Venice: The Converted City

2021 ◽  
pp. 12-34
Author(s):  
Iain Fenlon

By focusing on the Piazza San Marco, the chapter draws attention to the transformation of civic and religious spaces that took place in Venice between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It argues that the rise of urban culture and the reconfiguration of urban space sought not only to accommodate a growing population, but also to facilitate the emerging conversional theatrics of Church and State, which made use of urban spaces for the purpose of political and religious indoctrination.

Author(s):  
Evgeniya A. Desnitskaya ◽  

The urbanization of Ancient India dates back to the middle of the first millennium BCE. In the early days, urban culture was influenced by unorthodox religious movements from the East of India, and by social practices adopted from western Hellenistic states. Urban culture contributed to the genesis and spread of scripts and literacy in India. It was in urban spaces and at royal courts that Sanskrit evolved from the oral language of Brahmanic ritualism to the written language of the cosmopolis, the language of literature and philosophy. By the beginning of CE, urban spaces in India became the place of modernization of Brahmanism. Arts and theoretical disciplines blossomed in towns and at royal courts. Urban educational practices were focused on practical disciplines and on skills connected with aesthetic pleasure. The basis of education was reading and writing. Urban culture in the 1st millennium CE was multireligious. Buddhist universities at the monasteries were leading educational centers supported by kings, including the non-Buddhist ones. Buddhist philosophy was taught there along with traditional Brahmanic and lay disciplines (grammar, normative poetics, etc.). Therefore, the urban space in ancient India was the place of mutual interaction between Brahmanical, Buddhist, and secular scholarship as well as educational traditions. It was in towns, at Buddhist monasteries and royal courts that written culture and the corresponding educational practices were established.


Prospects ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 321-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miles Orvell

We have thought of whitman as an urban poet for so long-noticing how integral his Manhattan is to the imagery of Leaves of Grass – that we have lost sight of the deeper structure of urban popular culture lying behind the poem. As Remy G. Saisselin has recently argued, the city in the nineteenth century transformed the eye of the observer, and new kinds of urban spaces and entertainments—like the arcade, the panorama, and the department store—were created to satisfy a growing population of consumers. Saisselin affirms, moreover, that an unprecedented variety of aesthetic observer evolved along with these changes in urban experience: No longer was he “the man of taste in contemplation before a picture or a landscape. … He was the flaneur in the modern city.” And he associates this new observer with the photographer, whose urban gaze was also ubiquitous, surveying urban types and spaces. Saisselin is speaking here primarily of the European city, of Paris especially, but his observations are valuable in considering anew the sources of Whitman's art, for they point to a relationship between poetry and the urban milieu that has been generally overlooked. More specifically, they lead us to see the invention of Leaves of Grass as a way of organizing and perceiving reality that was new in the arts of the nineteenth century, yet one that was rooted in the popular urban culture of the time.


Author(s):  
Alessia Grigoletto ◽  
Mario Mauro ◽  
Pasqualino Maietta Latessa ◽  
Vincenzo Iannuzzi ◽  
Davide Gori ◽  
...  

This systematic review aimed to investigate the type of physical activity carried out in green urban spaces by the adult population and to value its impact on the population’s health. Additionally, another purpose was to examine if the presence of outdoor gyms in green urban spaces can promote participation in physical activity among adults. Searches of electronic databases, with no time restrictions and up to June 2020, resulted in 10 studies meeting the inclusion criteria. A quantitative assessment is reported as effect size. Many people practiced walking activity as a workout, which showed improvements in health. Walking is the most popular type of training due to its easy accessibility and it not requiring equipment or special skills. Outdoor fitness equipment has been installed in an increasing number of parks and has become very popular worldwide. Further, outdoor fitness equipment provides free access to fitness training and seems to promote physical activity in healthy adults. However, other studies about outdoor fitness equipment efficiency are needed. People living near to equipped areas are more likely to perform outdoor fitness than those who live further away. The most common training programs performed in green urban spaces included exercises with free and easy access, able to promote physical health and perception.


