Issue 1(49)/2017

DOI: 10.5277/ARCHITECTUS

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Articles

Patrycja Grzyś - Image of the city and its identity – contemporary relations

doi:10.5277/arc170201

The issue of the identity, and in particular the identity of cities and places, has become an especially interesting research topic over the last years. Identity is one of the main parameters of urban space description. Nevertheless, the growing competition between urban units and the rivalry resulting from the growing needs of urban stakeholders means that cities are looking for new ways to achieve competitive advantage and that urban identity is materialized as an urban resource – one of the most important tools for creating competitive advantage.    The purpose of this article is to draw attention to the relationship between the terms “image” and “identity” and then to indicate whether this relationship is relevant in the management of urban spaces in contemporary contexts.

Keywords:

    urban-transformations

    market-economy

    urban-image

    urban-identity

Katarzyna Kajdanek - Identity for sale? Internal and external image of the city of Wrocław and its commodification

doi:10.5277/arc170202

A pressure to prove their value in market terms is exerted on cities. It results in the cities’ reorientation in many activities towards commercial success which can be measured by the size of the number of tourists or influx of new investments. Since the logics of supply and demand determines the actions of local authorities it also entails changes in approaching the theme of the urban identity.    Every city has features by which it can be distinguished from other cities that make up the urban identity. The decision which of these characteristics should be chosen and included into an easy-to-market urban image is a political one since it results from the specific motives and ways of acting as well as from the narratives of actors who dominate the public sphere of the city. In the extreme case the urban identity is replaced by the urban image – a vision completely separated from the social character of the city. Currently, the inhabitants of the city are increasingly inclined to explicitly express their will and competences to participate in the process of creating the urban image together with other urban actors.    The empirical material presented in the article contains attempts to answer the question of what is the external and internal image of Wrocław in the perspective of the local leaders and inhabitants and what is the course of the process of commodification of the urban image, i.e. what social categories are defined as the most important client of the urban offer, what are the reactions towards the marketing strategy that is being carried out and how is the process of commodification and politicization of the identity assessed. The material was collected for the research grant issued by the National Centre for Science No. 2013/09/B/HS6/00418 titled “The identity of city and its inhabitants and the public space. The study of three cities”.

Keywords:

    city-image

    city-identity

    politicization-of-identity

    commodification-of-identity

    wrocław

Łukasz Damurski - Spatial changes in Wrocław neighbourhoods in the years 1997–2017 as a basis for shaping the image of a place

doi:10.5277/arc170203

The image of a place is always based on particular space perceived and evaluated by the users. Thus each visible, permanent change in the landscape can influence the image of a place in the users’ minds. This paper presents a panel study conducted in 16 selected neighbourhoods in Wrocław city (Poland) in the years 1997, 2007 and 2016. A picture documentation has been used to show the dynamics and character of spatial transformations. The results highlight the diverse distribution of changes in the urban landscape: more changes took place closer to the city centre and less in the peripherial areas. The dominating directions of development embrace greenery, refurbishing the existing urban tissue and new investments. Also the reorganisation of transport infrastructure is a very important component of the transformation of the landscape. The observed changes seem to give a good basis for shaping a positive image of most of the studied neighbourhoods in Wrocław.

Keywords:

    wrocław

    city-image

    picture-documentation

    spatial-change

    landscape-transformation

Michał Dębek - Architectural and mental background of the high street. The case of Świdnicka Street in Wrocław

doi:10.5277/arc170204

This article presents the results of six image and social function studies of Świdnicka Street. Cross-sectional, qualitative and quantitative studies, including the method of cognitive mapping, were attended by 292 respondents. The group included the inhabitants of Wrocław, temporary residents of the city and entrepreneurs associated with the street, running shops and providing services. My exploration of the sources and probable physical foundations of the image of the street was inspired by the concept of the image of the city developed by Kevin Lynch, and pattern language of Christopher Alexander and his team. It turned out, among other things, that Świdnicka Street is lacking particular urban and architectural structures that are prerequisite for the proper functioning of a high street, and that the good image of the street is not strongly associated with trade and services. Renoma, the leading and most attractive shopping mall and ex-department store of Świdnicka Street, was also most frequently cited by respondents as the only element of the street unambiguously metropolitan and commercial in character.

