A miniature city, replete with modern conveniences and facilities, had arisen magically atop the hills, within eyesight of the great Olympic Stadium -atop the modern Mount Olympus, below which lay the modern Plains of Elysium . . . A miniature world was here set up, rigidly protected from the world outside.Official Report of the Organising Committee of the Los Angeles Olympic Games (1932)
Resumo: Este artigo apresenta o conceito de "urBANALização" no contexto da produção de imagem urbana, caracterizador da cidade contemporânea durante as últimas décadas do século XX e no momento presente. O texto parte de perspectivas referentes à "festivalização" das políticas urbanas e à progressiva relevância do marketing e do "branding" urbano, para fundamentar o domínio absoluto da imagem na altura da construção de estratégias urbanas e no desenvolvimento de processos urbanísticos, quer de nova urbanização, quer de transformação do terr itório urbano existente. A "urBANALização" define-se como um processo espacial e cultural caracterizado por uma especialização territorial, que acompanha as tendências de tematização e de simplificação da paisagem urbana. Uma evolução comum, em maior ou menor grau, em cidades distintas que, apesar das diferenças que caracterizam cada contexto local, acabam replicando um género similar de paisagem, através de uma também similar tipologia de programas urbanísticos. A "urBANALização", portanto, não se refere à homogeneização de cidades e territórios que alguns autores acreditam estar por detrás dos processos de globalização. Refere-se, sim, ao triunfo absoluto do comum. Não tem tanto a ver com a repetição de paisagens, mas com a multiplicação de paisagens comuns. Algo que, em definitivo, coloca em grande questão um problema de futuro para o território e para quem o habita: a redução da cidade a uma superfície lisa, plana, sem falhas nem rugosidades, sem diferenças, onde a ausência de complexidade e de diversidade permite projectar, sem pausa e de forma ubíqua, as imagens e os "brands" que dão forma à paisagem do 'urbanal'.
Discourses on urban globalisation have been considering the homogenisation of the built form as evidence of the impacts of internationalisation of economy on the city space. This is a statement that follows other similar approaches: the existence of a global architecture, the global domain of mass-media or the imposition of homogeneous lifestyles all around the planet. However, despite the fact of the repetition of some key spaces which are similarly replicated in cities around the world, it is also clear that differences between cities still remain. This paper suggests the concept of urbanalisation as based not on the homogenisation of cities and places but in the management of differences among them. This is to say, urban landscapes are not identical but they can appear as similar as the management of local special features allows. Thus, the explanation of the relationship between globalisation and the built urban environment focuses on the development of standardisation criteria that make differences between cities less evident. Architecture and urban design are used in this way as a real transformer that locates differences and peculiarities into a much simpler and understandable built form without any need to erase them. From this perspective, urbanalisation reveals a process of simplification of the city in which urban diversity and complexity are reduced to fit into a common visual order.Keywords: Urbanalisation, urban planning, urban geography, landscape, global economy. URBANALISATION: LANDSCAPES OF URBAN CHANGEThis paper develops the concept of urbanalisation [1][2][3][4] to explain the recent changes in the configuration of the urban form in western cities. The process of standardisation and replication of similar urban spaces in different cities is presented in a critical way suggesting that this is not a dynamic dealing with homogenisation but with just the opposite: the management of the differences and peculiarities characterising different places. According to this approach, the similar built environment characterising renovation areas in cities is not simply the result of the same specialised urban functions being developed in urban space. Nor is this common urban form merely the result of the participation of the same global architectural offices in those urban projects. These explanations can be useful as descriptions of some case studies but they fail as general explanations of the production of a highly standardised urban landscape in very different cities. This paper suggests that this production of common urban landscapes is based on the use of strategies like imitation, selection or the use and manipulation of urban history and historical urban form. More specifically, the use of both a commodified cosmopolitanism, characterising the new urban spaces, and a marketed romanticism, which is used in the design of these landscapes, explain the management of local differences to produce a global visual order of city space after urban renovation. This is a process in which urban design...
The perception of the quality of green and blue spaces can be key in the relationship between a community and its local landscape (i.e., place identification). The lack of transdisciplinary training and social-specific education of landscape architects regarding the complexity of landscape as a participative cultural artefact limits reaching the general population. Bridging this gap of landscape and place identification and evaluation by a local community was the main objective of the present case study conducted at an abandoned spring and seasonal stream area in Rubí (Spain). The “Steinitz method” of landscape evaluation was used as a participatory method to activate community members to learn about and express their visual preferences regarding this neglected landscape. Bottom-up interventions applying an “urban acupuncture” approach in the area identified as the least attractive by the residents were co-designed and combined with a top-down restoration of a nearby, existing but derelict and hidden, spring. In addition, before and after planning and implementing the intervention, we conducted surveys about the community perception, sense of belonging and use of the space. We observed that the lack of awareness of the inhabitants about this spring was an obstacle preventing the community from embracing the potential for health and wellbeing presented by the spring and adjacent landscape. Following the work, the landscape saw increasing use, and the historic spring was brought back to life as a resource to help people to improve their health and wellbeing.
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