Towards a city museum as a centre of civic dialogue

Tilburg University

Towards a city museum as a centre of civic dialogue

de Groot, C.N.; van der Ploeg, J.

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City museum as centres of civic dialogue? Proceedings of the Fourth Conference of the International Association of City Museums

Publication date:

2006

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Citation for published version (APA):

de Groot, C. N., & van der Ploeg, J. (2006). Towards a city museum as a centre of civic dialogue. In R. Kistemaker (Ed.), City museum as centres of civic dialogue? Proceedings of the Fourth Conference of the International Association of City Museums (pp. 90-96). Amsterdam Historical Museum.

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Cty museums as centres of cvc dalogue?

Proceedngs of the Fourth Conference of the Internatonal

Assocaton of Cty Museums, Amsterdam, 3-5 November 2005

© 2006 Amsterdam Hstorcal Museum

No part of ths publcaton may be reproduced, stored n a retreval system or transmtted n any form or by any means, electronc, mechancal, photo-copyng, recordng or otherwse, wthout the pror wrtten permsson of the publsher. Amsterdam Hstorcal Museum

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F +31(0)206207789 isbn 90-6984-488-5

The paper n ths publcaton meets the requrements of ∞ iso-norm 9706 (1994) for permanence.

The edtors of ths volume have made every effort to trace rghtsholders to obtan per-msson for reproducton of llustratons. If any party should feel the reproducton of llustratons n ths book consttutes an nfrngement of rghts they have to the materal, they are nvted to contact the Amsterdam Hstorcal Museum.

Editor

Renée Kstemaker

Editorial committee

Mla Ernst and Annemare de Wldt

Project assistance

Eefje van der Wejden

Reports on the discussions

Emle Broekhuysen, Eva Geene, L Hoekstra and Dneke Stam

English editing and Dutch-English translation

Jean Vaughan and Kate Wllams

French-English translation

Vc Joseph

Typesetting, Design & Production

Edta-KNAW, publshng department of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Scences.

Printer

Contents

v Preface

1 Welcome speech Paulne Kruseman

4 Introduction to the conference Renée Kstemaker

7 Word of welcome by Ms Hannah Belliot

key notes

11 The urban mosaic. Townscapes and residential patterns in the Western world Mchel Wagenaar

22 Urban icons Vanessa R. Schwartz and Phlp J. Ethngon

shaping the city

31 introduction

The District Six Museum in Cape Town, South Africa Valmont Layne

36 Museums in the city: a multi-centred approach to policy and civic dialogue in Antwerp

Steven Thelemans and Peter De Wlde 40 Capital City – changing the story Cathy Ross

45 discussion

47 Helsinki City Museum – documenting suburban life in Helsinki Tna Mersalo

55 Making history Zuidas: the long-term development of an ambitiously planned city district Hans Denjs

58 discussion

60 Permanent and temporary exhibitions, the many faces of Warsaw’s past. The reception of historical exhibitions by contemporary visitors Joanna Bojarska and Barbara Moszczyńska 67 City museum and city archives: who should collect what? Alce van Depen

72 discussion

73 The city museum and its environment: the contribution of archaeological collections

Rachd Bouzd

78 The role of archaeological research and archaeological collections in the making of the Bruggemuseum Hubert De Wtte

83 discussion

activating the city

87 introduction

The economic significance of participation by city museums F.Ph. Bjdendjk

90 Towards a city museum as a centre of civic dialogue Jouetta van der Ploeg and Kees de Groot

97 ‘Cultural diversity in the middle of Berlin’ Rta Klages

102 discussion

103 Towards new target groups – Refugees and businessmen in Copenhagen Joergen Selmer 107 East Amsterdam, an outreach project Mla Ernst

115 What kind of museum for the city of Beirut? Carla Mardn

123 The museum of Gadagne, a museum with many partners Smone Blazy 126 discussion

128 Addis Ababa Museum as a centre of public discussion Estfanos Admasu Jenbere 134 Museums as History Workshops – A case study from Skövde City Museum, Sweden

Curry Hemann 141 discussion

representing the citepresenting the city 145 introduction

The City – A Wondrous Place? Davd Flemng 147

153 Old Vienna. The city that never was – An exhibition to discuss the identity of a city Wolfgang Kos

156 National Museum of Archaeology of the City and the Lagoon, Venice – Work in progress for a

museum featuring a living city Lug Fozzat and Federca Varoso

161 discussion

163 History’s role in revitalizing the City of Hartford Davd M. Kahn 169 A museum director must be a ballet dancer Dana Wnd 171 discussion

173 Red lights in the museum Annemare de Wldt

181 Liverpool: European capital of...the transatlantic slave trade Davd Flemng 188 discussion

190 Made in Bruges. A modern city threatened by its romanticized tourist image Jorjn Neyrnck and Ellen Vandenbulcke

192 Another view of St Petersburg Jula Demdenko 197 discussion

198 Eplogue

203 About the authorAbout the authors 210 Lst of partcpants

Preface and acknowledgements

The Amsterdam Hstorcal Museum hosted the Fourth Conference of the Internatonal Assocaton of Cty Museums from 3-5 November 2005. The conference was held n the Trppenhus, the home of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Scences n the medaeval heart of Amsterdam. Durng excursons, the more than 160 partcpants also had the opportunty to see parts of the cty datng from the last part of the 20th century. Of partcular nterest was the vst to Imagne Identty and Culture, a new multcultural nsttute for the representaton of dentty and cultures n Southeast Amsterdam. And t was of course possble to vst the Amsterdam Hstorcal Museum and the Wllet-Holthuysen Museum. On the last day of the conference there were vsts to the cty mu-seums n Rotterdam and The Hague.

