Landmarks in Urban Space as Signs

Abstract

A signal or a symbol has been sent with conscious. Urban space has signified elements like landmark. Landmarks as references signs orient the people. Landmarks are defined as an external point of reference that helps orienting in a familiar or an unfamiliar environment. This study is about to clear out the meaning of landmark for the city users who have perceived reference point with their memory and perception. In other words, this study is about discovering how the city affects the people who experience the urban space within semiotic of landmarks in Konya, Turkey. The method of this study is photo-elicitation to understand how people orient themselves in moving within urban space considering landmarks. Analysis of interview texts, there were six different type of landmarks as; city memory-historical, city landscape/ square, high rise/skyscraper, daily life/city usage, personal memory/personal perception, circulation pattern. In this study the semiology of communication studies codes established by society to produce messages consciously sent and received as signals, signs and symbols.

City Phenomenon between Urban Structure and Composition

“…Symbols are commonly applied to formal iconographic representations. Symbolism encompasses complex conceptual codes and pictorial representations of a worldview that operates on multiple levels and scales [10]. Differentiation in the sense of heterotopy isotope, in the context of an urban situation, is not fixed.…”

“…An important type of urban space is empty space, which represents a space that attracts and even ends up being filled (both personally and figuratively), in the sense that it attracts people at a certain time in relation to a certain activity located here temporarily, so it attracts certain interests to confront here and, as such, can even find a symbolic "filling," finds a certain content. It is wrong to argue that such a space should be conceived, in the context of urban modernization, as a neutral space, because, when it is accidentally occupied, it expresses the beginning of a new phase of spatial expansion, and when it is periodically occupied, it expresses a need, of organized space [10]. And in one case, and in the other, the permanence of his occupation as a mono-or polyvalent space imposes a configuration that can no longer be left as an indifferent space in relation to the neighborhood.…”

“…• The negative effects it implies for the environment (increasing air pollution, but also noise pollution-mainly due to heavy traffic, diminishing green spaces in favor of the construction, or implantation of new businesses) and for a large part of the urban population (IE about social inequities) [21,24].…”

“…Landmarks are defined as an external point of reference that helps to orient in a familiar or an unfamiliar environment [29]. Landmarks are a kind of signals of urban space [10]. The question is how people orient themselves in urban space considering reference points.…”

Catuspatha As A Landmark Of Semarapura City In Terms Of Physical And Socio-Cultural Aspects

“…Whereas local landmark is a condition where a landmark object can only be seen from a short distance and with a limited position. This type of landmark will greatly depend on how observers know the conditions around the city (Lynch, 1959) (Bala, 2016). Catuspatha as a Semarapura city landmark can be categorized as a distant landmark, this is because the Semarapura catuspatha building is monumental with a height of up to 20 meters.…”