intimate experiences of place
this is a short summary of the chapter "Intimate Experiences of Place", pages 136-148 from Yu Fu-Tuan's Book "On Space and Place", the perspective of experience. It's a summary that I I have written using voice.
essentially what the author says in this chapter is that intimate places and in particular places that we consider to be a home depend on people rather than objects or design. So an intimate place for a child is anywhere that is close to the parent. Places that seem intimate when we experience them with friends can suddenly seem like awful places when that friend is no longer around to share it. we can attempt to create intimate spaces by doing things like planting trees, and this can encourage intimacy but human beings often appropriate spaces and create intimacy for themselves regardless of what the planner or a designer hopes for a place/space. The author also describes how an intimate place is not something that you can objectify or necessarily describe....as soon as you point out something that is intimate, it just becomes an object. Intimacy is something that must be glanced at through the corner of your eye. In other words intimate spaces are elusive. As such he suggests that words cannot always capture what it is that makes a place intimate but that art, whether poetry, writing, painting or music can be far more successful at capturing the beauty of intimate space. "Art makes images of feelings so that feeling is accessible to contemplation and thought....By the light of their art we are privilieged to savor experience that would otherwise have faded beyond recall.He is a seeming paradox: thought creates distance and destroys the iimediacy of direct experience, yet it is by throughtful reflection that the elusive momements of the past draw near to us in preset reality and gain a measure of performance".
I have to say that this book is so beautifully written that I could probably quote any sentence and they would all seem deeply insightful.