The organization of spaces and the creation of places is not left to chance. On the contrary: As social and geographic beings people always tend to arrange spaces for different reasons and purposes. So different the purposes and reasons are so different are the architectual arrangements and creations. Prof Dr Dean Joshua Hagen from the Northern State University in South Dakota is doing a lot of research on the changing practices in the engagement with space and place. His approach is linked with many political and historical questions, e.g.: How does architecture establish national and cultural identities? We asked Dean Joshua Hagen our questions with a view on the national-socialist regime in Germany.
"Spatial strategies and architectural styles to build a new Nazi Germany"
L.I.S.A.: Professor Hagen, you are doing research on geography and history. In this context one of your main approaches concentrates on places, spaces, architecture, and ideology. Could you explain to us how you deal with these concepts?
Prof Hagen: People are inherently geographic beings. We are predisposed to organize space. In the process, we create places. The archeological record strongly suggests that humans have done this from the beginning, well before written history or civilization, so it seems an intrinsic part of human nature. In the most basic sense, the organization of space is a defining characteristic of human social behavior. This does not mean that people organize space in the same fashion. On the contrary, humans have demonstrated a wide range of strategies and practices over time, place, and scale. Despite these differences, the production of space is inherently value-laden; it reflects our needs, wants, priorities, and beliefs. In that sense, human engagement with space and place is easily intertwined with ideology in ways, ranging from the mundane to the extraordinary. Architecture is one of the many ways we engage and organize our surroundings into the places and spaces we call everything from home and community to homeland and state. Architecture helps make visible the ideological basis and biases of our engagement with space and place.