Urban Icons Research Articles

Urban Brand: Implications of Legal Management, Branding, and Urban Icons in the Decentralized Autonomous Government of the Municipality of Ambato

Currently, the development of a city brand represents a key strategy for governments interested in boosting tourism within their borders. However, improper use of this resource can be counterproductive. The purpose of this study is to determine the criteria for assessing the effectiveness of the city brand and its tourist appeal, applying the Anholt Hexagon model. A mixed-methodological approach was adopted, analyzing the six dimensions of the model as a theoretical framework, and complementing it with a quantitative study based on surveys about the perception of tourists, both local and international, with a sample of 384 participants. The research aimed to establish a relationship between the hypothetical factors and each of the evaluated dimensions (presence, pulse, place, people, potential, and prerequisites) to identify the key elements for the success of a city brand, such as its architecture, climate, natural reserves, and promotional strategies. It is concluded that the effective development of a city brand requires careful consideration of these factors to enhance tourist retention and complement the sustainable development of the city of Ambato.

“To Live with Honor, or Die”: The Metamorphosis of Place, National Symbols, Masculinities, and Practices under State Terrorism (1973-1990)

This article explores the value of urban history and material culture in the study of memory. More specifically, it offers an examination through a masculine lens of the ways in which urban icons have impacted and shaped individual and national identities. The article focuses on Bulnes Square in Santiago de Chile and the Eternal Flame of Liberty as a key place and symbol of Augusto Pinochet’s “fascism in progress.” I draw on local press archives, advertising, and photographs to further explore the gender metaphor of state and nation as expressions of monolithic nationalism and their perpetuation of a hypermasculine tone, examining their links to place and national memory construction.

The Evolution of the Beatles Square: Mimicry of the West, or One Attempt Searching for the Identity of Ulaanbaatar City

The area of East Asia, which is mainly consist of countries like China, Mongolia, Korea and Japan, due to its overpopulation, urban growth and fascinating industrial progress, has become the subject of discussion of world science. As Asia accounts for over half the world's total population and Asian cities for over 40% worldwide urban population, this event is a major challenge for understanding globalization. East Asia is probably the only part of the world that has the intellectual power that can compete with Western-dominated civilization in the 21st century. The issue of this article is the urban structure of East Asian memorable urban communities that have developed over a period longer than a thousand years, despite the fact that noteworthy city-scapes have to a great extent vanished. In notable urban communities, the urban structure is an article whereupon the history and the way of life of the general public are reflected. In this way, one powerful method by which the exceptional socio-social characters of East Asian urban communities can be comprehended is a basic audit of their urbanism and design. Public squares play an important role in enhancing the image of a city as a tourist attraction. The Ulaanbaatar Beatles square is analyzed contextualizing the concept of urban icons in the period of Mongolian modernization, which a focus on the two successive political periods. This research offers reading public space where elements of architecture, public sculptures and mobiles, as well as the extent of participation point to (re) structuring identities. The process of creating an urban identity of a city reveals the conscientious effect of various social groups. The aim of this study also was to evaluate the Beatles Square space quality and the main characteristics such as physical environment (location of the square, climatic conditions, relationship with the surrounding structures, vehicle relation in terms of accessibility, landscape accessory and fixed elements, street furniture and lighting fixtures. The user's characteristics, which consist of two very important quality criteria, are also analyzed: functionality, usefulness and aesthetic value.

