“Feeling in the middle of things, at the place to and from which streets flow, where people come not to escape the city but to be inside it: This us usually what defines a successful square. It is a space around which the rest of a neighborhood or town or city tends to be organized [Michael Kimmelman, "Culture: Power of the Place"].”
Source: City Squares: Eighteen Writers on the Spirit and Significance of Squares Around the World
“Converting a senior retainer's residence into an eating and drinking establishment seemed a little like taking a warrior's magnificent battle robe and turning it into underwear as far as I was concerned.”
Source: Botchan
“And is it not the artists that make art? Well, no: criticism is now the substance of art making to such a degree that many of today’s public artists do away with the product as an issue, and make public debate the contents of their art. In doing so they are not redefining art so much as redefining public space. The debate itself has become the public space.”
Source: How To Like Everything: A Utopia
“What do we mean by a public square? For starters, it is rarely square. . . . It may be a quadrangle or rectangle or circle or pretty much any shape, and it can be open or closed. It might even be a park . . . through which people pass, going from one place to another, not simply a retreat. A square is porous, balancing its porousness with some focal point, like a fountain or a reliable patch of sun with some benches that marks a break from the cars and streets and invites people to stop, look, exhale, find one another [Michael Kimmelman, "Part One: Culture: Power of the Place, Introduction"].”
Source: City Squares: Eighteen Writers on the Spirit and Significance of Squares Around the World
“a square is also an organism, not just a work of art and architecture [Michael Kimmelman, "Culture: Power of the Place"].”
Source: City Squares: Eighteen Writers on the Spirit and Significance of Squares Around the World
“The square is a treasure precisely because it doesn't masquerade as an outdoor museum. It's a living place, jammed with people, changeable, democratic, urbane. [Michael Kimmelman, "Culture: Power of the Place"].”
Source: City Squares: Eighteen Writers on the Spirit and Significance of Squares Around the World
“Squares have defined urban living since the dawn of democracy, from which they are inseparable. From the start, the public square has been synonymous with a society that acknowledges public life and a life in public, which is to say a society distinguishing the individual from the state [Michael Kimmelman, "Culture: Power of the Place"].”
Source: City Squares: Eighteen Writers on the Spirit and Significance of Squares Around the World
“a square is not just about light, air, proportion, and people. It must also give form to some shared notion of civic identity. [Michael Kimmelman, "Culture: Power of the Place"].”
Source: City Squares: Eighteen Writers on the Spirit and Significance of Squares Around the World
“L'inégale répartition de l'espace se poursuit plus tard, encouragée par un sexisme structurel dans la société française. Quand on dit que l'espace public est neutre, ça signifie en réalité qu'il est masculin.”
Source: Libérées : Le combat féministe se gagne devant le panier de linge sale
“I had a day when I was busy in the world, where the activity created a turmoil on the surface of my consciousness like waves on the surface of the ocean, which made it difficult to see through the waves to the inner silence.
It reminded me that we need to develop both the capacity to use the mind when engaged in activity and social relations, and to be able to let go of the activity and to come in contact with the deep inner silence.
The relationship between being active in the world and in social relations and the inner silence is like the relationship between the waves on the surface of the ocean and the deep inner silence on the bottom of the ocean.”
Source: Presence - Working from Within. The Psychology of Being