Wednesday 2 September 2015

'The Uses of Disorder. Personal Identity and City Life' by Richard Sennet

I discovered distinctive sociologist and urbanist Richard Sennett by clicking phrase "Open city" in Google. Where this phrase came from I do not remember but it was the name of a lecture given by him at the Harvard GSD which grasped my attention. I found his ideas explicitly simple and persuasive. They are rooted in Humanistic thinking and address such fundamental issues of humankind as craftsmanship, cooperation and urban environment.
"The Uses of Disorder" is one of his earliest works which casts doubts on the ideals of rigid, excessively ordered society. 
Richard Sennett denies purified community where the development of its members is locked into framed identity. Instead, he proposes an alternative environment where otherness, diversity and ambiguity are allowed.
Further are some interesting quotes feeding my concepts and leading deeper into serendipity.

'One technique of planning large human settlements developed in the past hundred years has been the device of establishing "projective needs". This means guessing the future physical and social requirements  of a community or city and then basing present spending and energy so as to achieve a readiness for the projected future state.' p.6


  

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