who canhearbut has no handsandcan barely move lacks all sense of space; perhaps to suchaperson all sounds are bodily sensationsand not cues to thecharacter of an environment. Few people are so severelyhandicapped. Given sightand the power to moveand handlethings, sounds greatly enrich the human feeling for space.Human ears are not flexible, sothey are less equipped to dis-cern direction than,say,the ears of awolf.But byturning thehead a person can roughly tellthe d irection of sounds. P eopleare subcons ciously aware of the sources of noise, and f romsuch awarenessthey cons true auditory space.

Sounds,though vaguely located, can convey a st rong senseof size (volume) and of distance. For example, in an empty


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cathedral thesoundoffootstepstappingsharplyon thestonefloorcreatesanimpression of cavernousvastness.As for thepower of sound toevoke distance, Albert Camus wrote: "InAlgeria dogs can be heard barking atnightover distances tentimes greater than inEurope.Thenoise thustakeson anostal-giaunknown in our cramped countries."14 Blind people de-velopanacute sensitivitytosounds; theyareableto usethemandtheir reverberationsto evaluateanenvironment's spatialcharacter. People who can see are less sensitive to auditorycuesbecause theyare not sodependent on them.All humanbeings learn, however, torelate soundtodistancein the act ofspeaking.Wealter our tone of voice from softto loud, fromintimate to public,inaccordancewiththeperceived physicalandsocial distances between ourselvesandothers.Thevol-ume andphrasingof ourvoiceaswellaswhatwe try to say areconstant reminders ofproximityanddistance.

Sound itself canevoke spatial impressions.Thereverbera-tions of thunder arevoluminous; the squeakingof chalkonslateis"pinched"andthin.Low musical tones are voluminouswhereas those of high pitch seem thin and penetrating.Musicologists speakof "musical space." Spatial illusionsarecreatedinmusicquiteapart fromthephenomenon of volumeand the fact that movement logically involves space.15Music isoften saidto have form. Musical form m aygeneratea reassur-ingsenseoforientation.To themusicologist Roberto Gerhard,"forminmusicmeansknowingatevery moment exactly whereone is. Consciousnessof form is really a sense of orienta-tion."16

Thevarious sensoryspacesbearlittlelikeness to each other.Visualspace,withits vividness and size, differs strikingly fromdiffuseauditory and tactile-sensorimotor spaces.Ablindmanwhose knowledge of space derives from auditory and tactilecuescannot, for sometime,appreciatethevisualworldwhenhegains sight. The vaulted interior of a cathedral and the sen-sation of slipping into a warm bath both signify volume orspaciousness,although the experiences are hardly compara-ble. Likewisethe meaning of distance is asvariedas itsexpe-rientialmodes:weacquirethefeelofdistanceby theeffortof


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moving fromoneplacetoanother,by theneedtoprojectourvoice, byhearing the dogs barkatnight,and by recognizingtheenvironmental cuesfor visual perspective.Theorganizationof human space isuniquely dependent onsight. Other senses expand and enrich visual space. Thussound enlarges one's spatialawarenesstoinclude areasbehindthe head that cannot be seen. More important, sounddramatizesspatial experience. Soundlessspacefeels calmandl ifelessdespitethevisible flow of activityin it, as inwatchingeventsthrough binocularsor on thetelevision screenwiththesoundturned off,orbeingin acity muffledin af reshblanketofsnow.17

Human spaces reflectthe quality of the human sensesandmentality. The mind frequently extrapolates beyond sensoryevidence.Considerthe notionof vastness.Thevastnessof anocean is not directly perceived. "W e think the ocean as awhole," saysWilliam James,"by multiplyingmentally the im-pressionwe get at anymoment when atsea."18A continentseparates New York from S an Francisco. A distance of thisorder isapprehended through numerical or verbal symbolscomputed, forexample,indays' journeys. "But thesymbolwilloften giveus the emotional effectof the perception. Suchex-pressionsas theabysmal vaultofheaven,theendlessexpanseofocean, etc., summarize many computationsof the imagina-tion,andgivethesenseofenormoushorizon."Someonewiththe mathematical imagination of Blaise Pascalwill lookat thesky and beappalledby itsinfiniteexpanse. Blindmen areabletoknowthemeaningof adistanthorizon.Theycanextrapolatefrom their experience of auditory space and of freedom inmovement to envisage in their minds' eyes panoramic viewsandboundlessspace.AblindmantoldWilliam Jamesthat "hethought few seeing people could enjoy the view from a moun-taintopmore than he."19Themind d iscernsgeometric designsandprinciples ofspa-tial organization in theenvironment. Forexample, DakotaIn-dians find evidence of circular forms in nature nearlyeverywhere, from the shapeof birds' neststo the course of thestars. In contrast,the Pueblo Indiansof theAmerican South-


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west tend to see spaces of rectangular geometry. These areexamplesof theconstrued space, which dependson thepowerof the mind to extrapolate far beyond the sense data. Suchspaceslie at the conceptual end of the experiential continuum.Three principal types,with large areas of overlap, existthemythical,thepragmatic,and theabstractortheoretical.Mythi-cal space is aconceptual schema, but it isalso pragmaticspacein the sensethatwithinthe schemaa large number of practicalactivities, such as the planting and harvesting of crops, areordered.Adifference between mythicalandpragmaticspace isthat the latter is defined by amore limited set of economicactivities. Therecognitionof pragmatic space, suchasbelts ofpoor and rich soil, is of course an intellectual achievement.When an ingenious person tries to describe the soil patterncartographically, bymeansof symbols,afurther move towardthe conceptual mode occurs. In the Westernworldsystem sofgeometrythat is,highlyabstractspaceshavebeen createdout of primal spatial experiences. Thus sensorimotorandtac-tile experienceswould seem to lie at the root of Euclid'stheorems concerning shape congruence and the parallelism ofdistant lines; and visual perception is the basis for projectivegeometry.Human beingsnotonly discern geometric patternsinnatureand create abstractspacesin themind,they also try to embodytheir feelings, images,andthoughts in tangible material.Theresult is sculptural and architectural space, and on a largescale,theplanned city. Progresshere is from inchoate feelingsfor space and fleeting discernments of it in nature to theirpublic andmaterial reification.Place is atype of object. Places and objects define space,giving it ageometric personality. Neither the newborn infantnor the man whogains sight afteralifetime of blindnesscanimmediately recognize ageometric shape such as a triangle.The triangle is atfirst "space," ablurred image. Recognizingthetriangle requirestheprioridentification ofcorners thatis,places. Aneighborhood is atfirstaconfusionof images to thenewresident; it isblurred space"out there."Learningto knowthe neighborhood requires the identification of significant


