The City: A Window to Utopia?

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anti Randviir
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Universal Logic ◽  
The Status ◽  
Practical Development ◽  
The City

AbstractIn addressing the semiotics of utopia and the utopian, we target the semiotic techniques and principles applied in More’s seminal text Utopia (1516) that established the universal logic for utopian discourse, and raise the question of the legitimacy of describing certain cultural production as utopian. Utopian discourse is often tied with an urban context. We question this association. The semiotic interpause is hard to achieve in the context of the physical environment. Yet this is where the utopia, the city, the society, and the utopian come together. Thus it is useful to review the notion of utopia in connection with the quite practical development of the (urban) sociocultural life in which the status of objects in communicative situations is continually redefined.

scholarly journals Chico Bento e as representações sociais da infância

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. e6446
Author(s):  
José Douglas Alves dos Santos ◽  
Éverton Vasconcelos de Almeida
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Rural Children ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
The Social ◽  
Great Relevance ◽  
The Look ◽  
The City ◽  
Social Reading

Os registros visuais, e os discursos que eles transmitem, ou que deles se emitem, geram leituras sociais e contribuem para a construção de um imaginário coletivo. Este artigo propõe realizar uma reflexão sobre o imaginário em função dos sujeitos que vivem no campo, mais especificamente às crianças e infâncias rurais, por meio de um dos principais símbolos de representação da criança camponesa brasileira, o personagem de Chico Bento, criado pelo cartunista Maurício de Sousa. Constata-se que essa produção visual, produzida no contexto urbano e endereçada especialmente aos habitantes da cidade, muitas vezes (re)produz discursos sobre o campo e seus sujeitos permeados por estereótipos e preconceitos. Neste caso, considera-se que a produção cultural imagética tem grande relevância na construção do olhar e da leitura social que a ela se direciona. Palavras-chave: Chico Bento, Crianças e Infâncias do Campo, Produção Cultural, Representações Sociais.   Chico Bento and the social representations of childhood                 ABSTRACT. The visual records, and the discourses they transmit, or that emit them, generate social readings and contribute to the construction of a collective imaginary. This article proposes to accomplish a reflection about the imaginary in function of the subjects who live in the countryside, more specifically children and rural children, through one of the main symbols of representation of the Brazilian peasant child, the character of Chico Bento, created by the cartoonist Mauricio de Sousa. It is observed that this visual production, produced in the urban context and addressed especially to the inhabitants of the city, often (re)produces discourses about the peasantry and its subject and its subjects permeated by stereotypes and prejudices. In this case, it is considered that the imagistic cultural production has great relevance in the construction of the look and the social reading that is directed to it. Keywords: Chico Bento, Children and Peasantry Childhood, Cultural Production, Social Representations.   Chico Bento y las representaciones sociales de la infancia RESUMEN. Los registros visuales, y los discursos que ellos transmiten, o que de ellos se emiten, generan lecturas sociales que contribuyen para la construcción de un imaginario colectivo. Este artículo se propone a realizar una reflexión sobre el imaginario en función de los sujetos que viven en el campo, más específicamente los niños y infancias rurales, por medio de uno de los principales símbolos de representación de los niños campesinos brasileños, lo personaje de Chico Bento, creado por el cartonista Maurício de Sousa. Se constata que esa producción visual, producida en el contexto urbano y direccionada especialmente para los habitantes de la ciudad, muchas veces (re)produce discursos sobre el campo y sus sujetos impregnados por estereotipos y preconceptos. En este caso, se considera que la producción cultural de imágenes es de gran relevancia en la construcción de la mirada y de la lectura social que a ella se dirige. Palabras clave: Chico Bento, Niños y Infancia Campesina, Producción Cultural, Representaciones Sociales.

FORMATION OF FORTIFICATION ART IN ANCIENT EAST COUNTRIES

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 94-124
Author(s):  
Е. N. Polyakov ◽  
M. I. Korzh
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Building Structures ◽  
Ancient China ◽  
Natural Landscape ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Medieval China ◽  
The Status ◽  
Architectural Structures ◽  
The City ◽  
New Babylon

The article presents a comparative analysis of fortification art monuments in such East countries from Ancient Egypt to medieval China. An attempt is made to identify the main stages of the fortification development from a stand-alone fortress (citadel, fort) to the most complex systems of urban and border fortifications, including moats, walls and gates, battle towers. It is shown that the nature of these architectural structures is determined by the status of the city or settlement, its natural landscape, building structures and materials, the development of military and engineering art. The materials from poliorceticon (Greek: poliorketikon, poliorketika), illustrate the main types of siege machines and mechanisms. The advantages and disadvantages of boundary shafts and long walls (limes). The most striking examples are the defensive systems of Assyria, New Babylon, Judea and Ancient China.