Cultural Symbol dan Politik Identitas dalam Pembangunan Kota Sampit

This study aims to trace the cultural symbols and identity politics that occur in the city of Sampit. This is based on several important things that happened in Sampit. Sampit is a heterogeneous and multicultural city and at the same time there were riots between the Dayak and Madura tribes around 2000, which resulted in the emptying and rejection of Madurese residents. At least in the past two decades, Sampit has turned into a city that displays an identity as a Muslim city with the emergence of urban icons built by local elite leaders. It is interesting to track what exactly is behind the elite officials in the city of Sampit in building these identity symbols and how political symbol culture plays a role in the development of the city of Sampit. The analytical tool used in this study is functional sociology where the emphasis of this study is on actors who provide change in society. The results of this study indicate that several values obsess over Cultural Symbol actions in Sampit, including; First, religious values, one of which orientates the cultural symbol policy is that the Sampit community is moved to worship their Lord and minimize criminal acts that used to occur frequently, such as wild speeding, theft and obscene acts. Secondly, art values, symbols used such as the dome and calligraphy of Asmaul Husnaand calligraphy of Allah and Muhammad's writings are expressions of the architectural art values possessed by the Sampit regent which used to beautify the city of Sampit. Third, Political Interest, every policy carried out by an elite certainly cannot be separated from political interests, the Sampit regent is no exception, which in this case is to perpetuate his power, bearing in mind that the regent is in power for two periods untill 2020

Decision-making tool for a constructive relation between emblematic facilities and urban regeneration projects applied to the case of Riad El Feth Arts Centre in Algiers

Abstract Considered as a lever for urban regeneration politics, the construction of emblematic facilities is also a way to enhance metropolitan attractiveness. The Algerian capital is no exception to this rule. These new urban icons are designed to be the catalysts of urban change, and are expected to improve the adaptation of metropolitan localities to new needs and developmental challenges. However, in the field, this iconic regeneration does not always bring the expected changes. The Riad El Feth Arts Centre, an iconic facility located in the central municipality of El Madania in Algiers, is one example. In this paper we propose an operational tool called EFLUR (Emblematic Facilities Leverage of Urban Regeneration), intended to facilitate urban decision-making by evaluating the leverage of emblematic facilities at targets of urban strategy. It helps to assesses and optimise their leverage capacity by identifying their failures and opportunities, with a view to undertaking necessary actions, both to amplify positive contamination and to limit detrimental effects. The Riad El Feth is selected as a study case to validate our approach and test the operationality of EFLUR. Beyond conventional impact studies, the value of this tool lies in its holistic approach and capacity to combine metropolitan objectives with local development strategies.

Urban icons and city branding development

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand how future urban icons can effectively contribute to the development of an authentic city brand linked to local identity. Urban icons have been one of the main tools of city branding to promote a unique and distinctive image of the city. However, the rising of the globalization reflects a series of strong dilemmas regarding the contemporary urban icons because these have been reproduced in a standardized way around the world without any connection to the local context.Design/methodology/approachThis exploratory study consisted of 30 in-depth interviews with visual aids of urban icons conducted with local residents of the city of Monterrey, Mexico.FindingsThe results demonstrate that the acceptance of a contemporary urban icon by local residents depends on their relationship with the most representative aspects of the local identity and their ability to generate positive experiences. The outcomes of the research suggest that future urban icons should favor the local identity and the free coexistence between local residents over the attractive visual design and the private space.Originality/valueThe article discusses the dynamics between urban icons and the city brand from a new theoretical approach supported by empirical evidence. The novelty of this approach consists of the vision of the urban icon as an element capable of linking the city brand with the values and ideals of local residents.

Icons: the making, meaning and undoing of urban icons and iconic cities

This is a conference report on the 13th Australasian Urban History/Planning History Conference.

Divided we rise: politics, architecture and vertical cityscapes at opposite ends of Jerusalem

This paper explores how planning, politics and architecture work together to socially produce new vertical cityscapes. Our contention is that the inception and development of high‐rises are interlocked into the narrations of cities, reflecting cultural values and social cleavages, political interests and planning agendas, symbolic connotations and everyday life experiences. By using a mixed‐method approach, which includes the analysis of official documents and interviews with decisionmakers, planners and observers, we examine two trajectories of tall‐building development at opposite ends of Jerusalem. In Israeli West Jerusalem, the development of high‐rises is part of a neo‐liberal growth package that seeks to stimulate economic activity, rebrand the city and increase the city's competiveness at national and global scales while evading highly contentious religious‐cultural cleavages. At the other end of the city, the construction of tall buildings in grey spaces symbolically represents a Palestinian revolt against Israeli restrictive planning and development policies, but also addresses day‐to‐day needs and changing preferences of the Palestinian population. Our analysis uses verticality as a representation of social relations demonstrating manipulations of power and legitimacy. In Jerusalem, planning and development of ordinary high‐rises next to recently completed icons, the Bridge of Strings and the Separation Wall, epitomises a dialogue that unmistakably promotes political agendas and produces symbolic meanings. This dialogue can either support the original values and aims of urban icons or challenge them.

