scholarly journals Topography of Power: Venice and the Eastern Adriatic Cities in the Century Following the Fourth Crusade

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Irena Benyovsky Latin
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Urban Structure ◽  
Public Buildings ◽  
Fourth Crusade ◽  
Safe Harbours

In the thirteenth century, in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, Venice became an important power in the Mediterranean, which caused profound change in its political, territorial and economic ambitions. The main strategy of Venice was to maintain the sea route from the northernmost point in the Adriatic to the Levant, and therefore it was crucial to dominate politically over the Eastern Adriatic: the cities there could serve as points of departure or safe harbours in which Venetian vessels could be sheltered and supplied with merchandise, food, water, and manpower. One of the ways to incorporate the Eastern Adriatic cities into a common area of governance was to construct recognizable public buildings, and to introduce and standardize a legal and administrative order that was mainly adapted to the central political entity, but also served the local urban communities. This paper follows the changes that were directly or indirectly mirrored in the urban structure of the cities during the thirteenth century: primarily the design of urban spaces (especially public ones) and the construction of public buildings linked to governance, defence, trade or administration. During the thirteenth century, one can follow the development of Venetian ambitions and their focus on particular areas or activities (economic, military) in the state, as well as the activities of Venetian patricians holding the governor’s offi ce. Naturally, the local circumstances and the local population had a crucial impact on the formation of urban space, but this paper focuses primarily on the role of the Venetian administration in this respect.

The social context and politics of large scale urban architecture: Investigating the design of Barcode, Oslo

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 304-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bengt Andersen ◽  
Per Gunnar Røe
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Urban Architecture ◽  
Class A ◽  
The Social ◽  
Transnational Companies ◽  
City Centres

The well-known and much investigated rise of urban entrepreneurial policies has fuelled a transformation of urban spaces and landscapes, and has led to changes in the social composition of city centres. This is the case for Oslo, Norway’s capital, where increasingly urban policies are designed to attract transnational companies and those in the creative class. A key strategy to achieve this has been to transform the city’s waterfront through spectacular architecture and urban design, as has taken place in other European cities. Transnational and local architects have been commissioned to design the Barcode, one of the most striking waterfront projects. This article investigates the role of architecture and architects in this process, because architects can be seen as influential generators of urban spaces and agents for social change, and because there is remarkably little published empirical research on this specific role of architects. It is argued that although there was an overall planning goal that the projects along the waterfront of Oslo should contribute to social sustainability, with the implication that planners and architects possessed information about the local urban context and used this knowledge, in practice this was not the case. It is demonstrated that the architects paid little attention to the social, cultural and economic contexts in their design process. Rather, the architects emphasized the creation of an exciting urban space and, in particular, designed spectacular architecture that would contribute to the merits of the firms involved. It is further argued that because of this the Barcode project will not contribute to the making of a just city.

scholarly journals Explicit and implied significance of contemporary public spaces. Part 1. Spaces of attractions

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 063-082
Author(s):  
Dariusz Dziubiński
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Current Model ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Direct Experience ◽  
Beach Bar

This text presents considerations encouraged by thoughts and conclusions gained from research on several beach bars and their comparison with other urban public spaces, run in Wrocław from 2018 to 2019. The similarities and differences between the two types of spaces provoke a question about the meaning of what we call „public spaces” today. The question is also asked, somewhat perversely, about the validity of following best practices based on proxemic principles and focused on attracting and retaining people in urban spaces. The paper examines not so much the rules but the purpose, in other words the type of space we receive/can achieve as a result of applying these principles, since people in the urban space (private or public) are only guests, while their choice is reduced to the top-down offer. The above doubt also results from the conclusion regarding the most important feature determining attractiveness of a beach bar space, which in my opinion, is the freedom of behaviour for users. In it we can see deficiencies of the prevailing narrative about our participation in space and, above all, the possibility of choice, or what should be called the limitations of choice – the lack of possession/self-agency. Such a situation, largely conditioned by politics (and economics), reduces public space to the role of a  “space of attractions” (curiosities), whose action and participation is based on experiencing – on a direct experience. The clash of these two forces – standardization and individualization, erodes the current model of common spaces based on the historical (nineteenth century) one, whose images are transferred only in the form of empty clichés. Thus, the limitation of choices, the need to fall into line and appearances of a community lead to an escape upwards – enclaves for the chosen ones (omnitopia) and downwards – niches for the rebellious ones (heterotopia), while beach bars represent both ways of escape. Against this background, the purposefulness of expert/ top-down creation of public spaces, carried out in isolation from other essential values and laws, appears problematic.

scholarly journals Cities in Asia by and for the People

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Community Life ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Capitalist Production ◽  
The People ◽  
Alternative Spaces ◽  
The City