The modern cty was the focal pont of the conference. Two keynote speakers from the Unversty of Amsterdam and the Unversty of Southern Calforna descrbed the huge physcal and socal changes ctes underwent n the 20th century, as well as pay-ng attenton to the mages of ctes and the creaton of these mages. Partcpants could then dscuss and analyse the relatonshp between cty museums and the modern cty, wthn the framework of three themes. How do museums record hstory and how do they present t? To what extent are they the platforms for or nstruments of certan ur-ban and socal change? Do museums contrbute to creatng the mage of a cty? These and many other questons were dealt wth durng the parallel workng groups whch were held for each of the three themes. Each theme opened and closed wth a short plenary sesson.

The conference partcpants were predomnantly from cty museums. Other partc-pants ncluded specalsts from several unverstes, tourst offices, housng corpora-tons, developers, fundng organzatons and students. In total twenty-sx countres, manly n Western and Eastern Europe, Afrca, and North Amerca, were represented.

Durng the conference five ntroductory plenary lectures were presented and twenty-three shorter speeches. The artcles n these proceedngs are the culmnaton of all the presentatons gven durng the conference. Moreover, the dscussons of all the workng groups are ncluded. Ths publcaton not only gves an excellent mpresson of the con-ference tself but also of the questons and ssues that concern and nterest nternaton-al cty museums. One of the objectves of the conference was to learn from each other’s experences. I hope that ths publcaton wll contrbute to ths.

An edtoral board comprsng Mla Ernst, head of the educatonal servce of the Amsterdam Hstorcal Museum, and Annemare de Wldt, a curator at the museum, was formed to prepare ths publcaton. Renée Kstemaker, senor consultant research and development and former head of museum affars at the Amsterdam Hstorcal Museum, was edtor of the proceedngs. Eefje van der Wejden supported the edtor as project assstant. Kate Wllams and Jean Vaughan edted the Englsh texts. Vc Joseph translated the artcle by Rachd Bouzd from French nto Englsh. The publshng house of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Scences, Edta, was responsble for the producton of the book. Ellen Bouma of Edta was the graphc desgner. I would lke to thank them all for ther hard work over the last few months.

Museums of Hstory (IAMH) specally for the conference reportng and part of the cost of the Englsh edtng of the contrbutons. My warm thanks to the presdent of ICMAH, Mare-Paule Jungblut, and the actng presdent of IAMH, Jean-Marc Lér, for ths financal support. I would also lke to thank the VSB Fund for ther contrbuton to financng the Englsh edtng and the Zudas project organzaton for ther financal contrbuton to realzng ths book.

Paulne Kruseman Drector

Welcome speech

Pauline Kruseman

Director Amsterdam Historical Museum

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A warm welcome to the Fourth Conference of the Internatonal Assocaton of Cty Museums. Our museum has been nvolved n ths organsaton from the very begn-nng. Durng the foundng meetng n London back n 1993, Max Hebdtch aptly ponted out that the museum organsng the conference benefits enormously from ts results: ‘You learn so much from t and can rase ssues and questons wth colleagues.’ Here at the Amsterdam Hstorcal Museum we have already learnt a lot!

In 1999 and 2000 extensve changes were made to our permanent exhbton on the hstory of Amsterdam. These changes were nspred by several objectves, such as attractng a wder audence (famles wth chldren, youngsters, and a culturally more dverse publc), the expanson of the rooms on the recent hstory of the cty, stmulatng nteractvty durng vsts to the museum and workng wth other sorts of collectons: materal and mmateral. At the moment we are revampng the entrance area and the first room of the museum. There s also a plan to make changes to the rooms about the earler hstory of the cty on the bass of the same objectves mentoned above. More than ever, we really want the museum to be for all Amsterdammers. The prncples of the concept of social inclusion, partcularly popular n the Anglo Saxon countres, form the bass of all our exhbton programmes and educatonal work.

The AHM s not only actve wthn the four walls of the museum. There are many other actvtes and regular contact wth varous kndred organsatons n the cty. Other hertage partners are partcularly mportant such as the Cty Archves, the Hstorc Buldngs & Archaeology Servce and the Unversty, whch are all responsble for parts of Amsterdam’s hertage. Ths of course also apples to the Stedeljk Museum, whch houses the muncpal modern art collectons, and the Rjksmuseum, whch snce 1885 has had a consderable part of Amsterdam’s older art collectons on long-term loan. There are also close connectons wth other cultural nsttutons n Amsterdam and numerous muncpal servces and companes. The Amsterdam Hstorcal Museum s thus not only physcally n the mddle of the cty but figuratvely too!

I would now lke to say somethng about the organsaton of the conference. Several members of the nternatonal workng group have been of great assstance n devel-opng the conference concept and n many other ways. In partcular, I would lke to menton Mare-Paule Jungblut, curator of the Hstorcal Museum of Luxembourg and the presdent of the last cty museum conference n Luxembourg n 2000. Mchel Wagenaar of the Unversty of Amsterdam and Paul van de Laar of the Rotterdam Hstorcal Museum have gven very useful advce on the content of the conference.

Wldt have both made an mportant contrbuton to the composton of the conference programme, n partcular the workng group sessons. The conference organsaton was n the hands of a second workng party comprsng Vanessa Vroon of the museum’s secretarat and Eefje van de Wejden, a freelance project assstant.

The congress centre of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Scences, n the Trppenhus, has provded excellent support on practcal matters. The Academy’s pub-lshng house, Edta, has asssted us wth the producton of the programme, the ab-stracts and other useful papers that you wll find n your conference package. Desgner Jeroen de Vres s responsble for the lay-out. Kate Wllams and Jean Vaughan have edted the Englsh texts.

Renée Kstemaker, senor consultant for research and development at the AHM, s ultmately responsble for both the content and organsaton of the conference.

The conference was made possble by the financal support of several funds and or-gansatons. I would lke to thank the Mondran Foundaton, the Eastern Europe Fund of the Prnce Bernhard Cultural Foundaton, the VSB Fund and the HGIS vstor fund for ther generous support. Moreover, we are grateful for the financal support of the Muncpalty of Amsterdam, I Amsterdam, The Zuidas Project Organsaton, Het Oosten Housng Corporaton and the NH Barbzon Hotel Amsterdam.

