Silverman, Jonathan, and Dean Rader.

The World Is a Text : Writing About Visual and Popular Culture.

Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2018.

C H A P T E R 13

READING AND WRITING ABOUT

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPACE
Whether we are in bedrooms, bathrooms, coffeehouses, classrooms, stadiums, or record
stores, we are always someplace, and understanding our relationship to these places and
spaces helps us better understand the world. How? By providing us tools to recognize
the way the physical world influences our inner world, the way those constructing
spaces might shape us, or attempt to.
In this chapter, we will talk about public and private space, architecture, and design
as constructed texts as an entrée into writing about those spaces. What we mean by space
is the environment created by human-made activities, including built areas, such as class-
rooms, stadiums, shopping malls, and dorm rooms. Architecture and design are forces
that help construct these places and spaces and give them their particular personality.
In a sense, architects and designers are the authors of buildings and public spaces;
they construct these texts through a series of decisions. And if you look around you,
not only will you see patterns of decisions made by architects and designers, but you
will also see the influence of those who pay the designers and the people who use or
live in that particular space.
For example, architects may have had some leeway in designing your classroom,
but their decisions about certain aspects of appearance or comfort might have been
affected by construction cost, local building codes, and state educational requirements.
The kind of institution you attend, whether it is a private or public university or col-
lege, probably had some impact on these decisions. The designers and architects were
limited by function—putting a fireplace or a kitchen in a classroom would be inap-
propriate. And the designers were undoubtedly influenced by the period in which they
lived; you probably can pinpoint the date within twenty years of construction based on
colors, materials, and lighting. For instance, rectangular buildings built with brick or
cinder blocks reflect the architectural style of the 1960s and 1970s, whereas a wooden
Victorian house was probably built as much as 100 years earlier.
Such decisions also exist in corporate and retail venues. If you walk into a Starbucks,
for example, you will see the results of a series of carefully made judgments: the color
scheme, the décor and the lighting, the font type of the signs that describe coffee prod-
ucts, and where all of this is placed. It is not hard to gather from these aspects of design
139

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that Starbucks is going for both cool and familiar in its space. They want customers
to feel they are not only purchasing coffee but that they are having some unexpressed
secondary experience as well. Stores like Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters and res-
taurants like Rain Forest Café and Hard Rock Café, all use décor, design, and detail to
send a message and to create an aura.
Is it one element that creates this aura? No—it is a series of details taken together.
Drawing conclusions from architectural decisions and public space is not much differ-
ent than making these conclusions from reading literature; each has its own grammar,
symbols, and themes that we interpret to get a picture of the work as a whole.

Here are some other things to think about when writing about public space
and architecture.

There is a difference between public and private spaces, but often the two interact
in important ways. We should begin by saying that when we use terms like public and
private we are not referring to ownership but to use. There are many public places (like
publicly owned land) that most people cannot easily access (some federal land for exam-
ple), and there are private areas that anyone can use (like stadiums and shopping malls).
The distinctions between public and private exist even on a smaller scale, though
this not what experts mean when they refer to public space exactly. We think of our
homes as private, but if you share a house with one or two or three or even more
people, then your private residence will have public spaces, like the living room, the
kitchen, the back yard. If you share a bathroom, then that most private of places is
also, in some ways, a kind of public space.
The most obvious spaces we share are places that were designed to be shared by
the public like parks, quads, commons, stadiums, river walks, markets, beaches, hiking
trails, campsites, libraries, and malls. These are designed to reflect our values, interests,
and identities. These places are a common ground where our publicness, our civicness
is expressed and even celebrated. Public spaces can and often are the social life of a
community and a place where individuals connect with other individuals—the very
process of which makes a public.
Depending on the space, there are going to be different rules, signs, and messages
designed to communicate a variety of things for a variety of reasons. Signs and color
codings on a ski slope will have one purpose, those on New York City’s subway system
will have another, those near the famous Cloudgate sculpture (better known as “The
Bean”) in Chicago’s Millennium Park yet another. A courthouse is another public space,
as is the DMV , with many and perhaps many confusing signs. Our behavior in these
spaces is manipulated for a reason, and we often rely on time-tested powers of deduc-
tion to help make sense of order, procedures, and locations depending where we are.
Public spaces rely on semiotics and our collective abilities to decode signs and symbols
to ensure safety, utility, and enjoyment.

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What makes for enjoyment in a public space? According to the American Planning
Association, there are eight criteria for a “Great Public Space”:

1. Promotes human contact and social activities.

2. Is safe, welcoming, and accommodating for all users.
3. Has design and architectural features that are visually interesting.
4. Promotes community involvement.
5. Reflects the local culture or history.
6. Relates well to bordering uses.
7. Is well maintained.
8. Has a unique or special character.1

As you begin your essay on public (or private) spaces, you might want to keep a checklist
of these eight items. How many does your space contain? What is missing? How does the
absence of one of these affect the overall enjoyment or utility of the space?

