Space and Culture

Signs in the urban landscapes are never neutral; they always enact connections to power relations and social hierarchies. By examining the New Administrative Capital of Egypt’s (NAC) advertising billboards, the current study relates itself to the literature of Linguistic Landscape (LL). The study examines the NAC from a semio-discursive perspective. More specifically, it relies on the tools of Semiotic Landscape (SL) to discuss how the landscape of Cairo is represented as a heterogeneous contested space, and how the semiotic resources of its real-estate billboards epitomize Foucauldian principles of heterotopia. The study maintains that the different semiotic resources deployed in the NAC billboards commodify urban space by indexing heterotopic power relations. It is found that spatial commodification of the New Capital is embodied in two heterotopic tropes: “silent” space and “carnival” space. That is, the NAC billboards promote the consumption of the urban space by selling the heterotopic experiences of silence, and carnival-like tempo-spatiality. The study has found that the space of the NAC is semiotically presented in the landscape of Cairo as heterotopic through promoting “different” spatial experiences. To put it differently, the NAC billboards are perceived as antithesis to their landscapes of emplacement, the landscape of Cairo.

This research explores the relationship between space and activity as a means of investigating a phenomenological understanding of Korean floor-based living. An understanding of the floor as space has been a fundamental element in Korean everyday life since the ondol (a traditional Korean floor heating system) became the prevalent heating resource throughout the Korean peninsula during the time of the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910). Thus, I will draw upon the spatial implications of these cultural practices by engaging with the spatial experience of the ondol, which is fundamentally different to the Western lifestyle that has been layered over this regional tradition. I argue that the spatial typology is informed by repetitive activities in terms of everyday life and that the floor is a substantial element for Korean identity that refers back to this rich cultural tradition. This distinguishes the Korean home as unique, in a similar way to the more well-known particularities and cultural heritage found in Japanese and Chinese houses.

Ayvalik, a city located in northwest Anatolia, has been at the forefront of olive-based industries since the 1880s, when the industrialization of Europe led to the growth of commerce and agriculture in Anatolia, including first Istanbul and Izmir, followed by Ayvalik, due to their strategic locations. Ayvalik, which was an important Greek settlement under Ottoman rule, experienced a major turning point with the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923, an event that caused dramatic changes in the political, demographic, and economic structure of all of Anatolia. Nonetheless, Ayvalik has maintained its importance through its ongoing olive-based industries and well-preserved historical urban fabric, the likes of which represents one of an exceptional example of living testimony of continuing land-use by Turks. Following the relocation of industrial activities in the 1980s, many of the industrial heritage buildings became non-functional, while half of them were converted into different cultural-touristic sites in the 2000s. This study presents a comprehensive view of the industrial heritage of Ayvalik by performing an up-to-date synthesis of the cultural material related to trajectories on industry and production processes to understand the evolution of the industrial heritage and how urban and daily life have been reflected and transformed.

This article assesses what a spatial expression of the commons might entail. It asks, “How is ‘common space’ produced when the initiative thereto lies at the institutional rather than at the grassroots level?” The article first proposes a dyadic understanding of common space in terms of endogenous and exogenous commoning: internal governance and external negotiation, respectively. Thereafter, Lefebvre’s spatial triad is mobilized as an ensemble of sometimes conflictive and sometimes complementary “force fields” that act upon these two variants of common space. The article takes as a central case study Montaña Verde (“Green Mountain”), a wooden arch that was built and then dismantled as part of the “Antwerp Baroque 2018” festival. Results showcase how a multiple set of significations was projected upon Montaña Verde: as urban green space, as museum domain, as common-pool resource, and as a means to recast public space to collective use.

Recently, the concept of “cultural governance” has gained analytical traction in research on Chinese urban development. This is mostly diagnosed as a top-down process of defining and imposing cultural forms in government-led projects, such as in tourism. We argue that the case of Shenzhen manifests important differences, and is highly significant, considering the national and international status of this mega-city. Based on detailed field studies, supplemented with information about other cases, we show that in Shenzhen local cultural forms show resilience and increasing public presence, while also being shaped by inclusive cultural policies that are informed by the national drive towards reinstating traditional Chinese values as part and parcel of national identity. One manifestation is the enactment of the traditional ritual space of the village in urban architecture, such as the duality of ancestral hall and village temple, often at so-called “cultural squares,” and the expression of territorial ambitions of lineages in competitive projects of redevelopment. We suggest enhancing the concept of cultural governance by the concept of governmentality to grasp these phenomena analytically.