I wsh us all a very frutful and enjoyable conference.

1. The freely accessible Civic Guards’ Gallery of the Amsterdam Historical Museum. Part of the large collection of group portraits of the Amsterdam civic guards is displayed here.

2. Cycling through historic and contemporary Amsterdam. Ring the bell to change the image. 3. Dam Square is the subject of one of the rooms of the permanent exhibition. It is the centre of Amsterdam but also a national square. With the help of a film programme, visitors can look at events on Dam Square from the last hundred years.

Photographs: Diederik Ingel, Dennis Hogers and Rob Versluys, Amsterdam Historical Museum

2

Introducton to the conference

Renée Kistemaker

Senior Consultant Research and Development, Amsterdam Historical Museum

Recently I read an nterestng book revew n a Dutch newspaper. It was on the newly publshed Metropolitan World Atlas, wrtten by a Dutch urban planner, Arjen van Susteren. He compares 101 ctes all over the world, lke Los Angeles, Detrot, Ro de Janero and Bejng. Of these, 89 could be defined as a ‘metropols’. Accordng to Van Susteren, one of the characterstcs of a metropols s that global contacts and relatons are more mportant than local ones. You wll be surprsed to learn that you are rght now n the mddle of one of these metropolses: t’s called the Randstad and s made up of ctes you know, namely Rotterdam, The Hague, Leden, Utrecht and, of course, Amsterdam. One of the remarkable dfferences to other metropolses s, however, that a cty map of the Randstad does not exst. Yes, n a spatal-economc way the Randstad s a realty, but not n a poltcal, cultural or mental way. Wll there ever be a museum of Randstad cty?

Ths s just a Dutch example of a well-known, world-wde phenomenon. Smon Stephens wrtes n hs recent artcle City Limits n Museums Journal, October 2005, that the growth of ctes s probably ’the most sgnficant global development of the past 100 years’. It seems that wthn two years, half the world’s populaton wll lve n a cty. How wll cty museums handle ths? Are we prepared?

I am delghted to welcome you to the Fourth Conference of the Internatonal Assocaton of Cty Museums. Wthout gong nto too much detal I first would lke to present you a very bref summary of the background of ths type of conference. I am sure not all of you are famlar wth ths. In 1993 the drector of the Museum of London, Max Hebdtch, took the ntatve to organse a symposum wth the ttle

Reflecting Cities. The dea was to offer cty museums a hgh-level forum for professonal

Unfortunately t was not possble to organse the next meetng untl 2000. Ths tme the host was the Hstorcal Museum of the Cty of Luxembourg. The symposum brought together not only cty museums; t was also the symposum of the ICMAH and the Internatonal Assocaton of Hstory Museums. Now we are here together for the fourth symposum. Agan there s a close lnk wth the ICMAH, especally the cty museums workgroup, and the Internatonal Assocaton of Museums of Hstory. Moreover, and ths s new, I am especally happy to announce several board members of a new ICOM commttee, CAMOC (the Commttee for the Collectons and Actvtes of Museums of the Cty) are here at the conference. Ths commttee was founded dur-ng the ICOM conference n the autumn of 2004 n Seoul.

City museums as centres of civic dialogue

As we all know, t s not easy to answer the queston, What s a cty museum? Some automatcally thnk that t s synonymous wth ‘hstorcal museum’, and ndeed, ths s often the case. However, the exctng thng about cty museums s that they can be very multfarous, ncludng art collectons, archaeologcal and hstorcal objects and some-tmes objects related to natural hstory. It s, therefore, necessary to be somewhat more precse. I would lke to use here a descrpton of Steven Thelemans, presented durng a workshop attended by four cty museums n Ghent n 2000: a cty museum s a mu-seum about and in the cty. It s connected wth both the strategy of the cty and wth ts ctzens. Of course more can be sad about ths, but rght now I would lke to leave t at that.

Let’s move now from the word ‘museum’ to the word ‘cty’, a very mportant part of the generc name of our type of museum, because ths s of course what we are all about. I mentoned t already at the begnnng of ths talk. Ctes everywhere n the world are becomng more and more mportant n our socetes. In recent decades they have often been growng ncreasngly faster n terms of both space and populaton. There s hgh mmgraton and sometmes also emgraton. Due to complcated factors such as globalsaton, fast transportaton and modern methods of communcaton, ct-es also rapdly change economcally and culturally. There s a great deal of lterature on the cty, wrtten by a wde range of professonals lke socologsts, economsts, urban planners, archtects and specalsts n the field of cultural actvtes. The cty s clearly a ‘hot’ spot.

How do cty museums react to these changng ctes? Are they capable and wllng to ‘work wth all our cty partners to ensure that museums and nhabtants are nvolved n a seres of dalogues and jont ntatves´, lke Davd Flemng wrote n 1996? All of ths s the central topc of our conference today and tomorrow.

museums conscously want to play an actve part n the cty? Several cty museums have developed an outreach strategy to nvolve the cty’s nhabtants n the museum. In lne wth ths strategy, some museums take on an actve role n the cty, or n some parts of t, to mprove for example the qualty of lfe. What allances are made (e.g. wth housng corporatons, socal organsatons, busnesses, muncpaltes)? Some museums con-scously present themselves as forums for dscussons and art performances, and as a dynamc part of the cty. To what extent do we consder ourselves to be a gateway to the cty? The last theme s Representing the city. Ths theme s closely related to three dffer-ent conferences held last year n Los Angeles, Venna and Athens. None of these three conferences were organsed by cty museums by the way. Ths thrd theme s about the followng. Every cty evokes mages. Inhabtants have ther own ndvdual mental pc-ture of the cty and toursts are often bombarded wth specfic mages carefully chosen by tourst servces. There are pleasant, socally acceptable mages and representatons, but also those whch refer to the darker and less pleasant sdes of the cty. How do cty museums handle these mages and representatons? Is t possble to make a general analyss of how these mages are pcked and do cty museums play a part n ths?

