Representation Of Urban Space Research Articles

Unraveling Power Relations: An Analytical Matrix for Territorial Brands

Cities are complex entities, reflecting an intricate system of relationships intertwined over time, development processes, and territorial planning, sustainability and management. Within this network of interactions among people and territories, the presence of territorial brands stands out. The central research question focuses on how the construction of an analytical framework can reveal intertwined power relations in a territory represented by territorial brands. The aim of this study is to develop and apply a unique analytical matrix, designed to highlight, and analyze the intricate power relations in a territory defined by territorial brands. Urban-geography and cultural studies approaches were incorporated into the case study methodology. Findings from the study revealed multiple layers of intertwined power relations in the territory, where territorial brands play the role of legitimizing mechanisms for the discourses of social actors in the produced territory. The conclusion emphasizes the effectiveness of the “territorial brand in regional development” matrix (TBRD) in highlighting the layers of power relations, as well as highlighting the contradictions between the local and the global in the space produced and represented by territorial brands. This study not only contributes to more effective territorial management but also enhances the understanding of the interaction between brand and territory, emphasizing the influence of these dynamics on the configuration and representation of urban space, including sustainability issues and their associated challenges.

Architectural practice of shaping urban spaces through the prism of traditional ideas of the Turks (Nursultan, Kazakhstan)

The article discloses architectural ideas, aesthetics, ethics and social ethics of state power in terms of designing architectural spaces in the city of Nursultan. Universals of traditional Turkic culture and modern stimulating impulses of creativity are analyzed. The criteria for searching for a "collective portrait" in the representation of urban spaces and ways of constructing mythological and symbolic meanings in them are revealed. Architectural images are formed at the level of accepted literary patterns - mythological, symbolic formations. The urbanization of a metropolitan place determines a hierarchically organized semiotic product that has the stability of archaic meanings, as stages of construction, with ethnic and mythopoetic constructivism, marked by the conditional concepts of “capital nodes”. The first metropolitan spatial node was revealed by the principles of a new independent and self-sustained world order, renaming the streets of the virgin land, but adding an object of power - the Presidential Palace of Culture. The second node - Nurzhol Boulevard laid down a new principle of spatiality - the Ritual Path through the Exhibition of Independence Achievements: from one symbolic structure of the Power to another, replacing the Square, as the Soviet form of ritual expression. The third node began with the shopping malls, making out and closing the Way to the architectural passage, which eventually culminated in the appearance of the image of the Sphere-Universe - EXPO 2017. This development of figurative forms reveals the stages of understanding and acquiring a topological space - the "face" of the capital, primarily in the republican, regional and planetary scale.

Galdós. Cien años de actualidad ed. by M.a Ángeles Varela Olea

Reviewed by: Galdós. Cien años de actualidad ed. by M.a Ángeles Varela Olea Dorota Heneghan M.a ÁNGELES VARELA OLEA (ed.). Galdós. Cien años de actualidad. Bern, Peter Lang, 2021. 296 pp. Galdós. Cien años de actualidad is a collection of fifteen essays written as a tribute to Galdós's work and legacy to commemorate the centenary of his death. As M.ª Ángeles Varela Olea recounts in the introduction, the writer's influence goes beyond the literary and cultural spheres of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Spain in the sense that his views and approaches to the challenges of the world in which he lived continue to resonate in our realities. Varela Olea organizes her collection in six sections that enrich a growing body of scholarship on Galdós's relevance to the present, his journalistic work, literary techniques, his impact on his fellow writers, theatrical output, stage, and television adaptations of his novels as well as translations of his oeuvre abroad. The first section contains three essays that center on the author's life and writings as a source of continuing inspiration to Galdós's scholars. In the opening chapter, Noël Valis magnificently traces the overarching trajectory of multiple approaches and intertwining themes in contributions to Galdós studies by North American scholars. In this essay, Valis accentuates interdisciplinary research as the key characteristic of recent studies and pinpoints a fresh challenge for future investigations––finding new modes to convey the beauty and complexity of the Galdosian universe to a broader audience. Through close readings of El doctor Centeno and the analysis of the Phoenix myth, Yolanda Arencibia explores in her essay the significance of resilience in Galdós's characters and the author's life. The final chapter delves into Galdós's journalistic coverage of the 1865 pandemic in Spain in the context of the novelist's interest in science and personal views on religion. In it, Varela Olea successfully makes the case that Galdós's rejection of the coupling of politics and religion, so central to many of his literary creations from the 1870s onward, can already be traced to his little-studied articles on the pandemic in La Nación. The second section, comprised of two chapters, continues with a focus on the author's journalistic work. In the first, Pilar García Pinacho and Carmen Menéndez-Onrubia address the topic of charity in Galdós's "La hija mimada." García Pinacho and Menéndez-Onrubia read the short story, written in 1885 for the special edition of El Día to raise funds for earthquake victims, as the author's praise of evangelical charity and his scorn of philanthropy motivated by society's self-interest. In the second, Isabel Román Román studies Galdós's contributions to La Prensa and La Nación and offers a fresh take on the connections between the author's sketches of characters and scenes of everyday urban life in his press articles and fiction. The third section turns readers' attention to Galdós's literary techniques. Building on previous research on the intersection between pictorial and literary art in Galdós's works, Francisco Estévez details the function of ekphrasis in the author's depiction of his characters in his turn-of-the-century narrative. Multiple perspectives, different narrative voices and changes in focalization are only some of the author's techniques that Donatella Siviero studies in her essay on psychological and social violence in Doña Perfecta. The final chapter in this section explores the frequent reappearance of familiar characters in Galdós's narrative. In it, Assunta [End Page 237] Claudia Scotto di Carlo contends that the reintroduction of recurring characters enabled Galdós to create the effect of a multidimensional reality and unity within his works. The fourth section brings into focus Galdós's relation with his fellow writers. In his essay, Antonio Arroyo Almaraz studies the exchange of letters between Galdós and Narcís Oller and provides extensive evidence of similarities in their representation of urban space in Fortunata y Jacinta and La febre d'or...