EAST INDIAN AND OTHER DOCKS IN LONDON: IMPERIAL ARCHITECTURE, COLONIAL TRADE AND POSTCOLONIAL MEMORY

2020 ◽  
pp. 190-205
Author(s):  
S. E. Sidorova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
East Indian ◽  
Architectural Representation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Postcolonial History ◽  
The City

The article concentrates on the colonial and postcolonial history, architecture and topography of the southeastern areas of London, where on both banks of the River Thames in the 18th–20th centuries there were located the docks, which became an architectural and engineering response to the rapidly developing trade of England with territories in the Western and Eastern hemispheres of the world. Constructions for various purposes — pools for loading, unloading and repairing ships, piers, shipyards, office and warehouse premises, sites equipped with forges, carpenter’s workshops, shops, canteens, hotels — have radically changed the bank line of the Thames and appearance of the British capital, which has acquired the status of the center of a huge empire. Docks, which by the beginning of the 20th century, occupied an area of 21 hectares, were the seamy side of an imperial-colonial enterprise, a space of hard and routine work that had a specific architectural representation. It was a necessary part of the city intended for the exchange of goods, where the usual ideas about the beauty gave way to considerations of safety, functionality and economy. Not distinguished by architectural grace, chaotically built up, dirty, smoky and fetid, the area was one of the most significant symbols of England during the industrial revolution and colonial rule. The visual image of this greatness was strikingly different from the architectural samples of previous eras, forcing contemporaries to get used to the new industrial aesthetics. Having disappeared in the second half of the 20th century from the city map, they continue to retain a special place in the mental landscape of the city and the historical memory of the townspeople, which is reflected in the chain of museums located in this area that tell the history of English navigation, England’s participation in geographical discoveries, the stages of conquering the world, creating an empire and ways to acquire the wealth of the nation.

Toward A Framework for Assessing the Fair Distribution of Space in Urban Streets

2021 ◽  
pp. 036119812199519
Author(s):  
Gabriel Lefebvre-Ropars ◽  
Catherine Morency ◽  
Paula Negron-Poblete
Keyword(s):  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Active Transportation ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Urban Streets ◽  
Street Space ◽  
The World ◽  
Fair Distribution ◽  
The City

The increasing popularity of street redesigns highlights the intense competition for street space between their different users. More and more cities around the world mention in their planning documents their intention to rebalance streets in favor of active transportation, transit, and green infrastructure. However, few efforts have managed to formalize quantifiable measurements of the balance between the different users and usages of the street. This paper proposes a method to assess the balance between the three fundamental dimensions of the street—the link, the place, and the environment—as well as a method to assess the adequation between supply and demand for the link dimension at the corridor level. A series of open and government georeferenced datasets were integrated to determine the detailed allocation of street space for 11 boroughs of the city of Montréal, Canada. Travel survey data from the 2013 Origine-Destination survey was used to model different demand profiles on these streets. The three dimensions of the street were found to be most unbalanced in the central boroughs of the city, which are also the most dense and touristic neighborhoods. A discrepancy between supply and demand for transit users and cyclists was also observed across the study area. This highlights the potential of using a distributive justice framework to approach the question of the fair distribution of street space in an urban context.

scholarly journals Trends and dynamics of material and energy flows in an urban context: a case study of a city with an emerging economy

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Inés Pardo Martínez ◽  
William Alfonso Piña ◽  
Angelo Facchini ◽  
Alexander Cotte Poveda
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
The Other ◽  
Material Flows ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Urban Agglomerations ◽  
Energy Flows ◽  
The City

Abstract Background Currently, most of the world’s population lives in cities, and the rapid urbanization of the population is driving increases in the demand for products, goods and services. To effectively design policies for urban sustainability, it is important to understand the trends of flows in energy and materials as they enter and leave a city. This knowledge is essential for determining the key elements characterizing future urban growth and addressing future supply challenges. Methods This paper presents an analysis of the energy and material flows in the city of Bogotá over the time span from 2001 to 2017. Urban flows are also characterized in terms of their temporal evolution with respect to population growth to compare and identify the changes in the main input flows, wealth production, emissions and waste in the city. Results The results of the analysis are then compared with those for other selected large urban agglomerations in Latin America and worldwide to highlight similarities and make inferences. The results show that in Bogotá, there was a decrease in some of the material flows, such as the consumption of water and the generation of discharge, in recent years, while there was an increase in the consumption of energy and cement and in the production of CO2 emissions and construction materials. Solid waste production remained relatively stable. With respect to the other large cities considered, we observe that the 10-year growth rates of the flows with respect to population growth are lower in Bogotá, particularly when compared with the other urban agglomerations in Latin America. Conclusions The findings of this study are important for advancing characterizations of the trends of material and energy flows in cities, and they contribute to the establishment of a benchmark that allows for the definition and evaluation of the different impacts of public policy while promoting the sustainability of Bogotá in the coming decades.

