scholarly journals The (No-)Public Space. Reviewing the Transformation of Al-Qaed Ibrahim's Urban Image

2020 ◽  
pp. 177-192
Author(s):  
Iman Hegazy

Public spaces are defined as places that should be accessible to all inhabitants without restrictions. They are spaces not only for gathering, socializing and celebrating but also for initiating discussions, protesting and demonstrating. Thus, public spaces are intangible expressions of democracy—a topic that the paper tackles its viability within the context of Alexandria, case study Al-Qaed Ibrahim square. On the one hand, Al-Qaed Ibrahim square which is named after Al-Qaed Ibrahim mosque is a sacred element in the urban fabric; whereas on the other it represents a non-religious revolutionary symbol in the Alexandrian urban public sphere. This contradiction necessitates finding an approach to study the characteristic of this square/mosque within the Alexandrian context—that is to realize the impact of the socio-political events on the image of Al-Qaed Ibrahim square, and how it has transformed into a revolutionary urban symbol and yet into a no-public space. The research revolves around the hypothesis that the political events taking place in Egypt after January 25th, 2011, have directly affected the development of urban public spaces, especially in Alexandria. Therefore methodologically, the paper reviews the development of Al-Qaed Ibrahim square throughout the Egyptian socio-political changes, with a focus on the square’s urban and emotional contextual transformations. For this reason, the study adheres to two theories: the "city elements" by Kevin Lynch and "emotionalizing the urban" by Frank Eckardt. The aim is not only to study the mentioned public space but also to figure out the changes in people’s societal behaviour and emotion toward it. Through empowering public spaces, the paper calls the different Egyptian political and civic powers to recognize each other, regardless of their religious, ethnical or political affiliations. It is a step towards replacing the ongoing political conflicts, polarization, and suppression with societal reconciliation, coexistence, and democracy.

Informatics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teodora Iulia Constantinescu ◽  
Oswald Devisch

Increasing complexity of societal questions requires participatory processes that engage with capable participants. We adopted Horellis’ stance on participation as not an isolated event but a constant communication between different groups that can be assured by using enabling tools. We applied the Capability Approach to frame a capacity-building process and understand how this framework can support a collective of entrepreneurs to become aware of their capabilities (and the impact of an ongoing urban renewal process on these capabilities). The Capability Approach emphasizes the personal and structural conditions that impact a person’s capability to choose—the conditions that affect the process of determining what a person values. The paper builds on a two year capacity-building process conducted in Genk, Belgium, and proposes a conceptual framework for building capacities, in which the process and outputs collide with ideas of choice, ability, and opportunity, notions central to the Capability Approach. The case study looks at one of the main commercial streets of the city (Vennestraat) and reflects on a set of enabling artefacts used to engage proprietors in the capacity-building process. This capacity-building process, characterized by the idea of space and capabilities, advances a critical viewpoint on issues related to participatory processes and gives practitioners a set of enabling tools to start a conversation over complex urban transformations, such as the one in Vennestraat.


2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 198-205
Author(s):  
Hee Sun (Sunny) Choi

This paper explores what it means for a public space to embody the city within rapid urban change in contemporary urban development and how a space can accomplish this by embracing the culture of the city, its people and its places, using the particular case of Putuo, Shanghai in China. The paper employs mapping and empirical surveys to learn how the local community use the act of communal dance in everyday public spaces of this neighborhood, and seeks not to find generalizable rules for how humans comprehend a city, but instead to better understand how local inhabitants and their chosen activities can influence their built environment. The findings from this emphasize the importance to identify how public spaces can help to define cities with China’s emerging global presence, whilst addressing the ways in which local needs and perspectives can be preserved.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 101-106
Author(s):  
Shkumbin Munishi Prishtina

Abstract Language relations as manifestations of the phenomenon of multilingualism are also expressed in the area of the so-called linguistic landscape. Undoubtedly, the linguistic landscape not only reflects the use of languages in public space but at the same time reveals the depth of public perception of different languages, depending on their function and prestige. In this paper, I will treat Albanian, English and Serbian rapports through their coverage in the Pristina linguistic landscape, focusing on the use of these languages in advertising space in the city of Prishtina and in other tables that perform semiotic functions of indexes in this city. Likewise, within the reflection of the status planning of languages in Prishtina linguistic landscape, the use of Serbian in the official tables will be treated. This case study will also reflect the features of language policy and the impact of the globalization phenomenon in different languages. The results presented in this paper will reflect on the field research within a certain time span. The research has shown that in the Pristina linguistic landscape, in addition to the Albanian language, English has a dense use, while the use of Serbian is mostly limited to official charts i.e. names of the streets of the city and is not found in private advertisements tables.


Ensemble ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol SP-1 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-59
Author(s):  
Sanjukta Sattar ◽  

The COVID-19 pandemic has paralyzed public life world-wide. The need for maintaining physical/social distance has led to a change in the order and nature of human activities across public spaces. As a result, the usual rhythm of activities in public spaces has come to be disrupted. Taking this into consideration, the study delves into the disrupted rhythm of the urban public spaces under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequently imposed lockdown. By adopting a case study-based approach, an in-depth analysis has been carried out to comprehend the change in the daily rhythm of a local road in the wake of the pandemic and lockdown. Lefebvre’s technique of ‘rhythmanalysis’ has been applied to carry out this study, as it is highly suited in studying the flow of everyday life in a spatiotemporal context. The article traces the change in the rhythm of activities in the study area during the pandemic and lockdown in comparison to the usual rhythm of activities that existed in the area before the pandemic. The findings of the study reveal that the pandemic has taken a toll on the study area, where the pre-existing rhythm of the public space has been overtaken by a disrupted rhythm that has given rise to chaos and confusion.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 560-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincenzo del Giudice ◽  
Francesca Torrieri ◽  
Pierfrancesco de Paola

