ABSTRACT
There is one dimension of place that is easily overlooked, a dimension that may be the most critical of all because it concerns the most primary sort of experience – aesthetic. Our understanding of place, multi-faceted though it be, can be enlarged still further by an increased awareness of its aesthetic dimension. This chapter explores the possibility that, in grasping the aesthetic character of place, we are not merely identifying another aspect of this complex idea but rather are probing its very centre. Like Plotinus' sun, the aesthetic radiance of place illuminates its every appearance, even as its intensity decreases the farther we go from its source until place merges with the all-encompassing darkness of its negation. One crucial feature is that by introducing the aesthetic dimension, place becomes demarcated by the range of perception. This restricts its scope in any instance to the particular context of perceptual experience.
