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I am fascinated by these guidelines., which have a quality of both being negative, i.e. against an aesthetics of unification which is exclusionary, and a double negative, i.e. for the beauty of congestion, mixing, complexity, etc. A double negative becomes a positive. Look at them again.

Guideline 1, Preserve Evidence of Failed Aesthetic Unification;

Guideline 2, Use Street Furniture of a Multitude of Occupations;

Guideline 3, Celebrate the Socioeconomics of Signage.

Design guidelines of this type posit a direct link between a type of organic aesthetic of urban dynamism, its related economics, and the openness and possibility inherent in an architecture of the everyday. In essence, you have to like and appreciate the architecture and urbanism of hybridity in order to both recognize it and nurture it.

Yet, this type of aesthetic is never defined as beautiful form. That is a shame. The day that this type of urbanism is understood as a beautiful norm to be promoted is the day the gentrification pressure which would destroy it melts away.]]> John Kaliski http://places.designobserver.com/feature/street-cred/15658/#comments 2010-10-10T00:51:50-05:00