İDEALKENT

Yazarlar: Müge AKKAR ERCAN

Konular:-

Anahtar Kelimeler:Historic and cultural heritage,Place identity,Urban conservation,Post-industrial cities,Dynamic,Evolutionary,Contextual

Özet: Under the impacts of the globalisation and neoliberal urbanism, contemporary cities have undergone a significant economic, social and spatial restructuring over more than three decades. While this change has led to the generation of post-modern face of many cities with a global urban identity, it brings about a significant and often detrimental impact upon localities, and their identities. ‘Placelessness’, defined as “the displacement or loss of ‘authentic’ forms of culture –made from and making, local distinctiveness- by mass-produced commercial forms imposed on the locality”, is the ultimate outcome of the homogenisation, standardisation and hybridization of urban space. A number of studies, which discuss the identity crisis of historical and cultural heritage sites in relation with the notion of placelessness, call attention to the impoverishment of the place identity by either museumisation or eradification of these sites. In a space-time continuum where cities and societies incessantly evolve, this research aims to discuss how to conserve ‘place identity’ in historical and cultural heritage sites. The paper first examines the factors which have brought about urban identity problems of post-industrial cities, describes the significance of urban identity for individuals, societies and cities, as well as the threats and conflicting areas resulted from the urban identity crisis of contemporary cities. Second, referring to the literature on the space-place debates, it conceptualizes the notion of ‘place identity’ in relation with the E. Relph’s triad of ‘physical setting or appearance’, ‘activities’ and ‘meanings’, as well as its contextual and evolutionary aspects. Last but not least, the third part seeks to discuss and find answers to the questions of how the stability of idealised conservation of place identity can be reconciled with the dynamics of place identity with its continuously evolving nature in the space-time continuum.

---