Colors and shapes often have symbolic value. Part of the grammar we wrote about
earlier (color and shape) helps architects and designers speak to the public in a language
they understand, either consciously or subconsciously. Psychologists have shown that
particular shapes and colors have psychological effects on their viewers. Designers and
architects also draw on traditional uses of color and shape, again, as a sort of grammar
of construction. Of course, homeowners may think they choose certain shapes or shades
because they look “pretty,” or “nice,” but what they mean by “pretty” is arbitrary as
well. Still, it is very unlikely that the walls in your classrooms are red or black. They
are probably also not adobe, wood, or steel. We venture that they are not painted in a
checkerboard style or with stripes. Rather, they are probably white or off-white, neutral
in some way so as not to distract you from the process of listening and learning.
Combinations of these colors and shapes often form recognizable designs that are imi-
tated repeatedly, especially in regard to public structures that want to suggest something
beyond mere functionality. For example, arches, columns, and white picket fences often
symbolize ideas that transcend their simple presence—arches and columns have often
stood for power and tradition, and the white picket fence stands for tradition as well, but
perhaps a different kind of tradition. The Washington Monument on the National Mall
in Washington, DC, is, from a functional perspective, a poor use of space. You can’t do
anything in there. Its significance is symbolic; accordingly, a great deal of thought went
in to selecting a design that would signify the values the government wanted. You might
ask yourself what values the Washington Monument embodies: Compassion? Triumph?
Ambition? Femininity? Patience? As important as the structures themselves are the spaces

1 “Characteristics and Guidelines of Great Public Spaces,” American Planning Association, n.d.

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surrounding the structures. A house with a white picket fence around it is a much different
text than a house with a high metal security gate enclosing it.
We associate certain kinds of structures with economic and social class—brick versus
mobile homes, skyscrapers versus corrugated tin buildings, strip malls versus warehouses.
Buildings and spaces are rarely just buildings and spaces. When it comes to public space,
almost nothing is random. So, when you begin constructing your own papers about archi-
tecture or space, we recommend that you begin by jotting down notes in your journal
about your topic. If you are writing about your campus, try to get at the associations of
things like “ivy,” “columns,” and even the word “campus.” Why do colleges often rely
on Greek and Roman architectural elements? Why are there so many green and open
spaces on so many campuses? Are there reasons, beyond practical ones, why campuses
love big buildings? What do these connote? From there, you can begin to unpack the
packed world of space and design.

Cost and community preferences often contribute to the design of a public or

private space. Although most designers seek to make buildings and spaces both beau-
tiful and useful, there are other factors that often interfere with stated goals. Cost is
always an issue—people can only build what they can afford, and some materials are
prohibitively expensive for a given function. Design help can also cost money, as does
land, construction, and so on.
The surrounding community also plays a role in design. Community standards,
often in the form of zoning laws, will have an effect on what something looks like.
Zoning regulations determine the use of a particular piece of property and, depend-
ing on the locale, can also determine the size and function of what is built on that
property. Even politics can help determine how something is designed. For example,
at the University of Texas at Austin in the 1970s, a prominent student meeting-place
was significantly altered when the administration built large planters to restrict student
gatherings protesting administration policies.2 Similarly, at the State University of New
York at Binghamton, a beloved and locally famous open space in the center of campus
called the Peace Quad, where students gathered to read, protest, talk, eat, and listen
to music, was paved over so that a large new building could be erected in its place.
Issues of class and race can also affect public and private spaces. For example, there
are very few upper-class communities near industrial plants, nor does one often find
a poor neighborhood that has easy access to the attractive elements of a city. Think
about where Mercedes dealerships are located. In the same place that you might find
the best auto repair spots? Or, think about country clubs versus public golf courses.
Wine bars and dive bars?

2 Nicole Cobler, “West Mall’s History Molded through Free Speech Demonstrations,” The Daily Texan
24 Nov. 2013.

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In some cases entire communities determine how a city can look. Santa Fe, New
Mexico has a city ordinance that requires new buildings to have an adobe look.3 Hilton
Head, South Carolina prohibits certain kinds of signs. San Francisco, California has
some prohibitions on large chains and franchises. Houston, Texas has almost no zoning
restrictions, which makes it wildly inconsistent from block to block.4 These communi-
ties are particularly aware that how a space looks can affect how we feel in that space.