The programme

Over the years the tes between several members of the Internatonal Assocaton of Cty Museums have grown; some museums have undertaken projects together, others have exchanged exhbtons. The need to share knowledge and for dscusson s stll very much alve.

We have therefore tred to present a rch and dverse programme. Followng sugges-tons made durng prevous conferences, we have chosen to alternate plenary sessons and sessons n parallel workshops. Ths means you wll not be able to hear every sngle talk. On the other hand we hope that the exchange of nformaton and opnons wll be more ntense ths way.

Word of welcome by Ms Hannah Bellot, Culture

Alderman of the Cty of Amsterdam

Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of the cty of Amsterdam, I am delghted to welcome you here. I have heard that your conference started yesterday, n the Trppenhus, rght n the medaeval centre of our cty. But ctes are of course larger than ther hstorc centres. I know ths s one of the subjects whch was stressed n some of the lectures yesterday and today.

Ths evenng you have been nvted to have dnner n the relatvely new multcul-tural centre Imagne Identty and Culture. It s rght n the heart of a dstrct bult dur-ng the 1960s, Southeast Amsterdam. Ths s one of the most lvely and dynamc parts of the cty, wth 82,000 people of 130 dfferent natonaltes. One thrd of the populaton s younger than 20.

Beng nternatonal and actng n an nternatonal way are characterstcs of Amsterdam that we are very proud of. Amsterdam as a cty has specal tes n many dfferent fields wth a large number of ctes all over the world, such as Budapest, Rga, Managua, Accra and Colombo. Over 170 natonaltes lve n the cty, and several of our economc and cultural actvtes extend far beyond the muncpal or natonal bounda-res.

Amsterdam s not just a very nternatonal place, t’s also a cty that s constantly changng, especally durng the last ten to fifteen years. You must have notced the enormous excavatons n the cty centre for the constructon of a new metro lne, and you have heard durng the conference about the Zudas project, to name just a couple of large-scale enterprses n urban plannng. Moreover, some of our most mportant cultural nsttutons are beng restored and renovated, such as the Rjksmuseum and the Stedeljk Museum. Two thrds of our 750,000 nhabtants have changed n the last ten years as a result of both emgraton and mmgraton. All ths means that Amsterdam s n a phase of transton lke, of course, many other ctes n the world.

The subject of your conference s especally appealng to me. I wll tell you very brefly why. In 2003 my department publshed a long-term cultural vson of the cty n the year 2015. The ntroducton of ths document states that culture s a key element n the cty: t facltates contact, mutual respect and understandng between people of dfferent cultural and socal backgrounds. It can contrbute to mouldng a new, dy-namc, flourshng, ntercultural cty where all the nhabtants feel at home. A cty, also, whch toursts lke to vst and where people from all over the world lke to work. We emphasse three man topcs n ths document on the future of the cty: 1 Cty dentty and dentficaton wth the cty, 2 Culture as an essental part of and as an nstrument for educaton, and 3 Culture as a sub-sector of the cty’s economy. To acheve certan goals n all three of these topcs, we chose five spearheads. I wll name just one –

Shareholdership. What do we mean by ths? To a large extent a cty functons best when

want to take an actve part n ths. We have the good fortune that the number of nhabt-ants who partcpate n the many dfferent cultural facltes here n Amsterdam such as cnemas, museums, theatres and so on, s remarkably hgh n comparson to other ctes n the Netherlands. However, ths predomnantly happens wthn people’s own, famlar socal or cultural group. We want to heghten the feelng of beng a sharehold-er by stmulatng ntsharehold-ercultural exchange and encouragng people to cross bordsharehold-ers.

It s clear that cultural hertage n our museums, archves and publc spaces can play an mportant part n ths. In my opnon cty museums have a specal role here. The outreach project of the Amsterdam Hstorcal Museum n a neghbourhood n the East of Amsterdam s a good example. Although t s not strctly speakng a cty museum, I would also lke to menton here the work of Lane van der Lnden and her colleagues at Imagne IC.

The urban mosac

Townscapes and resdental patterns n the Western

world

Michiel Wagenaar University of Amsterdam

Introduction

Ths essay s about people and places; about socal topography and the bult-up env-ronment of the cty; about how ctes work lke sortng machnes n filterng the local populace to dfferent locatons. The system does not dsperse resdents at random over the urban doman. Income, status and ethncty play a crucal role n explanng how someone finds ther place n ths urban mosac.

However, that place wll change over the years and wll also be determned by the domnant poltcal and economc system. I wll argue that when the pre- modern urban order collapsed under the twn forces of ndustralzaton and rapd urbanzaton, two models of land use emerged that have contnued to play an mportant role rght up to the present, despte mportant changes after World War II.

The pre-modern urban order

Untl the mddle of the 19th century, the domnant resdental pattern was that of the pedestran cty. Generally, people had to lve wthn walkng dstance of ther jobs. Transport was only avalable for a handful of prvleged ctzens. Ths alone caused hgh buldng denstes and compact ctes, even more pronounced f the cty n queston was confined by ts old cty walls. Snce master and servant both lved wthn close proxm-ty n those days, urban areas were more socally mxed than they would ever be n later years. Thus n Amsterdam, for example, the houses wth mpressve facades along the canals were the doman of the well-off. Just around the corner, the radal streets run-nng off from them housed the mddle classes, whlst back streets, mews and courts were the habtat of the workng-class manual labourer. The houses behnd the ornate facades along the canals and those n the streets behnd them were homes to specfic layers of socety, whereas f the area s vewed n ts entrety there was a broad socal mx .

