Sometimes remembering is even sweeter than learning. I first read about Desire Paths in an endlessly fascinating book by French scientist, philosopher, and poet (not a three-way combo you come across every day) Gaston Bachelard. Dedicated to the study of the poetry and philosophy of science, Bachelard’s 1958 book “The Poetics of Space” looks not at the origins or technicalities of architecture, but how the lived-in and human experience of architecture affects and shapes it’s development.
One of these experiences creates a Desire Path -“a term in landscape architecture used to describe a path that isn’t designed but rather is worn casually away by people finding the shortest distance between two points”. Just as Bachelard examines, it shows how the human use of an architectural or pre-determined flow through space will sometimes over-ride the intentions of it’s creator. Just like nature and evolution itself, life will always find the most expedient route to what it wants…
Also known as a Desire Line, I love this because it’s such an undeniable, physical interpretation of something so ethereal: “desire”. Yet you can’t argue with the solid proof of the path; the man told us to walk here, but human will chose to walk here. We were given concrete, and we chose the grass and earth instead. And so many followed that the human path was clearly worn in; sometimes it almost seems like they’re challenging the concrete paths close-by just by their very existence. Not as crisp and laid out, but more confident in that it was created in experience, and not by design. Plus, just the name itself proves that’s there’s always poetry in the most unexpected places. “Desire Path”…
This whole memory of Bachelard came up when I stumbled on a Flickr group dedicated to pictures documenting Desire Paths around the world.
Sometimes new concepts unexpectedly burst into existence all around you as soon as you tune your brain in to realize it. Now that you “know” about Desire Paths, you’ll start to see them everywhere. One day you’ll be walking along and see those little trails of history criss-crossing the land and say “oh, that’s where someone followed their desire”.
Speaking of finding poetry in the everyday, Bachelard himself said “Poetry is one of the destinies of speech… One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, opens a future to language. The words of the world want to make sentences”.
shape+colour 