How does one start to look at a certain place that has a comfortable

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1 Robert Mojica Critical Paper #1 Culture of Place, APH 494 Spring 2008 Prof. Kim Steele How does one start to look at a certain place that has a comfortable familiarity with a different set of eyes? How do you find, inside the monotony of that familiarity, the seemingly insignificant details that distinguish that place from all the others out there that are just like it? Within the banality of the surface of the urban landscape, especially in a city like Phoenix, what do you look to in order to find the elements that provide the emotional attachments that transform that landscape in to a place? Get out now, exclaims John Stilgoe in Outside Lies Magic, ( Stilgoe 1998, 1) encouraging us to discover what lays beyond our common every day experience, and explore the surroundings that we exist in, acknowledging the importance of the mundane. There is an assortment of places that I could describe and explore in a more in depth way, but I wanted to look at one that seemed to only have one purpose, and would therefore be somewhat challenging to analyze. I considered work, school, my car, even my bedroom. Eventually I chose a place that I visit almost everyday for about a one hour period of time. It is familiar in that I know how to move inside it, where it is located, and exactly what my purpose is for being there. After exploring the area,

2 and looking at it in a more analytical manner, I realized that it wasn t my original, typical destination that was interesting, but its surroundings. LA Fitness is one of my more mundane destinations, serving what I consider to be one purpose, and not requiring any particular attention to detail. I visit that gym almost on a daily basis, do my workouts, and then head back home, usually to write some paper. But today and for the first time, I looked around my usual destination, and discovered an intricate location, that supports and enhances the locale, and creates a sort of micro environment that I never really knew existed, and shifted my analysis towards a bigger place: the Town and Country Center. On the South West corner of 20 th Street and Highland Ave. in Central Phoenix, inside the Town & Country Center, LA Fitness exists (Figures1, 2, 3). It is located within what appears to be a typical Valley strip mall, like the many that litter the entire Phoenix Metro area. The site is surrounded by retail, business, and residential areas, making for heavy vehicular traffic at almost any time of the day. It is my workout place of choice, due to it s proximity to my house, and the fact that it is basically one of the only full service gyms close to downtown Phoenix that is reasonably affordable. The frequency of my visits to LA Fitness varies depending on the demands of my school schedule, but under normal circumstances, I am there at least six times a week. My original intention was to analyze the interior of the building, but cameras are not allowed inside, a fact that was immediately pointed out to me. This led me to the surrounding area, which is very different from the typical one side to the street long strip mall. Gathering from its lay out, I believe it was originally intended to be a sort of outdoor mall.

3 While from the street it appears typical, and until today it was to me also, there are a number of walkways leading to interior courtyards and other stores that expand through the site, connecting the opposing sides of the exterior edges. All the interior outdoor spaces are shaded by big full trees, accented in the intersections with large Spanish influenced water features, providing much needed evaporative cooling, especially in the summer months. The spaces that are not covered by the trees are enclosed with 2x4 slats that create areas where that sun can enter the slightly sloped walkways, but yet provide some shading. A larger interior courtyard is the only place that is not completely shaded, and in it resides a large water feature. All the outdoor circulation is pleasantly cool, and I assume it is also the case in the summer months (Figure 12). The fact that I was not allowed to follow through with my original plan of exploring the interior of LA Fitness became a real blessing in disguise. I had some preconceived ideas of what I was going to do, and I felt a bit lost after not being able to pursue them. Then I was reminded of a small section of John Stilgoe s book: Exploration is a liberal art, because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens away from narrowness. And it is fun. Ordinary exploration begins in casual indirection, in the juiciest sort of indecision, in deliberate, then routine, fits of absence of mind. (Stilgoe 1998, 8)

