Urban Cultural Landscape Research Articles

Odnos dobne strukture stanovništva i rekreacijskog pejzaža: primjer Dubrave u Zagrebu

Osnovno polazište rada jest premisa da su demografska obilježja stanovništva koje svakodnevno izgrađuje i konzumira prostor i kulturni pejzaži povezani, odnosno da se demografska slika u većoj ili manjoj mjeri može iščitati u kulturnim pejzažima gradova. Od svih demografskih struktura, u hrvatskim se urbanim pejzažima ponegdje više, a ponegdje manje mogu iščitati dobna, obrazovna, vjerska, ekonomska i etnička/narodnosna struktura, dok su rasna i rodna struktura gotovo nezapažene. U ovom se radu analizira odnos dobne strukture stanovništva i rekreacijskog pejzaža zagrebačke istočne periferije – Dubrave. Najprije se statističkom analizom upućuje na prošlo i trenutačno stanje dobnog sastava te trend starenja Dubravčana. U nastavku se deskriptivnom i/ili statističkom analizom nekih elemenata rekreacijskog pejzaža u Dubravi, poput zelenih površina, dječjih i sportskih igrališta, javnih vrtova, sportskih centara, Grada mladih i vikendica, utvrđuje suvremeno stanje u pejzažu. S obzirom na dominantan proces ubrzanog starenja stanovništva Dubrave, uočen je nesrazmjer između potreba za rekreacijom ostarjeloga stanovništva i realnoga stanja u prostoru. Nedostatak rekreacijskih sadržaja očit je ne samo za stariju populaciju, nego i za mlađu, a razlozi tomu najčešće su povezani s nedostatkom financijskih sredstava i u nekim slučajevima višom razinom odlučivanja od one gradskih četvrti. Izdvojena su dva podtipa rekreacijskog pejzaža: sportsko-rekreacijski i vikendaški pejzaž.

Urban space, political identity and the unwanted legacies of state socialism: Bucharest's problematic Centru Civic in the post-socialist era

This paper explores the relationship between the urban cultural landscape of Bucharest and the making of post-socialist Romanian national identity. As the capital of socialist Romania, central Bucharest was extensively remodelled by Nicolae Ceauşescu into the Centru Civic in order to materialize Romania's socialist identity. After the Romanian “Revolution” of 1989, the national and local state had to deal with a significant “leftover” socialist urban landscape which was highly discordant with the orientation of post-socialist Romania and its search for a new identity. Ceauşescu's vast socialist showpiece left a difficult legacy which challenges the material and representational reshaping of Bucharest and constructions of post-socialist Romanian national identity more broadly. The paper analyzes four attempts to deal with the Centru Civic: developments in the immediate post-1989 period; the international architectural competition Bucureşti 2000; proposals for building a Cathedral of National Salvation; and the Esplanada project. Despite over 20 years of proposals central Bucharest remains largely unchanged. The paper thus deals with a failed attempt to re-shape the built environment in support of national goals.

Urban Cultural Landscapes of Colonial Korea, 1920s–1930s: Guest Editor’s Introduction