Space can be manipulative, comforting, or both. Designers have conscious ideas

about the world they construct, and they often think about how and where they want
people involved with their work. If you have ever found yourself frustrated in a poorly
designed building, you may have wondered what idiots designed the place. The design
of casinos, for instance, is most interesting. Casinos have no windows and usually only
one or two exits, and you almost always have to walk through the slot machines to get
to them. Why might this be the case? Increasingly, many art museums make you exit
through the gift shop when you have finished looking at an exhibition.
In your life, how do elements of design work? Think about sidewalks. Do they
always take you where you want to go? What about doorways? Are they always at
the most convenient place? In your own room, think about where you put your desk,
your chairs, and your bed: What is your main concern in placing them—your conveni-
ence or someone else’s? All of those decisions influence those who enter your room.
Think too about most classrooms at your institution. What do they resemble? Do they
create a certain mood? For example, is talking about a movie or a story different in
a large classroom than in a café? Why or why not? Sometimes places are friendly to
their visitors or inhabitants; others are less so, either through oversight by designers,
or more deliberately, as in the case of the Peace Quad or student protest space at the
universities mentioned before.
What is important to know is that your emotional reaction to certain spaces is
intended. If you have been to a court, then you know that the heightened judicial bench
inspires a bit of trepidation; if you have walked in a particularly beautiful cathedral, the
sense of awe you feel is not arbitrary; if you enter the library of an old or prestigious
university, you probably experienced a hushed sense of tradition that was designed
to be elicited in you when it was still in blueprints. Why do so many fancy neighbor-
hoods have signs or columns or arches or gates as you enter them? Why in early New
England villages was the church always in the center of the town? Thus, writing about
these issues means that you also need to understand the cultural work architectural
and design elements do.

3 Chris Wilson, The Myth of Santa Fe: Creating a Modern Regional Tradition (Albuquerque: University
of New Mexico Press, 1997).
4 Fernando Ramirez, “The Weirdest Images to Come from Houston’s Lack of Zoning Laws,” Houston
Chronicle 19 Aug. 2016.

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Users have ways of altering landscapes that can have personal and political
implications. One of these ways is through decoration. Humans love to personalize
their spaces, whether it is a cubicle, an office, a dorm room, their computer desktop,
or their cars. How we inhabit space is a means of establishing identity; space is a text
we are always making and remaking. Think about your own spaces. Posters lining a
room, particularly in the dorm rooms and bedrooms of your contemporaries, are usu-
ally there to send a message—that the inhabitant is a man or a woman, or someone
concerned with music, sports, art, fashion, beer, and/or cars. Some rooms scream that
the inhabitants are trying to be cool, while others ooze sophistication.
When one gets older, it is usually time to say goodbye to the rock posters,
M.C. Escher prints, and the beer ads, but what to replace them with becomes a ques-
tion all of us grapple with for the rest of our lives. Some people decide they have a style
they feel comfortable with and make their decisions based on that; others feel their way
through the process; still others delegate their design choices to someone else. However,
there are effects from these decisions, whether they are intended or unintended. The
space you live in—how you decorate it, your traces within it—is a kind of text that
people can (and do) read to understand something about you.
Entities as large as cities can try to influence the way its inhabitants and visitors
feel. If you have visited Santa Fe, for example, you know that art is everywhere—in
front of the state capitol, in parks, outside buildings, in restaurants, in courtyards, in
and outside of private homes. The message this sends is not simply that Santa Fe and
its residents like to decorate their landscape, but that it is a place that values art, how
things look, and how art makes you feel. Salem, Massachusetts, with its gabled houses,
restored wooden buildings, and American colonial feel, strives for what we might call
New England charm. The abundance of art sends a message of sophistication, worldli-
ness, and a progressiveness that is welcoming. You may not always be conscious of it,
but spaces that pay close attention to design and beauty probably make you feel good.
Of course, there can also be a gap between what the occupant of the space wants
to suggest and what is actually suggested—in this way, spaces can be revealing texts.
Knowing about space will help you not only be better readers of someone else’s space,
but may also help you avoid pitfalls of constructing unwelcoming space yourself. You
may think that posters of near-naked women reclining on cars are cool, or you may
think black mammy figurines are quaint, or you may like photos of guns and hunting,
but there will be a sizeable audience out there who might wonder about you and your
values based on how you arrange and decorate your space.

Other elements can change the landscape in ways not imagined by designers.
Graffiti alters the public landscape, and so does public art. Neglect can change public
space, as well as new construction surrounding a previous design. How we use and
design space gives some indication of our personality, among other things. Walking

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into someone’s dorm room, office, or living room gives us a clue of who they are
(and who they think they are) (and who they want you to think they are). When you
walk into a business, you also receive some indication of how they view themselves.
For example, compare the interior at McDonald’s to a fancy restaurant, or to a TGI
Fridays, Applebee’s, or Chili’s; the interiors and exteriors are littered with clues about
what these places think they are about. Similarly, how do Mexican restaurants tell us
that they serve Mexican food? How do Chinese restaurants create an “Asian” setting?
Think too about the way movies and television shows set scenes; often the settings of
movies give us an indication of how we’re supposed to view the characters. In Modern
Family, Big Bang Theory, or Friends, for example, we see the presence of couches,
bright lighting, the expensive, clean homes (in the case of Friends, far too expensive for
New Yorkers their age) as clues to how we are supposed to relate to them. If you ever
watched Roseanne or The King of Queens you see an entirely different representation
of private and public space.
Public spaces are especially curious in this way. Dams completely alter natural
environments, flooding entire valleys. Roads paved through forests bring cars and
tourists and pollution. In urban areas, for example, some public parks have become
centers for both drug use and needle exchange programs—no doubt a very different use
of public space than was intended. We leave our imprint everywhere. And, just as we
make our rooms or cubicles our own, so, too, do we make public space our own—for
better or worse.
Ultimately, the space that surrounds us says a number of things about that particular
location—who inhabits that space, what the space is used for, and how we are to read
that space. Additionally, we can discern a great deal about what kinds of spaces or
buildings are important given the amount and kind of space devoted to them. As you
read this chapter, think about how certain spaces force you to interpret the world in a
certain way, and as you write your papers, work on combining your own observations
about spaces with solid research so that your arguments are strengthened by two kinds
of authority—subjective experience and objective data.

