Cities, Landscapes, and Art exist in space that has developed since ancient times as a part of everyday life. The concepts of art, landscape, and urban and public open spaces could be defined in different forms, but they also always include interrelated meanings. Today, the design of the spaces where art is exhibited and reaches society is among the tasks of landscape architects and urban designers. One such practice of landscape architecture and urban design is Public art.

Public art is a practice that is shaped by the aesthetic understanding where art, content, and the

process are more important than the resulting product and interacts with all components of the space including the users. There is a mutual relationship between art and space, where space provides different means of communication for art, and art contributes to public space by raising design quality, creating an aesthetic value, and enforcing the spatial perception.

Types of Public art

Public art aims and desires the integration with the audience and to create a space. In this context, landscape architects also generate ideas on how urban, public spaces need to

look, function, and live, and these ideas first turn into plans, then into roads and streets. At the same time, cities are stimulating areas that inspire creativity and imagination. The city offers considerable inspirational resources for the artist. The designed urban spaces could be a part of the art. Generally, public art can be classified into three types based on medium.

2D visual art - which includes street art, pavement painting, and sometimes facades of public buildings.
3D visual art- which includes sculptures, installations, outdoor exhibitions, and urban furniture
Performance art - Street dance and other Performances

Why does it matter?

Here are some of the reasons why Public art matters.

1. Placemaking

Primarily art encourages us to interact with the space in which it is located. It contributes to place-making as it forms the core of civic life in cities. It brings people together and helps us share and connect. For example, the Before I die walls designed by Candy Chang invited people to the park to interact and engage with the place. Anyone walking by this wall could take up a piece of chalk and share their personal hopes and dreams by completing the line, “Before I die, I want to …………”. Thus place-making remains a key imperative in public art programming.

2. Revitalization of abandoned space

Public art can create civic icons, but it also can transform our playgrounds, train stations, and airports into more vibrant expressions of human expressions. By doing so, it can revitalize us as a community and regenerate the social and economic conditions of space. The skate spot at the Krympsky overpass is the best example of this case. Before the reconstruction, this place under the skyway was used as a parking lot. Thus, it was quite abandoned and featureless. The place is located close to the metro station and a central park, which made it perfect for transforming it into a skate spot. Now, this public space is a part of Moscow’s social life and a new point of attraction for young people.

3. Social value and Collaboration

The effort of creating public art for a space is not solitary. It needs collaboration with others throughout the development. In consequence, the work can reverberate throughout the community, thereby encouraging a sense of shared ownership and collective affiliation. It adds social value to the place and inclusion of the public with new methods that are different from the approaches of practitioners of other disciplines because their concerns are different. All the public art must engage the community they build for.

4. Community identity

Having a particular community identity, especially in terms of what our towns look like, is becoming even more important in the world. Places with strong public art expressions give communities a stronger sense of place and identity. If public art is absent, then the identity of humans as a community is absent. For example, St+art India Foundation reimagined the identity of the Kannagi Nagar locality with the help of 15 artists from around the world. Kannagi Nagar is the largest resettlement project in India, with the people replaced from different parts of Chennai, and so the people lost their identities. The new open-air theatre and artworks by St+art India changed the adverse perceptions of the Kannagi Nagar and gave the locality a new identity.

5. Cultural value

Public art, apart from giving social and economic values to a place, adds cultural values to a larger extent. Artists always bring personal and distinctive interpretations to each site, social construct, and aesthetic potential. It strives to give new cultural identity and value to the place. Level-up is one such public installation that revitalizes the cultural identity of Rijeka. Level-up is a pavilion with different levels that forms an intimate yet connective space for small groups to gather and at the same time provides a public frontage and awareness of the ongoing cultural regeneration of the Export Drvo building. It is set to become an important venue when Rijeka became Europe’s cultural capital in 2020.

6. Aesthetic value

The major purpose of public art is to attract visitors. And so, the aesthetic value becomes the key to any public art. Many roadside pavements and crosswalks attract visitors and create awareness through bright and vibrant colors. One such example is a painted crosswalk and “parklet” in Utah. The colors were inspired by the bright sky, vivid signage, and other elements found along Main Street. The oversized rings are intentional and meant to inspire the local community to continue the design through the entire intersection, where Main Street and civic spaces meet.

7. Urban image

As we can see, public art in relation to the city acts as a tool to establish the uniqueness, distinctiveness, and attractiveness of the place and the city. Such art becomes the image of the city. One such installation that became the attraction of the city is the Cloud gate in Chicago. The sculpture is accessible to everyone and we shall take photos of/with it. This installation has solely created a visual identity for the park, as well as the neighborhood, and now serves as a successful precedent of arts-based Urban landmarks that we would always remember.

Conclusion

In conclusion, urban designers and landscape architects who create or shape urban spaces

should avoid considering artistic work in urban public spaces as merely decorative or space-filling elements, but they should consider the artistic dimension as a component of planning or design at the outset, and guide their designs in this perspective.

Why do Public art matter in Landscape and Urban design?