Symbolic and ontological meanings of skyscraper New York city in american culture
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2006
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to provide a socio-psychoanalytic lens through the works of psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan together with social theorists Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu in understanding why New York City has been expanding vertically and what this architectonic verticality tells us about the American. The study focuses on Manhattan because it is the very place where the skyscraper form was fully exploited. Manhattan also housed the ?Twin Towers? of World Trade Center before their fall in September 11, 2001. Part I sets the historical and economic background for the skyscraper form. Part II offers a psychoanalytic lens to the relationship between the subject and the built environment. Part III establishes the workings of diffuse power relations as mediated by the built environment. Part IV examines the relationship between the subject and the skyscraper form as a masked power dispersal as exemplified by the proposed ?Freedom Tower? in New York. The conclusion establishes the assertion that the skyscraper form mediates masked power relations, becoming an objectification of the ego ideal of the nation, that of being a winner in the competition to materialize the American Dream.
Description
Keywords
Amerikan Kültürü ve Edebiyatı