Urban real estate technologies: genealogies, frontiers, & critiques

ABSTRACT The production, perception, and representation of urban space and urban property relations have been urgent “technological” questions since before the birth of urban geography as a discipline. The growth and differentiation of cities worldwide has been shaped by a long-evolving technical frontier, one often turned toward the accumulation imperatives and exclusions of private real estate development. Today, real estate in global cities is experiencing a fresh technological boom, featuring novel techniques for real estate mapping, valuation, financialization, and other key functions. This special issue explores and theorizes these technological developments in real estate, past and present. Collected papers articulate urban geographical scholarship with insights from critical political economy and technology studies, including digital geographies. The collection argues that the relational politics of property manifest in crucial ways through the development and application of urban real estate technologies, and that geography and urban planning are well positioned to offer insights into such technological and political economic mediations, both historical and unfolding.

Contemporary flâneuses in late capitalism: the representation of urban space in two Hong Kong women artists’ works

ABSTRACT In literature on modern urban life, a flâneur is a man who wanders seemingly aimlessly but with the intention of observing people or events in urban life and perhaps recording these observations in text or images. This article shows how contemporary women artists in Hong Kong—a city in late capitalism, perform the role of the flâneuse, the female counterpart of the flâneur. The article analyses Stella Tang’s series of paintings Sauntering Through My City Series (2009–2016) and Annie Wan’s ceramic works Looking For Poetry in Wanchai (2005) and Collecting Moonlight (2017). The article takes a nomadic nondialectical approach to explore how the two women artists practise their flâneurie, and how they transform such experiences into art projects that are different from the conventional flâneur art. I identify three aspects of the alternative representation of urban space in the works of the two flâneuses: reconfiguration of conception, the creative appropriation of alternative art forms and public engagement.

Kreml ja Kreenholm, Talvepalee ja Toompea. Linnad stalinismiaja eesti luules / The Kremlin and Kreenholm, the Winter Palace and Toompea hill: Cities in Estonian Poetry of the Stalinist Era

Kreml ja Kreenholm, Talvepalee ja Toompea. Linnad stalinismiaja eesti luules / The Kremlin and Kreenholm, the Winter Palace and Toompea hill: Cities in Estonian Poetry of the Stalinist Era

«Этнические» рынки Иркутска: ментальная репрезентация пространства

«Этнические» рынки Иркутска: ментальная репрезентация пространства

Overcoming the Subject-Object Dichotomy in Urban Modeling: Axial Maps as Geometric Representations of Affordances in the Built Environment.

