This chapter examines the intersection of consumption, context, and scale. The analysis begins with current views of scale in relation to the concept of creativity, arguing that current theory and research often carries a presumed equivalence of large-scale consumption and creative value. The case of the fields of modern architecture and urbanism is then used as an example to understand dynamics that can arise in the real world at the intersection of consumption, context, and scale. These dynamics are analyzed using the concept of field and autonomous-heteronomous tension in producer–consumer relations from the work of Pierre Bourdieu. The point of using this case is not to conclude that all fields work like architecture and urbanism but to define an initial list of questions that can be asked in many contexts. What continuums of scale are of interest and how are they interacting? What positions are producers and consumers taking in the field? How do people consume and how are they consumed by the field and its works? What functions does context serve? How do, or could, those functions shift over time? What epistemological assumptions are at play?

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Consumption. Is Scale a Modern Miracle or the Modern Sin?

  • Michael Hanchett Hanson

摘要

This chapter examines the intersection of consumption, context, and scale. The analysis begins with current views of scale in relation to the concept of creativity, arguing that current theory and research often carries a presumed equivalence of large-scale consumption and creative value. The case of the fields of modern architecture and urbanism is then used as an example to understand dynamics that can arise in the real world at the intersection of consumption, context, and scale. These dynamics are analyzed using the concept of field and autonomous-heteronomous tension in producer–consumer relations from the work of Pierre Bourdieu. The point of using this case is not to conclude that all fields work like architecture and urbanism but to define an initial list of questions that can be asked in many contexts. What continuums of scale are of interest and how are they interacting? What positions are producers and consumers taking in the field? How do people consume and how are they consumed by the field and its works? What functions does context serve? How do, or could, those functions shift over time? What epistemological assumptions are at play?