The Paradox of Place and the Evolution of Placelessness (original) (raw)

Place and Placelessness Revisited

Abstract

This essay examines the ways the paradoxical relationship between distinctiveness of place and uniformities of placelessness has varied from the subservience of placelessness to place in premodern times, to the era of modernist planning and architecture after WW2, when placelessness began to overwhelm place. Since then there has been an apparent resurgence of place distinctiveness, for instance because of heritage preservation loacalism, that has happened in the context of increased mobility, migrations and transnationalism, globalization and telecommunications. The evidence of urban landscapes suggests that placelessness has become intertwined with place distinctiveness. What was a dualism has become a fusion. Places in the 21st century are hybrids, simultaneously local and filled with remote and global influences.

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