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18Experient ial Perspective

localities, suchasstreet corne rs and architectural landmarks,withintheneighborhoodspace. Ob jects and places are centersof value. They attract or repel in finely shaded degrees.Toattend to them even momentarily is to acknowledgetheirreal-i ty and value. The infant's world lacks permanent objects,being dominated by f leeting impressions. How do im-pressions,given to us through the senses,acqu ire the stabilityof objects and places?Intelligence is m anifest in different types of achievem ent.One is the ability to recognize and feel deeply about the par-ticular. Indistinction to theschem atic worlds inwhich anima lslive, the schematic worlds of human beings are also richlypopulated with particular andenduring things.Theparticularthings wevalue m ay be given names:a tea set is Wedgewoodand a chair is Chippendale. People haveproper names. Theyare particular things and they m aywell be the first permanentobjectsin the infant'sworldofunstable im press ions.Anobjectsuchas avalued crystalglassisrecognized by its unique shape,decorative design, andringwhenlightlytapped. A city such asSan Francisco is recognized by itsuniquesetting, topography,skyline, odors, and streetnoises.20 An object or place achievesconcrete reality when our experience of it is total, that is ,throughall the sensesaswellas with the active and reflectivemind. Long residence enables us to know a place intimately,yet itsimagemaylack sharpness unlesswe canalsosee itfromthe outside and reflect upon our experience . Another placemaylackthe weight of reality because we know itonlyfromtheoutsidethroughthe eyesas tourists, and from reading aboutit in a guidebook. It is a characteristic of the sym bol-makinghuman species that its members can become passionately at-tached to places of enormous size, such as a nation-state, ofwhich they can have on ly limiteddirect experience.


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3Space,Place,

andthe Child

F eelings and ideas conce rning spaceand place are extrem elycomplexin the adult humanbeing.They growout of l ife'sunique and shared experience s.Everyperson starts, how-ever, as an infant. From the infant's tiny and confusedworldappears in t ime the adult'sworldview, subliminallyalso con-fused, but sustained by structuresof experience and conceptualknowledge. Although children come under cultural influencesas soon as they areborn,thebiological imperatives of growthnonetheless impose rising curves of learning and understand-ingthatare al ike andhencemay besaidto transcen dthespe cif icemphases ofculture.H ow does a young child perceive and understand his envi-ronment? Fairly dependable answers are available. The child'sbiologicalequipment, fo r instance, gives cluesas to the limitsof his powers. Moreover we can observe how the child be-haves in controlled and real-life situations. We m ay also won-der, what is the feeling tone of the chi ld 's world? what is thenature of his attachm ents to people and to places? S uch ques-tions aremore difficult to answer.An introspective return toour ownchildhood isoften disappointing, for thebrightanddark landscapesof our earlyyearstend to fadewhile onlya fewlandmarkssuchasbirthdaysand the f irstday atschool rema in.

79


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20Space, Place, and

the Child

Thisinability,fo r most people, to recapture the mood of theirown childhoodworld suggests how far the adult's schemata,geared primarily to l ife's practical demands, differ from thoseof thechild.1Y et the child is fatherto the man,and the adult'sperceptual categories are from t im e to t ime infusedwithemo-t ionsthat su rge out ofearly experiences .Thesehighlychargedmomentsfrom the pastare som etim es capturedbypoets. Likecandid sna pshots out of the fam ily album their wo rds recall forus a lost innocence and a lost dread, an immediacy of experi-encethat had not yet suffered (o r benefited) from the distanc-ing of reflectivethought.Biologyconditionsour perceptualworld.Atbirthan infant'scerebral cortex hasonly about 10 to 20percent of the normalcomplement of nerve cells in a mature brain; moreover manyof the nerve cells presentare not connectedwitheachother.2The infanthas noworld.He cannot distingu ish between selfandan external environment. He feels, but his sensations are notlocalizedin space.Thepain is simply there,and herespondstoitwithcrying; hedoesnot seem to locate it in some specificpartof hisbody. Foronly a brief time , asinfants, hum an beingshave known how it feelsto live in a nondualistic world.

During the first fe w weeks of life the infant's eyes cannotfocusproperly. Toward the end of the firs t month the infant isable to fixate an object in the direct line of his vision, and bythe end of the second month binocular fixation with con-vergence begins to appear.3 However, even in his fourthmonth the infant showslittle interest in exploring theworldvisuallybeyond the range of three feet."An infant isimmobileand canmake only small movem entswith his headand limbs.Movingthe body along a more or less straightline is essen tialto the experiential construction of spaceintothe basic coordi-nates of ahead,behind, and sideways. Most mammals, soonafter birth, gain a sense of orientation by taking a few stepsafter their mother. The slow-maturing human child must ac-quire this skill more gradually.What events and activities canprovide the infant with thefeelof space?An infant in the Westernworldspends muchofhis time prone. He is occasionally picked up to be burped,


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27Space, Place, and

the Child

playedwith,andconsoled.Out of these eventsmaycomethefeltdistinctionbetween horizontal andvertical.At the levelofactivityaninfant knowsspacebecausehe canmovehislimbs:kickingasidetheblanket that encumbershim is atasteof f ree-dom that, in the adult, is associatedwith the idea of havingspace. An infant exploresthe environment with his mouth.5Themouth adjuststo thecontourof themother'sbreast.S uck-ing is amost rewarding activity, for it requires participationbythe different senses of touch, smell, and taste. In addition,sucking feeds the baby, giving him a sense of contentment.Thestomach distendsand contractsasfood is taken in anddigested.Thisphysiological function, unlike breathing, iscon-sciously identified withalternating statesof d istressand bliss."Empty" and full are v isceral exper iences of lasting impor-tance to the human being. The infant knows them and re-sponds with crying or smiling. To the adult, such com-monplaceexper iencestakeon anextrametaphorical meaning,as the expressions "my cup runneth over," "I havean emptyfeeling,"and "afulllife"suggest. The infant useshishandstoexplore the tactileandgeometricalcharacterist ics of his envi-ronment. While the mouth tacklesthe nipple andacqu iresthefeel of buccal space, thehands move busily overthebreast.Longbeforethe infant's eyes canfocuson asm allobjectanddiscern its shapehis handswillhave graspedit andknown itsphysicalproperties through touch.