The world is witnessing unprecedented urbanization, bringing extreme challenges to contemporary practices in urban planning and design. This calls for improved urban models that can generate new knowledge and enhance practical skill. Importantly, any urban model embodies a conception of the relation between humans and the physical environment. In urban modeling this is typically conceived of as a relation between human subjects and an environmental object, thereby reproducing a humans-environment dichotomy. Alternative modeling traditions, such as space syntax that originates in architecture rather than geography, have tried to overcome this dichotomy. Central in this effort is the development of new representations of urban space, such as in the case of space syntax, the axial map. This form of representation aims to integrate both human behavior and the physical environment into one and the same description. Interestingly, models based on these representations have proved to better capture pedestrian movement than regular models. Pedestrian movement, as well as other kinds of human flows in urban space, is essential for urban modeling, since increasingly flows of this kind are understood as the driver in urban processes. Critical for a full understanding of space syntax modeling is the ontology of its' representations, such as the axial map. Space syntax theory here often refers to James Gibson's “Theory of affordances,” where the concept of affordances, in a manner similar to axial maps, aims to bridge the subject-object dichotomy by neither constituting physical properties of the environment or human behavior, but rather what emerges in the meeting between the two. In extension of this, the axial map can be interpreted as a representation of how the physical form of the environment affords human accessibility and visibility in urban space. This paper presents a close examination of the form of representations developed in space syntax methodology, in particular in the light of Gibson's “theory of affordances.“ The overarching aim is to contribute to a theoretical framework for urban models based on affordances, which may support the overcoming of the subject-object dichotomy in such models, here deemed essential for a greater social-ecological sustainability of cities.

Transition, circularity and haptic space in the representation of the city. From Ruth Rendell’s Live Flesh to Pedro Almodóvar’s Carne Trémula

This article addresses the representation of urban space in film, through the analysis of the film adaptation of Ruth Rendell’s Live Flesh by the Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar. This film is a cross-cultural re-elaboration based on the initial set-up of the original plot, using Madrid as a setting, with significant presence of the city, approached in historical context. The representation of the metropolis links together aspects of form and content, rendering a mobile perspective of architectural and sociological features that illustrate current theorization on urban space and film. The interior scenes also reveal a fusion of discourse space and story space in the creation of haptic experience for phenomenological reception by spectators.

Towards the metaphorical transformation of urban space: digital art and the city after web 2.0

A revolução digital tem sido muitas vezes associada à indefinição de fronteiras geográficas, levando a novas formas de reconhecimento e (in)diferenciação territorial. À medida que as distâncias físicas se dissiparam, as barreiras tornaram-se ambíguas e crescentemente condicionadas por reconfigurações digitais de lugares reais ou ficcionados. Depois da Web 2.0, as representações geográficas de cidades foram redefinidas por ligações eletrónicas, abrindo assim o caminho para novas cartografias em rede, paralelas à realidade material, mas não necessariamente dependentes da mesma. Esta transformação metafórica do espaço físico em imagens e informação, permanentemente alteradas, partilhadas e atualizadas na Internet, promoveu uma dialética instável entre as dimensões tangíveis e subjetivas. Enquanto algumas fronteiras tendem a desaparecer, outras estão também a ser criadas, dado que o aparecimento de novos territórios digitais (ou digitalizados), com protocolos de acesso e cartografias específicas, tem gerado novas formas de exclusão social e cultural. Centrando-se na Arte Digital e Pós-Digital, este artigo discute esta situação recente, observando como os artistas contemporâneos têm proposto sistemas alternativos para a apropriação e representação de espaços urbanos. Enviado em: 22 de outubro de 2016.Aprovado em: 15 de novembro de 2016.

Semantic Spatial Representation, an Experimental Proposal in the Framework of eParticipation

The article explores the theme of collaborative construction of territorial knowledge through the use of ICTS, proposing a new approach to spatial representation based on semantic ontologies. The theoretical perspective is applied in a recent experimentation conducted in collaboration between the Politecnico and the Università di Torino, called OnToMap – Community Maps 3.0. The essay is divided into two parts. The first part aims to define the theoretical framework of the eParticipation practices, specifying which approach to participation is assumed as conceptual background. The second part focuses on the web-based application OnToMap, which relies on an territorial ontology for encourage construction of collective and shared knowledge of the places. It is therefore proposed a definition of “Social Semantic Mapping” based on the integration of GIS tools, VGI practices and Web 3.0 applications. The article ends with a reflection on semantic and cartographic representation of urban space and its potential in terms of citizen empowerment.

À procura dos retratos de Maputo: representações da cidade na poesia de Luis Carlos Patraquim

As representações líricas do espaço urbano na obra poética do moçambicano Luis Carlos Patraquim. A (re)cartografia da cidade natal antes e após a independência: de Lourenço Marques a Maputo. Memórias históricas, sociais e afetivas da urbes. A paisagem como lugar subjetivo. O subúrbio como paisagem da memória.

