Measuring Urban Change in Travel Texts Using the Example of the City of Graz in the Long Nineteenth Century

Abstract

Historic urban space with its formations, changes and dissolutions can be represented in various ways. This paper focuses on narrative spatial representations of the city of Graz in 19th-century guidebooks. In these texts the subjective in the individual accounts interweaves with historical reality. Two methods to reconstruct perceptions and experiences of historical spaces and spatial relationships in travel texts are presented, with the aim of making aspects of urban change measurable.