Urban Cultural Landscapes of Colonial Korea, 1920s–1930s:Guest Editor’s Introduction Yung-Hee Kim (bio) This special issue of Korean Studies includes selected articles originally presented as papers at the “Tapestry of Modernity: Urban Cultural Landscapes of Colonial Korea, 1920s–1930s: An International Interdisciplinary Conference” held at the Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, February 16–17, 2012. The conference was part of the Center’s project to commemorate its fortieth anniversary. The primary aim of the conference was to explore the issue of modernity, one of the most debated and contentious topics in academic discourse, especially in East Asian countries.1 In a sense, the meeting meant to participate in the growing realization of scholars of this region that a clearer and firmer grasp of modernity is a prerequisite for a proper and truthful understanding of their own countries’ national identities and cultural politics in a contemporary setting. That is, unless the whys, whats, and hows of the construction of modernity—be it cultural, socio-political, educational, literary, artistic, or otherwise—are examined and clearly understood, the appreciation of the meaning of today’s East Asian societies and their positioning in the current global world order will remain partial, inchoate, or even flawed. Modernity, which is known to have its roots in Europe of the seventeenth century and to have spread its influence worldwide thereafter,2 is characterized by Anthony Giddens as the historical and cultural space that is “in various key respects discontinuous with the gamut of pre-modern [End Page 1] cultures and ways of life.”3 Giddens further points out that modernity signifies a radical departure from tradition in all its manifestations: “The modes of life brought into being by modernity have swept us away from all traditional types of social order, in quite unprecedented fashion. In both their extensionality and their intentionality the transformations involved in modernity are more profound than most sorts of change characteristic of prior periods.”4 These historical moments of fissure also conspicuously occurred in China, Japan, and Korea, coinciding with each country’s pursuit of a national project of enlightenment and/or modernization from the midor late nineteenth century. Yet it is crucial to bear in mind that the substance, themes, and contours of modernity varied from one country to another in East Asia. The differences in each nation’s politico-historical circumstances, existing cultural and philosophical ideologies, and the primary objectives for undertaking such endeavors played a vital role in determining the concept of the modern and the speed, urgency, content, forms, timeline, and direction of the cultural programs of modernity. In the case of Korea especially, the production of modernity was complicated by its coloniality, and the design, pattern, and arrangement of modernity took on far more complex, idiosyncratic dimensions than in either Japan or China. The Korean version of modernity and its developmental process may occasionally overlap or parallel those of China or Japan, but more often than not, the Korean version engendered its own unique, irreproducible, and irreplaceable profiles. Even in the spheres of modernity within the Korean peninsula, depending on the time frame, regions, social classes, and even gender, different impulses, drives, and needs shaped the course of the development of modernity, whose components often were contradicting, conflicted, incompatible, and very often clashing. Therefore, it would be an accurate and productive approach to adopt the perspective that “there are multiple paths to modernity”5 in examining the categories of modernity that transpired in Korea. In this connection, it is illuminating to consider S. N. Eisenstadt’s articulation of the multiplicity of modernity, which, he informs, resulted from the appropriation and selective rejection of “the hegemony of the Western formulations of the cultural program of modernity” by non-Western elites and intellectuals.6 Based on this notion of modernity as locally diversified manifestations and multifaceted matrices—not one standardized, unvarying, and homogeneous entity and not a wholesale adoption or assimilation—the conference aimed at exploring the multi-layered arrays of Korean modernity by looking at different areas in society and culture that went through a [End Page 2] metamorphosis as Korea reinvented itself as a modern nation-state during the...

Thailand's neglected urban heritage: challenges for preserving the cultural landscape of provincial towns of Thailand

Historical urban communities in provincial towns across Thailand are facing rapid demolition as a result of urban development. Comprised of simple wooden shop houses reflecting humble architectural craftsmanship, the character of these historical provincial towns is one which reflects unique patterns of urban livelihood and culture in Thailand. And yet, this provincial urban cultural landscape does not figure into the official Thai conception of ‘architectural heritage’. This paper discusses the current policies and problems resulting from the Thai state authority’s neglect of the value of small town urban communities. Moreover, it also touches upon the technical problem of maintaining wood structures, and discusses the possibilities for their adaptive use to support the continuation of the community’s unique everyday activities. This paper argues that there is still hope for saving Thailand’s provincial urban heritage due to the rise of ecotourism and participatory cultural heritage preservation principles.

Paisaje, forma y turismo en ciudades históricas

In a crisis context in which the tourism is one of the most dynamic sectors, the urban cultural landscapes can act as susceptible product of commercialization and alternative to the speculation of the ground like source of local financing. This article is been from investigations that put the accent on the threats experienced by the cultural landscapes as a result of little respectful processes of urbanization with the patrimonial and identitary values. The take effect in Spain from the 1 of March of 2008 of the European Landscape Convention and the directives for the application of the Convention of the Cultural and Natural World-wide Patrimony of UNESCO, of 1992, favor strategies of management and conservation of the cultural landscapes and its putting in tourism. All it demands to harmonize protection of the patrimony and arrangement of the territory, so that special attention to the inherited urban forms is lent, main people in charge of the urban landscaping values.

Urban and Rural Cultural Landscapes in the Functional Urban Region of Bratislava

The characteristics both of urban and rural cultural landscapes were studied on the example of the NE sector of Bratislava Functional Urban Region (FUR), consisting of 18 municipalities with population of about 85,000. The aim of the paper is to assess three main domains - demographic changes, quality of life and environmental quality - in order to specify differences between the rural and urban cultural landscapes and classification of the area according to the urban/rural characteristics. The resulting distribution of urban/rural areas even with some deviations confirmed the general trend of an increasing rural character of the area with the increasing distance from Bratislava.

The Influence of Urban Ecological Environment on Funeral Building Environment as Landscape Patches

Funeral building environment is part of the ecological system, it undertakes important duties like human burial, urban cultural landscape and tourism, and urban development. Funeral building environment landscape as patch design is the important tache of space landscape construction and development. It should aim at restoring local ecological environment, providing city environmental services, and helping to recover ecosystem and biodiversity that have been destroyed. It will repair the damages like biological component damage caused by urbanization, natural biological communities and species declining and urban ecological system stability destruction, so as to promote the development of funeral building ecological environment, and create a development environment with man and nature in perfect harmony.

