Talking about automobiles in an architectural, urban and social context may seem to be a boring cliché since there has been never-ending discourses and countless projects on the basis of this topic, and it has been accepted as an inevitable part of the urban life for long. But it may also be true, on the other hand, that framing effect–as a cognitive bias–blinds us, in this case, to see other aspects of the topic and put us in a situation where we “cannot see the wood for the trees”. Regarding the probability of being biased and a personal interest in the unique character of the car–specifically as a moving micro-space inside a macro-space (the city or streets)–an architectural practice started recently.
Perhaps it’s hard for us to imagine the enthusiasm of driving the car for the first time in the history or living in an era which automobiles were just invented. The confusion about sitting in a moving space may not be obvious anymore or the fact that car can make a border between man and its environment which leads to create psychological privacy and security may seem foreign to some. But considering the interior space of the car as a heterotopic space makes the discussion more understandable.
In fact, the term Heterotopia, was introduced in Foucault’s essay Of Other Spaces (not a real essay, in fact, but notes for a lecture) as such:
"...There are also, probably in every culture, in every civilization, real places—places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society—which are something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted. Places of this kind are outside of all places, even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality. Because these places are absolutely different from all the sites that they reflect and speak about, I shall call them, by way of contrast to utopias, heterotopias."[1]
To clarify the connection between the notion of heterotopic spaces and interior space of automobiles, let’s look at some discussions around Foucault’s note. Christine Boyer, for instance, in a part of his article, takes ship as an example of a heterotopia when he writes:
"The ship becomes Foucault’s heterotopia par excellence–this morsel of floating space is the greatest instrument of economics and the greatest reserve of imagination, both real and illusory. Civilizations without boats he surmises are like infants whose parents do not have a large bed on which to play; their dreams will run dry; spying will replace adventure and the hideousness of the police will eradicate the beauty that shines forth from dashing corsairs."[2]
Starting to compare the common characters of automobiles and ships gets us closer to clarify the assumption of the car as a heterotopic space. Generally, there are three features understood from Foucault’s note Of Other Spaces and other heterotopic articles that can be traced in interior space of the automobile as heterotopic space including
a) Architectural features
b) Social aspects
c) The duality of meaning/existence
Let’s look at the interior space of the car from each of these points of view and see whether these heterotopic features can be applicable to it or not.
Car and Its Architectural Features
Based on the idea that architectural features of the space effects those who experience it, when Miloje Grbin discusses the power/knowledge relation of architectural spaces, he analyzes the characteristics of hospitals, prisons, and schools from Foucault’s point of view as such:
"Partitioning the space of the hospital to serve the needs of the medicinal discourse and it’s (social) practices has another different function where the role of space is fundamental. Space here appears as the medium of articulation and implementation of the power/knowledge of the discourse.
… The similar relation between an institution and its spatial configuration can also be seen in Foucault’s analysis of the prison model of Panoptikon, in Discipline and Punish. As hospitals, Panoptikon operates also on the principle of spatial isolation of the body but moves even further.
… Foucault's analysis of clinic and prison and their analogies to classrooms and factories reveal the common characteristic of these institutions and the power/knowledge they operate by.[3]
Car’s interior as a designed space has specific architectural features as well. The scale of the space as the first factor is smaller than any existing room you can imagine but it also keeps some privacy for passengers by the way seats are arranged. In fact, where seats–apart from being organizers for space–are located inside the car is considered as the most comfortable and intimate space. On the contrary, the immediate location of doors next to the seats gives a confusing–somehow uncomfortable–feeling of lack of security when you remember by a touch of a finger you will be out. An invisible structured system of social relationships can also be traced in the car. A system in which driver has the most important role in it from the technical point of view since the driver is the only one who controls the steering wheel and processes the technical and complex execution of driving the car, the final decision-maker who decides where to go and the only person who can control outdoor and indoor activities of other occupants through mirrors as an excessive controlling tool. That’s how an unintentional power hierarchy is set in the car and specific importance is given to the driver; the arrangement of the seats also harmonizes this situation generally by dividing the space into two (here only the typical arrangement of seats is considered): the front seats and the back seats.
Accordingly, front seats seem to be more comfortable. Firstly, because they’re the closest to the source of control–the steering wheel–and secondly, because there is more control over the outdoor environment as the visual contact is stronger in front seats where you face with the widescreen in front and side-screens on your left and right. The situation is different for the back seats when the row of the front seat blocks a part of the visual contact with the outdoor environment and side-screens on the right and left are the only windows directly in contact with passengers.
These common features which can be found in all types of automobiles have led to standardization in car design’s industry, a term which was used by Le Corbusier in his book Towards New Architecture:
The motor-car is an object with a simple function (to travel) and complicated aims (comfort, resistance, appearance), which has forced on big industry the absolute necessity of standardization.[4]
The on-going competition, in fact, is partly about the modification of elements in interior space, involving technology in pursuit of comfort and safety and sometimes a luxurious response to the consumerism. But in any case, perception of the interior space is the focus of interest and its quality is still one leg of the design process.