Technology Has Changed What We Think of as “Public Space.” When we wrote

the first version of this book back in 2000, we might not have thought of the internet
or your laptop or a phone as public space. But the popularity and penetration of social
media has changed what we think of as “public” and what we think of as “space.”
Facebook is now a kind of public space—as are Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and
Tumblr. In fact, the whole notion of posting, is, at its core, about making things public;
the term comes from the physical act of mailing or putting up posters. In this way, they
make a claim for a type of spatial representation.
These spaces are also aware of design and utility. If Facebook was not easy to use, it
would not be so popular. Cyberspace is all about ease, pleasure, and efficiency. We hang

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out online, we shop online, we look for romantic partners online, we play games online,
we even have long conversations online because they are often easier than doing the physi-
cal equivalent. The internet and other social media sites have become a new commons.
But like any public space, cyberspace and the internet have their issues. There is
crowding, rudeness, bullying, arrogance, and simple annoyance. Facebook has created
an entirely new ethos about how we communicate, share information, and divulge
information. People now announce divorces over Facebook, as well as new jobs, har-
assment, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, sexual desires, outrage, dissent, and fear.
As many of you have experienced, people seem more willing to express themselves
publicly in a cyberspace like Facebook than in an actual physical setting like a car or
a restaurant or a café.
How people choose to represent themselves—both in written language and in visual
language (emojis, photos, stickers)—can say a lot about them but also, perhaps, what
they think of you. In our chapters on fashion and gender we talk about the composi-
tion of the self, and this extends to the space of the internet. Indeed, reading others in
cyberspace is itself a complex process of decoding, and writing about how cyberspace
and public space interact and intersect will prove one of the most intriguing activities
over the next several decades.

THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN WRITING ABOUT PUBLIC SPACE

Features: How does the space integrate with building design, scale, architecture, and
proportionality to create interesting visual experiences, views, or interaction? Does it
facilitate multiple uses? Is it accessible via walking, biking, or public transit?

Design and accessibility: Does the space reflect the community’s local character and
personality? Does it foster social engagement and create a sense of community? Does
it encourage interaction among a diverse cross section of the public? Is it safe? Is it
well signed? Is it fun?

Shapes: What are some of the dominant shapes you see in a public space or building?
Do they symbolize anything to you? Are they supposed to? Do they remind you of other
shapes in other spaces? How do the shapes relate to the space’s use?

Colors: What are the dominant colors? What emotions do they evoke? Why? How
would the space or architecture change if the color changed? How does the color relate
to the space’s use?

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Size: How big is this place? How does this affect the way
you view it, and the feelings it inspires? Is there a way to
change the size to evoke different feelings? In what ways A QUICK GUIDE TO
do the space’s or architecture’s size relate to its use? WRITING ABOUT
Use: What is the use of this particular space or archi-
PUBLIC SPACE
tecture? How do we know from the elements you A few things you might think
see? Do you see unintended uses that might result about as you write your paper:
from this construction? Do you see an emphasis on Define your space: Figure out
practicality or ornament in this space? exactly where you are writing
about.
Interaction between architecture and space: How do Note materials and colors: Writing
the two work together? What elements in the archi- about public space is often
tecture affect the way the space is constructed? Are focused on the details, and these
there ways of changing this interaction? details often give some insight on
the intentions of the designers.
Overall beauty: What is your general view of the Observe how people use the
place’s beauty? What standards or criteria do you space: Observing and think-
find yourself relying on? ing about the ways people use
a space—perhaps in unintended
Emotional response: What is your overall emotional ways—can help us to understand
response to this place? Why? What elements con- whether the space works or in
tribute to this response? What elements could you what ways it works.
change that might provoke a different response? Brainstorm/freewrite about the
space either at the space or soon
Overall statement: What do you think this space after visiting.
or architecture says? What is it trying to say? How Getting your impressions down
might any gap between what it says and is trying to early makes it easier to write.
say be bridged?
Think of a thesis and paragraph
ideas before starting to write. It
will make the first draft easier.
PUBLIC SPACE: THE GENRES
Personal Narrative
Relationships to space can be personal. In fact, Yi-Fu Tuan, a geography scholar,
believes that relationships make space into place; in his view, spaces become places
when they become imbued with meaning.5 So one possibility is to write an essay on
how a space that seemed abstract to you became someplace familiar.

5 Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997).