The Fabric of New York City's Garment District: Architecture and Development in an Urban Cultural Landscape

The Fabric of New York City's Garment District: Architecture and Development in an Urban Cultural Landscape

The Fabric of New York City’s Garment District: Architecture and Development in an Urban Cultural Landscape

The Fabric of New York City’s Garment DistrictArchitecture and Development in an Urban Cultural Landscape Andrew S. Dolkart (bio) A 1959 study of the economics of New York’s garment industry opens by asserting: Put the American woman on a subway train going from Pennsylvania Station to Times Square, and it will take her just 65 seconds to pass completely under the district that gives her the reputation of being the best-dressed woman in the world.1 Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Map of the Garment District and vicinity in 1934, showing West 34th Street on the south, West 42nd Street on the north, Sixth Avenue to the east, and Ninth Avenue to the west. From G. W. Bromley & Company, Manhattan Land Book, 1934. Author’s collection; courtesy of the Sanborn Library, LLC. This subway train sped beneath New York City’s Garment District, an area only six blocks long, between West 35th and West 41st Streets, and three irregular-sized blocks wide, from Broadway to Ninth Avenue, centering on and, thus, often simply dubbed “Seventh Avenue” (Figure 1). Its streets are lined with skyscraper industrial lofts and office and showroom buildings, almost all of which were erected in a ten-year period following World War I (Figure 2). By the end of the 1920s, most of the ready-to-wear clothing worn by American women was manufactured and marketed in these buildings, where two-thirds of the city’s garment workers were employed. The importance of the Garment District to the history and character of New York City (and also to the national industrial economy) far exceeds its limited geographic scale. Indeed, few areas are more integral to the twentieth-century [End Page 14] history and legend of the city. Extensive research has been conducted on the labor history of the garment industry in New York, focusing in particular on the rise of garment unions. Yet virtually nothing is known about the stage on which this rich labor history took place—the physical fabric of the garment district: its distinctive architecture, the architects and builders, and the economic and social forces that shaped its development. 2 The question arises, why has a district of large-scale buildings, so important to the economic and social history of the city, been so ignored by architectural historians? In part it is because New Yorkers take these buildings for granted. They are the location of so much labor history and, for many people with roots in New York City, the place where a parent, grandparent, or other relative once worked, but not one to take guests to admire the grandeur of the city’s buildings. The names of the builders of garment lofts are largely forgotten, and few people are familiar with the architects who were responsible for most of these buildings. Yet this fascinating building stock is made even more interesting by an examination of the history that created the garment district in this location. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. Aerial view of the Garment District, circa 1925, looking southeast from Eighth Avenue and West 40th Street. From B. M. Selekman et al., The Clothing and Textile Industries (1925). Author’s collection. Originally published in Regional Survey of New York and Its Environs, vol. 1B, The Clothing and Textile Industries (New York: Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs, 1925). Reprinted with permission from the Regional Plan Association. The presence of the dense mass of industrial loft buildings on the blocks north of 34th Street and west of Broadway is sometimes ascribed to the passage of New York’s comprehensive zoning law in 1916. This story of the power of zoning simplifies a far more complex and interesting story of the powerful real estate and retail interests who campaigned to remove garment factories with their largely poor and immigrant workers from streets near prestigious department stores and other high-end retailers. Storeowners feared that garment workers would scare away their affluent, primarily female clientele. The success of this campaign to restrict the location of garment factories was codified in the new zoning resolution, and speculative developers working with a small...

Political Identity, Public Memory and Urban Space: A Case Study of Parcul Carol I , Bucharest from 1906 to the Present

This article analyses the inter-relationship between political identity, public memory and urban space in South-east Europe through a case study of Parcul Carol I (Carol I Park) in Bucharest, Romania from 1906 to the present. The article analyses how the urban cultural landscape has been reshaped to support the political ambitions of three successive regimes—Romania as a kingdom and liberal constitutional monarchy (1881–1938); state-socialist Romania (1947–1989); and the post-socialist Romanian state from 1989. The article highlights complex continuity from the state-socialist period under post-socialism, rather than destruction of the landscape of state-socialism, combined with the return of pre-socialist landscape elements. The article argues for the need for studies of the fate of state-socialist urban landscapes under post-socialism which consider the complexities introduced by the persistence of landscape elements from the pre-socialist and state-socialist periods and their combination with pre-socialist and post-socialist landscapes to produce hybrid memory-scapes and spaces of the nation.

