【正文】 e, and the process of cultivation. In Granada, Spain, allotment gardens lie within the Alhambra and Generalife. The gardens rest within a highly organized framework of walls and terraces, and enliven the scene rather than detract from it. They plement the formal gardens and courtyards,where vegetables and nut and fruit trees are planted among flowers and vines. There is no arbitrary separation in this Moorish garden between ornamental and productive, between pleasurable and pragmatic,between sacred and secular. It is possible to create urban landscapes that capture a sense of plexity and underlying order,that express a connection to the natural and cultural history of the place, and that are adaptable to meet changing needs. The solution lies in an understanding of the processes that underlie these patterns, and there are some principles that can be derived for urban design:establish a framework that lends overall structure— not an arbitrary framework, but one congruent with the deep structure of a place, define a vocabulary of forms that expresses natural and cultural processes, the encourage a symphony of variations in response to the conditions of a particular locale and the needs of specific people. The result should be a dynamic, coherent whole that can contine to evolve to meet changing neeeds and desires and that also connects the present with the past. The Fens, in Boston, is such a place. As originally conceived and constructed in the 1880s and 39。 its beauty lies in smooth, clean, ideal shapes. It is a geometry based on the belief that rest, not motion, is the natural state。s processes and recorded in patterns in the land. The amphitheater affords not only a view of the city, but also a prospect for reflecting upon time, change, and the place of man and city in nature. When we neglect natural processes in city design, we not only risk the intensification of natural hazards and the degradation of natural resources, but also forfeit a sense of connection to a larger whole beyond ourselves. In contrast, places such as Red Rocks Amphitheater provoke a vivid experience of natural processes that permits us to extend our imagination beyond the limits of human memory into the reaches of geological and astronomical time and to traverse space from the microscopic to the cosmic. However permanent rock may seem, it is ultimately worn smooth by water and reduced finally to dust. The power of a raindrop, multiplied by the trillions over thousands into plains. The pattern of lines etched by the water in the sand of a beach echos the pattern engraved on the earth by rivers over time. These are the patterns that connect. They connect us to scales of space and time beyond our grasp。s age in terms of thousands of millions of years and have developed theories of the earth itself. The human life span now seems but a blip, and the earth but a small speck in the universe. The perception of time and change is essential to developing a sense of who we are, where we have e form, and where we are going, as individuals, societies, and species. Design that fosters and intensifies the experience of temporal and spatial scales facilitates both a reflection upon personal change and identity and a sense of unity with a larger whole. Design that juxtaposes and contrasts nature39。others are clearly legible. Together, they prise the context of a place and all those who dwell within idea of dialogue, with its embodiment of time, purpose, munication, and response, os central to this aesthetic. Conitant with the need for continuity in the urban landscape is the need for revolution. Despite certain constants of nature and human nature, we live in a world unimaginable to societies of the past. Our perceptions of nature, the quality of its order,and the nature of time and space are changing, as is our culture, provoking the reassessment of old forms and demanding new ones. The vocabulary of forms— buildings, streets, and parks— that are often deferred to as precedents not only reflects a response to cultural processes and values of the time in which those forms were created. Some of these patterns and forms sill express contemporary purposes and values, but they are abstractions. What are the forms that express contemporary cosmology, that speak to us in an age in which photographs of atomic particles and of galaxies are monplace, in which time and space are not fixed, but relative, and in which we are less certain of our place in the universe than we once were? Conceiving of new forms that capture the knowledge, beliefs, purposes, and values of contemporary society demands that we return to the original source of inspiration, be it nature or culture,rather than the quotation or transformation of abstractions of the past. Time,Change,and Rhythm For the artist, observed Paul Klee, dialogue with nature remains a conditiosine que non. The artist is a man, himself nature and part of nature in natural space. Before humans built towns and cities, our habitat was ordered primarily by nature39。 Title: The Poetics of City and Nature: Toward a New Aesthetic for Urban Design Journal Issue: Places, 6(1) Author: Spirn, Anne Whiston Publication Date: 10011989 Publication Info: Places, College of Environmental Design, UC Berkeley Citation: Spirn, Anne Whiston. (1989). The Poetics of City and Nature: Toward a New Aesthetic for Urban Design. Places, 6(1), 82. Keywords: places, placemaking, architecture, environment, landscape, urban design, public realm, planning, design, aesthetic, poetics, Anne Whiston Spirn The city has been pared to a poem, a sculpture, a machine. But the city is more than a text,and more than an artistic or technological. It is a place where natural forces pulse and millions of people live— thinking,feeling,dreaming,doing. An