{"id":19364,"date":"2014-09-17T22:45:56","date_gmt":"2014-09-17T20:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/rest-ennobles-man-2\/"},"modified":"2015-11-09T16:18:05","modified_gmt":"2015-11-09T15:18:05","slug":"rest-ennobles-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/en\/rest-ennobles-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Rest ennobles Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

Relax \u2013 the spaces dedicated to it and the objects ideated for that activity \u2013 is the theme on which this special issue of AREA centres. It may be useful, in this context, to clarify the origins of the term relax and its declination in contemporary society to understand what it means for today\u2019s man to dedicate himself to relax within the context of his existential rhythms.
\nAccording to the dictionary the definition of relax is: physical and psychic relaxation, state of rest, distension. Relax is therefore a moment of rest and relaxation, as opposed to another type of activity or action. The activity that represents the opposite of relax \u2013 rest \u2013 can only be work, from a practical viewpoint even more than from a sociological one. Therefore, relax is, as it is perceived and conceived today, the use of one\u2019s free time, of the time outside or after work hours, and rest is thus an activity that represents an alternative to working, to producing, or a way to fill in empty time. To get a better understanding of these categories, of the being rather than the doing of it, it may be useful to retrace them to the historical principles of otium and negotium, precisely from Roman culture. The Roman otium represents a philosophical postulate aimed at the attainment of knowledge, understood as an ethical and moral value. At the time of the Romans leisure was considered an essential part of freedom of choice and of life, and thus as a necessary completion of the private and domestic life as opposed to the obligations of work and of political, social and public commitments and was, most importantly, never considered as conflicting with the them. To the Mediterranean civilizations the otium is, in the final analysis, the room that Man allows for his own spirituality; it is a pursuit for life quality and thus \u201cthe art of living\u201d.
\nRest is therefore only considered non-productive time if we assume, as interpretative datum, that the only \u201cuseful\u201d time is that associated with doing. This concept, rooted in the contemporary reality, and which has been subject to alternate valuations or judgments in the past1, attributes an essentially positive valuation to doing, to producing, because it is constructive and its results are concretely verifiable, while it gives an abstract and not practical value to thought, intellectual speculation, inaction, rest, valuing them negatively in terms of concreteness and utility.
\nYet simply the reading of the semantic structure of the two Latin terms clearly shows that rest is not an (inactive) alternative to work but rather that negotium (nec-otium, that is to say non-idleness) is the negation of otium, which cannot but represent the principal activity, in terms of quality, in the life of Man.
\nThis opposition between two divergent cultural sensibilities, as that of production of assets versus that of life quality, is stressed by the writer Luis Racionero i Grau who, with a critical and provoking spirit, suggests that we should distinguish two opposed soul in the European identity, one characteristic of the north and a Mediterranean (or southern) one; where the former has propitiated the industrial revolution, the other has stimulated humanistic ideals. In this study the Catalan writer tries to distinguish the myth of productivity and work aimed at the attainment of assets and riches \u2013 which is Nordic \u2013 from the pursuit of an existential quality, of a culturally rich existence \u2013 which is Mediterranean \u2013 in the final analysis opposing beauty and civilization to efficiency and material opulence, or in other words the pursuit of quality to that of quantity. This reading, beyond the attempt to identify an origin (geographic and social) of two opposed ways to conceive life, leads us to the dialectic which takes place between the idea of an efficient and productive world and the conception of a creative one dedicated to the pleasures of body and mind.
\nAs one may read in the introduction to an exhibition held some years ago, dedicated to leisure understood as care for the soul, \u201cotium has always elicited opposed sentiments. Condemned on several occasions and then banished by the industrial culture, it has been an elevated life style for centuries in the Roman empire, deemed just as valuable as the negotium. In short, to the citizens of the early centuries of the Christian era, public and private life were on the same level, in perfect equilibrium. [\u2026] To the ruling classes of the time, otium was an aggregate of intellectual and meditative, recreational and restoring activities that did not just represent an essential need, but also a characteristic element of the lifestyle, of personal freedom, of the moral fibre. [\u2026] Otium is therefore identified with a cultural and philosophical ideal\u201d. The new possibilities offered by mechanics, and even more so by information technology, which have changed the relationship between Man and work, between toil and ability to produce, have once again focused the attention on the use of time. The growing number of instruments that help Man and relieve him of heavy, repetitive and boring work, but that also assist him to simplify all everyday activities, even playful and recreational ones, have given leisure a new topicality: as in the case of the theory of Domenico De Masi6\u00a0 who proposes the concept of \u201ccreative leisure\u201d.
