Placemaking 101

Abstract

Great, vital Places—capitalization intended—are imperative for cultivating creative and cultural life. That said, placemaking is critical to supporting the arts and culture, especially as culture impacts community. People need more great places, and they’re out there for the finding and the recognizing, not only the inventing. As the needs of arts and cultural communities change, venues that support them must also evolve.

First, what is it about a Place that earns it a capital “P”? For the purposes of discussion, let’s simply say that a Place can’t be replicated—it has a distinctive identity and an integral connection to its physical, sociocultural and historical context. A Place belongs where it is. One Place could never be confused with another.

Who makes a Place? Sometimes a single individual does. Say, Alfred Barnes or Henry Mercer, for a pair of local examples who had visions for creating places like no other and the capacity to make them. “Invented” places infused with the idiosyncratic personalities of their makers. Alternatively, it’s a lubberly bureaucratic tangle of “agents of change”—political players, consultants, public agencies, nonprofits, lawyers, developers, financers—often with multiple agendas, jockeying to fit them into one vision. With a vast range of professionals educated in various disciplines involved in the practice of placemaking, how does our society teach the theories and practices of placemaking? Perhaps the real question is, do our educational institutions teach the theories and practices of placemaking to those future agents of change at all?

How does the theoretical “Professor of Placemaking” address the problem of subjectivity of values inherent in the process of placemaking, that the ideals that make a Place valuable or vibrant—what it should feel like and look like—are no more than personal opinions? Of course, when it’s Alfred Barnes or a Henry Mercer doing his thing with his own property, the values of the individual can freely express themselves through the place. But, as most “Places” discussed in the context of “placemaking” are shared, collectively produced, and individually distinctive [if successful], there are no normative ideals—no North Star to navigate through treacherous waters of contention towards consensus. There are no right answers. However, we propose an approach to effective placemaking using a few illustrative cases to further the discussion.

Nov. 1.2011. “The architect Robert A.M. Stern has been selected to design the American Revolution Center (ARC) museum just steps from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia’s historic area, the center announced...”

May 19.2012. “the Barnes in Philadelphia opens its doors to members, friends, and the community….a 10-day series of special events culminates in 60 hours of round-the-clock free public access to the Philadelphia campus over Memorial Day weekend.”

These two expensive and hard-fought invented places demonstrate the desirability and importance of creating and honing places. In both cases, an understanding of Place—respect for context and history and a visual literacy of landscape—came late to the game and, when it did, it brought confusion, controversy and cost.