Ths stuaton was common n all European ctes. Parks, broad streets or squares were an nvtaton to contractors to buld more prestgous housng for the upper class-es, whereas back streets and courts were the realm of coachmen and servants. From Bloomsbury n London to the Maras n Pars ths was the usual resdental pattern.

where housng and busness premses were to be found sde by sde. The pre-modern nfrastructure was equally ncapable of handlng the ncreased volume of traffic, result-ng n crpplresult-ng congeston.

In the Western world two strateges evolved to solve ths ‘urban crss’ resultng n resdental homogenety or segregaton on an unprecedented scale. However, the two spatal patterns they engendered were almost complete oppostes. Despte recent mod-ficatons, the two models of topography and morphology that orgnated n the 19th century are stll n exstence today. The roots of the first model were embedded n unre-straned free enterprse, a subject to whch we shall now turn.

The laissez-faire response: Manchester

Few ctes n the 19th century attracted as many vstors as Manchester; ts rapd progress shocked people to the core. The first steam-drven cotton mlls appeared around 1800, whle the 1830s saw Manchester’s take-off on ts way to becomng the eptome of an ndustral cty. Between 1800 and 1830 ts populaton trebled n sze, from 75,000 to 182,000 nhabtants. It was ths combnaton of ruthless free-market n-dustralzaton, and the almost total absence of local government nvolvement n hous-ng and urban plannhous-ng, that produced a cty htherto unknown n the Western world. It was seen as a laboratory of modernty. Despte the fact that Manchester’s rough-and-ready approach was unque, many vstors were convnced that t showed how cty lfe would be n the future.

Few travellers have drawn as vvd a pcture of Manchester as dd Alexs de

Tocquevlle (1805-1859), who vsted Manchester n 1835. ‘Look up all around ths place and you wll see the huge palaces of ndustry. You wll hear the nose of furnaces, the whstle of steam. These vast structures keep ar and lght out of the human habtatons whch they domnate; they envelope them n perpetual fog; here s the slave, there the master; there s the wealth of some, here the poverty of most; there a socety has not yet learned to gve. Here the weakness of the ndvdual seems even more feeble and help-less than n the mddle of a wlderness. A sort of black smoke covers the cty. The sun seen through t s a dsc wthout rays. Under ths half-daylght 300,000 human bengs are ceaselessly at work. A thousand noises disturb this dark, damp labyrinth...’.1

Manchester was lke a black hole, suckng n labour and captal. Steam-powered manufacturng ndustres clustered close to one another, ted by an ever-growng dv-son of labour and specalzaton. The proletaran work force, as well as sklled mechan-cs and the mll owners, were housed at walkng dstance from these satanc mlls. The qualty of urban lfe degenerated at a shockng pace. The Rver Irwell turned nto an ndustral sewer, changng colour every few steps as cotton dyers splled ther excess waste nto the rver. Manchester was covered by a thck fog, produced by the massve burnng of coal. Workng class slums, wth ther oozng cesspools, turned nto hotbeds of dsease.

These, for the first tme n hstory, were single class residential areas. The hgh cost of a ralroad tcket and the nfrequent servce effectvely excluded labour, whch was to be bound to a locaton close to ndustry for a long tme to come.2

Ths spatal segregaton, the geographcal expresson of a class-rdden socety, alarmed contemporares. Benjamn Dsrael (1804-1881), the conservatve poltcan and novelst, voced the fear of many upper-class Brtons that a dvded socety would even-tually lead to the collapse of Brtan. In Sybill (1845), sgnficantly subttled Two Nations, he panted a grm mage of the complete solaton of the two remanng classes n future socety. ‘Two natons; between whom there s no ntercourse and no sympathy; who are as gnorant of each other’s habts, thoughts and feelngs as f they were dwell-ers n dfferent zones, or nhabtants of dfferent planets; who are formed by a dfferent breedng, are fed by a dfferent food, are ordered by dfferent manners, and are not gov-erned by the same laws… THE RICH AND THE POOR’.3

Such fears proved exaggerated. Contrary to Dsrael’s dark prophecy, the second half of the 19th century saw the spectacular rse of the mddle classes. A growng army of mechancs, clerks, accountants, school teachers, largely recruted from the labourng classes, llustrated the ncreasng scope for upward moblty n captalst socety. In due tme, they too would leave to find an alternatve to the smoke-belchng, polluted ndus-tral cty. In the 1860s ths escape was facltated by progressve members of Parlament who demanded that ralway companes ntroduce workng men’s trans. Lower fares, and a tran tmetable adapted to sut the openng and closng tmes of busness and ndustry, n combnaton wth low land prces n the urban perphery stmulated con-tractors to buld terraced housng for the sklled worker and for the lower-mddle-class whte-collar worker. The effect of ther exodus was to leave the unsklled worker behnd n ncreasng solaton. These were often mmgrants, casual labourers, many of Irsh descent. Ther low rates of pay and rregular workng hours, often ncludng nght shfts, meant they couldn’t afford publc transport to the suburbs and the tran tmeta-bles ddn’t cater for ther long workng hours.

Meanwhle, the centre of Manchester transformed nto a Central Busness Dstrct. As face to face contacts domnated vrtually all communcaton, ths dctated a tght clusterng of banks, tradng firms and nsurance companes at walkng dstance from one another, forcng out land users wth less financal power. Ralway and tramway companes fought for a termnal at the central hub, daly pourng out an army of com-muters. As the mportance of a central locaton further ncreased, department stores, hotels and lesure and entertanment outlets exercsed even more pressure on the core area.

It s not surprsng that traffic congeston paralysed the pre-modern central nfra-structure because all local government attempts to remedy t wth new arteral roads were thwarted by the appallngly hgh prces of local land. Even mnor mprovements took years to complete, and the cost was astronomcal.

