How Public Space Reflects a Society: Old Pasadena

Public space is an open environment which is created and given lives through forms of human interactions. A public space can reflect a certain culture and create limitations for people interacting in that environment. According to Jack Soloman's Interpreting the Built Environment, "[these] spaces of everyday life, both public and private, personal and architectural, are packed...with complex codes that we violate or ignore at our peril. These codes all originate in the way that human beings define their territories." (392) By observing the architecture, human activities and environment of a certain place through semiotic method, one will be able to discover to what extent that place serves as a public space and how it reflects a larger area on the whole. The Old Town Pasadena on Colorado Boulevard is a shopping, dining and commercial paradise. Through the observation of the Old Town, we can see that how the environment and human behavior inter-relate with each other and how it reflect Los Angeles' culture and evolution.…