Summary
Understanding and awareness of the concept of space as the platform for the manifestation of human life has continually been a controversial topic among scholars of architecture and urban studies. A review of the literature in this field demonstrates that numerous scholars have attempted to interpret the concept using different knowledge areas, including natural sciences, social sciences, and art. It has led to distinct interpretations of the concept. However, evaluating these findings reveals that each of these approaches, due to its rational base, can partially explain the concept of space, which is not considered a comprehensive insight of the the space as a subjective-objective concept. On the other hand, it seems that landscape, being formed from the interactions of three other approaches, can offer a holistic approach toward the entirety of space, leading to the most comprehensive interpretation. This chapter attempts to evaluate and compare four approaches toward the space concept to determine the most accurate and practical one. It reveals that all three approaches of natural sciences, social sciences, and art lack the conceptual bases required to evaluate the space concept accurately. While, over 500 years, the landscape approach evolved into a concept that can simultaneously interpret the subjective and objective aspects of the space, making it, at least at present, the best-suited approach for the holistic study of this phenomenon.
A landscape approach resulted from conceptual interactions, having various approaches of social sciences, humanities, and arts that make it a multifaceted one, can present a holistic approach that simultaneously considers subjectivity and objectivity of space (subjective-objective).
The code of this chapter is 01001100 01100001 01101110 01100100 01110011 01100011 01100001 01110000 01100101 00001101 00001010.
Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
T. S. Eliot
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The significant difference between the two fields is related to the function and critique of productions; however, to concentrate on the arts field in this chapter, this section was considered as a social science, which varies from academic one, including sciences related to humanities as well.
- 3.
Aristotle believed art to be a part of the three formal and abstract activities of humanity and their relevant results. Theoria: which is concerned with the theoretical knowledge of man and his understanding of the relationships between things, praxis, which refers to man’s activities in order to satisfy his desires, and poiesis, which is an unoriginal and imitative activity concerned with representations of the outside world. Aristotle attributes art to this category [12].
- 4.
Prior to the Renaissance Period, artistic depictions of a selected natural scene for aesthetic purposes were not common since the art of painting had been generally reserved for mythological, theological, and abstract themes. Roger attributes the works of artists such as Jan Van Eyck and Robert Campin to the emergence of the concept of landscape in this period [20].
- 5.
Place is a subjective-objective concept characterized with not only quantitative and physical attributes, but also non-physical ones such as the emotional response of its audience. Schultz describes it as a “subjective and objective phenomenon” in a holistic sense [29].
- 6.
Symbols themselves are subjective-objective phenomena possessing formal attributes and semantic dimensions in relationship to the minds of their audiences whose understanding of symbols is possible only through holistically approaching them. In order to interpret urban landscapes, it is therefore vital to have a holistic approach as a great many of the constituent elements in the landscape of a city are symbolic ones.
- 7.
The emphasis of scholars and experts on the uniformity of landscape as a discipline is due to the fact that subjective-objective phenomena are formed in a new context of conceptualization absolutely untranslatable through atomistic approaches. What is represented as an interpretation of a uniform totality by atomistic approaches is not only not a translation of parts of a whole, but also a conceptually different and fundamentally contradictory one.
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Keramati Niaragh, E., Hemmati, M., Forouzandeh, M., Mansouri, S.A., Rezaei, N. (2022). Landscape: A Holistic Approach to Space. In: Rezaei, N. (eds) Transdisciplinarity. Integrated Science, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94651-7_19
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