Passing a square

Nancy, France, Place Stanislas

A few weeks ago I wrote here about a series of photos I presented recently at a photo exhibition in my town. These photos were mainly landscapes but what was special was that each photo was framed by a natural frame, for instance a window frame. Just by the frames the pictures got a philosophical meaning, for don’t we all look at the world through our mental frames? However, I presented then also another series of photos, which showed pictures on a theme that seems meaningless at first sight: People crossing squares. Why taking pictures of such an ordinary if not banal event that is not conspicuous in any sense and doesn’t seem worth to remember? In a way you are right, I think, when you say that we can ignore such daily events like – in this case – crossing squares. Nevertheless I don’t agree with you. In order to explain that I’ll concentrate on the theme of the exhibition (people crossing squares) but it’s only an example of the “banal” things we do.

Actually squares are quite prominent in a town. Some are even famous, like Trafalgar Square in London, St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City or the Red Square in Moscow. It’s not without reason, for a square can have all kinds of functions like being a market place, a place where people meet, a place where buildings of a certain type are concentrated, and many more. Squares are also connecting and communicating spaces. They are places you must pass when you want to move from one part of a town to another part. In the latter sense they are transit places, or as I prefer to call them: passages. Squares are not the only kind of passages. Other passages are, for instance, waiting rooms, highways and railway stations. One characteristic of passages is that you want to pass them as quickly as possible. Or sometimes you use them in a way related to their meaning of a passage: If you are too early for an appointment, it’s a nice place to wait just there. Usually squares got their function as a passage and their other functions not by chance: They have been made that way. Towns develop around markets. Museums are deliberately concentrated around a square. Spaces are left open as meeting places. Squares are essential when planning a town.

Just this given functionality makes that passing a square is not an accidental affair. People are – often unconsciously – led along squares. City planners can have made it so that you have to pass them (because of the pattern of the streets). People may like it to pass them if they find them beautiful, even if they don’t give attention to the beauty once they are there, because they are in a hurry. And look: most people pass squares in the same way, along the same lines. Such things make that from a philosophical and sociological point of view passing a square is not an event without meaning, even if it may lack meaning from the point of view of the passer-by. Passing a square is one of the simple and apparently banal things that make up life, just like many other simple actions do like emptying your mail box, going to the baker’s, taking a breakfast, waiting in a waiting room. Actually such things are essential for life and we necessarily spend a lot of time on them. They cover also a big part of our planning when we prepare what we see as a meaningful event like a party. Just this is the meaning of “banality” in daily life, like passing a square.

Recommended authors: Michel de Certeau, Marc Augé.

More photos of passing a square on: http://www.henkbijdeweg.nl/fotos/128627778_Open+ruimtes.html#.WE7Tz6KbjNA