Thevisual worldof aninfantispeculiarly difficulttodescribebecause we are tempted to assign to it the well-knowncategories of anadult'sv isualworld.How the sensesofsmell,taste,andtouch structuretheenvironmentescapesusmostofthe time; even educated adults lack avaried vocabulary topresentolfactoryandtactile worlds.But we haveno problemwiththevisual.P icturesanddiagrams,aswellaswords, cometo ouraid.Theworld seenthrough anadult'sorolder child'seyes is large and vivid; objects in it are clearly ordered inspace.S uch is not the case for the infant. H is visualspace lacksstructure and permanence. Objects in it areimpressions;hencethey tendto existfor theinfant onlysolongastheystayin his v isual field.6 The shapes and sizes of objects lack the


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22Space, Place, and

the Child

constancy that older children take for granted. P iaget notesthat an infant m ay fail to recognize a milk bottle when thewrong end is offered to him; he learns to turn it around whenhe isabou t eight m onthsold.7To an experienced olderchildanobject looks smallerat a distance,and thediminishment in sizeof a retreating object is unreflectively transcribed to mean in -creasingd istance. To theinfant,however, an object that lookssmall because it is at a distance may be taken as a differentobject.Theinfant does possessaninnate capacityto recognizethe rough three-dimensional quality ofthings,their constancyof size and shape, and the distinction between far and nea r,but the recognition operates within a highly circumscribedfield comparedwith that of a m obile toddler.8Theability to see isstrongly supported bynonvisual experi-ences. Even to an olderchildthe moon overhead is easily con-sidered a different object from the moon on thehorizon.Thatthe moon m oves arou nd the earth is an abs traction alien to thechild's e xperience :the moon is seenonly atspecif ic m om ents,separatedby an interval of time that to thechild feels alm osteternal.Thepicture of a road leading to a distant cottage seemseasy to interpret; yet the road makesfull senseonly to some-one who haswalked on it. An immobile infant can have nosense of distance as the expenditure of energy to overcomespatial barrier. A child quickly learns, howeve r, to read spatialandenvironmentalcues even when theyarepresentedto himin the trans cribed form of a picture. A bookish youngster threeor four years old can already look at the picture of a footpathdisappearing into thewoods and see himse lfas the hero of animpendingventure.The f irst environment an infant explores is his parent. Thefirst permanent and independent object he recognizes is per-haps another person. While things appear and continue toexistonly insofaras he attends tothem,the independent real-ity of anadult, able to dispense orwithhold favor, soon in -t rudes on the child's quickening consciousness.9 Adults arenecessary not only for the child's biological survival, butalsofo r developing his senseof an ob jective world.An infanta fewweeks old has already learned to heed the human presence .


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23Space, Place, and

the Child

Hebegins to acqu ire a senseofdistance and direction throug hthe need to judge where a grownupm ay be.Toward the end ofthe f irst month of lifeaninfant is likely to followwith his eyesonly one distant percept the grown up's fa ce. A hungry andcrying baby calms down and opens his mouth or makes suck-ing m ovements when he sees an adult approaching.An eight-month-old child is aware of noises, particularlyanimal and human noises, in the next room. He attends tothem; his sphere of interest expands beyond what is visibleand of pressing concern. H owever, his behavioral space re-mains small . He seems easily d iscouraged by perceived bar-riers. According to Spitz, up to about eight months a child'sspatial horizon islimitedby the barsof hiscrib,or cot."Within

his cot he grabstoy s with ease. If the same toy isof fered to himoutside the barsof his cot, he reachesfor it, but his hands stopat the bars; hedoesnot continue his m ovements beyond; hecouldeasilydo it, for the barsa re su fficien tly widely spaced. Itisas ifspaceendedwithinhis cot.Two orthree we eks after theeighth month, however, he suddenly sees the light and be-comesable to continue his movement beyond the barsand tograsp his toy."10A crawling baby can explore space. Movement beyond theimmediate vicinity of the mother or outside the crib entailsriskswithwhich the babyis not preparedto cope. Instinctsforsurvivalare notwe ll developed. One that appears between thesixth and the eighth month is fearof the strange r. P riorto thisstage the infantmakes nodist inction between fam iliarand un-familiar faces; thereafter he turns his head or cries when a

stranger approaches.11

The inanimate environment providesfew unambiguous signals of danger to the intrepid infantexp lorer. Any thing that can be grasped is grasped or put intohis mouth fo r more int imate acquaintance; fear of fire andwater has to be learned.To the crawling child horizontal spacelooks safe. He isaware of one kind of danger in the physicalenvironment: the cl iff. Experim ents have show n that a babywill not crawl onto a glass plate that extends over a pit withvertical sides despite encouragement from the mother. H iseyes respond to cues fo r sudd en changesof slope.12


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24Space, Place, and

the Child

The youngchild,as soon as he learns to walk,will want tofollowhis m other and explore the environm entwithinher am -bience. The more hostile the environment, the closer the at-tachmentto the protectiveadult.Bushm an babiesofsouthwestAfrica, for example,are less ready to stray from the mother intheir playful exploration andmore readyto run to herthanareWesternbabies.13 In a studyof the outdoor behavior ofEnglishchildren,one and a half to two and a halfyears old, Andersonnotes that they seldom stray m ore than 200 feet from theirmothers. Characteristically the child moves in short bouts ofno m ore than a few seconds.He stops between bou tsfors imi-lar brief periods. Most of his walking time is spent drawingnearerto orfarther from the mother. Objectsandeventsin theenvironment do notappear to affectthe way thechildmoves.The child does not necessarily move away from the motherbecause he isattracted by an object nor return to her inflightf rom anobject. The movements have the playful character ofexperimentation. The child "moves a short distance from them other, stops to look around, fixates the sources of soundsand visual stimuli and, in some cases, attracts the mother'sattention to them. Intermingled with this scanning of the re-mote is an examination of the ground: he handles leaves,grass, stonesand refuse; crawls or jumps backwardsand for-wards ove r verges , and attempts the shaking or climbing ofobstacles."14Pointing is a common gesture. Any remote sightor sou nd that catches the ch ild's a ttention is su fficient toelicitit . Often the adult is unable to discern the source of thest imulus. It may be imaginary. "A childwillpoint to a part ofthehorizon wherenothingis m ovingandtell themother thataman iscoming."15 Of special interest in these observations isthe child's apparent concernwith the remote and the proxi-mate. He points to the horizon and playswith stones at hisfeet,but heshowslittle interestin themiddle ground.Infants and young children tend to articulate a world inpolarized categories. Things are noted and classified on theground of m axim al contras t. Language itself begins when theinfant stops babbling indiscriminately and experimentswithhighly dif ferent iated sounds.T he f irs t vowel is the wide open