scholarly journals The Interlocking Processes Constraining the Struggle for Sanctuary in the Trump Era: The Case of La Puente, CA

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 155
Author(s):  
Gilda L. Ochoa
Keyword(s):  
Status Quo ◽  
City Council ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Cautionary Tale ◽  
Community Members ◽  
White Supremacist ◽  
The Status ◽  
The City

By 10 January 2017, activists in the predominately Latina/o working class city of La Puente, California had lobbied the council to declare the city a sanctuary supporting immigrants, people of color, Muslims, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities. The same community members urged the school district to declare itself a sanctuary. While community members rejoiced in pushing elected officials to pass these inclusive resolutions, there were multiple roadblocks reducing the potential for more substantive change. Drawing on city council and school board meetings, resolutions and my own involvement in this sanctuary struggle, I focus on a continuum of three overlapping and interlocking manifestations of white supremacist heteronormative patriarchy: neoliberal diversity discourses, institutionalized policies, and a re-emergence of high-profiled white supremacist activities. Together, these dynamics minimized, contained and absorbed community activism and possibilities of change. They reinforced the status quo by maintaining limits on who belongs and sustaining intersecting hierarchies of race, immigration status, gender, and sexuality. This extended case adds to the scant scholarship on the current sanctuary struggles, including among immigration scholars. It also illustrates how the state co-opts and marginalizes movement language, ideas, and people, providing a cautionary tale about the forces that restrict more transformative change.

Faith as Taking the Risk

1968 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wyatt T. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Status Quo ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Status ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
The City

“Then Elisha said to those people who were assembled in the main square, in the midst of a terrible famine, with the Syrian army at the gate: ‘In about twenty-four hours you will be able to buy a measure of fine flour for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel.’ And the captain upon whose arm the king leaned looked at him and spoke in derision: ‘Ha! What's God going to do? Open up a hole in the sky and pour out food upon all of these hungry people?’ And Elisha turned to him and said: ‘You have a big mouth. You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat thereof.’ And there were four lepers sitting at the entering in of the gate of Samaria, and they held a conversation amongst themselves that had to do with what the future might hold for them. And they said one to another: ‘What good is it for us to sit here until we die? If we go into the city, there is a famine there, and we shall die. If we sit here, if we maintain the status quo, if we hold what we've got, we shall die also. Come on, let us go out to meet the Syrian hosts, let's try something that we never tried before, and perhaps we shall be taken prisoners of war, and, if so, at least we'll survive. And if not, what have we got to lose?’” (II Kings 7: 1–20; the “Walker” translation).

scholarly journals Mapping Buildings’ Energy-Related Features at Urban Level toward Energy Planning

Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 322
Author(s):  
Simone Ferrari ◽  
Federica Zagarella ◽  
Paola Caputo ◽  
Giuliano Dall’O’
Keyword(s):  
Energy Demand ◽  
National Level ◽  
Energy Planning ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Urban Buildings ◽  
Usage Patterns ◽  
Urban Level ◽  
The City ◽  
Insight Into

To boost energy efficiency in the building sector at urban and district scales, the use of a Geographic Information System (GIS) for data collection and energy spatial analysis is relevant. As highlighted in many studies on this topic reported in literature, the correlation among available databases is complex due to the different levels of information. As the first part of a wide research aimed at estimating the energy demand of urban buildings, we present in this article a focus on the details of the GIS-based procedure developed to assess the main energy-related features of existing building stocks. The procedure is based on the elaboration of data from the Italian Topographic Databases, under provision at the national level according to the INSPIRE European Directive and the national General Census of Population and Houses. It enables one to calculate and map the urban built volume characterized by mostly diffuse use categories in an urban context (residential and offices), to which different equipment and building usage patterns can be associated, and by construction periods, featuring different technological solutions. The method has been applied to the city of Milan (Italy). An insight into the outcomes from the overall method of the wider research is also reported.

The Jewish Community of Late Byzantine Thessalonica: the Problem of Determining Its Status

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7 (105)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Natalia Zhigalova
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
The Status ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
Byzantine Era ◽  
The City ◽  
The Church

In this article, the author turns to an examination of the status of the Jewish community in Thessalonica in the late Byzantine period. The author concludes that both in the Byzantine era and during the Venetian rule in Thessalonica, the Jewish community of the city was subjected to numerous restrictions and prohibitions on the part of the official authorities. The reason for this was the initial isolation of the community, as well as the fact that the Jews, in contrast to the rest of the townspeople, owned vast financial resources and rented trading floors, ousting local entrepreneurs from there. The Jewish community in Thessalonica, quite numerous by the standards of contemporaries, in the XIV and XV centuries was in a state of permanent conflict with the church authorities of the city and, probably, had some influence on the communities of Judaizing Christians.

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