\nApart from the fact that we enjoy the benefits of a technologically advanced society, and that we find ourselves in the heyday of the digital era, the sociologist from Molise asserts that \u201cas long as work mainly consisted of physical toil, people had to be forced to work, as they would otherwise, if left to their own devices, refrain from doing so. One of the many constraints was of a psychological kind: it consisted of upholding the prejudice that idleness is a sin. Those who are idle steal, because they steal physical toil from their employer and from society. Those who are idle commit a sin and, unless proven otherwise, indulge in vices. Those who are idle fail to save themselves from the original sin and will therefore end up in hell\u201d; consequently the alternative is to adopt the idea that \u201cthe idleness that enriches is the one rich in creative and interdisciplinary stimuli [\u2026] Inspirations are provided precisely from a hybridizing of different worlds. Thus, for the intellectual worker, even going to the movies, to the theatre, on holiday is no longer a waste of time, but a stimulus to perceive some things and to understand others\u201d.
\nIn the final analysis, if activities associated with rest and leisure are redeemed from the role of playful and fortifying interruptions of the productive life, and proposed as voluntary and necessary actions, not imposed but chosen, not meaningless but capable of giving life substance and value, the design of relax, the form of the places dedicated to idleness, just as in the case of the Roman villas, cannot be the design of the leisure activity as such, but rather the definition of a place where Man may be able to envisage \u2013 and to show others \u2013 the deepest meaning of his existence in this world. The very \u201cvirtual places\u201d of today, by means of which we communicate with others, are not mere evolutions of the telephone or the mail; rather, they embody, not physically but in terms of content, the sense of spaces where people may confront others, where they may represent, show and meet one another. The social networks make it possible to express one\u2019s ideas, sensations, sentiments, emotions, and moments of relaxation become moments dedicated to communication and interaction, in spite of the contradictory fact that the very same instrument \u2013 computer, smartphone or phone \u2013 is used indistinctly both for work and for leisure and that there is no longer any actual separation between the different moments in life.\u00a0The true distinction lies in the transportability of these instruments and the mobility resulting from their inherent un-topical nature, due to which the relations they form with the spaces in which they are used, with the places chosen for the different activities, only depend on the user\u2019s desires and decisions, and not on the potentials of the means.
\nThis calls for a reflection on the relationship between public and private in relation to the places dedicated to work and rest: in the Roman culture the places dedicated to otium are not public; the very baths, which would today be classified among environments intended for leisure or rest, were places dedicated to negotium, where one could discuss business, practice politics and perform one\u2019s public role; on the contrary, the residence, the domus \u2013 origin and form of the urban space \u2013 and even more so the villa \u2013 measure and idealization of nature and landscape \u2013 were places designed on the basis of one\u2019s own experiences, habits and memories, places for otium capable of expressing their owner\u2019s personality, knowledge and creativity. The analogy with virtual spaces, with one\u2019s personal home page or blog is feasible because it is a matter of a (virtual) space that is private yet open to others, in which one may present oneself, not by virtue of one\u2019s ability to concretely influence the reality, but rather to divulge one\u2019s reflections and ideas.
\nTo transform this in the substance of the contemporary metropolis, in the form of spaces for relax or collective areas, means to begin to propose, in the centre of the urban transformation, places for gathering and meeting, for entertainment and divulgation of culture. Unstable and as yet formless spaces, but certainly motive and aim of the need to build contemporary places for living.
\nThe design of relax therefore represents, to an increasing extent, the construction of knowledge, of spiritual and cultural enrichment. To banally divide the actions to be conducted during free time in sportive, recreational, playful, curative and cultural ones is too restrictive, as all of them are part of the contemplative life, understood as reflection and enriching, true nourishment for existence.
\nFree time, relax, is the time dedicated to learning, to in-depth study, and we must in fact not forget that the very term \u201cschool\u201d which is certainly considered a form of imposed and obligatory \u201cwork\u201d for many youths derives from the Greek scholeion, i.e. from schol\u0113 which means \u201cfree time\u201d, \u201crest\u201d, a concept akin to the Latin one of otium. It is clear that contemporary society must, if it is to truly understand what it means to rest, recover the idea of learning not only as a means of gaining knowledge, but also as a physical and psychological enjoyment.
\nJust as Cicero recommended that the Roman citizen should dedicate himself to \u201cnoble idleness\u201d, to otium cum dignitate8, we may today assert, ironically overturning a famous popular saying, that it is rest that ennobles man, and that it is from rest that we must begin to design the habitat of man, starting with the private one to then contaminate the public space, only attributing to work, and to the functional and utilitarian design of the territory, the role of a means of meeting primary needs. To design otium means to give expression to human creativity in concrete forms, to leave a significant trace of its existence to future generations.<\/p>\n