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First choose your place and write about how you encountered it.
Then write about how you experience it now.
To make it an essay that has a wider audience, you have to explain why people might
care about what you have found. You can do this through a number of ways, including
writing about how your relationship with a place might relate to others by their affiliations.

Photo Essay
One of the great things about having phones with cameras is the ability to take photos
as you encounter worthy subjects. Using cameraphones to document a place as a means
to writing about it can be useful.
Photo essays can be about one place—a classroom, a university building, a restaurant,
a bedroom, a car—or they can be about a series of places—stops on a road trip, gyms or
fitness centers, supermarkets, convenience stores. They help document a place, but such
documentation also needs your interpretations; good photo essays have an argument.
In a photo essay, you need 1) a subject, 2) different images of the same place or
images of a variety of places, 3) text to accompany photos, and 4) an argument.

1. When taking photos, make sure you take many versions of the same place.
Professional photographers take hundreds of photos of their subjects; a dozen or
so for each of your subjects will work.
2. Make sure you keep notes about when and where you took the photo, as well as
what the subject is.
3. Privacy law is very forgiving to photographers in the United States; photogra-
phers can take photo of almost any subject as long as they or it are in public
view, including private buildings as long as they are visible from a public perspec-
tive.6 So don’t worry about the legality of taking photos. Instead think about the
ethics around doing so, which centers around one large question: does this person
want her or his photograph taken? Does the person know he or she is being pho-
tographed? Will they be harmed if the photo is public?
4. You can use Microsoft Word or PowerPoint or the web to make a photo essay. The
web also has a number of services that allow you to easily construct a photo essay.
5. The most important thing in a photo essay is that it has a definitive point or
argument that an audience can understand. The thesis can be subtle or broad, but
it definitely has to exist.

Space/Building Analysis
When architects and designers make buildings, they want them to say something. Sometimes
this message is visible boldly as in a skyscraper or more subtly in the shapes of rooms or
the amount and content of windows or the types of sinks in a bathroom.

6 Bert P. Krages II , “The Photographer’s Right,” Bert P. Krages II , http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm.

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Both architectural critics and casual observers may have opinions on what the
architectural message is or whether the architect has achieved her aims. You can also
perform this work by making an argument about a building or space on 1) what you
think it is trying to say and 2) what it actually says.
People differ on how important authorial intent is when analyzing a text; some think
it’s important to figure out what an author says, while others think that the text itself and
what it says is more important. Like many critics, we think that both are worth considering:
a space or building contains elements that its author or authors may not have considered,
including developments after a building was planned or constructed, nearby spaces and/or
places, unexpected uses for the space/place and so on.
To write about a building or space, first take notes. What does the building look
like? What part of the space are you writing about? What colors and shapes are most
prominent? Are the ceilings tall? What architectural details stand out? This notetaking
has two purposes—one is to construct evidence for your paper, and the other is to help
you actually come up with an argument.
Once you take notes, see if there is an argument to make or at least a question to
ask of the building (beyond “what is this building trying to say?”). Then begin writing.
Once you are a draft in, think about your argument again, and revise your paragraphs
according to the argument.

Researched Paper
Writing about a space or place through research is similar to the process of analy-
sis—finding a space or place or building, taking notes on it, and coming up with an
argument. The difference is finding a research lens or angle (see pp. 35–36) to examine
the space. Some angles could include race, class, and gender; others might include sus-
tainability; further research might be on the type of space/place/building, for example
on universities, convenience stores, and so on.
Once you have figured out the research angle and the text, focus on making sure
readers can see the building or space through your description, that the research angle is
well defined, and that you relate the text to the research angle. If you were to write about
your cafeteria for example, and chose your postmodern architecture as your angle, then
you write a paper that first describes the cafeteria, explains what postmodernism is, and
then shows how the cafeteria fits into this category. Or using the same text, the cafeteria,
you could research what designers are taking into account when designing them, and
see if your cafeteria fits in that category. Or you could write about gender and race, and
whether the cafeteria has aspects that seem particularly male or white.
In all of these cases, description is really important; you should be careful to show
as much or more as you tell.

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OTHER ESSAY IDEAS

Building as Analogy
Find a building you want to write about. Does it remind you of something besides a
building in 1) its physical construction; 2) the emotional response it encourages; 3) its
purpose; or 4) its structure? In what way are these disparate elements alike? Different?
What does the analogy in general say about commonalities of texts generally?

Emotional Response
Walk around a building or a public area such as a mall or your school’s common area.
What do you feel? What about the place makes you feel such an emotion? Are these
effects intended or unintended?

Commercial versus Artistic

What dominates this particular building or space—its artistic aspects or commercial
ones? Or do the two work together?

Your Favorite Place

If possible, analyze a place you feel close to and figure out why you feel that way. Is
there a theme attached to this place? How would you describe the décor? The archi-
tecture? Do you feel that your attachment to this place—or places like it—is unique?

Does This Building or Space “Work”?

Find a place—do you think it succeeds on its own terms? What are its terms—what
criteria is it trying to fulfill? Does is succeed? Why or why not?