This book examines the active role of urban citizens in constructing alternative urban spaces as tangible resistance towards capitalist production of urban spaces that continue to encroach various neighborhoods, lanes, commons, public land and other spaces of community life and livelihoods. The collection of narratives presented here brings together research from ten different Asian cities and re-theorises the city from the perspective of ordinary people facing moments of crisis, contestations, and cooperative quests to create alternative spaces to those being produced under prevailing urban processes. The chapters accent the exercise of human agency through daily practices in the production of urban space and the intention is not one of creating a romantic or utopian vision of what a city "by and for the people" ought to be. Rather, it is to place people in the centre as mediators of city-making with discontents about current conditions and desires for a better life.

scholarly journals Shame, guilt, and the production of urban space

2020 ◽  
pp. 030913252094230
Author(s):  
Alberto Vanolo
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Mechanisms Of Resistance ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
Explicit Recognition ◽  
Shame And Guilt ◽  
The Mind

Guilt and shame operate in connection with individual and collective forces. This paper explores how space is contingent in psychic processes, and how the generation and negotiation of feelings of guilt and shame develop in the interplay between internal processes of the mind and the worldly ‘outside’. By presenting two examples, precisely commodity consumption and sex, and a set of fictional anecdotes, the article proposes a series of hypotheses concerning distance, proximity and visibility in relation to shame and guilt, and it analyses mechanisms of resistance to guilt and shame, which include spatial architectures of concealment, displacement and mimesis. It is argued that an explicit recognition of the role of guilt and shame in shaping urban spaces may lead to a better understanding of the mechanics of production of space, may contribute to further bridging geographical and psychoanalytical debates, and may have a political and transformative potential, with meaningful geographical implications.

scholarly journals FEATURES OF REVITALIZATION OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS IN THE CENTER OF VINNITSA

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-93
Author(s):  
V. Kovalskiy ◽  
◽  
A. Bondar ◽  
V. Abramovych ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Construction Work ◽  
City Center ◽  
Public Buildings ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Current State ◽  
Technical Solutions ◽  
The City ◽  
Constant Growth

Today, the problem of rational use of urban space is acute due to the constant growth of urban population and urbanization of the world in general. The aging of construction stock in the city center requires the reconstruction or reconstruction of certain buildings and structures. The article defines the concept of "revitalization" and the general features of this process, its advantages and disadvantages. The urgency of revitalization for the cities of Ukraine is determined and the need to restore not only factories but also public buildings in the center of these settlements is highlighted. In the course of writing this work, the foreign experience of revitalization of public buildings in the already formed urban spaces and several works of domestic scientists on the topic of revitalization as a method of environmental restoration were analyzed. The center of Vinnytsia has been studied for the presence of buildings that could be subject to revitalization, study of their previous purpose and assessment of the current state. An analysis of the problems that may arise during the revitalization of abandoned public buildings and areas in the center of Vinnytsia was also conducted. After the study, based on the results obtained, ways to eliminate these problems and variations of technical solutions required for construction work are identified. The peculiarities of the introduction of revitalization of public buildings in the center of Vinnytsia have been clarified.

The Old City of Jerusalem between Heritage and Urban Renewal: Public Buildings and Typological Aspects

2014 ◽  
Vol 628 ◽  
pp. 21-26
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Francesco Rociola
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Urban Renewal ◽  
Close Relation ◽  
Urban Structure ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
Public Buildings ◽  
Urban Fabric ◽  
Old City ◽  
The Individual

The interest in the study of public buildings in ancient nucleus of Jerusalem stems from the need to investigate the develop principles of the urban structure between the Tyropoeion Valley and the western edge and northern of the Haram al-Sharif. The building fabric including madrasas, Ribat, hammams and the Suq al-Qattanin is only the latest result of a layering process culminating with the transformation work produced by Mamluks from 1260 until 1517. The identification of a modular distance between the routes or the measure correspondence in the individual blocks, suggest the adaptation of a previous planned urban fabric, dating probably at least to the Herodian period. The increase of religious pilgrimages and trades in Jerusalem during the Mamluk sultanate has stimulated an intensive building activity, centered mainly in the construction of Madrasas and Ribat, organically aggregated to form an urban fabric heavily infilled. In a period running from mid-XIII at the end of the fifteenth century, the building fabric finds its final set, then completed by Ottomans between the sixteenth and seventeenth century and involving especially, in addition to the reconstruction of the walls, the building of small libraries, the upgrading of existing buildings and construction of fountains in nodal points of urban structure. The paper explains a research in progress about historical urban fabrics of Jerusalem, [1] in which the close relation between the urban structure and the buildings is one of the main aspects toward an urban renewal hypothesis of the Old City, that is characterized by complex relationship among international heritage programs, public safety, and contemporary uses coherent with the role of the ancient public buildings according to the urban history.

scholarly journals Embodied graffiti and street art research

2021 ◽  
pp. 146879412110287
Author(s):  
Malin Fransberg ◽  
Mari Myllylä ◽  
Jonna Tolonen
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Qualitative Research Methods ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Street Art ◽  
Art Research ◽  
Methodological Aspects