The article examines the relationship between property value and level of conservation of public urban space. While many studies have examined the effect of proximity of open space, parks, and trees on property value, there has been few examination of how projects of urban revitalization and ordinary and extraordinary maintenances of public spaces can influence property values. While intuition can suggest that a low level of quality and maintenance of a public space can negatively affect property value, even if the standard requirement of public spaces and services are meet, this yet to be empirically proven.We proposes the application of a new econometric models for quantitative analysis of the characteristics of real estate property (Generalized Additive Model), to assess the impact of maintenance condition on property values, due to the better prevision that these functions can obtain in a real estate market context.The control of the formal and logical adequacy of the proposed theoretical model is referred to the case study under analysis, in the city of Naples. The results obtained show that a well preserved urban environment influences property price by approximately 6%. The experimental test of the model has provided results that, by reason of their formal consistency with the results obtained in other contexts, can be considered representative of the effectiveness of the methodology proposed.


Ritið ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-103
Author(s):  
Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir

In this article I discuss how various collective art projects involving artists and curators using the city as an exhibition site have transformed artistic discourse in Iceland. Chantal Mouffe´s conception of public space as a battleground and art practices as agnostic interventions into this space raise questions about the branding and commodification of art and cultural institutions. Mouffe believes that despite the unrestrained commercial control of the urban landscape, artists still have the possibility of intervening in the political and economic status quo. Employing Mouffe´s analyses as a guiding principle, the study confirms that the permanent value of art in public spaces need not be limited to individual artists’ form, style or content, but may be capable of mobilizing political, critical and artistic discussions within the urban community.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Camilo Vladimir De Lima Amaral

This research aims to analyse the ongoing privatization of public spaces in London. It also seeks to explore the impact of the 2009 Mayor’s policy document named ‘A Manifesto for Public Space - London’s Great Outdoors’ in this process. The manifesto argues in opposition to the growing ‘corporatisation’ and exclusion of privately controlled spaces and in favour of spaces that are open ‘for all Londoners’ and with a planning process overseen by the Public Sector. In order to understand if these goals were achieved, an initial inventory listed all the developments after 2009. The projects’ examination made it possible to identify the most important cases in each group. This article analyses whether these developments are private public spaces or whether they remain genuinely public, thus examining the manifesto’s effectiveness on London’s lived spaces. In order to do that, a critical approach was constructed upon the literature review, in order to confront the ideas of public space with the spatial experience. This dissection demonstrated how recent complexity of urban space production has created new phenomena in the city, that can be assembled in the concepts of Velvet Ground, Tangled Orbits and Repeated Compulsion of Space Consumption. The concepts clarify the relationship between social control, the democratic openness of public space, and citizenship. The study concludes that a new form of privatized space is taking over the city, and the proposed policies were unable to stop this tendency.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saraniya Satgunam

The 2009 Tamil demonstrations in Toronto challenged the preconceptions of public space and the legitimacy of transnational politics within a ‘multicultural’ city. This paper explores the impact these demonstrations had on Toronto’s ‘public spaces’, especially how they were able to transform the city. An analysis of secondary data sources, including, media coverage and participant-observations reveal that even though the political demonstrations organised by the Sri Lankan Tamil-Canadians were ‘tolerated’, they were not necessarily ‘accepted’ by many Torontonians. This observation raises numerous interrelated questions, particularly related to the rights of immigrants and refugee groups to the city.


Author(s):  
Rosario Sommella ◽  
Libera D'Alessandro

The contribution starts from the historical importance of the commercial function in Naples in structuring the urban space, a function to which it is possible largely to trace the long-lasting relationship between consumption and demand for places, as well as many changes in the urban image. Retail organized the city not only on the main streets but also at the scale of non-minoritarian and widespread micro-spaces in the various neighborhoods, in a Naples that, especially in the twentieth century, was transformed according to macro logic very different from today’s. Today the element that seems to most order the structure of places and the urban landscape is consumption, mixed with living and related activities, walking and cultural functions: elements mediated by local authorities, which in turn must deal with new phenomena. The question arises in territorial terms, as retail and consumption (and their protagonists) claim places and public space. The case study will be that of the metropolitan territory in an extended sense and will be analyzed through four scales chosen as the most exemplary of the change: the upgraded/touristified city-centre; the historical centre in its marginal parts; the metropolitan interstices; the small and medium-sized centers at the metropolitan scale. Demands of products and places that become the expression of a new demand for cities bring out the potential, contradictions and conflicts of a Mediterranean city in transition.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6126
Author(s):  
Ernestyna Szpakowska-Loranc

This study concerns contemporary cultural buildings in the historic city centre of Krakow, Poland, and their assessment in terms of sustainability. The paper aims to bridge a research gap in previous studies on pluralistic values and the impact of cultural heritage on sustainability. The comparative case study conducted in Krakow aims to evaluate the functioning and potential of the space towards achieving the following five goals: accessibility, conservation, mix of functions, aesthetics, comfort and sociability. The perception of these buildings and the public space around them by the city residents, as well as their operation during unexpected circumstances, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, were also evaluated. The author combined an on-site analysis, behavioural mapping and a survey. The results correlate the liveability and aesthetics of public spaces along with the amount and quality of greenery found there with the comfort of users and the popularity of particular places. This paper highlights how important it is to create cultural spaces in a historic city to develop a range of their activities linked to the surrounding public spaces and green areas. Activating cultural spaces and connecting them to sustainability goals is especially important when faced with declining tourism.


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