SPATIAL STRATEGIES SOLUTIONS

“Some people search for beautiful places, others make a place beautiful” says Hazrat Inayat Khan, teacher of Universal Sufism and Indian classical musician

SEARCHING

Finding and creating beauty is a primal human need, one of the ways to search for the meaning of existence. Still, beauty itself, as well as the mechanism of experiencing beauty, escapes definition. Social research institute Ipsos MORI has made an attempt to map the human experience of beauty and the meaning and value beauty has for society in the study “People and places: Public attitudes to beauty” The research has shown that people deem the beauty of natural environment important on a personal level, while the beauty of built environment is perceived as being of importance at the level of public/society. The interviewees described nature as a place of relaxation and of comfort, where beauty can be seen, perceived and imbibed. By this they were describing an essentially individual internal experience, an experience that inspires art and spirituality.

In contrast, the beauty of built environments respondents saw as a way of gaining respect - because the more beautiful parts of the city are usually perceived as "better", and residents of those parts are enjoying a better, higher reputation in the local community. The interviewees also saw the beauty of the built environment as means to boost the respect for the place in the global community and thus attract more people (tourists) and increase revenues that will allow for the maintenance of the beauty of the place. This – financial – way of thinking is encouraged and even forcibly spread for several decades now, and since the “development of tourist industry” is the magical formula by which many places and regions hope to become sustainable or to break out of the circle of poverty, the hope of financial gains seem to make people blind to the obvious fact that consumption (of places, spaces, landscapes, sensations... which the “tourist industry” actually is) does not render actual experience, but a surrogate, a pale imitation of the experience itself, which, nevertheless has the power to vacate, drain of meaning and pollute the beauty of the place, for tourists and locals alike, through the process of consumption, that depletes real resources to create surrogate feelings.

The ever shorter vacations at “destinations” make us forget that the beauty of the place can be experienced only by achieving a sense of involvement, by making ties. The beauty of a place can be savored by immersion in place, in its energy. And it takes time.

The feeling that we really are somewhere and are enriched by the experience, can only be induced through real communication with all the factors the place is composed of: space, buildings, history, people, nature, light, colors and rhythms. Only if we can feel safe, comfortable and a bit domestic at a place. Only when we find that cornerstone, that gate, that window, or tree, or passage, or a secret garden that seemingly nobody knows. That detail, that part that belongs exclusively to us, to our experience. Only if we can find our personal connection to the place as a metaphor of childhood, as we were always there.

Therefore at every place where I'm lucky enough to travel I try to find and remember some meaningful detail, too possess some small a piece that is "mine", although I obtain no legal proof of ownership. And so it came that regardless of whether I stayed there 5, 7, 10, 14 or 30 days, I got the gate of a villa and a stone stairway in Dubrovnik, an interesting rock on the beach in Makarska, a small Franciscan monastery and church in the city of Rhodes, where I also have a delightful small cafe under a huge tree in Mandraki harbor. I have one great neighbor on the island of Korcula, an old building covered with flowers somewhere in Split, one basement window on Zlata Strana in Prague. In Prague I have Charles Bridge too. Athens gave me Acropolis, and on the wonderful island of Corfu, the Jewish quarter Evreiko and a wonderful tree on the shore of the island belong to me. In Rome, I have my step in the Spanish steps, in Budapest several courtyards, some small, hidden squares, and part of a neo-Gothic facade. And in Vienna, I discovered that they had named a street near the Stefansdom long before my birth, just to enable me to have something there too (Anna Gasse).

In contrast, in Beijing and Hong Kong for instance, despite the "rich tourist offer" of these cities, I have nothing. Maybe just one step of the stairs at the foot of the Great Wall of China, where I withdrew from the tourist group for a short while too sit down, and was joined by some kind Chinese people who shared some cookies with me. Those places were too far, too foreign, too different from things I know, so I could not connect in the same way I do with the places that seem more familiar in many aspects. Of course, I remember many interesting details of these distant cities too, but nothing become mine there. I was there for too short a period to bridge so big a difference, therefore I could not connect, could not have a real interaction.

The desire to connect with the place, to experience its beauty as “ours” is on one side induced by our primal yearning for beauty, and on the other by the beauty of the place that lures us to experience it, to immerse ourselves in it.

Whereby does a place reach out and call us? What makes a place beautiful?

MAKING

Contrary to the globally imposed mantra which states that in order to make a place beautiful, one needs lots of money, investments and large-scale developments, I am confident to state that beauty is not made, but born. It is born out of interaction of energies of people and place. The breath-taking beauty that seems eternal stems from the symbiotic development, when buildings are built in accordance with the character of the space and when the character of the society corresponds to the character of the place. One could say, beauty is born at places where people know where they live, understand the ways of life in accordance with the place, and they love to live exactly in the way they do and they love to live exactly there. Often – but not exclusively – this breathtaking beauty is found at places that by themselves do not make life very easy, in harsh natural conditions that forced people to learn how to make the most of what little they were given, to create as much goodness and beauty in their lives as possible with scarce resources available. Some such places:

 Cinqueterre, Italy

Amalfi coast, Italy

Symi island, Dodecanese, Greece

Small town in Provence, France

Sighing and heaving over the dramatic beauty of towns of Cinqueterre, the sights of picturesque Amalfi Coast, the hidden beauty of Symi island and the romantic flair of a small Provencal town, can we really conceive and imagine how the real life in these places looked like when that beauty was created? How did people live there at the time when these places become so unbelievably beautiful? Can you imagine yourself carrying water for miles uphill or downhill, extracting stones from the ground to gain a little arable land, collecting herbs at steep mountainsides to feed the family, diving to depths of the sea for sponges, sailing out in rickety boats hoping for a good catch of fish or the spoils of an occasional ship that ran aground? And would you have any strength and willpower left to satisfy your need for some nice colors, ornamental plants and other things of beauty? Let's try to imagine it, because the beauty that draws sighs was created in such circumstances, driven by the yearning for the redeeming power of beauty, perhaps even made stronger by harsh conditions. It becomes clearer how much human energy, desire and longing is built into those places of beauty when we realize how little positive energy, how little kindness and affection the space itself offers.

