Image of the City

This paper is written for a course work of MA Information Design, University of Reading. This paper summarises the contents of Lynch's Image of the City from a view point of how information designers can deal with city planning. Therefore, this paper includes what is wayfinding design as well.

The emergence of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) and the corresponding socio-physical changes have affected almost every aspect of contemporary urban life. Legibility, mapping, meaning and experience of the space are all significant issues that need to be readdressed in order to understand how the new image of the city is forming. This paper discuss Image of the City in light of new technology evolution. It uses Lynch’s (1960) model of mental mapping and tracks impact of technology on both the observer and the observed. Descriptive analytical review of literature on legibility and environmental image, and impact of ICT is carried out. Followed by an inquiry of how these issues affect our perception of space. Finally, a framework to study Image of the city in the information age is developed.

This paper discusses the legacy of Nikolai Antsiferov (1889–1958), a Russian historian who suggested a unique approach to urban studies in which literature played the key role. In the first section of this paper, the genesis of Antsiferov‘s conceptions of the study of urban history and the image of the city are outlined. The second section provides an analysis of his ideas on the literary image of St. Petersburg and the theory of literary-themed guided tours, which were articulated in his works of the 1920s. The finalsection of the article sheds light on the reception and legacy of Antsiferov‘s intellectual ideas in the modern humanities and assesses its significance in the modern context of interdisciplinarity

English :
Charleroi, a medium-sized city in Belgium, has hardly been studied. It is reflected by the fact it is rarely mentioned in research publications. Surprisingly, the atypical media coverage of its industrial morphology is not stimulating enough for such publications. The city’s image is often seen under Kevin Lynch’s classification based on the cities of Los Angeles, Boston and Jersey City. But it is of little use for describing Charleroi, a city different of cities with a traditional structure. Based upon our understanding of the city symptomatic morphology and two surveys on its users, the existing classification of its paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks is questioned. A?different classification, constructed with and for the city’s users and not so remote and cold, allows us to come up with a representation much closer to users’ human experience of their city. Using it, we will be able to build a shared heritage built on experience, rather than a generic city image imposed from outside. 

Français :
Charleroi est une ville moyenne singulièrement peu analysée dans la littérature scientifique. Étonnamment, la médiatisation atypique de sa morphologie industrielle n’en stimule pas pour autant ces publications averties. L’image de la ville est encore souvent comprise selon la nomenclature construite par Kevin Lynch, à partir des villes de Los Angeles, Boston et Jersey City, qui n’est pas explicative pour Charleroi, autrement structurée que les villes à plan classique. Sur la base de la compréhension de la morphologie symptomatique de cette ville et de deux enquêtes auprès de ses usagers, la nomenclature des voies, limites, quartiers, nœuds et points de repère est remise en question. Une autre nomenclature, construite avec et pour les usagers, moins distante et moins froide, permet de partager une représentation plus proche de l’expérience humaine des villes : une manière de construire un patrimoine vécu commun, plutôt qu’une ville générique imposée.

Citation, reference:

Raszkowski A., The Importance of City Image in Socio-Economic Development, „Nierówności społeczne a wzrost gospodarczy”, zeszyt 29. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego 2012 r., s. 335 – 344.

The article discusses selected problems referring to the role of image in the context of city social and economic development. Its initial part presents theoretical aspects of city image placing particular emphasis on its definition, listing the addressees of activities related to city image creation and characterizing the important functions played by the city image. Next, the role of image in socio-economic city development is discussed from the perspective of strengthening its investment attractiveness, as well as the dimensions of investment advantages, including the key role of image, are presented. Positive impact of image, on the selected spheres of city functioning, is also discussed and supplemented by broader characteristics of its influence on the social sphere.