The soco-spatal trends Manchester showed so clearly would n due tme become common n ctes wth a lassez- fare polcy. A cty lke Amsterdam, where the manu-facturng ndustry certanly was not as domnant as n Manchester, also had to deal wth the transton from craft workshops to ndustral premses, and there too the 2 See on suburbanzaton of Manchester: Fshman, Robert, See on suburbanzaton of Manchester: Fshman, Robert,Fshman, Robert, Bourgeois Utopias. The Rise and Fall of

Suburbia, New York 1987, pp. 73- 101.

process serously undermned the qualty of lfe n the resdental neghbourhoods. However, just as n Great Brtan, they lacked the necessary legal and financal backng to ntervene.

After 1918, both Brtan and the Netherlands came to rely on the concept of the welfare state as a way out of urban chaos and msery. Sgnficantly, n both countres reformst Housng Acts were the first steps on the road to ncreasng State nterventon. Slum clearance and publc housng became key nstruments n mprovng santaton, as we shall see later on. In both countres, however, the market sector contnued to play a leadng role n the provson of suburban housng.

Chicago

The welfare state approach was not an opton for the USA. After the Frst World War t took over as the world’s leadng lassez-fare naton. The domnant spatal trends out-lned above further crystallzed n Chcago, the New Manchester of the 20th century. A second transport revoluton, brought about by the prvate automoble, reshaped the resdental landscape. Engne- power greatly expanded Chcago’s urban area to nclude the outlyng regon from whch people could commute nto the cty’s central busness dstrct on a daly bass. The soco-spatal trends whch we saw at work n Manchester were reproduced there on a vast scale, and wth far greater dynamcs (fig. 1).

Chcago was the first cty n hstory to become the object of systematc socal sc-entfic research. Based on census tract analyss, n the 1920s urban socologsts Ernest Burgess and Robert Park developed the followng model, that essentally summarzes the land use dynamcs of lassez- fare captalsm. Its value was proved when tested n other ctes under smlar regmes, not only n the Unted States, but n Canada and Australa as well. (fig. 2)

The model reads as follows. The further removed from the Central Busness Dstrct (the CBD), the lower the land prces, the larger the plot sze, the more recent the buld-ng date and the hgher the resdent’s ncome. The key to ths paradox, whereby the wealthest urbantes occupy the cheapest land, les n ther superor command over transport facltes.

Ths paradox s mrrored by the Zone n Transton, where the poorest lve n overcrowded tenements whle land prces are the second hghest next to the Central Busness Dstrct. Local landlords, speculatng on the expanson of the office dstrct, avod any mantenance of ther property snce they expect a lucratve buy-out by a com-mercal developer.4

After 1945, the prvate car replaced commuter trans and trams. It offered far more transport flexblty, thus openng opportuntes for sophstcated, selectve sub-urban development. As a result, the ‘commuter zone’ as the model calls t, exploded. Increasngly, tradtonal CBD firms opted out for a suburban or ex- urban locaton as well. Today, downtown has become almost rrelevant for resdents of the outer frnges, not only as employees, but as consumers as well. Shoppng malls, lesure and entertan-ment no longer requre a vst to the metropoltan core.

blty by creatng a suburban hnterland whch around the 1950s was wthn the reach of vrtually all classes, offerng terraced housng for the less well- off, sem-detached for the mddle classes and detached vllas and bungalows for the wealthy. Only the very poor were left behnd, although many would n due tme clmb the socal ladder and move to the suburbs as well. Thus, deally, upward socal moblty matches greater geo-graphcal moblty.

The ‘Strong State’ response

In contnental Europe, countres wth an establshed ‘strong state’ tradton responded n the opposte way. They opted for massve nterventon n the older urban fabrc wth ts totally nadequate road system, ts overcrowdng and lack of amentes. Pars led the way, where from 1853 to 1870 baronGeorges-Eugène Haussmann, Prefect of the Sene, vgorously attacked traffic congeston by cuttng new arteres through the dense urban fabrc. Often, the new boulevards were carefully planned to destroy as many slums as possble, thus servng the am of socal cleansng. (fig. 3)

1. Chicago’s land use in the 1920’s, with popular

names of the various residential districts 2. The ‘abstract’ model based on _{Chicago’s census tract analysis,} later tested elsewhere

And finally, the new boulevards were an mportant nstrument for the embellsh-ment of the cty. By usng the legal tool of expropriation par zone, Haussmann not only demolshed propertes that were needed for the new arteres, but for ts flanks as well. Thus, hs archtects could dctate buldng heghts, materals and desgns for the new façades, resultng n a unform style that helped to redefine Pars – turnng t nto Europe’s most monumental, neo- classcst townscape. In some cases boulevards were carefully projected to provde vstas of new, mpressve buldngs that were real-sed under hs rule. It was for that reason alone that the Prefect decded to pull down good qualty housng and level the Butte des Moulns thus creatng an unnterrupted panorama of Ganer’s new Opéra, one of the most overwhelmng testmones of Second Empre opulence. (fig. 4)

At the same tme, Haussmann’s nterventons greatly mproved the resdental com-fort of central Pars. Part of the grands travaux had been the constructon of aqueducts and canals that transported clean drnkng water to Pars from unpolluted sources hun-dreds of klometres to the east of the cty. The large-scale ntroducton of street lghtng, n the form of gas lanterns, gave Pars the ttle of ville lumière. Huge sewers transported deposts to far away places downstream of the Rver Sene. And finally, Haussmann pushed factores, slaughterhouses and ralway depots to the perphery- to the banlieue, well beyond cty lmts. In 1860 these were vastly extended after the Vlle de Pars an-nexed the so-called petite banlieue. Roughly speakng ths s the area that s covered today by the 11th to the 20th arrondissements- nsde the former fortficatons- today’s

boulevard périphérique. (fig. 5) Thus he not only solved the polluton problem of Central

Pars, but he also got rd of the cty’s classes labourieuses et dangereuses , who had to fol-low ther employers to the perphery f they were to reman at walkng dstance from ther work. The mllons of newcomers seekng a better lfe around the French captal were forced to do the same.

