[Video Essay] Private City

video: https://youtu.be/qMe5e_iYhhs

 

Private City — Living Rooms (Apartment)

Privacy is the ability to control who you see, when you see them and what others know about you (Marsden et al., 2001). In any city, living room is the most private social place for most of us to develop relationships with those important people in life.

Do people no longer need a living room in apartments?

The concept of “disappearing living room” seems very popular nowadays since city life doesn’t leave much room for people to experience a living room. Eating, sleeping, and going to work, people have little time to enjoy social life. An IKEA design director even predicted that chairs could replace sofas and become living room’s core furniture because narrow space gradually obscure functional boundaries between apartment rooms, such as living room, bedroom, and dining room. Young people in big cities with shared accommodations might not have the space and convenience to invite someone to their rooms. Because of the small amount of physical space and clear proximity of roommates or family members, there were minimal privacy and intimacy at their apartments. Actively or passively, more people seem to acquiesce to the “disappearing living room” — but is that really the case?

I don’t think so at all. The living room is the center of family and friend activities. We need a place to bring everyone together and do something together. Reunion is the meaning of home. The existence of a living room adds to the sense of home because there’s no better place than a private living room where all members can comfortably stay and interact. What really is disappearing is the traditional, TV-centric format that seemed to hold a family together in the living room. Modern living room should be gifted the more diversiform and humanized functions.

What do people really think about the living room?

The research started to go on the right track with an open survey result in China regarding people’s ideal living rooms. Around 83% of people in this survey recognized the importance of living rooms in their homes out of 1679 responses, from different cohorts with birth year ranging from before 1980 to after 2000. Younger cohorts (born after 1995) mostly don’t spend too much time in the living room, while 27% of older people (born before 1980) spend almost all their daytime in the living space. The younger generations like a living room but are unable to spend more time in it, which reflects their lost living space and sense of privacy due to shared apartments. Nevertheless, the surveyed young participants usually express their desire for a private living room for relaxation and social life.

With proper private social spaces taken away from young people, loneliness, low desire, introversion, and many social problems arises. Some may argue that young people’s social problems can be solved with online social platforms, but the truth is that online social networking is merely a palliative solution to loneliness. How about a night out at a bar or club? Temporary gratification may be satisfying, but the noisy environment is not in favor of forming a stable relationship. On the contrary, the uniqueness of the living room is that it is a place without restraints and a domain without purpose. It offers a space under control, where precious privacy can be obtained. Wearing pajamas, heavy or no makeup, and laughing and crying with your friends are all appropriate. That is where real relationships come to play. From food, entertainment, building relationships, exercising, and relaxing, what the living room bears are all the diversified extensions of ordinary people’s life.

What I would like to express through this project is the private space where friends and family can spend time together, which is what a living room is all about. For example, in “Friends”, the protagonists’ living room is different from the Central Perk café, which is an open interface to the outside world. The living room is the most private space for the group of six, that elevates the residence into their common home. The experiences and friendships built up day and night provide them with a sense of security in the cold big metropolis. If “Friends” was a utopian drama about friendship and love, this is the living room where the texture of reality is embedded.

My Reflections

Reality may not be as dramatic as the living room in “Friends”, but fond memories accumulate without you noticing. Rather than people being nostalgic for the good old days, they probably like the lifestyle a living room represents. While city life gives modern youth too much hope and pressure, every day is a hurry. If you feel alone both at home and outside, managing living room life well can be the cure. Although we may not turn our living rooms into a cultural salon like Lin Huiyin (林徽因) did in her home, we can at least have a private space apart from the bedroom, which can be used to entertain intimate mates, but also to entertain ourselves. In Calvino’s “Invisible City”, “The unhappy city hides a happy city every second, but it doesn’t know it.” I hope the city would show more of its happiness with properly used living rooms.

Reference

Alexander, J. (2018). The societalization of social problems: Church Pedophilia, phone hacking, and the financial crisis. American Journal of Sociology, 83(6), 1049–1078. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122418803376

Dai, J., & Wang, T. (2011). Reflections On The Living Room Space In Housing Design – An Interview With Professor Zhou Yanmin. Zhu Qu, (4), 45-46.

Duan, Y. (2018). Public Space for Private Speech: Bloomsbury and the “Madam’s Living Room”. World Culture, (11), 57-61. doi:CNKI:SUN:SJWH.0.2018-11-021.

Durnova, A., & Mohammadi, E. (2021). Intimacy, home, and emotions in the era of the pandemic. Sociology Compass, 15(4).https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12852

DT Finance. (2021, October 21). 2021 Ideal Living Room Survey: What Is The Ideal Living Room Like For Young People?. Retrieved from: https://dyfocus.com/zh-cn/news-pet/26527b.html

Shu, Y. (2017). The Living Room That Undertakes The Function Of Receiving Guests Is Also Moving Toward Diversification. Doi :CNKI:SUN:HLZK.0.2017-24-014.

Wang, T. (2011). Manufactured Living Room, Arranged Life. Zhu Qu, (4), 76-79.

Wang, B., Yan, L., & Zeng, S. (2022, January 26). The Beauty of urban living room. Ningbo Daily, 008.

Wei, H., & Zhen, X. (2011). The Living Room. Zhu Qu, (4), 26-29.

 

Gaochen WU Michael

3035603992