In one of many old books about feng shui, the Rudiyan Tushuo (The Illustrated Earth Penetrating Eyes) it is written that “From 1 to 60-70 miles or 1 to 20-30 miles, if there is an affectionate feeling in the landscape and the Qi is held back, then it should sustain a large to medium size city. If it is only 10 or so miles then it should sustain a large town, if it is 5 to 6 miles then it should sustain a small town and if it is only 1 to 2 miles then it is good for a village.” (translated by Howard Choi in The 15 Core Principles of Feng Shui). Much later the social geography in the west has come to similar conclusions. Those places, the beauty of which we admire, though undeniably are of urban character, often have no more room for the accumulation of qi than what feng shui deems appropriate for a village. The difference in the needed energy, the accumulated Qi comes from the people, from the invested strength, will, time, attention and affection.

Why should people invest so much energy in those spots, why not just move to a more pleasant, accessible, richer place? I would say it is because they are bound by an additional, magical quality these places have: the feeling of timelessness and spacelessness (when there is no notion of space as different from place – place and space are one) which makes them the whole world by themselves, a complete universe. This is the magical quality the tourist industry is trying to exploit, and the quality that is destroyed exactly by trying to exploit it.

The above Rudiyan Tushuo quote continues with “The wealth of a place is determined by the distance (of an open space) and the amount of water (that is available).” Therefore, of course, the presence of a large body of water – the sea – is not to be neglected, since it enhances the capacity for energy accumulation, changes the microclimate and the quality of light and air. The sea opens horizons of the otherwise tight, secluded places difficult to find and reach, and bestows them with the dimension of infinity in relation to which the place itself can be perceived as a whole world.

UNMAKING

It is these qualities that make the nice places, what is neglected in spatial and urban planning, in tourism development projects and similar projects of development and investment. What is ignored in these is the character of the area, the need for investment of human energy, the need for the existence and maintenance of communities whose energy, feeling of integrity, diligence and desire for beauty can create a place that will attract people, that will induce the desire to become part of the place. Cruisers, golf courses, isolated tourist resorts will not achieve this, because the guests in them have neither the time nor the ability to find their point of connection, while the locals are excluded from the “tourist” spaces, therefore they cannot make them their own, they cannot make them beautiful. Tourists come to one “destination” as they would go to any other, to dwell in impersonal rooms, eat “international” foods, and to consume the “local culture” tempered to expectations beyond recognition. They come either while the destination is new and exclusive, or when it's squeezed, worn out and on sale.

Tourism sustainable in the long run, I am convinced, cannot be developed by investments in tourist industry, but by investments in the maintenance and development of the local community, the local spirit, lifestyles, ways people relate to their environments. Tourism can be developed by developing a place where locals love to live and therefore they would generate visual, spatial and energetic expression of long-term mutual affection between people and space. It is the same with decorating the house - when you manage to make your house beautiful to you, when you feel good in it, everyone will be happy to come. But if you decorate your house led by pictures in magazines or by other people's tastes and needs, not even you will be very happy to stay in such place.

INSPIRATION

The inspiration for these thoughts has come through visiting a magical oasis in a completely unbelievable place – the Čonoplja lake. There, in the midst of endless, open, dusty plains

I realized what was it that distinguishes magical places from the ordinary ones: spacelessness, human concern through time and a certain holistic quality, the quality of being perceived as the whole world.

This lake, which is actually a small reservoir on an unnamed watercourse, the configuration of the terrain is excellently utilized to create the impression of a magical garden, known only to some consecrated individuals, to achieve the sense of spacelessness. The accumulation, the water itself embraces a slightly elevated part of the terrain, which thus becomes a kind of peninsula, a hill. This “hill” is high enough to close the horizon towards the rest of the world for the one standing at the shore of the water, creating the impression that behind the hill there is nothing, the hill is standing at the edge of the world. Water surface on the other side also is perceived as a boundary, as the other end of the world, but horizon is not closed in this direction, an immense vista opens to the vast plain resembling the sea.

It is not the dramatic beauty of coastal towns on steep hillsides what touches one at this place, but the calm, nourishing and embracing beauty of the fertile plains. Human care and attention given to the creation of beauty is evident in every detail. On the coast, a belt of neatly maintained and protected fruit trees is planted, offering refreshment by a variety of fruits and providing shade. The also well-maintained benches, tables and fireplaces for picnickers are stationed at a sufficient distance from each other to create a sense of privacy, as if the people at any table were the only ones in this secret garden.

The sacs in the many trash cans are obviously frequently changed, which results in all of the garbage landing inside the cans. There is no strewn packaging, spatter of food debris and other items that are normally thrown around so easily. The order in space creates order in behavior and relations, in simple words, the space is the image, the manual of “how to live here”. The visitors, whether from nearby or coming from bigger distances, somehow naturally adhere to this order, because it is obvious that it is the proper way to live and behave here, since the people that live here love this place and love their ways, and the place is arranged to show and maintain this specific mutual affection off place and people, and not to boost tourism and “tourist industry”.

And that, as the research of Ipsos MORI institute has found, induces respect. From my own experience I would say it inspires art and spirituality as well.