Public space: the use of vertical and air planes

Journal of a Gadabout (14) by Dr. A. Remesar

The public space is structured in four planes: that of the ground, the vertical (not exclusively of facade); the plane of the air and a fourth plane that can be called zenital. The most studied is the horizontal plane, built from infrastructures, elements of urban service (lighting, vegetation, signage, etc.) and interfacing with urban systems (water, electricity, gas, etc.), with the omnipresent elements of paving. (see)

The study of the vertical plane is reduced to the analysis of the facades, although the vertical containment of public space goes beyond the facades. (see)

The plane of the air and the zenith plane are the least studied. The plane of the air unfolds in the air space between the vertical plane and the plane of the ground. While the zenital plane every day takes more strength due to the location of new energy systems (solar panels) and the gradual importance that gardens acquire on the roof of buildings.

Chicago. Roof gardens and energy facilities-

1.- LODZ. The fantasy of the vertical plane. Neither painting, nor sculpture, nor ceramics: mirrors

The passage Rózy Joanny Rajkowska was created in 2013-2014 as part of the Lodz Czeterech Kultur festival: Festival artistic director: Zbigniew Brozoza, cooperation: Dorota Krauze and Jacek Wisniewski, with the support of the Mia 100 Kamienic program; Academy of Fine Arts (porf. Zdzislwowi Olenjniczakowi), Institute of Philosophy of the Lodz University (dr. Wioletta Kazimierska- Jerzyk).

The first time I saw him, I immediately thought of the “Quixote”, specifically in the “Knight of the mirrors” that the bachelor Sansón Carrasco incarnated.

2.- LODZ. Textile levity

Since 2009, the Urban Forms Foundation is developing an extensive program of murals (currently 90), many of them made by urban artists. Certain urbanistic practices of the communist era that sought to sponge certain areas of the city by opening spaces between the buildings, produced an extensive repertoire of walls, gray and ugly.

Although most of the Urban Forms experiences are developed on the walls, in the case of the old market square, it has experimented, even in temporary installations, intervening in the plane of the air.

“The dramatic destruction of a large part of the Old Town in Lodz committed by the Nazis was compounded by the communist authorities that removed all the traces of its form and function. For that reason The Old Market, which was once the historical city centre, became useless and problematic” (Wioletta Kazimierska- Jerzyk, 2015)

2016.- Koncert na wstążki (Concert for ribbons) by Jerzy Janiszewski. The installation is again in 2017