The relations between Self and space are not an abstract issue, but essential for society. ‘Modernity experienced a transition from community to anonymous society,’ the German sociologist Tönnies said at the end of the 19th century already. What about this today? And what about the Self, the single individual unit inside such contexts, and its space? How is life perceived in recent modern conditions, and how does this relate to recent societies? What about Self-conception, the inner eidos of the Self about itself (as addressed in the 4th issue of our journal Urban Eidos)? When speaking about Self and Space, the space related to the Self has several dimensions. Space is not only architectural space, but also the inner space of the Self and the social space that Self is belonging to.
First and foremost, it is an inner space, one belonging to, and formed by the Self as an individual human being; thoughts, emotions, imaginations, psychic as well as mental potentials and capacities, and so on. Summarized, it is about mind, soul, and spirituality. Particularly today, such an inner space is influenced by various forces threatening it.
Next, in being a communal animal or zoon politikon, the Self relates to social spaces it is part of. Here, the aspect of community comes into play – to whom we belong, and want to belong to. Society as such is an abstraction – in fact, it consists of many individuals belonging to many different (and often overlapping) groups of people; to different communities, no matter their kind and degree of coherence. These diverse groupings make up what is called “society.”
Next, the Self relates to organized space, a space that is expressed in the context of civilization as architecture. One of its parts is the invisible but life-shaping architecture of social organization. Such architectures operate, as deliberately planned entities, to achieve some purposes, comprising the organizational architectures of institutions, enterprises, political parties, to name a few. In its total it is the invisible infrastructural architecture our recent civilization rests upon. The organizational spaces of these entities are architecture, an important component of social space. These architectures of formal organization, from the metro schedule to the corporation hierarchy, shape our lives and hence, influence the Self and our self-understanding of the Self, particularly in modern times.
An understanding of the Self is formed by life conditions. To these conditions belongs a further dimension of space, that of the visible built environment – the corporation citadels, streets, houses and public spaces in cities, the shopping malls, the “junk landscapes” of their outskirts, the housing districts of the poor, the representative and culturally inherited buildings. For this dimension of space, the question of community and the communal comes into play again: what about the public parks, the city quarters with their neighbourhoods, places of identity and belonging (as an individual, I cannot “belong” to a shopping mall, for instance). What about them, and their destruction?
An understanding of the Self, as well as that Self in itself, is based upon all those dimensions of space. A further dimension of space is to be considered: the space of evolution, of history, and its ideas. An understanding of the Self is culture-specific, based upon assumptions about a generalized human condition or conditio humana rooted in cultural heritage and a collective consciousness. Here, the aspect of community comes into play again since such a heritage is also group-specific; members of a rocker gang, as members of a specific community, do have a different self-understanding than politicians, middle class employees or corporation managers; for instance. Included in such a heritage are myths, philosophical and anthropological concepts about a generalized human condition and (hence) the Self: who we are, as human beings, where do we come from, what is our position and meaning in this world? In line with this, a Self presupposes an internal consciousness of itself. It is affected by collective consciousness, together with an understanding of cultural heritage and commonly shared values. In large parts, such a consciousness is in danger of extinction today.
One group of articles deals with the Self under different perspectives. The article by Grant F. Raynham, The Loss of Collective Consciousness in Society, deals exactly with this problem. A self-understanding in literal terms is embedded in certain cultural values – what happens if these values no longer exist, as a common base? Personography: Lost & Found in the Selfie City by Scott W. Schwartz takes up this thread, illuminating the position and role of the Self, the former zoon politikon, together with ideas from an occidental cultural heritage. Both articles are looking at the condition of the human today, in regards to the Self. The cultural heritage is further illuminated by Thomas Kolbe, in his article Beyond the Siege: The Roots and Opportunities of Libertarianism. The idea of a free, self-destined individual as a basic conditio humana belongs to the core values of an occidental Western culture, and the related strain of ideas that has been crucial not only for our self-understanding, but also for the socioeconomic system as we know it today.
The other group of articles deals with the space for the Self according to a Western understanding, the city as home of the zoon politikon. In Space, the Ideal City, and Society by Ulrich Gehmann, an exemplary case of an ideal city is looked at, that of Chandigarh in India where the idea of liberated individuals and their society had been transferred to a non-Western culture, in a “classical” Western shape: that of an ideal city as the ideal space for such individuals. In The Public Realm and City Life: Pursuing the Rejuvenation of American Urban Neighbourhoods by Jason Montgomery, attempts to revitalize the modern city after deindustrialization are examined. How to tackle the decay of the modernist industrial city after it reached its zenith, and in particular, how to revitalize the core components making up a city, its public spaces? Next to other factors, in today’s prevailing socio-economic system of capitalism, both the decay of such spaces and their revitalization is aligned to the relationship between private and public spaces. Striking the Balance of Public vs. Private Space in American College Residence Hall Design by Sam Olshin illuminates the tension between public and private, taking college residence halls as a case example.
Enjoy reading,
Karlsruhe in February 2025
Ulrich Gehmann and Andreas Siess