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25Space, Place, and

the Child

"a" and thefi rst consonan ttherestricted"p"or"b"madewiththe lips.The first consonantal opposit ion is between nasalandoral stops (mam a/papa) ; next com es the opposition of labialsand dentals (papa/tata and mama/nana). Together these com -prise the m inimal consonantal system for all the languagesoftheworld.16Between the sixthand the eighth month,we havenoted,the infant begins to divide people into "familiar"and"strange." Shortly after he discriminates among inanimatetoys. When toys are placed before him he grabs the one hefavors rather than the one closestto him. A on e-year-oldchild,held in the lap, raises his armsto gesture "up"; he wrigglesand looks down when he means"down."S patial oppositesareclearly distinguished by achildtwo to two and ahalfyears old.They include up anddown, hereand there, far and near, topandbottom,on and under, headandtail,front and back, fron tdoorand backdoor,frontbuttons and rearbuttons,homeandoutside.17Atoddler is able to verbalize som e of these dist inc-t ions. They are not very specific. A young child dist inguishesbetween "home" and "outside" as his play areas rather than"m y bedroom"and"garden."The polar e xtrem es are not un-derstood equally well; for example, "here" has greatersignificance than "there,"and"up" ism ore readily conceivedthan "down."18The works of Piaget and his colleagues have repeatedlyshown that sensorimotor intell igence precedes conceptualgrasp, som etime s by severalyears. In the course of day-to-dayactivities achilddisplays spatial skills that are far beyond hisintellectual comprehension. An infant six mon ths old candis-criminate between a square and a triangle, but the concept ofsquareas acertain shape doesnot appearuntilachild is aboutfour years old, when he can also draw it . Again, a youngchildmay have the notion of the straightlineas the trajecto ry of amoving object (the truck he pushe s along the edge of the ta-ble), but the geometric concept of the straight line does notappearuntilthe age of six or seven.19P r iorto thatage thechilddoes not spontaneously draw a straight line and fails to graspthe idea of the diagonal.20Achild beginningto walk soon walksto a purpose: he starts from a home base, heads toward the


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26Space, Place, and

the Child

object of des ire, and returns to the starting pointby a differentroute. A vigorous child of three or four knows his way aboutthe house and, from time totime,visits the neighbors. Thesesenso rim otor achievem ents, however, do not imply aconcep-tual knowledge of spatial relations. Swiss children, five to sixyears old, can go to school and return home by them selves.They have difficu lty explaining how this is done. One child"remembers only where he starts and where he finishes andthat he has to gorounda corn er on the way. He cannot recall asingle landm ark, and the jou rney he drawsbears no relation tohis plan of the schooland the surroundingdistrict." Anotherchild "remembers names of roads, but nottheir order or theplaceswhere he has to turn. H is drawing is justan arcwithanumberofpoints put in haphazardly to correspon dwithnameshe can remember . "21A child's spatial frame of reference is restricted. Children'sart provides abundant hints of this restriction. For example, inthe child's drawing the level of water in atilted glass tube isshown atright angles to the sides of the tube, rather than asparallel to the surfaceof the table that provides thehorizontalbase line for the picture. Or, when achild is asked to draw achimney on the sloping roof of the house, he mayplace thechimney atright angles to thesloping roof rather than to theflat ground on which thehouse rests.22"S eparation" is anothertypeof evidence that hintsat the child's inabilitytodepict,orsimply indifference to, the spatial relations among ob jects.Forexample, the picture of the cowboy on hishorse m ayshow aprominent gap between the cowboy's hat and his head, andanothergapbetweenthecowboyand the horse.

23Errorsof thiskind suggest that the young child is more concerned withthings themselvesthewaterin thetube,the cowboy, and thehorse, thanwith their precise spatial relations. Parents knowhow easily their young offspring get lost in an unfamiliar envi-ronmen t. Adu lts have acquired the habit of taking mental noteof where things are and of how to go from one place toanother. Children,on the other hand,are caught up in the

excitement of people, things, and events; going from oneplaceto another is nottheir responsibility.


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27Space, Place, and

the Child

Hum an beings l ive on the grou nd and see trees and housesfrom theside.Thebird's-eye viewis notours,unlesswe climbatall m ountain or fly in an airplane . Yo ung children rarely havethe oppo rtunity to assumea bird's-eye view of landscape. Theyare sm all people in a world of g iants and of g igantic things notmade to their scale.Yet children five or six years old showremarkable u nde rstanding of how landscapes look fromabove. They can read black-and-white vertical aerial photo-graphs of sett lementsandfieldswithunexpected accuracyandconfidence. They can pick out the hou ses , roads,and t ree s onaerial photographs even though these featuresappear greatlyreduced in scale and are viewed from an angle and positionunkn own to them in actual expe rience . City ch ildren m ay havebenefited from looking at pictures in m agazines and television,but cou ntry children unexpos ed to these m edia are also goodat interpreting vertical photographs of their environment.24Perhaps one reason why young children can accom plishthese feats of extrapolation is that they have playedwithtoys.Although children are m idgets in the w orld ofadults, they aregiants in their own world of toys. They look at toy housesandtrains from a height and command their fates l ike Olympiangods. Susan Isaacs reports on a group of preco cious Englishchildren who quickly learned about spatial relations throughimaginative play.The children had taken to modelling in plasticine whole scenes ofplaces they had been to, such as the bathing-pool on the river, w iththe people in it . One day whi lst they were m odelling som e such sub-ject, an aeroplane passed over the garden, as often happened. Thechildren all watched it, and shouted up to it asthey usu ally did,"Comedown,comedown ". . . . [One child] sa id, "P erhaps he cansee us?"Andanother,"I wonder whathesees,whatwelook like."Ithen sugge sted, "P erhaps we could m ake a m odel of the garden as itlooks to the man in the plane?" This suggestion delighted them.W ebegan on it at once and put severaldays' work into it. Some of thechildren climbed "as high up the ladder as we canget, to see how itlooks from theplane."One boy of four-and-a -half realised spontane-ously that from the plane only the tops of their own headswouldbeseen,and hedotteda number of sm all flat ovalsov er the paths of themodel, "That's the children runningabout."25


