Cities ful of Symbols Boek 2_Layout 2 21-10-11 12:10 Pagina 1 Cities Full of Symbols Cities ful of Symbols Boek 2_Layout 2 21-10-11 12:10 Pagina 2 Cities Full of Symbols A Theory of Urban Space and Culture Cities ful of Symbols Boek 2_Layout 2 21-10-11 12:10 Pagina 3 Edited by Peter J.M. Nas Leiden University Press Cities ful of Symbols Boek 2_Layout 2 21-10-11 12:10 Pagina 4 4 Cities Full of Symbols This book is published in print and online through the online OAPEN library (www.oapen.org). OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) is a collaborative initiative to develop and implement a sustainable Open Access publication model for academic books in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The OAPEN Library aims to improve the visibility and usability of high quality academic research by aggregating peer reviewed Open Access publications from across Europe. Cover design and lay-out: Mulder van Meurs, Amsterdam ISBN 978 90 8964 125 0 e-ISBN 978 94 0060 044 7 NUR 648 / 758 © P.J.M. Nas / Leiden University Press, 2011 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher. Cities ful of Symbols Boek 2_Layout 2 21-10-11 12:10 Pagina 5 Contents 5 7 1. Introduction: Variety of Symbols Peter J.M. Nas, Marlies de Groot and Michelle Schut 27 2. Emotion in the Symbolic Spectrum of Colombo, Sri Lanka Michelle Schut, Peter J.M. Nas and Siri T. Hettige 55 3. Squares, Water and Historic Buildings: The Transforming Power of City Marketing on Urban Symbolism in Ghent, Belgium Rose-Anne Vermeer 85 4. Urban Symbolism in Yogyakarta: In Search of the Lost Symbol Pierpaolo De Giosa 107 5. The Changing Image of Gdan´sk, Poland: From Regained Homeland to Multicultural City Barbara Bossak-Herbst 127 6. Obelisk and Axis: Urban Symbolism of Buenos Aires Lars Bakker 153 7. A Touch of Tragedy: Pre- and Post-Tsunami Symbolism in Banda Aceh, Indonesia Rob van Leeuwen 173 8. Imagining Modernity: Memory, Space and Symbolism of The Hague Jialing Luo 187 9. Urban Symbolism and the New Urbanism of Indonesia Hans-Dieter Evers 197 10. Kudus and Blitar: A Tale of Two Javanese Iconic Cities Pierpaolo De Giosa 217 11. Jakarta through Poetry Esrih Bakker and Katie Saentaweesook Cities ful of Symbols Boek 2_Layout 2 21-10-11 12:10 Pagina 6 6 Cities Full of Symbols 241 12. History in Bronze: Competing Memories and Symbolic Representation in Albuquerque, New Mexico Eveline Dürr 259 13. The Resilient City: New York after 9/11 and the New WTC Designs Georgina Kay 283 14. Conclusion: Feeling at Home in the City and the Codification of Urban Symbolism Research Peter J.M. Nas and Pierpaolo De Giosa 293 Contributors 297 Index Cities ful of Symbols Boek 2_Layout 2 21-10-11 12:10 Pagina 7 1. Introduction 7 Variety of Symbols Peter J.M. Nas, Marlies de Groot and Michelle Schut Introduction The city is a complex amalgamation of numerous phenomena, based on a multiplicity of dynamic interactions. Due to an increase in density, an almost continuous cooperation between the inhabitants occurs often resulting in socio-economic improvement. Con- sidering the constant development of living standards – infrastructure, production and consumption – the city and urbanization should generally be regarded as something pos- itive without thereby disguising problems of social inequality and violence. This is of im- portance as in just a few decennia eighty percent of the world’s population will be living in urbanized areas resulting in a single, global city: ecumenopolis. There are various dimensions of the city which can be studied intensively, such as the morphologic, demographic, economic, social-cultural, administrative and planning dimension. The cultural dimension of the city as a whole, which also includes symbols and rituals, has rarely been identified by science. Sociologists and geographers have in- vestigated the city thoroughly and frequently characterized cities as a whole, but they have ignored the symbolic dimension and its interpretation. Anthropologists, on the other hand, have a lot of attention for symbols and rituals, but are hardly concerned with the city and especially not the city as a whole. During the last decades this situation has improved. Within the general field of urban studies, urban anthropology has attracted more and more attention, especially in the USA and Europe. One of the major contemporary tendencies in urban anthropology is urban symbolic ecology. It pursues the study of the cultural dimension of the city, ori- ented towards establishing the distribution and meaning of symbols and rituals in rela- tion to the cultivated surroundings (Nas, 1990, 