2018 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 275-305
Author(s):  
Helen Appleton

AbstractThe Anglo-Saxon mappa mundi, sometimes known as the Cotton map or Cottoniana, is found on folio 56v of London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius B. v, which dates from the first half of the eleventh century. This unique survivor from the period presents a detailed image of the inhabited world, centred on the Mediterranean. The map’s distinctive cartography, with its emphasis on islands, seas and urban spaces, reflects an Insular, West Saxon geographic imagination. As Evelyn Edson has observed, the mappa mundi appears to be copy of an earlier, larger map. This article argues that the mappa mundi’s focus on urban space, translatio imperii and Scandinavia is reminiscent of the Old English Orosius, and that it originates from a similar milieu. The mappa mundi’s northern perspective, together with its obvious dependence on and emulation of Carolingian cartography, suggest that its lost exemplar originated in the assertive England of the earlier tenth century.


Author(s):  
Anette Stenslund

In recent decades, research has paid attention to the atmospheric ways computer-generated imagery (CGI) marks the experience of future urban design. What has been addressed in the generic abbreviation CGI has, however, exclusively concerned visualisations that communicate with stakeholders beyond designers and architects. Based on fieldwork within an urban design lab, the paper differentiates among the range of CGI used by urban designers. Focusing on collage, which forms one kind of CGI that has received scant attention in scholarly literature, I demonstrate its key function as an epistemological in-house work-in-progress tool that helps designers to refine their vision and to identify the atmosphere of future urban spaces. Based on New Aesthetics, collaging atmosphere is characterised by a physiognomic approach to urban space that selectively addresses aesthetic characteristics. Hence, the paper tackles a discussion that points towards cautious handling of the communicative scope of collages that can be well complemented by other types of CGI before entering a constructive dialogue with clients.


Author(s):  
Mara Regina do Nascimento

Este artigo propõe-se a ser uma colaboração com os estudos dedicados às irmandades religiosas brasileiras, na sua face regional. A linha de pensamento adotada toma a cidade, a experiência urbana e as ditas associações religiosas como instâncias sociais intimamente relacionadas e interdependentes. Durante o século XIX, a irmandade gestora da Santa Casa de Misericórdia em Porto Alegre cumpria um papel fundamental não apenas para a composição material de seu espaço, mas igualmente para conferir-lhe o status de importante cidade dentro do mosaico urbano que compunha o Império brasileiro. Tomando por base o histórico de ações concretas da irmandade, como a construção do Hospital, as iniciativas para a caridade e filantropia e a promoção das festas litúrgicas, este artigo analisa o vínculo indissociável entre o associativismo católico e o estilo de vida urbano dos setecentos e oitocentos. Palavras-chave: Irmandades Religiosas. Santa Casa de Misericórdia. Cultura Urbana.AbstractThis paper intends to collaborate with other works dedicated to the study of brazilian religious brotherhoods, in their regional aspect. The line of thought  adopted takes the city, the urban experience and the religious associations above mentioned as closely related and interdependent social instances. During the XIX century, the brotherhood in charge of the Holy House of Mercy in the city of Porto Alegre played a fundamental role, not just in the material composition of the urban space, but also in giving it the status of an important city within the urban mosaic comprised by the Brazilian Empire. Based on the (historic of) concrete actions of this brotherhood, as were the construction of the Hospital, the creation of a social representation for the notion of charity, and the promotion of liturgic feasts, this article analyses the unbreakable bond between catholic associativism and the urban lifestyle of the XVIII and XIX centuries.Keywords: Religious Brotherhoods. Holy House of Mercy. Urban Culture. 


2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-99
Author(s):  
Caragh Wells

This article suggests that over recent decades Catalan literary criticism has paid too little attention to the aesthetic attributes of Catalan literature and emphasised the social, political and cultural at the expense of discussions of narrative poetics. Through an analysis of Montserrat Roig’s metaphorical use of the city in her first novel Ramona, adéu, I put forward the view that the aesthetic features of Catalan literature need to be re-claimed. This article provides a critical analysis of the aesthetic importance of Roig’s representation of the city in her first novel and argues that she uses Barcelona as a critical tool through which to explore questions of both female emancipation and aesthetic freedom. Following a detailed discussion of Roig’s descriptions of how her female characters interact with particular urban spaces, I examine how Roig makes subtle shifts in her semantic register during these narrative accounts when her prose moves into the realm of the poetic. I conclude that this technique enables us to read her accounts of urban space as metaphors for aesthetic freedom and are inextricably linked to her wider concerns on the importance of liberating Catalan literature from the discourse of political nationalism.


