What is a Cultural Space?

This blog arose from the project Cultural Spaces and Design – Prospects for Design Education. We have chosen this title very consciously – but of course we are often asked: What exactly is a „cultural space“?

 

We chose a spacial metaphor when talking about cultures, but certainly it is not only a metaphor. Spaces can be explored for real. Spaces can be internal or external, they can be of different size, focusing on local conditions or global phenomena. To focus on space means to identify a certain radius of observation. To perceive space we are often not trained in. And yet it is there. And it is over and over culturally encoded, in visible and invisble ways. Culture is vague and sometimes hard to grasp. Cultural Space, for us, is more concrete if you tell us what you observe, what you sense and what you take for real. This will reveal something about you, your design understanding, your aesthetics and values –  and about the space you are exploring. Which are the traces you follow? Do you note colours, artefacts, atmospheres? Voices, sounds, interactions? Processes, routines, social practices? Transition, migration, spheres? Traditions, symbols, habits? Needs, problems, supplies? What are your filters, your judgements, your raised eyebrows, your joy? Cultural patterns are unconscious and can only be revealed by experiencing the unfamiliar. Yet they influence deeply our methods, processes, objectives and design decisions.

 

Instead of getting lost in the jungle of academic discussions about terms such as inter-, cross-, trans-, multiculturality and so on, we chose to work within space. We chose to note that places, that the local matters if we talk about culture. What matters is the complexity, fluidity, diversity that is rooted the contemporary as well as in traditions, ways of living, communities, values that give a space its unique quality and identity.