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28Space, Place, and

the Child

In the period from 1950to 1970, the ability of children ofnursery-school age to understand aerial photographs has im-proved. Viewing aerialscenes on television and playing withsimple constructional toys may have helped this progressivetrend.On the other hand, overthe sameperiod children showno sign of greater sophistication in understanding viewpointsfrom opposite sidesof a room orf ield.26It is easierfo r both thechild and the adult to imagine how apilot in hisairplane seesthe landscape than how a farmer on the opposite side of thehill sees it. We more readily assumea God -likeposition, look-ing at the earth from above, than from the perspective ofanother mortallivingon the same level as ou rse lves. Moreovercomprehension of environment suffers less after a90-degreerotation of pe rspective from the ho rizontal than after a rotationof40 to 50 degrees. Theoblique view can be m ore diff icu lt tointerpret than the vertical view.To the child, the picture taken from the side or at a sm allangle abovegroundhas one m ajor advantage over the map oraerial photograph: it is a more direct appeal to imaginativeaction. A child three and a half years old is already able toproject himself kinestheticallyintothe illustrationof his book.He looks at a picture and in his imagination hewalks the pathto thehouseandworm shis waythroughits tiny door.27C entralperspective creates an illusion of t ime and movement in ascene: the converging bordersof a road that disappearsintothe door of a distant house are strong cues to action. In con-trast, the vertical photograph invites the understandingofspa-tial re lations hips.Thechildis not prompted to initiateimagina-tive actionunlessit is to drop bombs on the school house.Aperspectival picture of the kind that is found in a storybookencourages anegocentric viewpoint: the child sees himselfasthe hero of the stage and is unable, orunwilling, to imaginehow another actorthe little boy at the end of the road, fo rinstancewould see him as he approaches.An aerialphoto-graphor map,on the other hand, promotes an objective view-point. An objective viewpoint discourages action, especiallythose precipitous and se lf-dram atizing ven tures that com enaturallyto thechild.


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29Space, Place, and

the Child

How does ayoung child understand place? If we define placebroadly as a focus of value, of nurture and support, then them other is the child's prim ary place.Mother m aywell be thef irst enduring and independent object in the infant'sworldoff leeting im pres sions . Latershe is recognized by the child as hisessential shelter and dependable source of physical andpsychological com fort. A m an leaveshis home or hom etown toexplore theworld;a toddler leaveshis mo ther's side to exploretheworld. Places stay put. Their image is one of stability andpermanence. The mother is mobile, but to the child shenonetheless stands fo r stability and permanence.S he isnea rlyalways around when needed. A strangeworldholds littlefearfor theyoungchildprovided his m other is nearby,for she is hisfamiliar environment and haven.Achild is adrif t placelesswithout the supportive parent.28As the child grows he becomes attached to objects otherthan significant perso ns and, eventually, to localities. Place, tothechild, is a large and somewhat immobile type of object.Atf irst large things have less meaning for him than sm all onesbecause, unlike portable toysorsecurity blankets, they cannotbe handled and moved easily; they may not be available forcomfort and support atmom ents o f crisis.Moreover the childmay develop am bivalent fee ling s toward certain placeslargeobjectsthat are his. Forexample, the high chair is hisplace.He is fedthereandfeedingis a source of satisfaction, but he isalso fed things he doesn't like and he isimprisoned in his highchair. Achild mayview his crib with ambivalence. Thecrib ishis cozylittleworld, but almost everynight he goes to it withreluctance; heneeds sleep but fears darkness and being leftalone.As soon as the child is able to speakwith some fluency hewants to know the nam es of things. Things are not qu ite realuntil they acquire names and can be classified in some way.Curiosity about places is part of a general curiosity aboutthings, partof the need to label experiencessothat they have agreater degree of permanence and fit into some conceptualscheme.According to G esell,at twoortwo and ahalfyearsthechild comprehends "where." He has no clear image of the


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the Child

intervening space between hereand there, but heacquiresasense of place and of security when his "where?" is answeredwith "home," "office,"or "big building."Ayearor so later,the child shows a new interest in landmarks. He recognizesand anticipates them when he is out for a walk orride.Egocen-tr ism is m anifestin atendency to think thatallcarsgoingin hisdirection mustbegoingto his own place.Thechildalso learnsto associate personswith specific places. He is bewilderedwhen hem eets hisnursery-school teacherdowntown,becauseshe seems to him dislocated; she upsets his system ofclassification.29A child's idea of place becomes more specific and geo-graphical as hegrows.To the question, where do you like toplay?a two-year-oldwillprobably say"home" or"outdoors."An older child will answer"in myroom" or "in the yard."Locations become more precise."Here"and"there"are aug-mented by"righthere" and"rightthere." Interest in distantplaces andawarenessof relative distance increase .Thusachildthree to four years old begins to use such expres sions as "faraway"and"way down"or "way off." To thequestion,wheredo you live?a two-year-oldwill probably say"home."A year orso later he maygive the street name or even the name of thetown, though infrequently.30In elementary school yea rs,how does a ch ild's awarenessofplace deepen and expand? A study of f irst- and sixth-gradepupils in two midwestern American communities is sugges-tive.31Thechildrenare shown pictures of four types of placesthat are a part of their larger environment: village, city, farm,and factory. Of each place the question is asked:"Whatstorydoes this picture tell?" The replies show marked individualdif ferences. In general, those of the older children are muchm ore sophisticated. Vil lage, city, farm ,and factory a re fam iliarcategories ofplace to sixth grad ers; they describe them withanassurance and facil ity comparable to those of adults. Whenshown a picture the older pupil is often able not only to saywhatit is(village, city,etc.), whatitconsistsof, butalsoto putthe place in its larger geographical context; he not only de-scribeswhat the people shown in thepicture aredoing (mow -