Haptic urban ethnoscapes: Representation, diasporic media and urban cultural landscapes

ABSTRACTThis article posits the theoretical framework of the ‘haptic urban ethnoscape’. Haptic urban ethnoscapes invite us to think about the body of film and media and the bodies of audiences as meeting and interacting in multi-sensory ways, in metropolitan locales. These are developed out of a critical theorizing about the concept of representation as a way of extending text-based analyses beyond the materiality of film and media to consider their articulations in and through urban cultural geographies. Examples of diasporic film and media representations of British multicultural high streets, namely in Birmingham and West London, are considered through select illustrations in Gurinder Chadha's Bhaji on the Beach (1993) and Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and also outlined through new media postings on YouTube. These are set alongside and contemplated in relation to actual socio-cultural observations of the same.

Observations of Environmental Change in Cuba

Observations of Environmental Change in Cuba Lisa Davis, David M. Brommer, and Enrique Rodriquez-Loeches Diez-Argüelles Introduction Analysis of global processes of change at the regional scale is vitally important to not only better predict and prepare for change occurring at the regional scale but also to better understand the drivers of change, as they tend to be spatially and temporally complex. The importance of regional analyses to questions of globalization, development, and environmental change in the Caribbean and the Southeastern United States has been recognized (Torres 2005), as have the importance of connecting regional scale changes occurring in the Southeastern United States to global and transnational processes (Lecce and Alderman 2004). Comparative geography, as a means of analysis, is a useful way to explore the economic, social, cultural, and environmental trajectories of two locations that share certain historical and physical commonalities. Through comparative analysis diverging and converging paths of socio-cultural and environmental change can be identified and new insight gained concerning the impacts of ongoing change, as well as future directions of change. Moseley (2005) exemplified the comparative geographic technique in his comparison of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Southeastern United States. In the following, we discuss observations of ongoing environmental change occurring in the Caribbean nation of Cuba made during a trip to Cuba in May 2008 and highlight some of the environmental changes that are taking place both in Cuba and the Southeastern United States. Why Cuba? At first glance there may appear to be few similarities between the Southeastern United States and a socialist island nation located in the Caribbean, but the two locations have many similarities, including being locations of civil wars in the past, having agricultural histories that include plantation agriculture of sugar cane and tobacco, having temperate climates, and their geographic proximity to each other. Gamble (2004) also noted connections between Caribbean nations and the Southeastern United States extending back to the 1700s through a variety of socio-economic, political, and cultural processes, as well as the environment and physical geography, in essence viewing the Caribbean and the Southeastern United States as a region not defined by [End Page 84] political boundaries but by similar physical and socio-economic traits. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Political mural, with Che Guevara at the forefront, that reads, "of these men a town begins." It is not our intention to present an exhaustive discussion of environmental change in Cuba or to discuss all of the social, cultural, and natural processes responsible. But instead to discuss major environmental changes taking place in Cuba and to identify the environmental changes that are similar to those experienced in the Southeastern U.S., shedding light on processes of global environmental change relevant to the region as a whole. Ongoing environmental change in Cuba largely stems from the liberalization of specific sectors of the Cuban economy and regional climate variability. Our observations, therefore, focus on these vectors of change. Socio-Economic Change and Resulting Urban and Physical Landscape Change Cuba's cultural and physical landscapes have abundant visual reminders of Cuba's socialist government (Figure 1), history with the former Soviet Union and the United States (Figure 2), and complex relationship with the United States (Figure 3). Equally as tangibly represented in the cultural and physical landscape are examples of social, economic, and cultural change affecting the physical environment. As might be expected, some of the socio-cultural drivers of environmental change in Cuba are similar to those occurring in many Caribbean nations, but others are relatively unique to Cuba because they are related to liberalization of the tourism and agricultural economies. As is common in many locations in the Caribbean, growth in the tourism industry has had direct impacts on the environment. Most evident of these is the conversion of natural beaches and coastlines into large resorts for packaged tourism. There are roughly 300 Cuban beaches (Sainsbury 2006) used by tourists, mainly from Europe, including Spain, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany but also [End Page 85] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. Combining Soviet and U.S. cultural representations in Cuba, a Soviet Lada drives on the Malécon...

Packaging places: Designing heritage trails using an experience economy perspective to maximize visitor engagement

Heritage trails are a unifying mechanism within the urban cultural tourism landscape and this article explores these tourism products against the principles of experience design suggested by Pine and Gilmore.1 Content analysis of trail brochures and leaflets incorporated both qualitative and quantitative dimensions in order to ascertain whether these are positioned as products or experiences. The results indicate that whilst trails utilize some of the approaches recommended by Pine and Gilmore,2 there is still considerable scope for improvement in terms of their positioning and presentational format, if they are to maximize their potential.

