Urban morphology and place identity in European cities: built heritage and innovative design

In the processes of economic and cultural globalization, European integration and the blur of national identities in Europe, place identity emerges as a central concern of both scholars and other people. This paper examines the ways specific aspects of urban morphology such as built heritage and the innovative design of space may contribute to place identity in European cities. First, it develops a theoretical conjecture that in post‐modern multi‐ethnic and multi‐cultural societies, innovative design of space can efficiently work as a place identity generator in the same ways built heritage has been performing in modern—culturally bounded and nation‐state‐oriented—European societies. This conjecture is then tested by research in the city of Bilbao. The outcome of the research supports the argument that innovative design schemes: (1) may permit divergent interpretations by individuals thereby fitting into the ‘diversity’ and ‘individualization’ of new modernity; (2) may synchronize different ethnic/cultural/social groups by offering themselves as a new common terrain for experiencing and familiarizing with new forms of space; (3) by becoming landmarks and promoting tourism/economic development, may generate new social solidarities among inhabitants grounded on ‘civic pride’ and economic prospects.

[1]  Donald McNeill,et al.  McGuggenisation? National identity and globalisation in the Basque country , 2000 .

[2]  M. Parkinson,et al.  Cultural Policy and Urban Regeneration: The West European Experience , 1993 .

[3]  D. Morley,et al.  Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries , 1995 .

[4]  Kenneth E. Foote.  The City and the Sign: An Introduction to Urban Semiotics , 1986 .

[5]  G. Ashworth,et al.  Whose heritage? Global problem, European nightmare. , 1994 .

[6]  David Ebdon,et al.  Statistics in geography , 1986 .

[7]  A. Scott.  The Cultural Economy of Cities , 1997 .

[8]  J. Jacobs,et al.  Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City , 1999 .

[9]  Coosje van Bruggen,et al.  Frank O. Gehry: Guggenheim Museum Bilbao , 1997 .

[10]  Aspa Gospodini,et al.  Urban Design, Urban Space Morphology, Urban Tourism: An Emerging New Paradigm Concerning Their Relationship , 2001 .

[11]  Joan Ockman,et al.  The Architecture of the City , 1982 .

[12]  Kevin R. Cox,et al.  Globalisation, Competition and the Politics of Local Economic Development , 1995 .

[13]  P. Hall.  Creative Cities and Economic Development , 2000 .

[14]  Kenneth K. Wong,et al.  Amenities Drive Urban Growth , 2002 .

[15]  Beatriz Plaza.  Guggenheim museum's effectiveness to attract tourism. , 2000 .

[16]  The Guggenheim-Bilbao Museum Effect: A Reply to María V. Gomez''Reflective Images: The Case of Urban Regeneration in Glasgow and Bilbao' , 1999 .

[17]  Ronan Paddison,et al.  Handbook of Urban Studies , 2001 .

[18]  Aspa Gospodini,et al.  European Cities in Competition and the New ' Uses ' of Urban Design , 2002 .

[19]  Alexander Tzonis,et al.  Santiago Calatrava: The Poetics of Movement , 1999 .

[20]  J. Tunbridge.  WHOSE HERITAGE TO CONSERVE? CROSS‐CULTURAL REFLECTIONS ON POLITICAL DOMINANCE AND URBAN HERITAGE CONSERVATION , 1984 .

[21]  A. Gospodini,et al.  “Glocalising” urban landscapes: Athens and the 2004 olympics , 2004 .

[22]  R. Paddison,et al.  Power, discourse and city trajectories , 2001 .

[23]  Paul Anthony Saporito.  THE CITY AS TEXT: THE POLITICS OF LANDSCAPE INTERPRETATION IN THE KANDYAN KINGDOM , 1992, Landscape Journal.

[24]  Sharon Zukin.  Landscapes of power : from Detroit to Disney World , 1993 .

[25]  Beatriz Plaza.  Evaluating the Influence of a Large Cultural Artifact in the Attraction of Tourism , 2000 .

[26]  A. Pratt.  The cultural industries sector: its definition and character from secondary sources on employment and trade, Britain 1984-91 , 1997 .

[27]  V. Opačić.  Brian Graham, G. J. Ashworth, J. E. Tunbridge (2000): A Geography of Heritage: Power, Culture and Economy ; Arnold, London , 2001 .

[28]  Jonathan V. Beaverstock,et al.  Fashioning the city: Cultures of consumption in contemporary urban spaces , 1998 .

[29]  J. Tunbridge,et al.  Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict , 1995 .

[30]  Homi K. Bhabha.  The Location of Culture , 1994 .

[31]  S. Woolf.  Nationalism in Europe, 1815 to the present : a reader , 1996 .

[32]  D. Hendrick,et al.  Introduction , 1998, Thorax.

[33]  Michael Charlesworth,et al.  FIELDS OF VISION: LANDSCAPE IMAGERY AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES , 1994, Landscape Journal.

[34]  Umberto Eco,et al.  2. Function and Sign: Semiotics of Architecture , 1986 .

[35]  Manuel Castells,et al.  EUROPEAN CITIES, THE INFORMATIONAL SOCIETY, AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY , 1993 .

[36]  G. Evans.  Hard‐branding the cultural city – from Prado to Prada , 2003 .

[37]  Architecture, banal nationalism and re-territorialization , 2003 .

[38]  G. Evans.  Cultural Planning : An Urban Renaissance? , 2001 .

[39]  Pierre Bourdieu,et al.  Outline of a Theory of Practice , 2020, On Violence.

[40]  J. Gillis.  INTRODUCTION. Memory and Identity: The History of a Relationship , 1994 .

[41]  Simon Sheikh.  The Production of Space , 1996 .