ABSTRACT
In the panoramic peasant scenes depicted in the works of Peter Bruegel the Elder, the sixteenth-century painter, and in William Hogarth’s paintings of eighteenth-century street life, the vitality of the public spaces and their many different functions is displayed. The public arena has long contained marketplaces, vendors of various kinds of merchandise, entertainers, children playing, rituals and celebrations, casual and arranged meetings and a much enjoyed activity—gazing at the passing scene. After the development of designed spaces for public life, especially marketplaces, commons areas, squares and plazas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and parks in the nineteenth century, many of these activities occurred in settings specifically designed to accommodate them. However, some of these same activities and others, spontaneous and ad hoc, occur in “found spaces,” places intended for other uses that people have occupied to meet their public life needs. By looking closely at contemporary found spaces and their uses and users, we can discover much about public behavior and come closer to understanding what people are seeking in their use of the public domain.
