Abstract

This paper seeks an understanding of the city through the formulations of spatial features stemming from the prudent self, which are constructed differently in China and in Greco-Roman conceptions. Space, caution, and foresight are intertwined in the spatial production of the city; here, the most profound force shaping the city is often the most intimate to the body as it takes care of itself. The body constructed in relation to perceived risk and safety not only formulates its own physical characteristics (i.e., the combatant body versus the body in safety), but also strategizes how to obtain protection in its immediate spatial context (i.e., openness versus concealment). These modes of spatial production result in enormously complex but conceptually distinctive decisions with regard to encirclement, access, and the articulation of large amounts of architecture that enable and perpetuate urban life. More importantly, these modes of spatial production are accompanied by patterns of moral and aesthetic cultivation that underpin the political, economic, and cultural institutions of the city. Ideas of prudence, despite their illusive nature in theory and in practice, command an important role in simultaneously explicating the physical construction of urban space and the moral and aesthetic constructs of cultural practices.

Keywords: prudence, China, city, safety, care