??Placelessness??

This blog will explore humanity's sense of placelessness. Lipovac (1997) asserts the sense of placelessness follows the ‘logic of nothing but economic development’. Resulting in clone-designed supermarkets and franchises that result in characterless settings. However the design of shopping centers is a very clever strategy to impact on consumer shopping trends, commonly referred to as the Gruen Effect or the Gruen transfer, (Hardwick, 2004). This blog suggests that the sense of placelessness is the same as a sense of place. It is based on the individual’s perception of the place. This places placelessness not as an absolute but as a subjective experience of the place. An abandoned decrepit industrial building may have no aesthetic appeal but it is still a place. And if the aesthetic appeal defines place as opposed to placelessness then inevitable, though frequent use, all landscapes will become banal.

Business and firms that create these characterless setting spend millions studying consumer behaviours. Consumer conformity is one aspect of these studies. Ghazza (2012) asserts “Ghazzai and Lahmandi-Ayed (2009) study a similar model where consumer’s behaviour is characterized by conformity and where consumers belong to the same social network if they buy products exhibiting close characteristics.” Ghazza goes on to suggest consumer conformity is also established though a need to be liked by a certain group. Therefore the very characterless places Lipovic refers to is a result of the consumer.

As the picture suggest humans have a place in physical reality. Attributing placelessness to merely an object of perception. Lipovac (1997 pg. 2) asserts for the later part of the century the search for identity of place and with place has become more intensive. Therefore, predominantly the sense of placelessness is merely the projection of the placelessness the individual feels as opposed to physical environments. Furthermore Oliver Sacks explores this intrinsic sense of placelessness in his book Awakenings, asserting, “For all of us have a basic, intuitive feeling that once we were whole and well; at ease, at home in the world, totally united with the grounds of our being; and that then we lost this primal, happy, innocent state, and fell into our present sickness and suffering. We had something of infinite beauty and preciousness – and we lost it; we spend our lives searching for what we have lost; and one day, perhaps, we will suddenly find it.”

To conclude Lipovac (1997 pg. 14), Haynes (2015) suggest ‘“modern society” tended to destroy all the richness of place’ or sense or spirit* of place.” However aforementioned and as Auguste (1886) suggests 'If our gods and our hopes are nothing but scientific phenomena, then it must be said that our love is scientific as well', inferring an absence of the metaphysical and/or spirituality, thus placelessness in merely an object of perception.

Reference List

Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, (1886) L’Ève Future (Tomorrow's Eve).

Ghazzai, H. (2012). Consumer Conformity and Vanity in Vertically Differentiated Markets. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3(15).

Hayes, A. (2015) BA1002: our space: networks, narratives & making of place, week 5 notes [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-1997266-dt-content-rid-2748684_1/courses/15-BA1002-CNS-EXT_INT-SP2/BA1002%20Week%205%20Experience%20of%20Place%20and%20Pecha%20Kucha%201%20Lectorial%20Revised%20version%20for%20PDF.pdf

Lipovac, N. (1997). Prostor i mjesto. Prostor: znanstveni časopis za arhitekturu i urbanizam, 5(1 (13)), 1-34.

Hardwick, M. J., & Gruen, V. (2004). Mall maker: Victor Gruen, architect of an American dream. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Sacks, O. W. (1999). awakenings (Revis ed.). New York: Vintage Books. (pp.26-27)

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