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3Space, Place, and

the Child

ing the lawn,shopping,etc.) butalsoattem ptsto explain howthe place functions . In compa rison,the f irst-gradepupil,whenhelooksat thepictureof thevillage, is more l ikelyto ignore itsbroader spatial setting; he may not even recognize it as avil-lage, his attention being focused on its partsthe church, theschool, the shop, and the road. The younger child tends tohavelittle to sayaboutthe socialandeconom ic significanceofthe things he notices in the picture. Indeed the f irst grade r'sprimary interestseemsnot to be the physical environm ent butthe people in it, what the man or the littlegirl isdoing. Ingeneral the f irst grader is less enthus iast ic about places thanthe older child.Thegeographical horizon of achildexpands as hegrows,butnotnecessarilystepby steptoward the largerscale.H is interes tand knowledge focu s f irst on the sm all local com m unity, thenthe city, skipping the neighborhood; and from the city hisinterest m ayjum p to the nation and foreign places, skippingthe region.At agefive or six achild is capable ofcuriosity aboutthe geography of remote places.How can hea ppreciate exoticlocales of which he has no directexperience? Learning theoryhas yet to explain s atisfactorily these apparent leaps in com-prehens ion. It is not surp rising, however, that achildcan en joynews ofd istant places ,for heleadsa rich lifeo ffantasy and is athome in fantasy land before ad ults require him to dwell im -aginatively in the real countries of a geography book. To anintelligent and livelychild, experienceisactive sea rchingandoccasional wild extrapolations beyond the given: he is notbound by what he sees and feels in his home and localneighborhood.What is the characterof a young child 's emotional tie toplace? American f irst graders m ay recognize village, citycorner, and farm as entities, but we have noted that the you ngpupils have less to say and are less enthusiastic about suchplacesthan is the casewitholder children. Exceptfornurser iesand playgrounds few public places are made to the scale ofyoung children. Do they feel a need to be in places that con-form to their own size? Hints of such need exist. Infants, forexample, are known to crawl under the grand piano, where


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theys it in an apparentstateofbliss. Older children in theirplayseek out nooks and cornersboth in man-made environmentsand in nature. Spendingthenight in atentor in atree houseatthe backyardis areal trea tand asmuch fun asbeing taken on along trip to a realhunting lodge.Feeling for place is influencedbyknowledge,by knowingsuch basicfacts aswhether the place is natural or man-madeand whether it is relatively large or sm all. Achild five or sixyears old lacks this kind of knowledge. He may talk excitedlyabout the cityofGeneva and LakeGeneva,but his appreciationof these places is certain to differ radically from that of aninformedadult.He is at an agewhenhe islikelyto assume thatboth the city and the lake are artificial. He is also likely toassume they are comparable in size.

32Children, at least those of the Westernworld, develop astrong senseof property. They become stronglypossessive.Achildd eclares that certain toysare his, thatthe chair nextto themother's chair is his place, and he is not slow to defend whathe considersto belong to him. Muchof the child's combativepossessiveness,however, is not evidence of genuine attach-ment. Itarisesout o f aneed fo rassuranceof his own worthand

for a senseof statusamong peers.Anobject or acorner of theroom,valuelessto thechildonemoment,suddenly becomesvaluable when another child threatens to take poss ession .Once the f irst child has regained indisputable control, hisinterest in the toy orplace quickly wanes.33Thisis not to denythatpeople,young and old, feela need to anchor their person-ality in objects and places.All human beings appear to havepersonal belongings and perhaps all have need of a personalplace, whether this be a particular chair in a room or a particu-lar corner in a moving carriage.Robert Coles believes that in the United States the childrenof migrant farm worke rs su ffer because, am ong other reason s,they have no place that they can identify astheir own over aperiodoftime.P eter,for example, is aseven-year-oldboy whotravels up anddown the East coastwith his working parents.They seldom stay long in any farm. Peter helps to pick fruitsand vegetables. He goesto school when he can. Coles w rites:


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Toa boy like Petera schoolbuilding,evenan old and not very attrac-tively furnished one, is a new worldof large windows and solidfloors and doors and plastered ceil ings and wallswith pictures onthem, and a seat thatone has, that one isgiven, that one issupposedto ow n, or virtually own , for day after day, alm ost as aright of somesort. After his f irst week in the first grade Peter said this: "They toldmeIcouldsit in that chairandthey saidthe desk,it was for me, andthat every day Ishould com e to the sameplace,to the chairshe saidwasmine for aslong as I'm there in that schoolthat'swhat they say,the teachers,anyway."3 4

Place can acquire deep meaning for the adult through thesteady accretion of sentiment over the years. Every piece ofheirloom furniture, oreven a stain on thewall, tells a story.Thechild not only has a short past, but his eyes more than theadult'sare on thepresentand theimm ediate future. H is vitalityfo r doing things and exploring space is notsuited to thereflec-tive pause and backward glance that make places seem satu-ratedwith significance.The child's imagination is of aspecialkind. It istied to activity.Achildwill ride astickasthough itwere a real horse,and defend an upturned chairasthough itwere a real castle. In reading abook or looking at itsp ictureshe quickly enters a fantasyworld of adventure. But a brokenmirror or an abandoned tricycle has no message of sadness.And children arebaffled w hen theyare asked to interpret themood of a landscape or landscape painting. P eople havemoods; how can a scene or place look happy or sad?35 Yetadu lts, particularly e duc ated adults,have nod iff icu lty associat-ing inanim ate objectswithm oods. Youngchildren,so m agina-tive in their own spheres of action, may look matter-of-factlyon places that to adults are haunted bym em ories.


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4Body,

Personal Relations,andSpat ia l Values

'S pace" is an abstract term for a complex set of ideas.Peopleofdif ferent cultures dif ferin howthey divideupJtheirworld,assign valuesto itsparts,andmeasurethem.Ways of dividing up space vary enormously in intricacy andsophistication, as do techniques of judging size and distance .Nonetheless certain cross-cultural similarit ies exist, and theyrestu ltima tely on the fac t that m an is them easure of all things.This is to say, if we look for fundamental principles of spatialorganization wefindthem in two kindsof facts: thepostureand structureof the human body,and the relations (whethercloseor distant) between human beings. Man, out of hisinti-mate experiencewith his body and with other people, or-ganizes spacesothatitconform swithandcatersto hisbiologi-cal needs and social relations.Theword"body"immediatelyca llstomindanobject ratherthanananimatedandanima ting being.Thebodyis an"it," andit is in space or takes up space. In contrast, when we use thete rms "man" and"world,"we do not merelythinkof man asan objec t in theworld,occupying a sm all part of its space, butalsoof man asinhabitingtheworld,comm anding and creatingit. In factthe singleterm"world" contains andconjoinsmanand his environment, for its etymological root wer means

34


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man. M an and world denote com plex ideas. At thispoint,wealso need to look at simpler ideas abstracted from man andworld, namely, body and space, remembering however thatthe one notonly occupies the other butcommandsand ordersit through intention. Body is "lived body" and space is hu-manly cons trued space.

