On the spontaneous beauty of cities: neither design nor chaos

Abstract

A clear bridge connecting the theory of spontaneous order and the issue of beauty in and for cities has not yet been developed. After a general exploration of the concept of beauty, this article builds an alternative idea of beauty, namely, beauty as spontaneity. In particular, it argues that beauty in the urban realm greatly depends on forms and orders that can hardly be comprehensively designed but rather emerge as the result of the freedom granted to multiple urban agents to express themselves in space. In this article the works of Jacobs and Romano are analysed and explored. Starting from some of their main ideas, the paper suggests certain planning and design tactics to nurture this kind of beauty and provides some essential ethical principles.