This article uses the concept of interface to discuss the vertical surfaces of the built environment as interactive locations of spatial production and regulation. I use interface as a verb and a noun to define the capacity of urban surfaces to display the multiple making of urban space and various claims to citizenship, in the form of material surface inscriptions. Using examples from my investigations of surfaces in London, UK, I examine their occupation by inscriptions such as graffiti and street art, to demonstrate how these articulate the interfacing capacity of surfaces. The objective is to develop a discourse around urban surfaces as loci of spatial production and governance, by exploring the theoretical and analytical affordances of the interface. I therefore propose the concept of surface-interface, which I define as a site of spatial production which enables both the regulation and subversion of the image of the city, through a visibilisation of the power regimes that aim to control it. The essay proposes an activation and enrichment of the space of the surface through a conceptual alignment with that of the interface, to show how urban surfaces act as portals between public and private property, and between regimes of governance and their visual and material contestations. The paper aims to contribute to conversations about spatial articulations of power and citizenship, and add to a growing body of research on urban walls and surfaces as key political spaces of contemporary cities.

Today, to be able to become a destination brand our cities give a great deal of importance to distinguish themselves with their local-cultural values, identities and images. Public relations have significant contribution to the identification of a location as the destination brand which is introduced publicly. To ensure the attraction of tourists, the recognition of cities and their featuring in news is supplied through popular media and public relations strategies. As a destination of touristic city Nevşehir with its unspoiled nature, historical and cultural attractions, attracts the attention of visitors. In this study, in the process of the creation of Nevşehir destination branding, the importance of public relations and their practices will be analyzed.

Starting from the premises that there is a negative perception of the Balkans in the West, with it being perceived as the Europe’s Other (Goldsworthy, Todorova) and that every literary field (Bordieu) and literary market require the immigrant writers to represent their culture in a predetermined fashion (Huggan, Pisac), I shall examine in my thesis the  images of cities in the prose of post-Yugoslav immigrant writers (Tasić, Obreht, Goldsworthy, Slapštak,  Mimica, Hemon, Štiks, Nović). The decision to focus on the representation of cities is justified by the fact that the city "records the attitudes of a culture and an era in front of the fundamental events of its existence" and is one of the "man’s greatest work of art" (Mumford). Since the city is a complex phenomenon, for analysis of its representations in the works of these writers, born mainly after 1960 and emigrated from ex-Yugoslavia around the beginning of the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, I used a multidisciplinary approach, including: orientalism / balcanism, reflexive and restorative nostalgia, human geography, everyday life studies, anthropological studies of space. The thesis consists of two parts, each corresponding to one of the adjectives in the title: the first and the principal part concerns the cities left behind, irrevocably lost, even when they are subsequently rediscovered, while in the second part the focus is on the representation of the cities where future authors have found the refuge and where they had to recreate their lives in a new context, that was often not deliberately chosen but (randomly) "found". The dynamics between the representation of each of the cities considered and its pre-existing perception shall be further explored. In the case of the (post)Yugoslav cities, the image created in the selected analyzed works, shall be compared to the one existing in the West, created mostly through western media and literature, and occasionally even through the self-orientalisation processes. On the other hand, the analysis of the cities where the emigrated authors found new home, focuses on the demystification of these places, perceived by the public in their countries of origin, or elsewhere, as some kind of the earthly paradise.

The theme of the paper is the tension in the inter-relations between national culture and life as led in the municipalities. This issue is examined, taking the presentation of the city Cracow at the General Provincial Exhibition of 1894 as an example, analysing both national rhetoric and local government in practice. Particular attention is paid to the efforts of the Cracow municipal administration to present a city dedicated to preserving tradition as a modern living space. The analysis of municipal presentation will be supplemented by an examination of the ceremonies which accompanied the Exhibition (visit of the Crown Prince) and events (meeting of the Municipal Conference). In the final section the author endeavours to assess the significance of the Exhibition for the process of modernisation in Galicia. The paper closes with a brief comparison with the “Exhibition of Municipalities”, during the 1929 General Provincial Exhibition held in Posen, in which the essential differences between the Lemberg and the Posen presentations with regard to the sense of national belonging and the level of civilisation are brought to light.