Respect, graffiti, and urban space

The issue of graffiti and its covering up is not, to me, about property rights, but rather what one chooses to do with said property. We architects are often guilty of brutalizing a public place or street in the name of order, or simplicity, or class, or style, but neighbors will find a way to humanize a structure. Beautiful surfaces do not receive graffiti in the same way that boring ones do. In the absence of interest or of life, people will find a way to add it.

Property owners often have the right to build what they please, and the right to protect it. They do not, however, have the right to expect their structures to be respected.

After a collaborative wall piece in the Sydney suburb of Camperdown was visited by the buff man, an anonymous tagger offered the real estate company responsible for the paint job something that might be more to their liking.