Pub Hum Prospectus

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Sam FranklinAMCV2650/LubarProspectus: Final Paper11/15/11

Built-in Culture

(research questions stated as assertions, with footnotes to indicate where more work is needed)

High modernism demanded a division of labor and space. This extended to culture (a

category that modernism in fact did much to shore up) in that the labor of creating expressive

culture was placed in the hands of professionals, whether high culture concert violinists or

popular magazine writers. The ordinary modern citizen was, meanwhile, defined as a consumer,

a role that extended to his or her relationship with culture, which was to be enjoyed passively. 1

This ideal relationship was literally built into the cultural spaces of the 20th century, such as

theaters and art museums, and especially in the arts center, the campus cloister for the arts,

taken from le Corbusiers conception of the City of Tomorrow.2

All the while, there emerged attempts to resist, reverse, sidestep, or utilize this process

of rationalization in order to reclaim some of what was being lost. Jane Jacobs tried to revive a

sense of neighborhood to counter the superblock towers of modern city planning. The folk

music revival, meanwhile, tried to reclaim a sense of participatory culture-making from the

stratifying process of industrialized music. Many other related and outlying phenomena,

including suburban amateurism, DIY punk culture, hip hop culture, New Urbanism, plus

countless programs offered by universities and community arts organizations, all accompanied

the specialization of culture, working against it at times, but also reifying its basic categories of

cultural production (e.g. music, painting, sculpture, dance, etc.). All of these phenomena were

concerned with re-integrating functions torn apart by modern processes. Jane Jacobs and her

heirs in the New Urbanism have sought to re-integrate living, working, and playing into the same

1 Find literature on the rationalization of culture and the changes in audience.2 Find literature on modern architecture and planning, especially of cultural spaces, if it exists.


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physical area.3 The folk revival imagined not only that the categories of performer and audience

could be rejoined, but that the line between music and social life be blurred, as well.4

That is not to say all these movements had the same agenda, or the same gripe against

modernism. While the folk revival sought to make people creators again, New Urbanism has no

such goals. Perhaps this is seen as too great a task, or perhaps it doesnt make economic

sense, but whatever the reason, New Urbanism stops short of trying to re-form work itself. That

urban planning philosophy has, however, partnered with the Creative Class school of economic

development, which holds that mixed-use, round-the-clock neighborhoods are more desirable to

high-skilled knowledge workers than are suburbs. But, as a 2008 Rockefeller Foundation report

points out, there is often a negative correlation between creative economic development and

neighborhood development. The means of production still remain out of the hands of most

citizens, and all that creative energy tends to go toward globalized production rather than

neighborhood interests.5

Meanwhile, community arts organizations today often seek to re-integrate art and craft

into the lives of non-professionals. That same Rockefeller Foundation report cites evidence that

arts organizations make poor neighborhoods less miserable for their inhabitants, and create

social capital. It is unclear to what extent the art skills themselves become marketable to

participants, but something in the process of doing art seems to be these organizations main

socio-economic claim to success. Other cultural institutions such as museums are now

somewhat awkwardly backing away from their high-modernist genesis as temples of culture,

and joining the quest to promote community, social capital, and other such goals. Many of

them also seek to give power back to ordinary citizens, a power ostensibly lost during the last

3 Re-read Jacobs, find literature on her and on New Urbanism.4 Find literature on the Folk revival, especially in its community arts functions, as well as on other

community arts efforts in the 50s-today. See if this is an accurate characterization of their position in

regards to mass culture and/or professionalized art.

5 http://www.trfund.com/resource/downloads/creativity/Economy.pdf


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hundred years of specialization, professionalization, and rationalization in fields as diverse as

town planning, history-making, and art-making. In some cases there is an emphasis on

marketable skills, but for the most part there is no strong sense that training, or integration of

neighbors into the creative economy, is part of these institutions missions.

Meanwhile, amateurism is probably at its all-time peak, with more and more people

reclaiming the means to tell stories, make images, record, represent and share. This shift has

helped turn many people to the role of participants, not only consuming, but also producing

during their leisure time.6 Importantly, it was media technology (both in affordable tools and in

web-based social media) and not bricks-and-mortar urban planning, that brought about this

shift, or at least its visibility. Given this fact, it is unclear what the new spatial practice of culture

looks like. How have recent urban planners and community groups conceived of culture and

its role in social life, and how have they attempted to build this into the landscape? How is the

use of anchor museums or performance complexes for urban revitalization consistent with or a

departure from high modern ideals of cultural spaces. In the wake of criticism of such strategies,

what place/space do the arts take in New Urbanism, or has the definition of culture changed

to include a broader range of activities. If so, how does New Urbanism respond?

(note: I decided to try focusing on New Urbanism because it is a field with journals and stated

principles, and its ideas are often taught in design schools. However, I acknowledge that in

actual fact it is hard to characterize any given urban project as purely New Urbanism or not.

Not only do many contemporary planners not identify with the movement, but also the politics

and power that go into fully realized urban spaces is more complex than what any planner says

he or she wants to do. If focusing on New Urbanism seems like an unnecessary constraint or

misplaced focus, I can rethink my framework.)

6 Find literature on the phenomenon of participatory culture.


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