Keywords:

    street

    trade

    image

    pattern-language

    cognitive-maps

    wrocław

Beata Juchniewicz - The city-picture. The mobile image of Wrocław

doi:10.5277/arc170205

The article analyzes the relationship between the image of public space, features of modern visual culture and strategies of social life. Since mobility is the basis of modern culture it designates the undertaken research perspective. Wrocław is a city which has been considered as a leading example for analysis. The mobility of bodies/citizens, objects and pictures, all of which are the components of the city image have been described. New forms of visual awareness are connected with the common usage of camera, resulting in multiplication. The analysis of composition of the features of student artworks about the image of Wrocław has allowed us to deepen and illustrate the analysis of the mobile city character. The citypictures have been created as urban collages, which have emerged in a blurred, mobile city silhouette with variable scenography.    Featured in the text and indicated in student artworks, the process of detachment of time from the space in urban strategies has confirmed earlier theses, for example of Zygmunt Bauman’s theory of fluent modernity. At the same time proliferation of increasingly mobile characters and images in the urban space also opens the boundaries of this space, as in the definition of Umberto Eco’s The open work. In this way, the city, the hybrid image of mobile communities is still an open space, unfinished, liable to movement and change. Mobility is the main factor forming its image – a collage of images and impressions, traces of living of the citizens.

Keywords:

    city

    mobility

    collage

    photography

    community

Artur Kwaśniewski - Pre-urbanisation cityscape in the space of a modern city. Comments on research methodology and planning practice on the example of Wrocław

doi:10.5277/arc170205

The key problem discussed in this paper is the protection of the relic of pre-urbanized cultural landscape in urban areas. The author draws attention to the value of structures and elements of suburban villages in contemporary urban spaces. He argues that the key components of the former layout are neither well-identified nor valued – for this reason their protection is selective and superficial. The author believes that it is necessary to correct both the methodology of historical landscape research and the practice of cultural landscape, in particular the practice of spatial planning protection. The theses are illustrated by examples from the area of Wrocław

Keywords:

    cultural-landscape-protection

    wrocław

    spatial-planning

Klara Czyńska, Paweł Rubinowicz - Sky Tower impact on the landscape of Wrocław – analysing based on the VIS method

doi:10.5277/arc170207

The article discusses investigations referring to the analysis of the Sky Tower impact on the cityscape of Wrocław. They involved using a computer aided Visual Impact Size method (VIS) developed by a team led by the first of the authors of the article. The method provides for a geometrical examination of the scope and power of dominant visual impact. The higher the building, the larger is its impact on the landscape. This is followed by the significance of the building as an element determining the image of a city. The area of VIS analyses included a major part of Wrocław (89 km2), which enabled examining close and distant exposure field. In internal views (from streets and squares), the Sky Tower is relatively little exposed and has not been much embedded in the structure of the city. According to VIS analyses, the facility is better seen from larger distances in western and southern panoramas, where the Sky Tower is the main vertical element attracting the eye of a viewer. The tall building has become a new symbol of Wrocław in thos more distant views strengthening the image of the city. The analyses involved LiDAR aerial scanning data: digital terra n model (DTM) and digital surface model (DSM), and the application of a specialist software developed by the authors.

Keywords:

    sky-tower

    wrocław

    visual-impact-size

    digital-landscape-analysis

    lidar

Łukasz Mazur - Mental health condition of residents in the urban environment. Conceptualisation of research problems and search for architectural solutions

doi:10.5277/arc170208

Life in contemporary urban environment is gaining more and more momentum, and days seem too short to execute in a hurry everything that we have planned. City dwellers are exposed to the effects of various negative factors, such as: poor air quality, noise, stress, traffic jams and the problems with communication in the city, urban infrastructure failure, local overpopulation, anonymity, social pathologies. Negative factors in residential environment make cities a more problematic place to live, and the residents show a higher probability of exposure to mental problems than the population in rural areas. The aim of the work is to discuss the negative factors of life city dwellers on the example of Wrocław and finding answers to the question of wheather the negative influences of city life can affect the mental health of the inhabitants.

Keywords:

    city

    mental-health

    quality-of-life