Contrasting Paradigms of Aesthetic Value: Between Past & Future

A viable critique on how planners and city officials approach a project is the clear minimal role, or lack thereof, they give to the local communities in determining the outcome and trajectory which they will have to live through. Not everything self-proclaiming as a community involvement or engagement is as such. This research project was primarily concerned with the utter disregard of any local and communal consideration of what determines an “aesthetic value." Beauty is often talked about as if its criteria, or the standard with which it is measured, are universal. The mere logic of using beauty, and the process of beautification can be seen as a stick with which developers can beat local communities into submission. Hence, this project more particularly delved into two contrasting aesthetic values and practices by which they are used—or abused. Between a paradigm which helplessly look at a chosen past with a seemingly innocent and nostalgic sentimental reverence, and another which abruptly disregards the past and eagerly looks at a desired, and mostly fictitious and impalpable future instead, this project is an aim at tackling the apparent contrasting ways of looking at aesthetics as a regulatory tool and a mean of both power and authenticity. The past/future contrast has an inherent explanatory power, and that is precisely what this project aimed to look for.