Speaker
Description
Urban aesthetics has made a comeback in planning research and practice in recent years, as substantive issues of equity, justice, dignity and beauty have re-emerged in disciplinary discussions. However, contemporary debate is increasingly concerned with the socio-cultural and political dimensions of aesthetics, rather than simply the materiality of the built environment. In this sense, current planning research highlights the neo-liberal orientation of policy and planning frameworks that consider the aesthetics of the built environment as an asset to be enjoyed by those who can pay for it, a select few, thus commodifying this urban resource with the willing participation of political and professional circles. This reinforces inequality and injustice, particularly in the enjoyment of public spaces. This political orientation can be observed in the Global South, where urban aesthetics has become a mechanism used by national and local governments to transform the appearance of their cities to conform to Western standards of urban beauty. Taking advantage of the lack of planning mechanisms for aesthetic control in many countries, governments seek to brand cities as places of luxury and sophistication to place them on international tourist circuits. The implementation of urban aesthetic policies is key to achieving these objectives. The quest for a particular appearance that these policies propose then justifies the overt and covert exclusion of poor and other marginalised communities who do not conform to the expected image of sophistication.
Building on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, some research broadens these findings to emphasise the use of the symbolic dimension of urban aesthetics in non-intrusive, soft ways to achieve social self-exclusion. Embodied in certain types of lighting, colours, materials, landscaping, street furniture and façade composition that are perceived as representing luxury and privilege, certain design languages appeal to people's cultural capital to induce self-segregation from public space. Although these conclusions are significant, they do not explain in detail what mechanisms are at work to achieve self-segregation. To address this issue, this research examines the case of the summer resort of Punta Hermosa, a district outside Lima (Peru) that is a holiday destination for wealthy families. It uses a mixed methods approach, employing documentary, secondary data and photographic analyses to investigate this issue.
Preliminary findings show that based on a biased policy framework that conceives of Punta Hermosa as a wealthy neighbourhood, overlooking the fact that almost 63% of its inhabitants are poor, the local government, in alliance with real estate investors, has gradually transformed the urban aesthetics of the coast into an unwelcoming public space. However, unlike design interventions that aim to 'improve' the appearance of public spaces using Western design languages, but use overt and covert securitisation strategies to control access by 'undesirable' people, in Punta Hermosa luxury spaces are 'inside' beach houses and apartments. Luxury design does not 'spill over' into public space. In fact, the materiality of public spaces has been changed for the worse through the implementation of various hostile design strategies. In addition, the local government has gradually used aesthetics symbolically to erase any trace of the fishermen, working communities and non-wealthy visitors who originally enjoyed these beaches. It was only after these urban aesthetic changes had taken root that outright privatisation took place without resistance through physical barriers and securitisation measures. This case demonstrates how urban aesthetic injustice is produced through a combination of material and immaterial interventions in public spaces that lead to self-segregation and exclusion, deepening the already existing inequality in Peruvian cities.
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
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