Public, Private and Prague |
Privatising the "commonwealth" of New Zealand can be compared to the selling of the commons in England. Both have brought about such fundamental changes in the structure of society that their full significance to both architecture and urban design has not been recognised.
One of the deep structures of city form is the relationship between public space and private space. When that relationship changes everything else changes.
Prague is a likeable city. The transparent structure of public open space in Prague makes even the person who has never been there before feel that they belong. The Charles Bridge was not actually sponsored by Charles. Indeed Prague does not seem to have either a Charles Bank or a Charles Supermarket Chain. The bridge simply belongs to the common heritage of this place. It is part of the public domain so that even the visitor feels an absolute right to walk across the bridge, and lean over the parapets to watch the Vltave River flow by.Walking either east or west from the bridge through the network of cobbled streets the sense of belonging remains. The historic town has not yet been destroyed by a market economy where everything has a price, and nothing has value. At least it seems certain that in the midst of traumatic political change some things are beyond change. The wide promenade along the edge of the Vltave River seems as immutable as the Queen's Chain along the foreshore of New Zealand. In New Zealand our history is short enough for us to be astonished at the foresight of those visionaries who set aside the Queen's Chain. What brilliant planning it was to see what might be, and to catch the coastline before it was despoiled, so that it would never need to be clawed back metre by metre, with never a chance of regaining its full glory. This is the kind of planning which we could exercise now by banning all non-reversible architecture in Antarctica, and establishing a World Park before we destroy what never belonged to us. The cry for the right to exist by the people of Lithuania and the lichens of Antarctica may seem to be worlds apart but they are linked by the common need to make the right decision at this time of traumatic change. Visions of stewardship do not spring out of the void of the abyss. The promenade in Prague existed before the Queen's Chain. The lessons are there, just as the warning signs are there. The people of Prague cannot be expected to understand the threat to their vernacular traditions which is posed by the overseas experts who are rushing to sell them advice. New Zealand politicians can be excused as being simply ignorant when they set out to destroy the Queen's Chain, and Treasury has never been remarkable as a bastion of culture. What can be said though for the /Institute of Architects when they fail to defend our heritage and seek instead to ensure a profit by requesting a guarantee that all the buildings onthe Queen's Chain should be designed by architects? The changes taking place when New Zealand moves away from democracy are just as profound as the changes taking place when Czechoslovakia moves towards democracy. When the role of government is redefined it is necessary to acknowledge the changing relationship between public and private.
Vaclav Havel, the playwright president of Czechoslovakia, observed recently that "these revolutionary changes will enable us to escape from the rather antiquated straightjacket of this bi-polar view of the world, and to enter at last into an era of multi-polarity."
Nevertheless the tendency to seek to privatise the public domain is constantly with us. We all know of gallery directors who do not like people with sweaty breaths standing ih front of "their" paintings. We all know of librarians who dislike people coming in to look at "their" books.
Published in "Home and Building" August/September 1990 p133
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