Michael de Certeau, the author of The Practice of Everyday Life, explores the spatial logic and cultural consumption. The particular part the I focus on is Walking in the City, which investigates the phenomenon of a modern city, its importance in people’s lives, and how pedestrians create the city. He suggested that viewing a city from above makes it more coherent to imagine how everything is structured, whereas being a pedestrian give one only a narrow perspective. The city constructs ins own direction to control the movements of crowds, allowing each one to choose their own path. Therefore, while moving through a city, people make their own choices, give the city new meaning and interpretations, and use the spaces in ways not intended by city designers.
Perhaps, the transportation system of every city is an essential part as it gives people the freedom to move around the places. Each one is peculiar because every vehicle differs from one another; the routes are multidirectional, and so are the commuters. One I had to experience a ride on a public bus to Baltimore because the school where I take my Spanish classes is located there. Baltimore transportation services are not highly efficient, and there are only several options to choose from. Catching a bus is an excellent way of getting around, so the Baltimore bus system suggests a couple of variants. The Charm City Circulator is a free bus consisting of two routes and the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) busses that circulate across the city and its suburbs. Typically, I use a car to go places because it is the easiest way to reach even to most remote places.
Transport tends to shape the human experience of the city, whether they are locals or tourists. The modern transportation system has significantly changed throughout the centuries causing many people to change their perception of the urban panorama. Nowadays, any city is filled with different transport: subway, busses, automobiles, or bicycles. For instance, cars and busses are prevalent in the downtown of Baltimore; thus, they make pedestrians interpret the area as a core multiple of business, attractions, and a locus of life. Moving in specific routes, the transport can transmit the ranging spirits of a city’s various neighborhoods. Being in Baltimore and experiencing a bus ride, I noticed that everyone on the bus was running errands just like me. Someone was in a hurry, continually peeking at their watches, someone was staring at the window, contemplating, reading books, or listening to music. Despite the variety of actions commuters performed on a ride, they all were going somewhere: to school, work, or a park to fill the city with life. There I realized that transportation serves as a mediator between people and their destinations.
Baltimore’s buildings also create a specific perception of the city. To investigate the interaction between folks and infrastructure, I took a bus from Loyola neighborhood to one of the Baltimore’s Museum-American Visionary Art Museum located in the Federal Hill neighborhood. The city granted the land to the museum under the condition that the organizers would clean up the area from the wastes. The museum collects the works of self-taught authors and displays them to visitors. The museum was founded in 1995 under Rebecca Hoff Berger’s guidance who thought each person is capable to make artworks. Therefore, the museum’s collection includes a variety of masterpieces executed by farmers, mathematicians, people with mental illnesses.
There are three museum buildings surrounded by scattered sculptures set in the garden. Because ordinary people produced most of the exhibits, there are fascinating stories behind them. For example, the exhibit Tree of Life narrates the story of how trees would supply humanity with fuel for cooking, warmth, and shelter. The other sculpture resembles the spiral consisting of thousands of DNA molecules which stand for the smallest elements of life. Considering the uniqueness of every single display, having a veiled narration, all exhibitions are muse-oriented rather than object-oriented. Therefore, the museum promotes the idea of unbounded human creativity to visitors.
The American Visionary Art Museum is situated in the Federal Hill neighborhood, where most of the business centers concentrate. Therefore, I managed to observe a scene when people were busy running down the business quarter and suddenly run into the museum, and I could see how their facial expression changes seeing those outer exhibits. Unlike Loyola neighborhood, where the spirit of studentship prevails, the Federal Hill area represents a stricter businesslike part of Baltimore. Considering these observations, I came up with the apprehension that despite each neighborhood is filled with diverse infrastructure, and altogether they form the entire city. Therefore, any individual may form their views of the city areas depending on what they pay attention to.
In conclusion, it seems reasonable to state that walking or driving around any city brings about new thoughts and ideas. What I saw in the museum, its surroundings, and generally in Baltimore, made me contemplate on how arguable some places may seem inside and outside. Moreover, the museum exhibitions forced me to realize how people can see the same thing but have different ideas and understandings.