Am ong m am m als the human body is unique in that it easilymaintains an upright position. Upright, man is ready to act.Spaceopens out before him and is immediately differentiableintofront-backand right-left axes in conform itywiththe st ruc-ture of his body. Vertical-horizontal, top-bottom, front-backand right-left are positionsandcoordinatesof thebody thatareextrapolated onto space (Fig.2). In deep sleepmancont inuesto beinfluenced by hisenvironm ent but loseshisworld;he is abody occupying space. Awake and upright he regains his

UPRIGHT HUMAN BODY, S P A C EAND TIME

Figure2.Uprighthuman body, spaceandt im e.Space projected from the bodyisbiased toward the f ront andright.The fu ture is aheada nd "up." Thepastisbehind and"below."


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world, and space is art iculated in accordancewith his cor-poreal schem a. W hat doesit meanto be incomm ando fspace,to feel at home in it? It means that the objective referencepointsin space, suchaslandmarksand the cardinal positions,conform with theintentionand the coo rdinatesof the humanbody.Kant wrote in1768:Evenour judgm ents about thecosm ic regions are subordinated to theconceptwe haveof regions in general, inso farastheya re determinedinrelationto thesidesof thebody. . . . However wellIknowtheorderof thecardinal points, I candetermine regions according tothatorde r only insofaras Iknow towa rds which hand this order proceeds;and the most complete chart of the heavens, however perfect ly Imight carry the plan in mymind,would not teach m e, f rom a knownregion, North say, on wh ich side to look for s un rise, unless, in addi-tionto thepositions of thestarsinrelationto oneanother,thisregionwerealsodetermined through the pos it ion of the plan relatively to m yhands. Similarly, our geographical knowledge, and even our com-monest knowledge of the position of places, wou ld be of n o aid to usif we could not, by reference to the sides of our bodies, assign toregions the things soordered and thewhole system of mutually rela-tive positions.1

What doesit meanto belost?Ifol low apath intotheforest ,stray f rom the path, and all of a sudden feel completely dis-or iented. Space is still organized in conformitywith the sidesof m ybody.There are the regions to m y fron t and back, to m yright and left, but they are not geared to exte rna l refere ncepoints and hence arequite useless. Front and back regionssuddenly feel arbitrary, since 1 have no better reason to goforward than to go back.Let a fl ickering lightappear behind adistant clumpof t rees.I remain lostin the sensethat Istilldonot know where I am in the forest,but spacehasdram aticallyregained its st ructure. The f l ickering light has establishedagoal.As Imove toward that goal, fron tandback, rightandleft,have resum ed their m eaning: Istr ide forw ard,amgladtohaveleft darkspacebehind,andmake surethat I do notveerto theright or left.The human being, by his m ere presence , im poses a schem aon space. Most of the tim e he is not aw are of it. He notes itsabsencewhen he is lost. He m arksits presence on those ritual


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occasionsthatlift l ife above the ord inary a nd so forc e him to anawareness of l i fe's values,including those manifest in space.Culturesd iffer greatly in the elaboration of spatial sche m ata. Insome cul tures they are rudimentary; in others they can be-come a many-splendored frame that integrates nearly all de-partments of l ife. Yet, despite the large outward dif ferences,the voca bular ies ofspatial organization and v alue have certaincommon te rms. These common te rmsare ult imately derivedfrom the structure and values of the human body.Upright and prone: these positions yield two contraryworlds. When a six-month-old infant sitsup,Ge selland A m a -truda report, "hiseyes widen, pulse strengthens, breathingquickens and he sm iles." For the infant the m ove from thesupine horizontal to the seated perpen dicular is already "morethan a posturaltriumph. It is a widening horizon,a new socialorientation."2 This postural tr iumph and the consequentwidening of horizon are repeated dailythroughout a person'slife. Eachday we d efy gravityand other natural forc es to createand sustainan orderly humanworld; at night we give in tothese fo rcesand take leave of theworldwe have created .Thestanding posture is assert ive, solemn, and aloof. The pronepositionis su bm issive , signifying the acceptance of ourbiologi-calcondition.A person assumes his full human stature whenheis upright.The word"stand" is the root for a large cluste rofrelated words which include "status," "stature," "statute,""estate," and "institute." They all imply achievement andorder.3"High" and"low," the two poles of the vertical axis,arestrongly charged words in most languages. Whatever issuperior or excellent is elevated, associatedwith a sense ofphysicalheight. Indeed"superior" is derived from a Latinwordmeaning "higher." "Excel" (celsus) is another Latin word fo r"high."TheSanskritb rahman is derived from a term meaning"height.""Degree," in its literal sense, is a step by which onemoves up and down in space. Social status is designated"high"or"low" rather than"great"or"small."Goddwellsinheaven. In both the Old and the New TestamentGod wassomet imes identifiedwith heaven. Edwyn Bevanwrote:"The


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idea which regards the sky as the abode of the S up rem eBeing,or as identicalwithhim,is asuniversal am ong m ankind as anyreligious belief canbe."4In architecture, important buildings are put on platforms,and w here the necessary techn ical skill existsthey also tend tobe the taller buildings. Of monuments th is is perhaps invari-

ablytrue:atall pyramid or v ictory column commands greateresteem than asno rter one. Many e xcep tionsto this rule occurin dom estic architecture. The reason is clear: the symbolicad-vantages of the upper stories of a house can easily be out-weighed by their practical problems. Before adequatepipingsystemswerefittedintohouses, water had to becarried up andwastesbrought down by hand. Living in the upper stories re -quired much work. Not only in ancient Rome but also innineteenth-century Paris, the prestigious f loor was the oneabove the ground-level shops. In tenements bordering theChamps-Elysees,the higher th e rooms were, the poorer werethe occu pan ts: servants and poorartists occupied the ga rrets.In modern high-risebuilding, however,the handicap of verti-caldistance is overcom e by sophisticated m achinery,with theresult that the prestige of elevation can reassert itself.

