ABSTRACT
We have seen how the quest to replicate the street and the square as a means of freely ‘transferring’ material goods, knowledge, secrets, movement, culture, spiritual or political message through the semi-public realm has not always provided the full benefit of the freedoms associated with the public domain. The dominant powers vested in the private interests of property developments have often defined how, and when, such social spaces are to be used in order to maintain social control and, from a real estate perspective, preserve asset value. Today, technology further reduces the need for co-presence in space, as society can glean the very same commodities of transference virtually via the internet. This effectively renders the role of public, and even semi-public, space increasingly obsolete. Our sense of being social in public therefore becomes deliberate and planned, as opposed to being the result of daily casual interaction that is spontaneous and unplanned. We pass through an increasing number of privatised transitional social spaces that permit movement in order to visit the retail mall, the cinema, the café or the museum that act as privatised destinations that society plans to meet in.