Guardare Venezia: la città come dispositivo visuale

The hypothesis of this paper is that Venice has been and still is an extraordinary example of visual representations’ production and consumption. The identity of the city, as represented by tourist images, is the result of a long cultural process that has taken place since the Renaissance and continues to exert its effects even today.The author uses visual sociology to analyze both a corpus of mass media images (photographs on websites, postcards, brochures, stock photography) and a visual documentation of the practices of tourists visiting Venice. Following this methodology, the article describes how pictures of the city have become one of the key drivers of mass tourism there, which is considered unsustainable by a portion of the resident community.The first part of this approach (analysis of the images) concerns the urban icons, those that become standard generative models for other visual representations. Some pictures are used to describe the genesis of the icons as well as their reproduction, distribution, and remediation throughout time.The second part of the methodology (analysis with the images) concerns some documentation (photographs and videos) observing the performances of tourists in Venice. Mass tourism is described by its social practices of looking, gazing, photographing, and acquiring images. The focus is on the cycle of the production and consumption of cultural capital and icons through visual practices.The article uses a selection of photographs as an integral part of research. Photographs, postcards, and artwork that have influenced the process of creating Venetian icons help in the investigation of the tourists’ relationships with the urban space and its residents, and they also help to explain the visual identity of the Serenissima in our collective imagination.

Empreendedorismo urbano periférico e os ícones urbanos: a lógica da máquina de crescimento em Natal/RN

O presente artigo é fruto de uma pesquisa sobre a produção do espaço urbano natalense com foco nos seus ícones urbanos, na perspectiva do que aqui se chama de empreendedorismo periférico. Partindo da abordagem clássica da cidade enquanto máquina de crescimento, é possível visualizar os rumos que a cidade tomou, nos últimos anos, com a construção de ícones concentrados nas áreas mais enobrecidas da cidade, ou seja, no eixo de investimento imobiliário. Evidenciou-se, portanto, que as escolhas das sucessivas gestões públicas estiveram ligadas antes à racionalidade econômica e às oportunidades momentâneas, do que ao processo de planejamento propriamente dito.
 
 Abstract 
 
 PERIPHERAL URBAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE ICONIC BUILDINGS: THE LOGICAL OF THE GROWTH MACHINE IN NATAL/RN
 
 This article is the result of a research on the urban space production of Natal with a focus on its urban icons, from the perspective of what here is called peripheral entrepreneurship. Starting from the classical approach of the city as a growth machine, it’s possible to see the direction that the city has taken in recent years, with the construction of iconic buildings in the most ennobled areas of the city, in other words, in the real estate investment axis. With the analysis of the strategic plans, it became clear that the successive public management choices were linked before to the economic rationality and momentary opportunities, instead to the planning process itself.

The street as urban icon? Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard

In this article, I analyze Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard as an example of an urban symbol and suggest that while main streets, avenues and boulevards are usually perceived as integral parts of the urban symbolic ecology, they are rarely considered as exclusive urban icons in their own right. Although prestige of “privileged” streets influences reputations of cities and constitutes an important part of their imaginary, their complicated physical structure and multifunctional character conflict with their iconic status. The physical nature of streets resists configuration and articulation as exclusive, durable urban icons because symbols are generally conspicuous physical objects that can be directly interpreted and rendered as iconic.