The urban-renewal project and "Gecekondu (Squatter settlement)" in Ankara The practices and representations of Urban space

The urban-renewal project and "Gecekondu (Squatter settlement)" in Ankara The practices and representations of Urban space

From Europe with love: urban space and cinematic postcards

In recent years, with the development of the transnational as a category of analysis, there has been a growing interest in Europe as an entity in its own right. Hence, and in line with the spatial turn observed in film studies, this article focuses on the representation of urban space in contemporary European cinema and the way it can be linked to the idea of Europe. In particular, it is centred on Match Point (Allen 2005) and Paris, je t’aime (Assayas et al. 2006), looking at what views of London and Paris are featured on screen. By putting forward the concept of the ‘cinematic postcard’, it aims to re-think the value of iconic views of European capitals (generally disparaged by film critics), as well as the way in which they can be related to changes occurring both in European society and in cinema. My analysis argues that through a combination of the views produced by mass tourism and international auteurs, a new, middle-brow vision of Europeanness emerges, which questions the traditional distinction between art and popular cinema, as well as between high and low culture.

La ciudad como espacio de transgresión y decadencia en la novela finisecular (la trilogía La lucha por la vida de Pío Baroja)

El siglo XIX propicia la emergencia de una novela que quiere dar cabida a las múltiples representaciones del espacio de la ciudad, auténtico microcosmo metafórico del país. En la exhibición de ámbitos marginales, Baroja convierte en materia literaria temas relegados a la marginalidad y disemina en sus novelas, La busca, Mala hierba y, en menor medida, Aurora roja, multitud de detalles antropológicos y sociales. Acude a todo tipo de información en torno al tema de la vida de los barrios bajos y de los suburbios y los cuadros minuciosamente detallados de la miseria urbana reflejan algunas de las preocupaciones penales, sociales e incluso científicas de más resonancia entre los reformistas del siglo XIX.

Waiting for the Turnover of Time: Reading the Narrative Strategy of Awakening in Walter Benjamin's One-Way Street

What literary project can be deciphered from the non-mimetic representation of urban space in Walter Benjamin's One-Way Street? The book can be read as a course that attempts to make speak dialectical images found among the signs and sites of daily urban life in the first third of the twentieth century. The prominence of dreams already in the early pages of One-Way Street, together with dialectical images whose speech brings historical truth to consciousness, shows that Benjamin's city tour is a (hi)story of awakening. Within this context, the images of public places represent signs of a collective unconscious that are to be deciphered in order to overcome the dream-like state in which they are perceived. By aiming to overcome a state in which images regulate daily life and apperception in public space, Benjamin's project remains irreducibly political. Instead of following a mimetic approach, Benjamin undermines the authority of unconscious images within a writing process that describes the trajectory of awakening. This essay uncovers Benjamin's narrative strategy for pursuing the dynamic of literary imagination for an ultimately iconoclastic effect.

‘A fit of absence of mind’? Empire and urban life in early non-fiction films (1895–1914)

This article explores the cinematic representation of urban spaces in early films of East Asia and South Africa. It aims at demonstrating that early actuality films are an invaluable record of the economic, social, and cultural life of distant cities in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, but also that the spatial organization of the cities, and of the films’ representations of them, were decisively shaped by the ideology and activity of imperialism.

Making Sense of Places

This paper explores the connections between whose representation of space, and whose modalities are “desirable” as part of the design of public spaces. Drawing on the theoretical framework of Henri Lefebvre, we reiterate the importance of “spatial practice” as a key tenet running right through the urban “design control” process. Second, we examine the ways in which subsequent multi-modal representations of urban space might act as a rejoinder to questions raised by the “moral geographies” literature, concluding that a consideration of “moral geographies” offers one way to unlock the multi-modal qualities associated with a progressive sensory urbanism.

A cidade etimologizada: os sentidos acerca do espaço urbano nas Etymologiae de Isidoro de Sevilha

In this paper, we will deal with some aspects concerning the representations of urban space as they are made in some selected passages from the book XV (De aedificiis et agris) of Isidore of Seville‟s (560-636 C.E.) Etymologiae. In this book, Isidore exposes the main words which he employs for describing the urban space. From a grammar-based scrutiny in which we can find four principles of definition – etymology, analogy, gloss, and difference –, Isidore presents the appropriate nuances of the uerba which describe and, at the same time, (re)signifies the res of urban space: ciuitas, urbs, etc.

Urban Space, Representation, and Artifice

This article offers a semiotic approach to modes of representation and organization of urban space. With point of departure in the art historian Donald Preziosi’s account of art history as episteme of modernity, the aim is to characterise codes that regulate the representations of urban space in a development from modernity towards a post- or hypermodern condition. In order to understand especially developments in aesthetic representation, Roman Jakobson’s semiotic mode of “artifice” is reintroduced. It seems that the application of this semiotic mode is highly relevant to the understanding of aesthetic representation in general but also and especially to the understanding of the aesthetics of three-dimensional artefacts. The article concludes with a tentative matrix of urban spatial trends and a perspective to the impact of changes in communications technology on the developments of urban space. Although the article has a theoretical scope, it refers to a number of examples from and observations in the urban environment.