Car As a Social Space
Understanding that the definition of the heterotopia is partly related to the cultural/social context of the origin through Foucault’s point of view is well constructed in Miloje Grbin’s article Foucault and Space when he writes:
Heterotopic status of the place is defined by the social and cultural praxis that is connected to it, or through the meanings and messages that heterotopic space emits. Realizing that every culture in the ory of mankind has its own various heterotopias, we should also realize the ersal need for other spaces, as spaces where a cultural praxis or social need is being conducted away from this space, this society/culture, at last,this world, this life, and this reality.
... Social space, as reading Foucault can reveal, represents more than physical, material and thus empirical reality. We cannot make knowledge about social space through the mere positivist scientific observation and measuring because it includes socio-cultural, symbolic layers that are open to different readings.[5]
Regarding this notion, there is a unique opportunity for social/cultural interaction in the interior space of the car which is relatively different based on the society and culture of the origin. To clarify the statement, let’s consider taxi as a space of social interaction and compare the process of taking a taxi in a European city like Milan and a Middle-Eastern city like Tehran as a simple daily activity. In Milan, the available options for taking the taxi is either Uber/Uber-like/radio-taxis or taxi stands in specific locations. Since by taking any of these options, you’re already taking a Private Taxi to reach your destination, the social interaction between the passenger(s) and the taxi driver generally happens in a formal manner which rarely goes beyond the routine daily conversations. In Tehran though, it gets more complicated where apart from all available options of a city like Milan, there is another choice for taking a taxi which I call it Public Taxi. In other words, the term Private Taxi refers to the taxi which gives services only to you during the trip and no one else is allowed to take it (it is also called vacant/occupied taxi) while Public Taxi refers to a situation where you take a taxi which is already occupied by other passengers. In this case, the taxi has a defined route to pass in the city and its transportation system is quite like the transportation system with specific routes. But the main difference is that except the first and last stations for taking the taxi, there is no specific station along the route, and you can ask the driver to take off the car wherever you want.
For understanding the situation of being in a Public Taxi, imagine you are standing along the street, waiting for a taxi. A Public Taxi will stop, and you shout your destination, if it is the same as the route which the taxi is working in, you can get in. Sitting next to strangers in a small and intimate space like a car may seem awkward for Europeans but it’s a typical situation for an Iranian who take a Public Taxi. It may also seem contradictory for a religious country like Iran to have this level of flexibility in social behaviors as sometimes there is a religious woman who wears hijab and sits next to a man, a total stranger.
Considering the Iranian social/cultural context, some unique moments of social interaction happens inside a taxi. Blaming the economic situation, questioning the performance of the government, expressing political dissatisfaction, an old memory or even an irritating personal problem can be a perfect excuse for opening up a conversation with strangers and pass the annoying moments of waiting in traffic by starting a social conversation. These sorts of conversations mostly are followed by the other passengers and are void of dead silences. In the case of expressing a personal problem, for example, it may be responded sympathetically by another passenger who joins the conversation and makes a temporal intimacy.
An interesting social feature of Public Taxis is the temporal chance of starting a conversation with those who you don’t know at all. Being in a space that no one is known can also give you a sort of comfort, confidence, and freedom to express and not to be worried about pre-judgments, to free yourself and share.
Car And The Duality of Meaning|Existence
The notion of considering the car as a micro-space moving inside a macro-space as the city will fit under this section. The location of the passenger who sits in a car can be confusing in a sense that it simultaneously locates with fixed coordinates (if car is the reference) and changing coordinates (based on the geographic coordinate system). In other words, a part of this confusion comes from the way which in and out is constructed through the structure of the car as there is a specific border (body of the car) which separates passengers from the outside world. But at the same time, a transparent ribbon of glasses wrapped around the space for the visual contact with outside. Thus, the passenger feels to be inside a space (the car) and outside another (the city) while it is inside both at the same time. There is also a visual and cinematic presentation of the city through the windows of the car which inform passengers about their position while the other senses of perception such as touch, smell and sight are either weakened or blocked. In this regard, car is somehow corresponding with the idea of considering mirror and cemetery as a heterotopia, two examples found in Foucault’s notes.
Although the ambiguity of Foucault’s note about the notion of heterotopia is still considerable and a significant number of spaces and phenomena can be counted as heterotopias, there are common points which connects the idea of heterotopia with the car as a space and visible signs of social and psychological behavior which specifically occurs inside this space and supports the statement of this essay. Thinking about the car as a heterotopic space may only seem a charming and deceptive title to brag about. Without any doubt, avoiding titles and “-ism”s is the first step towards critical thinking. But understanding the complexity of the universe we’re living in is impossible if there is no frame to look through. Here as well, heterotopia was chosen as a frame to control the process of understanding the features of the space we’re living in and spending most of our daily hours inside which hopefully may help to improve its quality and gets us a step closer to a better living condition of the time by having more information about them. In fact, this was the initial reason for being curious about what does being inside a car mean and feel.
[1] Foucault, M. & Miskowiec, J., 1984. Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias. October.
[2] Boyer, M. C., n.d. The many mirrors of Foucault and their architectural reflections. In: Heterotopia and the city: public space in a post civil society. s.l.:s.n., pp. 54-55.
[3] Grbin, M., 2015. Foucault and space. Socioloski pregled, Issue 49, pp. 305-312.
[4] Corbusier, L., 1931. Towards a New Architecture. London: Dover Publications.
[5] Grbin, M., 2015. Foucault and space. Socioloski pregled, Issue 49, pp. 305-312.
No comments.