English

Urban tourist icons such as Paris, Istanbul or Sydney are major pull factors of a destination and are often represented in tourist promotional texts (TPTs) to persuade potential tourists to visit a destination. The use of the ‘iconic advertising approach’( Litvin & Mouri, 2009 ), which capitalises on the iconicity of tourist icons, is one of the most effective advertising approaches in affecting a destination image. The strength of this approach lies in its key function of representing easily recognisable and positive images that reinforce or simply recall the audience’s previously held perceptions about the destination. However, the ways in which urban tourist icons are represented and perceived differ from one audience to another, for it is based on the cultural background of the audience. The differences in how these icons are represented and perceived pose a key challenge for translators of TPTs, whose role is to produce an effective translation in the target language and culture in order to persuade potential tourists in that language and culture. This paper discusses some of the cultural issues involved in translating tourist icons and analyses how a particular ‘tourist icon’ is represented in a published English TPT (source text) for an Anglo audience and how it has been translated into the Malay language for a Malay audience. The translation (target text) is analysed in terms of its functionality and effectiveness within the cultural context of the target audience. The discourse analysis of the source and target texts is complemented by findings derived from focus group discussions and an analysis of authentic TPTs in Malay (parallel texts). Based on the analysis, a functionally adequate translation which takes into consideration the cultural differences, hence preserving the iconicity of the destination, is proposed. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/GEMA-2014-1403-10

La imagen urbana en contextos de violencia: El espectáculo continúa

The urban image is never something unitary or homogeneous. This study is focused in the city of Monterrey and it starts considering the urban landscape from the spectacular “macro-projects”, that has been replaced in the current climate of violence by other kind of show —morally reprehensible but having a similar sense of astonishment—, result of drug trafficking and organized crime. This has produced a curious war of images that has been specially expressed through the media. Today, in a postmodern cultural context, many cities of the world put a lot of effort in the aesthetic seduction as a tool of economic benefit, as an essential instrument to transform the cities and solve their problems. Monterrey has joined a global trend that sees the development of urban policies from the construction of architectural and urban icons and the organization and celebration of major sporting and cultural events of international scope. For years, various “macroprojects” have responded to that policy. However, when everything seemed to be controlled to achieve a city brand, the unexpected came. The violent eruption in the world scene of drug trafficking and organized crime from 2009, took the covers of the national and foreign press other images of Monterrey, rather different from the previous ones: shootings, roadblocks, hanged people hanging in bridges, bodies dismembered; business and commercial establishments attacks left many victims. This has forced to postpone sine die the strategies of city branding.

Representation of Sovereigns and Public Space in Zagreb

Monuments dedicated to the sovereigns in the public space of Zagreb are considered not only works of public art but also symbols of ideological values. Careful analysis of their settings, processes of their removal and the changes that the monument underwent should be included in the interpretation of the monuments and their wider context. Monuments dedicated to the sovereigns possess the power of urban icons, even in times when they are hidden from the public eye by decisions of ‘higher power’.

Female bodies in Paris: iconic urban femininity and Parisian journeys

ABSTRACTThe link between French female stars and Paris is so strong that they have become an integral and highly visible part of the urban screenscape. I examine Une Parisienne (Boisrond, 1957), Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Malle, 1957), Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (Jeunet, 2001) and Chaos (Serreau, 2001) to illustrate how female protagonists not only embody iconic types of Parisian femininity, but also trace inner journeys through the cityscape in both auteur and popular films. In my analysis, I shift the discussion from the figure of the flâneuse, while looking at other spatial practices that enable projections of subjectivities in the city space, including feminine cartographies, haptic travels that position female spectators as voyageuses and spectatorial practices related to star images. I argue that Parisian female stars and vedettes as both objects of consumption and subjective protagonists map the city of Paris according to their inner structure, in both objectified and personal terms, as the collusion of these two categories on-screen and in off-screen media texts enables them to circulate desire for the city as feminine urban icons.