«Wo, bitte, liegt denn die Glattalstadt?»

Abstract The majority of the world's population live in cities today. But, ‘city’ cannot be understood in the traditional sense, but rather as a cityscape or a city region. Outside of the historical city centers, cities without cities are arising (Zwischenstadte, Sieverts 1997), whose organization and functional management are a great challenge to planners. This paper introduces the theme of this issue of disP and gives a short overview of the ETH Zurich research program: The Future of Urban Cultural Landscapes.

History and Local Management of a Biodiversity-Rich, Urban Cultural Landscape

Barthel, S., J. Colding, T. Elmqvist, and C. Folke. 2005. History and local management of a biodiversity-rich, urban cultural landscape. Ecology and Society 10(2): 10. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-01568-100210

School Names as Cultural Arenas: The Naming of U.S. Public Schools after Martin Luther King, Jr.

The commemoration of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) is a growing movement in many American cities and towns. School naming is an important yet underanalyzed part of this project. A recent struggle in Riverside, California over naming a high school for MLK is used as a springboard for: (1) conceptualizing school names as cultural arenas for debating student and community identity and (2) conducting a general study of the types of U.S. public schools named for King. As illustrated in California, school naming can be interpreted by one social group as a means of integrating and inspiring students historically and viewed by another group as a means of drawing boundaries around students in terms of race and local heritage. According to 1997-1998 data, 110 public schools bear King's name. They are located most often in the central cities of large and mid-size urban areas. King's name is most frequently found on schools that teach early and middle grades. Schools named for Martin Luther King do not necessarily denote a "Black" school in terms of the racial characteristics of students, although they do not fully integrate Whites with African Americans or Whites with minorities in general. Naming schools for King is part of a larger refashioning of the urban cultural landscape as racial and ethnic groups increasingly seek public recognition of their historical achievements.

Fluvial Landscapes, Catchment Administration and Land-use Planning: experience based on two rivers in Spain

The differences between urban, rural and fluvial landscapes pose challenges for land-use planning. In particular, the stable character of urban settlements and cultural landscapes contrasts with the instability of fluvial ones. In Spain, the administration of fluvial landscapes, via the main legal instrument (the Hydraulic Public Domain) and land-use plans, is conducted on the basis of administrative boundaries which cut across hydrological units. The characteristics and dynamics of fluvial landscapes (in particular two Spanish rivers) are studied and it is argued that land uses established within them should be compatible with their characteristics and dynamics. In order to implement this objective, two new concepts are proposed for adoption by the river agencies and for incorporation in local land-use plans—the Area of Fluvial Freedom and the Area of Flooding.

Fluvial Landscapes, Catchment Administration and Land-use Planning: Experience based on two rivers in Spain

The differences between urban, rural and fluvial landscapes pose challenges for land-use planning. In particular, the stable character of urban settlements and cultural landscapes contrasts with the instability of fluvial ones. In Spain, the administration of fluvial landscapes, via the main legal instrument (the Hydraulic Public Domain) and land-use plans, is conducted on the basis of administrative boundaries which cut across hydrological units. The characteristics and dynamics of fluvial landscapes (in particular two Spanish rivers) are studied and it is argued that land uses established within them should be compatible with their characteristics and dynamics. In order to implement this objective, two new concepts are proposed for adoption by the river agencies and for incorporation in local land-use plans—the Area of Fluvial Freedom and the Area of Flooding.

Sound influence on landscape values

In order to study the influence of the interaction between visual and acoustic stimuli on perception of the environment, 36 sound and image combinations were presented to 75 subjects. The sounds and images used were of natural and semi-natural settings and urban green space. Affective response was measured in terms of pleasure. The results show a rank of preferences running from natural to man-made sounds, with the nuance of a potential alert or alarm-raising component of the sound. The potential for alert or alarm-raising may be related, over and above the information content or meaning, to the characteristics of the sound frequency spectrum, specifically to the existence of frequency bands whose sound levels impose themselves on the acoustic background. The congruence or coherence between sound and image influences preferences. Coherent combinations are rated higher than the mean of the component stimuli. Results suggest that there is a need to identify places or settings where the conservation of the sound environment is essential, because of its salient informational content or due to the drastic impact of the loss of sound quality on observer appreciation, for example, in urban green spaces, natural spaces and cultural landscapes.

Hot 'Lanta's Urban Expansion and Cultural Landscape Change

Hot 'Lanta's Urban Expansion and Cultural Landscape Change