Another Look at the City: Emphasizing Temporality in Urban Aesthetics

Abstract: Cities are usually formed over long periods of time. The subjective experience of time on the scale of a human individual comes together with the longer lifespan of human made constructions in contemporary cities. Intergenerational aesthetic values are negotiated together with short-term trends and both have an influence on how cities become perceived, experienced, and used. Changes in the material conditions define the aesthetic qualities of urban environments. Building, demolition, and acts of care and maintenance are needed to keep the material system of the city functioning. The forms of urban structures draw direct aesthetic attention as they are being designed and redesigned in these processes. Buildings and architecture as such have for long carried meanings beyond the mere function of giving shelter. Building materials, for example, prove to be a central source of new meanings as they are currently being re-evaluated from the perspective of ecological and sustainability values. This article outlines how philosophical urban aesthetics can take into account the explicit aspects of aesthetic value change in cities. The article shows how the idea of aesthetic sustainability could be introduced into urban aesthetics in a way that will increase our understanding of how aesthetics and sustainability are and could further be interlinked in contemporary and future urban environments.