Cultural heritage plays an important role in reshaping cities’ current morphologies, reinforcing public sense of belonging, cultural identity, and place authenticity. Port Said, the research case study, a former colonial city located at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal at the north east Egyptian coast, is struggling between new urban sprawl that obliterates its identity and urban heritage preservation. Port Said is an important logistic city distinguished by its unique urban heritage, facing a real threat of heritage obliteration. There is a continuous fight between nostalgic memories, modern life style dreams, and aimed economic benefit. Although there is an international developing agenda for the preservation of tangible urban heritage, the local community can barely interfere with reshaping of urban heritage in the modern society. It is urgent to create public awareness and heritage guardians in developing countries as the economic benefits strongly demolish heritage, ignoring their significance and peculiarity. This research aims to investigate the city’s historical and urban development with special emphasis on buildings’ visual characteristics and architectural features. Visual preference survey research methodology is used to study public perception influence toward reshaping city historical image. The current study employs both qualitative and quantitative tactics in data collection to examine the research hypotheses and to achieve organized and rational local perception about Egyptian building heritage development. Finally, conclusions are drawn about the joining of current public perception of the Port Said heritages, urban identity and city unique reshaping and development.

Widespread environmental changes as well as economic events and factors have contributed significantly to migrations from and relocations of human settlements during the past years. Being in direct contact with natural environments, rural settlements have been on the forefront of dealing with these changes. The impacts are more tangible in developing countries, including Iran, which face numerous socioeconomic and management challenges. Despite this, a number of the residents of rural settlements refuse to migrate and decide to stay in their current place of living despite economic and environmental hardships. In this respect, the present research aims to investigate the reasons of this decision among the “trapped” populations by studying two villages of Famenin County in Iran, namely Amirabad and Jahanabad, using the qualitative methodology in the form of field interviews with the residents. The results indicate that while “employment,” “accommodation,” and “poverty” are the three main drivers, which contribute to the villagers’ decision for not migrating in general, social capital and psychological attachment are considered impactful drivers for not migrating among older villagers or those with a longer history of rural residence.

This article examines how images of nature, weather, and topography disclose a politics of recognition (who is visible/invisible) invested in a burgeoning criminal justice milieu, where punishment of wrongdoing became increasingly racialized in British Columbia during the early confederation period of Canada’s history. Drawing from archived court documents and colonial writing, it examines dominant environmental metaphors and tropes that structured this politics of recognition within the colonial legal imaginary. I argue that images and understandings of topography, nature, weather, and seasons shaped the background enactment of law in early Canadian lawmaking practices. By examining these natural tropes, this article seeks to understand the contours of a contextually specific colonial legal imaginary as a vital component for entry into the criminal justice system. This colonial legal imaginary predisposes certain groups, and particularly Indigenous peoples, as subject to the constraining power of law, thereby fueling the growth of crime control industries over the last 150 years.

Contemporary strategic planning represents a logic of space reproduction based on the promotion of tourism as the cornerstone of cultural and creative economy. However, some grassroots social initiatives aim to build alternative spaces to the economic approach that permeates contemporary urban planning. This article reflects comparatively on the cases of the Metelkova self-organized autonomous zone (Ljubljana, Slovenia) and the STOP Shopping Center (Porto, Portugal). We suggest that both the squatting of military installations (Slovenia), as the strategic reconfiguration of a private commercial building (Portugal), share common aspects that must be addressed under a place-making approach. In doing so, we propose that the cultural activity produced in these places, their socioeconomic influence in the urban environment and their ability to promote tourism has resulted in a brand that allows them to be tolerated by their respective local governments.

We live in the visual culture times, when images continuously and daily are transferring some information. A visual message is also an indispensable element of architecture, in the semantic layer as an aesthetic value, sometimes fulfilling a narrative function by means of a symbol, which is an international visual code. Most of the symbols, hidden in painting, sculpture, or architecture, are elements of nature. The article discusses examples of architecture whose form is based on a lotus flower. Unification of urban landscapes leads to a decrease in the value of aesthetic impressions; therefore, the unique architecture builds the unique identity of the place.

This review-essay of Adam Rothstein’s Drone (2015) analyzes drone technology, more explicitly, the emerging opportunities for commercial and private usage of drones, in two parts: While the first part is dedicated to a careful reading of Rothstein’s book and an exploration of his method of tracing emerging technologies as narratives in terms of their constitutional technologies—the stories of four technologies that preceded the drone and proved integral to its emergence—the second part of this review seeks to extend his method toward recent examples of commercial and private drone-usage, exploring how the adaption of drone technology in different realms of application (such as commodity delivery, entertainment through drone-races, or even political protest and terrorism) shapes the societal conception of drones and their perceived usage. Since drones represent a derivative of military technology, a short section on the ethics of drones that engages with some of the points raised by Rothstein will show how, despite the drone’s unglamorous past as a hunter from above, the adaption of drone technology in new contexts might over time change this one-sided conception of drones as mere tools of warfare and surveillance toward a balanced understanding of the risks and chances associated with this young technology.