4 This also reminded me of the idea of the derive and The Situationists International. The derive means to drift, to wander aimlessly, and to consider psychological influences while doing so (Debord 2007, 50). With this in mind, I decided to aimlessly wander the gyms surroundings, and look at things more closely. First, I went around the perimeter, which is mostly parking and restaurants, basically what I always see when I drive to the gym (Figure 4). I saw a sign for a restaurant I had never heard of, Cyprus Pita Grill (Figure 5). I had no idea there were other restaurants within this seemingly regular strip mall other than the ones that can be seen from the street, so I followed the sign. The restaurant is located next to a Trader Joe s, which I had never visited (Figure 6). I was surprised to find that they have freshly cut flowers all along the entrance. It was a beautiful sight that reminded me of the Bodegas in New York City, with merchandise on the sidewalk (Figure 7). I continued on to Cyprus, and I found an outdoor space between it and another restaurant, Pie Zanos, that had some tables and chairs, and a number of people enjoying lunch (Figures 8, 9, 10). It is similar to the Venetian campi, small squares that serve important civic and social functions for the surrounding neighborhood (Steele 2008). I eventually came across a large courtyard, where children where playing while their parents watched from a neighboring restaurant (Figure 11). As I continued, I began to walk all the shaded walkways, finding a number of small stores, more restaurants, a bookstore, ice cream parlor, and thrift stores (Figure 12). I also saw quite a few empty spaces available for rent, which made me wonder why this was so. After doing some research it appears that NHL hockey star and

5 Phoenix Roadrunners franchise President Claude Lemieux of Paradise Valley and his local investors teamed with Red Mountain Retail Group of Santa Ana, California, to buy the property in efforts to redevelop the Center, which is why the LA Fitness was built in the first place (Padgett 2006, 1). If this is the case, I hope that the quaint qualities of the Center can be maintained, especially since I just discovered them. The exploration of a landscape, experiencing it thoughtfully, through all the senses and becoming not only aware, but also attached to it creates a more significant connection that transforms said landscape into a place. The memories and emotions that are then associated with that place make it intimate. The place becomes personally significant, being felt rather than only seen. I understood this after reading Lucy Lippard s All over the Place, but after experiencing the Town and Country Center, I questioned what that meant. I originally considered LA Fitness and its surroundings a place: the external world mediated through human subjective experience. (Lippard 1997, 4-82) I have memories and emotions that are attached to it. I have made friendships there, it is in my neighborhood, and obviously I frequent it all the time, but now it seems somewhat alien to me. I believe that this new feeling only adds to the dimension of place that the Center has for me, and reinforces Stilgoe s view of exploration and of truly looking at our surroundings with a critical eye. While I did find new places within the Center, I also noticed small things that kind of stood out, like lights and why they are located where they are, service piping that usually goes unnoticed, the way light and shadow intensify the experience of this otherwise

6 typical place, and how signs, which are completely ignored in many cases, seem to rule the landscape, not only here, but everywhere (Figure 13). Those small details, while unnoticeable before, have truly transformed LA Fitness for me, turning it into a place beyond its boundaries. In general, the Town and Country Center where LA Fitness is located, through serendipity, became the place I thought would be a better subject for analysis. Walking around the originally intended space, exploring its surroundings, and drifting through it without preconceived notions helped me to truly look at a place which I always thought of as familiar. It was that false sense of familiarity that lulled me into believing that LA Fitness was a place for me, and maybe in some sense it is. But it was the experience of actually interacting with what was around it, and looking at a larger picture in a more meticulous way that turned and everyday space in the Phoenix urban landscape into a meaningful place.

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14 Works Cited - Debord, Guy Theory of the Derive. Theory of the Derive and other Situationist Writings. Paper presented in Theory, Practice, and Culture in Contemporary Architecture, APH 515. Arizona State University, fall Lippard, Lucy R The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multi Centered Society. New York: New York Press. -Padgett, Mike Town & Country candidate for update, new buildings. Phoenix Business Journal, (March 3), phoenix/stories/2006/03/06/newscolumn1.html -Steele, Kim Place Basics: Culture, Research, Literature. Paper presented in Culture of Place, APH 494. Arizona State University, spring Stilgoe, John R Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places. United States of America: Walker Publishing Company Inc.