Codes Of Street Art In Urban Space

Abstract

In London street art is still formally perceived as an act of anti-social behaviour while it gains more and more acceptance and admiration by people. The fact that it remains illegal means a great wasted potential of inhabitants’ creativity and will to participate in creating public spaces. While street art may mark places that are neglected or struggling with some socio-spatial issues, it points also those where locally there is a lack of space for individuals’ self-expression. Being informal and spontaneous rearrangement of urban scape, it is a manifestation of tension between public and private in the street. It might be perceived as an argument in claiming for more democratic public spaces. The goal of the research is to learn how the socio-philosophical space is being produced and what position in the process of creating and rearranging urban places street art takes. To achieve that there were analysis conducted to gained knowledge about street art – to find places where it appears, to determine crucial material and immaterial parts of public spaces that are essential for the phenomenon, to establish relations between artworks and with other elements of the street, and finally, to recognise what are the features and individual characteristics of street art. The conclusions made during the research would be a backbone for the process of designing the architectural space in the spirit of street art. Having developed transposition of the gained knowledge into the code of architecture, there would be a proper site chosen and an architectural programme developed to fully exploit social potential represented by street art. The design might initiate re-defining the term of gentrification and make a contribution in the process of democratisation public space.