Looking out, taken in. The practice of viewing in new Danish High-rise dwellings

Looking out, taken in. The practice of viewing in new Danish High-rise dwellings
Marcel De Certeau’s description of the panoptic gaze from the top of World Trade Center (1980) has dominated studies on high-rise living underscoring the distance between the lived life on the street and the omniscient, but de-bodied view. Consequently, looking out is seen as a practice of estrangement put on residents in high-rise dwellings. However, a growing body of ethnographic studies are currently challenged this stereotypical understanding, adding more nuanced perspective to the performative and sensuous act of seeing. As part of the project Vertical Residential Living: Updated Knowledge on Housing Culture and Social Life in Danish Residential High-Rises (2020–2021), the paper analyses more than 50 semi-structured interviews with residents and field observations in homes in new high-rises in Denmark. Reflecting on the complex links between residents’ homes and the practice of viewing, the paper presents three findings: First, the view is ranked as the most dominating housing quality in high-rises giving residents access to light and sky, even in dense urban areas. Second, the view has a performative effect on the material culture and domestic practices of the residents. Third, the view allows residents to establish new emotional and practical relations to the outside surroundings. Against this background, the paper suggests nuancing the practice of viewing as a performative force turning the view from high-rises into an inward reconfiguring the private space of the inhabitant living in the sky.

TO CITE: Mechlenborg, Mette: Looking out, taken in. The practice of viewing in new Danish High-rise dwellings. Presentation at Privacy Matters. How Interiors make and break our Cities. Conference. The Royal Academy, April 2023.