The Person from the Space

Go to an office or a dorm room or car, or some place that “belongs” to someone. What
can you tell about this person from the space? How did you arrive at your judgments?
Are there other ways to interpret the information?

The Common Element

Compare similar spaces. What makes them similar? What are their differences? What
do their differences or similarities say about this type of space?

Your Campus
Your campus is a probably a compelling public space. If it is a public institution, then
it is both a public space and a space for the public. Walk around your campus, paying
attention to its entrances, its signs, its means and manner of communication. What
messages does it send? Does your campus make an argument?

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Cyberspace
Take the instructions we gave you for reading built public space and apply those to
cyberspace. Offer a semiotic reading of Facebook or Tumblr or Instagram. Or a chat
area of a video game. How does a website try to be a public space? What does it do to
invite you in and make you feel at home?

Additional Essays
π Write an essay on your favorite (or least favorite) building in the town where you
live. What values does the building have?
π Write a paper in which you compare an older building (built before 1920) with a
building built more recently (after 1960). How do the two buildings create values?
How do they send messages about their contexts?
π Write a paper in which you examine two very different spaces, like a town square
and a college campus, or a playground and a bar. How do the spaces compare?
How do they differ?
π Take some photographs of areas you think are particularly rural. Now give close
readings of the photos in which you demonstrate how and why these images evince
ruralness.
π Write a comparison/contrast essay in which you decode some of the images from
this essay with some of the images of street art and urban landscapes. How are
urban and rural vistas different? Are there any similarities?
π Find some old representations of rural landscapes—paintings, drawings, photo-
graphs—and write an essay in which you unpack the associations you have with
the iconography of rural areas.
π Find an environment where gender and space interact. What about the space you
describe makes it connect to the particular gender?
π Think about other public spaces or buildings where separation of people into gen-
ders, races, or classes is built into the design. (Hint: Think of places where people
spend more or less money to sit in different places.) Write a paper that addresses
this question.
π Look at several dorm rooms or apartments of friends both male and female. Write
a short paper that discusses which elements in particular define these spaces as
particularly male or female.
π Look at other things that are gendered, such as advertisements, clothing, and cars.
How do these gendered texts compare to the gendered spaces you described earlier?
What elements do designers of any text use to designate gender? Write a paper that
ties gendered space to another gendered text.
π Take some photographs, but as you are doing so, document what you are thinking
about while you take them. Write about this experience.

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π Give a semiotic reading of your campus. You can either read the campus as a
whole—making an argument that it sends a specific kind of message—or, you can
read a specific part as a microcosm (a small thing that functions as a symbol or
encapsulation of something larger).
π Write an essay on how the commercial and the educational merge at your
institution.
π Does your campus have commercial enterprises run by outside vendors? Are there
advertisements in rooms, in dorms or on campus elsewhere? In what ways does that
affect the campus atmosphere, if at all? Does it detract from the stated mission of
your university?
π Find some aspect of your campus that seems nontraditional in its construction or
use and give a reading of that space. You might consider off-campus housing, a
virtual classroom, a space that merges with the community, or even a new dorm.
What makes this place nontraditional?
π Write about the college campus as a public place. What makes a campus public?
Should a private university be a public place?

RESOURCES
There are a lot of resources about public space and architecture online, but there may
be a divide between organizations that regularly cover these subjects, which include the
New York Times, Slate, the Los Angeles Times, and many other outlets, and advocacy
organizations or practicing architects or planners. This division may make sorting
out information that is useful for a writing project a bit more challenging. Two sites,
the Atlantic’s City Lab and Citiscope, both cover urban architecture and public space
regularly.

Books
These are books that you might find useful for research or just for expanding your
knowledge about public space and architecture.

Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein. A Pattern Language: Towns,

Buildings, Construction. This book explains the concept of grammar as it applies
to building.

Robert Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. This book
explains how a government administrator can not only have an enormous impact
on the public space and architecture of a city but also on its people.

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 CHAPTER 13 READING AND WRITING ABOUT PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPACE 153

Grady Clay, Close Up: How to Read the American City. The book talks about some of
the things you need to know in order read and interpret the city.

Richard Florida. The Rise of the Creative Class And How It’s Transforming Work,
Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. Florida is an often-cited expert on the move
back to cities by young professionals.

Dolores Hayden, Redesigning the American Dream: The Future of Housing, Work, and
Family Life. This book explores gender and housing.

Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. This
book explores the history of suburbia in the United States.

Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Jacobs’s book is a clas-
sic—many of her observations about city life in the 1950s and 1960s have been
shown to be true.

Peter Katz et al. 1994. The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community.
This book was one of the first to talk about ways of revitalizing housing and com-
munity in the city in the post-1970s downturn in urban living.

Setha M. Low and Neil Smith, eds., The Politics of Public Space. This collection
explores the politics of public space.

Robert Venturi, Denise Scott-Brown, Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas. This is
one of the first books to celebrate non-classical architecture as interesting, relevant,
and good on its own terms.