Graffiti and street art research (GSAR) has become more acknowledged within the academic discourse; however, it has much to gain from theorising its methodological aspects. As a multidisciplinary field, GSAR has mostly used qualitative research methods, exploring urban space through methods that range from visual recordings to ethnography, emphasising the researchers’ reflexivity. This qualitative approach has, however, paid little attention to the role of embodied practices. In this paper we discuss how embodied methodologies provide multisensory research results where the experienced moments, the participant’s and researcher’s senses, cognition and mobility in urban spaces are connected. Our discussion draws on the authors’ fieldwork experiences of walking and edge working, and on the literature concerning embodiment and embodied methodology related to the context of GSAR.

scholarly journals OPEN URBAN SPACE AS AN OBJECT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE: METHODS OF DEFINITION AND PRESERVATION

2020 ◽  
pp. 178-191
Author(s):  
Olena Oliynyk
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Analysis ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Spatial Planning ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Planning System ◽  
Urban Structure ◽  
Compositional Structure ◽  
The City

The article considers the problem of open public spaces preserving – such as streets, squares, parks and other elements of the urban structure. The Council of Europe and UNESCO view urban spaces as a part of the city’s cultural landscape, as bearers of its identity and cultural memory, and their preservation as the key to the sustainable development of historic cities and the foundation of democracy. Therefore, the system of open spaces of the city should, according to the recommendations of UNESCO, be considered as a cultural heritage site, an integral part of the cultural landscape of the city. We can talk about the preservation of public urban spaces only when they are part of the network of pedestrian spaces of the city and have the appropriate function. However, defining the boundaries of the historical spatial planning system and the principles of its formation is also a problem. Steady fragments of the spatial planning system of the city, which have certain historical characteristics, are not always preserved as a whole urban development and in some places have the form of individual fragments. Methods of spatial analysis and environmental zoning are used to determine the compositional basis and degree of preservation of the spatial fabric of the city. The method of spatial analysis allows to formalize a complex multilevel pattern of urban fabric of the city, highlighting only the compositional-spatial aspects of perception; to identify the compositional structure of urban spaces. The method of environmental zoning is based on the identification of the most established links in its urban structure, namely - systems of open pedestrian urban spaces, of which the transit spaces (streets) determine the compositional structure and historical "ornament" of the street network, and spaces of stay (squares, intra-quarter spaces) - their social role and content, identity of the city.

scholarly journals Resources for Civic Initiatives in the Cities of Kuzbass

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (3) ◽  
pp. 300-309
Author(s):  
Eugene Golovatsky ◽  
Natalia Nyatina
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Interaction ◽  
The Social ◽  
Regional Authorities ◽  
Resource Capacity

The development of civic initiatives is a significant indicator of the social and political life of the community. A study of urban space initiatives can reveal both the state of civil society and the resource capabilities of the area. The research objective was to find tools for sociological analysis of resources of civil initiatives. The paper features some possibilities of social and political interaction between urban communities and the regional authorities. The civil initiatives within the urban communities of Kuzbass appeared to be poorly formed, especially in terms of quality content, self-expression, the nature of the initiatives, and the scale of resource capacity of the local population. The authors believe that the modern practice of using and attracting resources of civil initiatives is at its early stage in the cities of Kuzbass. Some formats of interaction between the authorities and the community are gradually emerging, but the local communities seem to mistrust the local authorities, which makes the interaction irregular and sporadic. The processes of interaction between the urban communities and the authorities demonstrate cases of joint and autonomous (as a rule, initiated by the community) use of publicity opportunities for the implementation of formal and informal civil initiatives. However, formal civic initiatives fail to convey all the diversity of the social demands that could improve urban life.

scholarly journals The capibaribe park project, Recife: using the river to reinvent the city

2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-353
Author(s):  
Fabiano Rocha Diniz ◽  
Luiz Vieira Filho ◽  
Roberto Montezuma
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
The Past ◽  
City Hall ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Coherent Image ◽  
The World ◽  
The City

Recife is an amphibious city whose urban development does not value its rivers. In the past, the city’s main watercourse, the river Capibaribe, was understood to play a key role in structuring urban spaces and providing connectivity. Since then, this understanding has dwindled, and the resulting situation is a cause of great concern. Recife City has turned its back on the banks of its rivers and neglected both their capacity to smooth and shape urban space, and their potential to create a coherent image of the city. Recife is one of those cities in the world that are most vulnerable to climate change, ranking 16th in the list of world hotspots. In order to confront these challenges and rethink the role of the river that runs in the heart of Recife, researchers, architects, engineers, and sociologists from Research and Innovation for Cities — Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (INCITI-UFPE) were invited by the Recife City Hall to draw up plans for a park stretching along the river’s banks. Capibaribe Park Project attempts to answer one key question: How can we use the river to transform the city? The park project is based on a structural approach to landscape and is guided by the precepts of sustainability and regeneration of public spaces, in line with the emerging paradigm that combines a cross-disciplinary and cross-sector approach with water-sensitive design and social participation. The present article presents an overview of the main characteristics and development of this project, its theoretical and methodological underpinnings, its contribution to society, and the results achieved so far. It shows how, in addition to the planned park, the project also envisages the installation of a much more extensive system of parks, as a first stage towards the creation of park-city by the 500th anniversary of the foundation of Recife, in 2037.

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