Mikaela Martinez Dettinger- The Mountain, Tower, and Gehl

During my presentation on Eisenberg's Chapter 20, I greatly enjoyed the class's discussion on the Great Lawn and the debate about whether it was a mixer or divider between the mountain and tower of CNU. In a similar presentation given by a classmate in my Environmental Leadership class I learned about a man and his company that work specifically on creating spaces within cities, many of which function similar to our Great Lawn. His name is Jan Gehl. Gehl is a Danish architect who specializes in "making cities for people" meaning that he carves out space within existing city frameworks to make spaces conducive to the pleasurable things in life such as, talking, eating, and being. One notable example of this can be seen on one of the busiest streets near Times Squares, New York. Gehl and his team managed to close down a section of a street ner the heart of Times Square, redirect the traffic, and place small tables, umbrellas, and benches on the newly covered street to allow a place for people to gather and take in Times Square. Gehl's works often involve creating spaces where parks and nature are made more accesible within city life as well. What interests me, however, is his companies mission statement: "Making cities for people". 

Their mission statement makes me laugh. If cities aren't made for people, then who are they made for? they certainly are not made for animals or wildlife, and no one has let me into Area 51 yet so I would only be able to speculate that they might be made for aliens. Sarcasm aside, their actual mission is to increase people's quality of life within existing infrastructure by making space for people to just be. Heidegger would probably find the need for a project like this very appropriate. In his work Building and Dwelling, Heidegger defines dwelling, as preserving, as keeping the fourfold in that which mortals stay (Building and Dwelling 150) he argues that dwelling is something which nurtures things and that Building is how humans dwell. However, the need for Gehl's projects shows that the building with which we have covered our earth is certainly not a method of dwelling because it doesn't even nurture us. We have to carve out pieces of what we built to specifically make space for nurturing our own selves. This is something that should be taken into consideration much more in construction. We are already not leaving space for the ecological world to flourish, and now we are not leaving space for ourselves to flourish either. We should focus less on efficiency and our constructions of time and progress and focus more on living. Even Pope Francis pointed out what he called the "rapidification" of life, meaning that we have not left time for ourselves to enjoy living. More projects like Gehl's would be helpful in correcting this problem where it already exists, but the meaning behind his project needs to be thought about in future construction. If we are going to damage the ecological world for our own comfort we should at least create a place of dwelling so that we might enjoy our time in life, and perhaps this would lead us back to the natural world one we learn to dwell and see the fourfold.