<b>II. Prácticas del conocimiento</b><br/><br/>The shared use of the cityscape. Revisiting the extraordinary case of SoHo

Abstract

This article reviews SoHo’s cultural and urban phenomenon as the main promoter of an unprecedented mutually beneficial relationship between art and city. This was the first deliberated experience of its kind, resulting in an innovative model of urban life based on the cooperation of a community of artists through the interaction with existing obsolete space in New York City. This article explores the development of the spatial practices by the artists of SoHo throughout this area primarily during the early 1970s. SoHo’s forgotten industrial fabric converged with revolutionary artistic forces and generated a groundbreaking urban product, the “art district”. Nonetheless, the number of art incursions, urban appropriations and collective acts would also conclude in other small scale learning, unique and strategic procedures that inspired the artists’ works in the city over the following decades. SoHo would be the prelude, the starting point for an art with urban and social responsibility, which is revealed today of great interest for those city thinkers who seek ways to build a more creative and inclusive city.