Politisering van de esthetiek. Vorm en beeld in de hedendaagse Nederlandse politiek van ruimtelijke ordening

Abstract

Politicization of esthetics. Form and image in the contemporary Dutch politics of spatial planning. Through a sketch of the debate about spatial planning and design since the 1980s and an ethnographic study of a landscape design, I show that design in this case 'performs' politics. Techniques of form are used to achieve the most difficult capacity in an 'over-democratized' society, the capacity for an administrator to formulate political intent, to say 'this is what I want'. Here design is not a field separate from politics, designers are not experts in a realm distinct from policy. Drawing on Foucault, in this specific case, design images and aesthetic techniques are described as formats, which perform 'politics' anew, in unexpected settings and in unexpected ways.