Exotic monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus) in New Jersey: nest site selection, rebuilding following removal, and their urban wildlife appeal

Understanding how birds exist in highly urban cities is important to maintaining biodiversity within these environments, and exotic species pose a unique opportunity to examine adaptation. The non-native monk parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus) nests mainly in cities in the United States, and in some places, is considered a nuisance by utility companies. Monk parakeets nest communally (many nests in one nest structure) and colonially (many nest structures in one area). We studied monk parakeets in urban New Jersey to determine where they nested, if nest sites were similar among parakeets nesting in trees and utility poles, and if they rebuilt following removal. Of the 51 nest structures we studied, 37% were on utility poles, 8% were on a man-made gazebo, and the rest were in trees. Nest structures located on poles were located closer to the ground, had fewer nest holes, and the distance to nearest tree was greater than for tree nest structures. The pole nest structures were closer to the top of the “canopy” or structure, and were always located on or around the pole rather than out on one of the cross beams. The nest structures were similar in size and shape whether they were located on poles, other man-made objects, or in trees. Thus monk parakeets built similar nest structures, and located them about the same distance from the ground and from houses whether they were in utility poles or in trees, leading to the conclusion that poles provide suitable sites for them. The parakeets persisted in nesting on the utility poles and another man-made gazebo despite being removed over several years, and despite the presence of other nearby unused trees. After parakeet nest structures were removed from poles by the utility company, most birds began rebuilding within the day. The persistence, despite persecution, of the monk parakeet on poles, and the fact that poles provide attractive and secure support for nest structures, suggest that they will continue to do so. Managers must either learn to live with the parakeets, redesign the utility pole structure to be less appealing to the birds, provide them with alternative nest sites on the utility poles or nearby, or continue to forcibly remove them. Local support for the parakeets, and their potential to serve as urban icons, have resulted in New Jersey’s utility company working with local enthusiasts and scientists to ensure the birds are not harmed during nest removal.

The Vivid Cast

The National Museum of Australia in Canberra (NMA) was positioned after decades of exploration of the design tactics of architectural and cultural appropriations by its architects Ashton, Raggatt McDougall. The lead designer for the project, Howard Raggatt, has been working with the device of sampling urban artefacts and architectural icons in his designs since his undergraduate days and the NMA displays an end-game of this approach. This design approach should not be appreciated in isolation but should be perceived within the framework of Raggatt's reflections on Christian faith as expressed within the architectural compositions. This paper will explore the early works of Raggatt and ARM and track how the techniques of appropriation evolved and the connection of the tactics to spiritual deliberations. This analysis will look to locating the compositional origins of the NMA and posit a reading on how the design of the NMA invites reflection on ones relationship with God.

Introduction: an atlas of the urban icons project

When the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 11 September 2001, many commentators noted that in their short lives, the towers had come to represent many things: American-led global capitalism, the United States and, most of all, New York City. Their brief role as a shorthand way of saying ‘New York City’ provoked us to ask about ‘urban icons’ more generally. But we did not need such cataclysm to provoke us to consider the topic of icons and their functioning in contemporary global culture. To help illuminate the usefulness of the concept of ‘urban icons’ we held an international conference in order to determine whether the category can be used as a conceptual grid for studying the intersection of visual culture and urban history.

The iconiCITY of ancient Rome

Urban icons were common in the Roman world, with monuments, cityscapes and personifications all used as metonyms. Yet an icon for the most important city of all is not easily identified. Rome was always sui generis, too large to be easily captured visually. Filled with innumerable wonders, no single structure or artwork stood for the whole. Representing the collective, as well as the great extent of the empire, the city could not be encapsulated in a single image.

3D Models of Urban Icons: Tracing Benjamin and Koolhaas

Walter Benjamin and Rem Koolhaas developed two significant investigations, which explored the culture of Paris and New York through the analysis of their architectural artifacts. Their research projects successfully construct, from a few meaningful components of the built environment, an understanding of the overall city and its society. The objective of this paper is to address the similarities between the research carried out at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the work of these two acclaimed writers. Our group aims to select urban icons, from different moments and areas in Rio de Janeiro, to be studied in order to understand the city evolution in the XX Century. The distinguished Ministry of Education building is the investigation's prototype, analyzed thorough several 3D models and other digital techniques. We conclude that a thorough study of Benjamin's and Koolhaas' work should be considered a primary support for the interrogation of our own investigation.