Residential locations show a sim ilar hierarchyo fvalues.As inahouse theworkingpartslie concealed in the basement,so ina city the industrial and commercial base hugs the water'sedge; and private homes rise in prestigewith elevation.5Therich and powerful notonlyown m ore real estate than the lessprivileged, they a lso com m and m ore visual space. Their statusis made evident to outsiders by the superior location of theirresidence; and from their residence the rich are reassured oftheir position in life each time they lookout thewindowandsee the world at their feet. Again, there are exceptions. Awe ll-known one is Rio de Janeiro, where luxury high-risebuild-ings seek the convenience and attraction of the beach whilethe hutsof theindigent clingto the steep slopesof the hills.The prestige of the center is well established. Peopleeverywhere tendto regardtheirownhomelandas the"middleplace,"or the centerof the world.6Am ong some people thereis also thebelief, quite unsupported by geography, that they


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NORTHERN CITY OF PEKINGFigure 3. "Center" implies "elevation," and vice versa: the e xam ple of thenorthern city of Peking. The length of the southern avenue (central axis)should be read as height. "N o matter how the natural terrain of China isformed, one always goes up to P eking" (N. W u.) . R eprinted with perm issionfrom Nelson I . Wu, C hinese and Indian Architecture (New Y ork :GeorgeBrazil-ler,1963),Figure 136"Plan of P ek ing in terpreted a s volume."

l ive at the top of theworld, or that their sacredplace is at theearth's summit (Fig. 3). The nomadic tribes of Mongolia, fo rexample, once held the idea that they inhabit the top of abroad mound, the slopes of which are occupied by otherraces.7A common bel ief in Rabbinical l iterature is that the land


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of Israel stands higher above sea level than any other land,andthat the Tem plehill is the highestpoint in Israel.8 Islam ic tradi-tion teache s that the m ost sacred san ctuary, the Kaaba, is notonly the centerand the navel of theworld but also its highestpoint. Kaaba's spatial posit ion corresponds to the polar star:"no place on earth is c loser to heaven than Mecca."9 Thisiswhy prayers said in i ts san ctua ry are more c learly heard. W henthe explicit religious symbolism of center andheight is weak,the physical elevation of the land n eve rtheless retains a certainprestige.Modern nations liketo think thatahigh peak, if notthe world's highest, lieswithin their borders. Lack ofaccuratemeasurement allows the imagination, fueledbypatriotic fer-vor, to run wild. Even in the eighteenth century, edu cated Bri-tonscouldconsider Ben N evis to be one of the loft iest moun-tainson earth.10India,Nepal,andChinawouldnodoubteachlike to claim Mount Everest for its own.Inaddit ion to the vertical-horizontal andhigh-low polarities,the shape and posture of the human body define its ambientspace as f ront-back and right-left. Frontal space is primari lyvisual. It isvivid and much larger than the rear space that wecan experience only through nonvisual cues. Frontal spaceis"illuminated" becauseit can beseen; back space is"dark,"even when the sun shines, simply because it cannot be seen.Thebelief that eyes projectlight raysgoes backa tleastto Plato(Timaeus) and persists to the Middle Ages and beyond.An other co m m on feel ing is that one's shadow fallsbehind thebody eventhough in actual fact it of ten stretches to thefront.On a tem poral plane, frontal space is perceived asfuture,rearspace as past. The front signif ies dignity. The human facecommands respect, even awe. Lesser beings approach thegreatwith their eyes lowered, avoiding the awesom e visage.The rearisprofane (Fig.2). Lesserbeings hoverbehind(and inthe shadow of) their superiors. In traditiona l China the rulerstands facing south and receives thefull raysof thenoon sun;he thus assim ilates the male and luminous principleofyang. Itfollows from this that the front of the body is also yang. In -versely,the backof the rulerand the areabehindhim areyin,feminine, dark,and profane.11


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Everyperson is at the centerof hisworld,and ci rcum am bientspace is di f ferentiated in accordancewith the schema of hisbody.As he movesand turns ,so do the regions front-backandright-left around him. Butobjective space also takesonthesesomaticvalues.Roomsat one end of the scaleand citiesat theother often show frontand back sides. In largeand stratifiedsocieties spatial hierarchies can be vividly articulated by ar-chitectural means suchasplan, design ,and type o f decoration.Consider some of the ways that front and back areas aredist ingu ished in the We sternworld.Room s are asym m etrical lyfurnished: their geometrical center is not usually the focalpoint of interior space. For example, the focal point of theparlor may be the hearth, which is located at one end of theroom. A typical lecture hall is sharplydivided into f ront andbackby the position of the lectern and the placem ent of cha irs.Relation to other rooms rather than how furniture within aroom is arranged may impart a bias to interior space: thusabedroom has a f ront and back des pitethe sym m etrical disposi-tiono f furniture, windows, and doors sim ply because one dooropensout to the sitting room andanother closeson the bath-room. Manybuildings have clearly dem arcated front and backregions. P eople m ay w ork in the samebuildingand yet experi-ence different worlds because their unequal status propelsthem into different circulatory routes and work areas. Mainte-nance m en and jan itors enterthroughservicedoorsatthe backand move along the "guts"of thebuilding,w hi le executivesand their secretariesenterby the f rontdoorand move throughthe spacious lobby andwell-lit passageways to the ir brightlyfurnished offices.12A m iddle-class residen ce typically pre sentsanattractive fron t to impressand we lcome social adu lts,and anunprepossessing rear for the use of people of low statussuchas delivery men and children.Do cit ies have front and back regions? In the traditionalChinesecity, fron t and back we re clearly distingu ished: therecan be no mistaking the front and south,with its broad cere-monial avenue, for the back andnorth,which was reserved (atleast in planning theory) fo r profane commercial use.13 In theNear East and Europe,the dist inct ions were lesssystem atically


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expressed in urban design. However, ancient walled cit iesboasted processional routesfor use inroyalandtriumphal oc-casions;these routes probably hadimposing front entrances.In the lateMiddle Ages and during the Renaissance, urbancenters of political and ecclesiastical importance constructedmagnificent front portals over walls that no longer servedanymilitary purpose.Themonumentality of the portal symbolizedthe power of the ruler. It also functioned as an ideogram fo rthe entire city, presenting a front that wasmeant to impressvisitors andforeign potentates.14Themodern economic cityhas noplanned front andback; itboastsnoprocessional routeorceremonial gate,and itsboun-dary is often arbitrary, marked by an inconspicuous signpostgiving, as in theUnitedS tates,thenameandpopulation of theborough. Yet the sense of "front" and"back" is not entirelyabsent.Thewidthand appearanceof thehighway (landscapedor lined with giantposters)tell th emotorist that he isenteringthecityby the front door.If amodern city givesthe impressionof havingafront and aback,that impressionis asmuch the resultof thedirection andvolume of traffic flow as of architectural symbols.On a stillbroader canvas,notehow thehistorical movementof apeoplecan give a sense of spatial asymmetryto a whole region ornation. S t.Louis is the preeminent gateway to theWest.Thecity haserec

Yi Fu Tuan Space and Place

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