1998). Central to this, is the process of social production and consumption of symbolism and ritual. Rituals are recurrent stan- dardized deeds within the framework of the construction of meaning. A symbol, in con- trast to a sign, is something that refers to something else; it bears extrinsic values. Urban symbolic ecology is rooted in human ecology and especially the research of the Chicago School, which among others focused on the description and analysis of the distribution of social phenomena over urban space. Classic is the study of Burgess on Chicago, projecting a number of concentric circles on this city to specify the differences in status, ethnicity and urbanization characteristics of the population. In urban symbolic ecology, this approach is applied to symbols and rituals and several case studies have re- sulted in interesting and complex types of urban symbolic patterns. Cities ful of Symbols Boek 2_Layout 2 21-10-11 12:10 Pagina 8 8 Cities Full of Symbols Urban anthropological studies of symbolism are also indebted to the work of Kevin Lynch in The Image of the City (1960). This influence is twofold. Lynch coins three con- cepts in this study of American towns, namely identity (distinguishing the urban elements from each other), structure (showing the pattern of identified elements) and meaning of urban elements, in order to get to grips with the perceived reality and imageability of cities. He strongly disregards meaning, however, because he considers it too personal and also too diverse to yield systematic results. In contrast to Lynch’s opinion, we think that meaning is a crucial concept in the study of urban symbolism. We have provided ev- idence that the meanings attached to the urban environment may entail clear patterns depending on the social and cultural conditions. In addition to this difference of opinion on the role of the concept of meaning, a strong congruence is found in his technique of research: the use of the so-called mental maps. Lynch combines interviews with the drawing of a map of the city for data collection. These mental maps create the possibil- ity to discuss all sorts of ideas on the city with the informants. Leeke Reinders (pers. comm.) has even introduced the concept of a narrative map, which refers to a dialogue with the respondent on the city layout and built environment, without drawing a concrete map on paper, but instead using a virtual map depicted in words. Many researchers, in the field of urban symbolism, ask their informants to draw a map in combination with an interview about the results of the map for the explanation of its content and meaning. The method has proven to be very productive. The third root of urban symbolism studies is found in semiotics and the process of signification in the urban setting. The real city and the hypercity are distinguished in this approach. The real city as a whole and its constituting elements are signified and the sig- nifiers, i.e. the configuration of signifiers, form a layer of meanings that sometimes may become stronger than reality and constitute a hyperreality in their own right. The produc- tion, consumption and distribution over space of those signifiers in a positive sense (hy- percity) and a negative sense (shadow city) make up the core of hypercity research. So, the hypercity theory proposes that the symbolic side of a city is so compelling that it can be seen as being detached from reality (Nas, Jaffe and Samuels, 2006). The symbolic dimension shapes itself to form a hyperreality or a hypercity, which lives a life of its own and is, to a certain extent, suitable for manipulation. This is implied by the ter- rain of city marketing and city branding, as cities in competition try vigorously to differ- entiate from one another. Inspiration for urban symbolic research is further found in the works of a wide circle of scholars who have contributed to five edited volumes, namely Urban Symbolism (Nas, 1993), a special issue of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research with the title Urban Rituals and Symbols (Nas, 1998), Urban Symbolism and Rituals (Jez- ernik, 1999), Hypercity: The Symbolic Side of Urbanism (Nas and Samuels, 2006), and a Cities ful of Symbols Boek 2_Layout 2 21-10-11 12:10 Pagina 9 1. Introduction – Variety of Symbols 9 special issue of Stedebouw & Ruimtelijke Ordening called Hyper Stad (Reinders, 2008). Very significant as a general source of ideas on urban symbolism are publications re- lated to the production and consumption of space and place by authors such as De Certeau (1984), Nora (1989), Castells (1996), and Low (2000).