Sanna Lehtinen: "Urban Aesthetics"

Sanna Lehtinen, University of Helsinki: "Urban Aesthetics: Merging Environmental Aesthetics and the Philosophy of the City"

Abstract
In this talk, I focus on presenting urban aesthetics as an emerging and actively developing subfield of philosophical aesthetics. Philosophical interest in the aesthetic aspects of contemporary global cities has its origins in the environmental aesthetic discussions of the 1990s and it has been significantly strengthened by the recent developments in everyday aesthetics. Pointing out some of the central questions and concepts of urban aesthetics sheds light on the specific philosophical underpinnings of the field. These are linked mainly to the influence and range of human activity over nature as well as the temporal dimensions of spatial configurations that enable and support human activities of various types. The main aim of the talk is to present ways in which urban aesthetics brings together some of the central concepts and questions from both environmental aesthetics and the philosophy of the city.