The results were mpressve. Central Pars became the exclusve habtat of elte res-dents, prestgous publc nsttutons and man branches of leadng firms. Resdental comfort had greatly mproved. The monumental townscape, domnated by unformty of style, symmetry and axalty attracted numerous vstors. They were no longer con-fronted wth margnal slum- dwellers, rag-pckers and beggars because these had been removed and relocated to the banlieue; to La Sibérie Parisienne, where no tourst ever set foot. The banlieusards bult ther own bidonvilles along unsurfaced drt roads, wthout any of the amentes that made lfe n central Pars so attractve. Thus, clearng negh-bourhoods of unwanted resdents, embellshng the houses and better santaton were closely connected facets of the grand plan.

Around 1870 the man part of the grands travaux was completed. Pars mproved more thoroughly n 17 years than London dd n 50. To be sure, nether Haussmann nor hs successors succeeded n removng all the unhealthy dwellngs, not even wthn the first 10 arrondissments, where the ilôts insalubres were hdden behnd the prestgous facades of the new arteres. Substantal areas outsde the core would keep ther low-rse, artsan appearance whch were not to change untl qute recently.

But foregn vstors hardly notced these contrasts. They were enchanted by the urban beauty that ths elegant New Pars offered them. It had become the ultmate

Capitale du Plaisir, combnng a monumental townscape wth an abundant dsplay of

captal over ts contnental compettors.5 _{However, as Brtons and Dutchmen remarked,However, as Brtons and Dutchmen remarked,} both the sze and speed of the grands travaux would have been unthnkable wthout the financal and legal backng of the authortaran and centralst state of the Second Empre.

Such a system was a prerequste for success for all those who wshed to emulate Pars n ther own captal – a desre partcularly strong n the 19th century n the many

new states of Europe. Thus, from Budapest n Hungary to Belgrade n Serba and Rome

n unfied Italy, Haussmann’s strategy was emulated, wth comparable morphologcal and topographc results, offerng an almost dametrcal contrast wth the lassez-fare model dscussed above. Thus, the ‘strong state’ model came to domnate major parts of Southern and Central Europe.

The post-war period

After 1945, most European ctes had to cope wth serous war damage. In fact even n areas that had not suffered from warfare, such as the Iberan Pennsula, Sweden and Swtzerland, authortes were facng a huge demand for housng. The post-war baby boom, whch ht the devastated ctes of Germany, Eastern Europe and Russa partcu-larly hard, demanded an energetc response all over Europe. Ths came n the form of a massve wave of pre-fabrcated, modernst publc housng estates, often realsed as

5 An authortatve survey of Haussmann’s nterventons s gven by Pnon, Perre, An authortatve survey of Haussmann’s nterventons s gven by Pnon, Perre, Atlas du Paris

Haussmannien: la ville en héritage du Second Empire à nos jours, Pars 2003.

4. Clearing of the Avenue de l’ Opéra

hgh-rse, upper-deck access flats. Most were bult on the urban frnges, but n places where there had been serous war damage they were also takng the place of the old cty centres.

Although Eastern Europe and Russa were reparng war damage under Communst rule, the smlartes n housng strateges wth Western European countres, whch vrtually all became welfare states after 1945, are remarkable. Huge satellte towns, wth few employment opportuntes, consumer amentes, schools, hosptals and transport, provded the standard European soluton to the overwhelmng housng need of the 1950s. They, n due tme, would become the problem areas of the late 20th century.6

However dramatc the regme change n Eastern Europe or the comng of the wel-fare state n the West, the two topographcal and morphologcal models presented ear-ler were surprsngly reslent. Thus, n Budapest for example, the ‘Haussmannzed’ monumental nner cty, once the exclusve doman of bourgeos and arstocratc res-dents, was to become the favoured habtat of the Communst nomenklatura. Its work-ng-class frnges were vastly expanded wth the buldng of proletaran pre-fab housng estates. The same happened n captalst Italy, where n Rome the tradtonal ‘strong state’ model was renforced by the almost unlmted and chaotc buldng wave at the cty’s edge, housng the less well-off that flocked to the naton’s captal. And, n no-where less than n the ‘Mother of All Captals’, Pars, dd the ‘strong- state’ model see tself reproduced on such a vast scale. (fig. 6)

Here the banlieue for qute some tme contnued to look lke one gant bidonville, gvng Pars the appearance of a Thrd World captal. In 1972, the government started ts attack on these slums, replacng them wth massve hgh-rse publc housng estates, the grands ensembles. But despte better housng qualty, the banlieue remaned the least desrable resdental area. If we jump over ths hgh-rse belt we arrve n the mddle class villes nouvelles. Here sngle famly houses domnate, despte crtcs who found ths ‘too Amercan’ and preferred apartments that were ‘truly French’ nstead.

In the Unted Kngdom the twn challenge of reparng war damage and copng wth demographc growth met wth a response that generally speakng further underlned the ‘lassez- fare’ model we dscussed earler. Thus, gant publc housng estates ap-peared n East London, an area that had suffered severely from German bombng rads. Tradtonally t had been part of the ‘horseshoe of poverty’ that surrounded the urban core, broken only by the well-off western axs of Chelsea and Belgrava. The transfor-maton of the ‘horseshoe’ nto a hgh-rse publc-housng townscape was, however, by no means the result of Blitzkrieg damage only. After the runs were cleared, and the first estates went up, urban renewal took over. Welfare-state planners ncreasngly saw Vctoran terraces as ncompatble wth modern housng standards.

Plannng by clearance became the domnant renewal strategy for the 1950s and 1960s, despte the fact that t was clear from the start that the tower blocks replacng the older housng stock provded nsufficent capacty to re-house all ther former resdents. The problem was made even more pressng by the thousands of newcomers flockng to the captal who also needed homes.

6. Bidonvilles in the banlieue and the advance of high-rise housing estates

dtonally been the exclusve doman of the upper classes, they were now beng turned nto huge workng-class enclaves for an mported populaton.

