Faurest, Kristin: Ten spaces - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)

Only strictly necessary activities occur here, and human encounters are best avoided. Some of these spaces are so profoundly dysfunctional, filthy, hectic and rude that the names of once-legendary actresses, famed statesmen and revolutionaries are reduced to an angry association with a snarled and foul-smelling traffic hub, and we forget what their significance was in the first place.

And then there is the third type of urban space, which also happens to be the theme of this book — the humble, small and sometimes hidden neighbourhood squares. They are the loci of markets, casual social encounters, brilliant chess moves, pointless arguments, illicit love affairs, the temporary chalk artwork of schoolchildren, impromptu celebrations, and myriad other spontaneous everyday happenings.

Do we as city dwellers truly grasp their immeasurable significance?

Every kind of city space has the potential to influence our urban experience. Transit spaces are important because they get us from one part of the city to the other. Our monumental spaces, too, are essential because they form a collective pantheon that defines our history, society and culture, and imparts our city with its distinctive identity. But it is these public squares — of modest size and furnishings, of functions both planned and spontaneous — that shape our daily lives, define our neighbourhoods, set the tone for our common encounters. If we view our city as a house, then our monumental spaces represent its ballrooms, and the transit spaces its corridors. And our small neighbourhood squares are truly its living rooms.

Ideal squares should offer a subtle everyday delight in urban life. They foster the meeting between the individual and the collective, and encourage divergent social groups to become acquainted with one another. Our public squares are in a sense the microcosm of our cities. They should contribute to making us want to be out of the house and in public, sharing the commons with both friends and strangers. They should be spaces that we voluntarily seek out and spend time in, not ones that we hurry through to just get home. They offer us the opportunity to be among others in a spontaneous, unstructured sort of way, as well as the possibility to observe others passively or participate actively in a game, a conversation, a transaction involving the purchase of some seasonal fruit. In short, they offer infinite possibilities.

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