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SAMPLE ESSAY

Consider the Moon Pie: Reading and

Writing about the Road
JONATHAN SILVERMAN

American popular culture is obsessed with the road, as witnessed by the enormous
output of writers and movie-makers across time and place. Such works range from the
Jack Kerouac classic On the Road to Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer-Prize winning novel
The Road to movies like Thelma and Louise and Easy Rider and the Bob Hope–Bing
Crosby road movies (e.g., The Road to Rio, The Road to Morocco), not to mention
John Ford’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Earlier works that
focus on movement could also be classified as road narratives; they include diaries by
those crossing the Oregon Trail, letters by African American migrants from the South to
the North, and accounts by Native Americans regarding the Trail of Tears; even many
narratives by the Puritans have elements of later conceptions of the road in them. When
reading these accounts, we often get a sense of both identity and continuity that mark
movement in the United States.
As these examples illustrate, the road in American culture is well traveled.
Accordingly, in writing about such a familiar and mythic place, one might feel insecure
about the ability to say anything new—such a feeling applies not only to the road—but
also other familiar topics as well. One way to approach such a subject is to simply
discuss what we see; taking what we observe and analyzing it rather than worrying
about trying to understand all of a subject is a way around this issue. It does not mean
ignoring context, but it does mean relying on one’s power of observation as the primary
source of content. In other words, we can write our own road stories.
In the summer of 2007, I drove from Connecticut, where my parents live, to Santa
Fe, New Mexico, making several stops along the way. I took photographs at every stop
I made in an attempt to document what kinds of messages we encounter as we drive
across the country. Following are some examples of photographs that make some state-
ments about the road, my encounter with it, and perhaps some larger truths associated
with travel as well. I should note here that these photos are just a few of the hundred or
so I took, and that my goal in writing about the road was to combine my photography
with analysis; such an approach requires choosing. Had I been required to write about

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all my photos and all my stops, there is no guarantee that I would have been able to
come up with a coherent narrative.
My approach also reflects a particular way of traveling across the country. Some
like to move slowly, stopping at tourist destinations along the way, or pacing them-
selves by traveling only a short way each day. Some like to motor down the interstate
in RV s, whereas others stick to the “Blue Highways,” the national and state highways
that preceded the Interstate, as termed by William Least Heat-Moon. And some like
to travel like I did this time, at a hectic pace, marked by stops to visit friends, but with
very little interaction with the culture beyond the road itself. Regardless of whether one
stops to get to know a people or a place, signs, buildings, towns, people, and even the
landscape seem to want to be looked at. Indeed, why would anything constructed near
or along a road want to be ignored? Because traveling along a road presents a myriad
of semiotic moments, traveling by road is always accompanied by a perpetual act of
reading. In making this journey I found that I was reminded how much consumption
was part of travel, how variable and dominant the landscape is on the road, and how
signs marked the landscape in a variety of ways. But I also found that my interpreta-
tions seem unstable in that they seemed to come from this particular trip (and reading
of such).

CONSUMPTION

Food is an essential part of travel. Westward

travelers used to have to pack supplies in order
to make the journey, though very quickly mar-
kets were created to cater to travelers. Now, we
have convenience stores and travel stops. For
many travelers, the accessibility of food of both
good nutrition or less so is an enjoyable part
of venturing across the country. Consider the
(Fig. 13a) Moon Pie. It is not a national brand;
you can find it mostly in the Midwest and the
South, and so a hardy traveler venturing forth
is buoyed by the find of this delectable mix of FIGURE 13a
banana-flavor coating, cakelike filling, and marshmallow. (It is funny, too, that it bills
itself as “The Only One On The Planet!” given the fact that one chooses one Moon Pie
among a display of many.) I also like the universality of the moon in the Moon Pie—the
sky is one constant in traveling, and often a way of marking one’s progress across the
country is by the different views we have of the sky and the horizon.
Although it is often home to the delectable Moon Pie, the travel center itself
(Fig. 13b) goes beyond the convenience and corner store in that it is also a center of

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 156 THE WORLD IS A TEXT

F I G U R E 13b

symbolic consumption. Until recently, most were associated with one gasoline brand
and that’s it. But here we see the trend of collaborating with other national brands, in
this case, Dairy Queen. This particular center is devoted to nostalgia—note the Route
66 sign, which refers to the most romantic of former roads that was consonant with
the first wave of pleasure road trips out west, as well as the path for migrants from
Oklahoma to California during the Dust Bowl. Originally cutting a path from Chicago
to Los Angeles, Route 66 has been replaced by I-40. You cannot see it well, but Phillips
66 is behind the 1950s-inspired sign. This particular sign intentionally evokes the
romanticized image of Route 66 that writers like Lisa Mahar document. (Note, too,
the faux space-age arrow seemingly straight out of the 1950s, an arrow that was sup-
posed to signify progress. Now it points back to itself; it’s a symbol of the future that
harks back to the past.)
The travel stop is also a monument to American commercialism. Here, more than
100 bottles of electrolyte drink are displayed in a scene that seems a form of deliberately
constructed commercial beauty. My own view here is mediated by the photographs
of Andres Gursky, particularly his 99 Cent, a photograph of a convenience store in
Los Angeles. The bigger question is: can anyone be that thirsty? But the prominence
of these drinks also might signal the transition to the Desert Southwest, where people
worry about dehydration.
To me, the Moon Pie, Route 66, and Gatorade drinks in figures 13a–13c form
a triptych of road consumption, symbolizing the plenty one can find on the road,
as well as the way images speak to us in unexpected—and sometimes unexpectedly
beautiful—ways.

