2.4 The Era of Placelessness

physical interaction with that particular place. Consequently, place appearance may cause some levels of emotion, no matter one has previously experienced it or not. However, this may not guarantee that outlook of places can always shape the emotional attachments to these places and it greatly depends on the existing bonds formed through previous environmental experiences. (Najafi, 2012)

2.4 The Era of Placelessness

“There is no second thought that the localism and variety of the places and landscapes that characterised preindustrial societies and unselfconscious, handicraft cultures are being diminished and perhaps being eradicated leading to the creation of flatscape which provides the possibilities only for a commonplace and mediocre experience.” (RELPH, 1976) C.W. Moore has written, “the richly varied places of the world are raplidly being obliterated under a meaningless pattern of buildings, monotonous and chaotic” and also Gordon Cullen suggests of Britain that “we appear to be forsaking nodal points for a thinly spread coast-to-coast continuity of people, food, power and entertainment, a universal wasteland…..a chromium-plated chaos.” All these comments lead us towards the possibility of placesless geography, lacking both landscapes and significant places implying us subjecting ourselves to the forces of placelessness and are losing sense of place.(RELPH, 1976) In order to explain the phenomenon of placelessness, Relph starts by examining the ways a place is experienced. According to him, places can be experienced authentically or inauthentically; where authentic sense of place is referred as “a direct and genuine experience of the entire complex of the identity of places” . He says for authentic places, the sense of place is created either unself-consciously or deliberately. Further he argues that, in our modern era, an authentic sense of place is being gradually overshadowed by a less authentic attitude which he called as placelessness: “the casual eradication of distinctive places and the making of standardized landscapes that results from an insensitivity to the significance of place”.(RELPH, 1976)

Placelessness can be described as a phenomenon where the environment lacks significant places and the underlying attitude of not acknowledging significance in places. It has resulted in cutting us from our cultural roots, eroding away all the symbols, replacing the diversity into uniformity and converting experiential order into

conceptual one. Relph points that, in general, placelessness emerges from kitsch— an uncritical acceptance of mass values, or technique—the overriding concern with efficiency as an end in itself. The overall impact of these two forces is the “undermining of place for both individuals and cultures, and the casual replacement of the diverse and significant places of the world with anonymous spaces and exchangeable environments”.(RELPH, 1976)

Hence placelessness can be defined as, ―the condition of an environment lacking significant places and the associated attitude of a lack of attachment to place caused by the homogenizing effects of modernity, e.g. commercialism, mass consumption, standard planning regulations, alienation, and obsession with speed and movement.(Freestone and Liu, 2016)