Buildings as Objects of Care in the Urban Environment

Urban environments globally are changing due to rapid new urban development and both short- and long-term technological and environmental change. Experiential accounts and further study of the effects of this change in the built environment are thus urgently needed. Philosophical and applied urban aesthetics is well equipped to contribute in updating our understanding of how development and management of urban areas can be conceptualized from the perspective of human values. Individual buildings form a significant part of new urban development, whether newly built or old buildings in need of maintenance or alteration. Buildings in urban environments also embody forward-looking values and reflections on how cities and human societies will develop in the future through their aesthetic and functional qualities. Human beings form many types of relations with buildings, through planning and construction activities and by using, operating, maintaining and, in some cases, by ultimately demolishing them. These relations are formed based on intended but also unintended effects of preceding human actions. In order to further explicate these complex relations, this article brings together intergenerational ethics with urban aesthetics with emphasis on the notion of care.