ILUMINURAS ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (36) ◽  
Author(s):  
Urpi Montoya Uriarte

Este trabalho se insere no que se chama hoje de antropologia da cidade, que se preocupa com a forma como os citadinos – em sua condição alternada de usuários, moradores, transeuntes ou consumidores – fazem a cidade (Agier, 2011). Nossa compreensão de cidade está marcada pela recente teoria do espaço no interior da Geografia (Massey, 2012) e nossa compreensão da produção do espaço se baseia na teoria de Henri Lefebvre, especialmente em seu La production de l´espace (1974). Com esta bagagem teórica, propomos uma antropologia dos espaços urbanos preocupada com a forma como os espaços na cidade são produzidos por pessoas comuns ou homens ordinários. Os dados empíricos analisados provêm de uma etnografia de dois micro-espaços na cidade de Salvador. As leituras teóricas destes micro-espaços nos levam a afirmar a atualidade e força dos espaços diferenciais que emergem no espaço abstrato, a significação política dos espaços apropriados e a vigência do valor de uso e as relações costumeiras na cidade contemporânea.Palavras-chave: Espaços urbanos. Produção do espaço. Espaços diferenciais. Apropriação de espaços. Valor de uso.Production of urban space by ordinary men: anthropology of two micro-spaces in the city of SalvadorAbstractThis work is part of what is today called anthropology of the city, that is concerned with how the townspeople – in their alternating condition of users, residents, bystanders or consumers – make the city (Agier, 2011). Our understanding of the city is marked by the recent theory of space inside the geography (Massey, 2012) and our understanding of the production of space is based on the theory of Henri Lefebvre, especially in its The production of the space (1974). With this theoretical background, we propose an anthropology of urban spaces concerned with how the spaces in the city are made by ordinary people or ordinary men . The data analyzed come from an ethnographic study of two micro-spaces in the city of Salvador. The theoretical interpretations of these micro-spaces lead us to affirm the relevance and strength of differential spaces that emerge in the abstract space, the political significance of the appropriate spaces and the duration of use value and customary relations in the contemporary city.Keywords: Urban spaces. Production of space. Differential spaces. Appropriation of spaces. Use value.  


Dimensions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-202
Author(s):  
Sergiy Ilchenko

Abstract This contribution elaborates upon the appropriation of urban space in spatiotemporal and procedural interventions in the example of the city of Kharkiv, as well as the impact of urban space on the process of how various groups rediscover and use various parts of the city. Being moved during collective actions - in the sense of feeling urged to move along - goes beyond routine practices by influencing the city and its perception. It seems that these general processions, celebrations, and festive activities of the residents are their contributions to the process of »urban renaissance« - the rebirth of interest in the urban way of life. Since public spaces reflect the historical inheritance of local communities, joint transformative actions such as, »appropriation «, »production«, and »governance« of urban spaces are considered. This article advocates for the practice of domestication of urban space by the local community, as well as the need for the existence of »urban lagoons« - free (unregulated) areas of the city used as resources for urban development and interaction of citizens.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-482
Author(s):  
Parvin Partovi ◽  
Kebria Sedaghat Rostami ◽  
Amir Shakibamanesh

In the crowded cities of the present age, public spaces can provide a quiet area away from the hustle and bustle of the city that citizens can interact with by incorporating utility features and meeting human needs and Relax there. Small urban spaces are among the most important and effective urban spaces to achieve this goal. Because these spaces due to their small size and lower costs (compared to larger spaces) for construction can be created in large numbers and distributed throughout the city. In this way, citizens will be able to reach a public urban space on foot in a short time. If these spaces are well designed, they can encourage people to stay in and interact with each other. It is not difficult to identify and experience high-quality successful places, but identifying the reasons for their success is difficult and even more difficult, understanding if similar spaces in other places can be considered successful. This question is important because public space with deep social content is considered a cultural product. Public space is the product of the historical and socio-cultural forces of society. Therefore, one of the most important issues that should be considered in the study of public spaces and the reasons for their success is the cultural context. In Iranian cities that have been influenced by the values and principles of Islam,recognizing Islamic principles and their role in shaping public spaces can lead us to desirable results. The purpose of this article is to develop a conceptual model of successful small urban spaces with an emphasis on cultural issues, especially in Iranian-Islamic cities. In this regard, the effective criteria for the success of urban spaces in general and small urban spaces in particular in the two categories of Western countries and Iranian Islamic cities were examined and then, taking into account the criteria derived from cultural theorists, the conceptual model of research with 38 subcriteria is provided.


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