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 CHAPTER 13 READING AND WRITING ABOUT PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPACE 157

F I G U R E 13c

LANDSCAPE

Roads frame landscapes by guiding travelers through a particular area; they then
become part of what they frame, as the associated parts—guardrails, medians, exit
signs, and others, not to mention the podlike businesses that surround the exits—
become part of the landscape itself. In other words, the discussion about landscape
actually began in the previous section. The road’s landscape is also framed, however,
by the response of its travelers. For some, highways are anonymous, empty routes that
exist only as means of travel to one’s destination. For others, seeing unfamiliar land-
scapes, even if they bracket a long, relatively unchanged road, is part of the exploration
of travel.
A familiar landscape to one traveler might be exotic to another. Witness my own
traveling through the mid-section of the country. For those who grow up on the coasts,
the sheer flatness and vision of the land can be both breathtaking and, in the case of
weather, a little frightening. Shown are two shots taken from the road—the first (Fig.
13d) driving north in Arkansas, and the second (Fig. 13e) on I-70 in Kansas.
For me, someone who grew up in Connecticut, where the horizon is hidden by trees,
the big sky and flat plains are fascinating and beautiful. They suggest the openness so
commonly associated with the West and westward expansion, a hypnosis-inducing
means of crossing the country. But to others, they are just the background of daily
living. When I was in graduate school in Texas, I took my first journey across West
Texas on my way to Colorado to visit a friend. I was buoyed by the beauty of land-
scape throughout my travel, but I thought the cotton fields outside of Lubbock were

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 158 THE WORLD IS A TEXT

FIGURES
13d & 13e
particularly beautiful. I expressed this thought to a clerk at a convenience store, who
demanded to know where I was from.
“Connecticut,” I said.
She responded by saying something to the effect of “It’s beautiful there. This is ugly.”

SIGNS

Signs are literal markers on a highway, telling its travelers what to do (drive a speed
limit, slow down, change lanes) or where to go (St. Louis, Exit 287, north). But signs
are also signs of a different sort—they can be unpacked to show some of the idiosyn-
crasies of road travel. Fig. 13f, taken off I-70 in Utah, illustrates the many possibilities
one might choose to view the landscape. Standing in the rest area, an arbitrary location
carved out in this case to view the scenery, there is no possibility that one will go the
wrong way. So when looking backward, I was struck by the repetition of a sign that
seems superfluous in contrast to a “beautiful landscape.”
F I G U R E 13f

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 CHAPTER 13 READING AND WRITING ABOUT PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPACE 159

FIGURES
13g, 13h
& 13i
For those who find direct religious expression difficult to process, landscape com-
bined with religious signage sends several coded messages. Is the sign in Fig. 13g refer-
ring to the afterlife, or this particular place? Is Hell an emotional state, or a destination?
Maybe this sign is also about travel of a different sort.
And then we have signs that reveal much about the country we live in, such as the
Homeland Security sign taken in a rest stop in Richfield, Utah (Fig. 13h). Such a sign
could reveal the political leanings of the owner—not necessarily a statement of risk.
The signs in Fig. 13i suggest a great deal of options traveling across the country, a
mix of various routes, subroutes, and in the case of Route 66, historic or even nostalgic
routes. When approaching this intersection, knowing how (and not only where) one
is going seems imperative.

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 160 THE WORLD IS A TEXT

FIGURES
13j & 13k
And then we have these signs marking a bathroom in Utah (Fig. 13j), signaling the
sort of universality of highway travel—bathrooms where distinction is both signified
by inclusion of all three possible restroom symbols (and certainly a throwback—the
symbol for the women does not reflect any sort of standard of female dress in the
twenty-first century).
Although this is not actually a street sign (Fig. 13k), the bear and the hedges do
reveal through a close reading some of the concerns of this rest stop in Grand Junction,
Colorado. The bear is native to the area, but also a symbol of wildness and, more
important, of nature itself. In a way, so are the hedges next to the bear, on top of a
constructed stone wall, in front of manicured grass. But taken together, they suggest
a manicured nature, perhaps the nature that travelers prefer to encounter. Taken as a
whole, this photograph also reminds the traveler of his or her own home as well as
the pull of nature.
Another trip down another road might engender an entirely different semiotic expe-
rience and a different interpretation. The cultural and visual rhetoric of the road is
always active, although because it is stationary, it may feel passive. However, we are
the ones for whom the road and its many texts are designed. Paying attention to the
various associations bears, signs and products carry may help us understand how the
road tries to determine its own interpretation.

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