London’s example nspred planners all over North-Western Europe. From

Stockholm to Amsterdam, nether of whch experenced any (substantal) war damage, satellte towns were desgned as an answer to urban renewal dsplacement.

Back to the city?

In the 1970s, the course of urban renewal changed from clearance to the mprovement of structurally sound buldng stock. In few countres were the results as mpressve as n the Netherlands. The 19th century ‘zone n transton’ was transformed nto decent neghbourhoods wth up-to-date apartments. Although rents were kept low by strct control and subsdes, most lower mddle-class famles dd not return to ther renovat-ed home after the work had been completrenovat-ed. The majorty left for the new satellte towns around the bg ctes, where they finally saw ther dream come true: a sngle famly house n a row of terraced houses, wth a modest garden and abundant parkng space.

became common n Contnental Europe as well. That local poltcans welcomed gentr-ficaton wll not come as a surprse. Ctes lke New York, London and Amsterdam had a dfficult tme n the 1970s. The nvason of the young creatve class was seen as a gft from heaven, the more so snce gentrficaton proved more than a hype-t was there to stay. Meda coverage of gentrficaton was, and s, substantal. The converson of former warehouses, craft shops and even offices nto trendy lofts n once run-down dstrcts drew the attenton of lfe-style magaznes and televson programmes everywhere. The urban renassance, so t seems, rules supreme.

Nevertheless we should not close our eyes to the selectve nature and the lmted scope of gentrficaton. Only a few ctes are lucky enough to attract the young and talented and to keep them there for a substantal perod of tme. Alas, there are more ctes lke Detrot than New York, more lke Lverpool than London and more lke Clermont-Ferrand than Pars.

Divided cities

Even these ‘lucky’ ctes are facng major problems. Ther gant post-war publc hous-ng estates provde shelter for a largely mmgrant populaton that hardly benefits at all from the opportuntes of the creatve cultural and knowledge-based cty. That dvson s further enhanced by the ongong process of suburbanzaton. Whether we are dealng wth state-funded satellte towns around Pars and Amsterdam or wth prvately funded suburban estates n the US or UK, the results are smlar. The flght to the suburbs con-tnues to ths very day, dranng the ctes of ther mddle class famles. Remarkably, the process contnues even around ctes that have made a major effort to mplement urban renewal. In Amsterdam, for example, real slums hardly exst anymore. And yet suburba contnues to attract evermore mddle class famles. Increasngly, cty lfe s seen as ncompatble wth rasng chldren. The bg cty, partcularly n the US, s often assocated wth crme, vce and drugs. It has become a landscape of fear.

These ‘lucky’ ctes have thus become divided ctes. Dvded to the extent that on the one hand we have the talented young upcomng gentrfiers, settled n central negh-bourhoods next to the older, arrvé bourgeois- bohèmes who nvaded these areas n the 1970s and are now more or less affluent urbantes, who would rather be dead than to move to mddle-class havens n the suburbs. What upcomng gentrfiers and ther older, settled colleagues share s that they are predomnantly whte, have a hgh level of educaton, a cultural outlook and a cosmopoltan orentaton. On the other hand there are the less well-off, the mmgrant urban populaton that hardly benefits from the op-portuntes of the nformaton age. Ther solaton s one of ncreasng ethnc segrega-ton.

Both groups, the talented ‘creatve class’ and the ‘truly dsadvantaged’ thus lve n separate worlds. Pars, for example, has become the almost exclusve habtat of hghly educated, well- pad, whte ‘cadres’ who now make up more than 55 percent of the ur-ban workforce. Just outsde the boulevard périphérique one lands on a dfferent planet. The banlieue Parisienne s domnated by the culture of poverty, a shadow economy n whch unemployment benefits, crme and drug-traffickng have become the man sources of ncome.

Urban cons

Vanessa R. Schwartz and Philip J. Ethingon University of Southern California

Welcome to Icon Cty (fig. 1) – a mult-meda expresson of an on-gong research project about ‘Urban Icons’ that we have been workng on. As users navgate ther way around Icon Cty the argument we are about to make wll be lad out as a web exper-ence. Although the web and the museum are two very dfferent spaces, they are each deal envronments n whch to examne the noton of urban cons, whch s a funda-mental category of object n the broader field of what we would call ‘urban vsual hs-tory.’ As ths field of nqury develops, scholars must come to terms wth the on-gong opportuntes that spaces that vsualze narratve present us for advancng and commu-ncatng research whose central framework s the vsual tself. ‘Urban cons’, we would suggest, provde an deal rubrc for possble cty museum exhbtons.

Now s the tme for such an examnaton and for such exhbtons as we are n a crtcal stage n the evoluton of nterdscplnary scholarshp on urban culture, vsual culture, and the study of spatal organzaton and conceptualzaton, across the hu-man scences. Urban studes have n recent years been profoundly transformed by the lngustc turn and the rse of semotcs, resultng n a new tendency to ‘read’ ctes as ‘texts.’ Vsual culture has emerged as a major field of nvestgaton, but as yet,

hs-1 Vanessa R. Schwartz delvered the talk upon whch ths essay s based n Amsterdam n November 2005. The project s co-drected wth Phl Ethngton and much of what appears below s part of a specal ssue of Urban History 32:1 (May 2006) (Cambrdge Unversty Press) and ts mult-meda companon that can be accessed through Cambrdge Journals Onlne: http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/ hstory/urbancons/urban_cons_companon/ndex.htm. We wsh to thank Cambrdge for permsson to re-prnt and the authors n the specal ssue as well as those who partcpated n a conference at USC on Urban Icons for ther contrbutons to ths project

torans have been challenged to show how amorphous concepts such as vewng and vsualty are anchored to the materal world, the subject of much nqury n the human scences.

Urban History

The field of ‘Urban Hstory’ has firm roots n economc and socal hstory: the hs-torcal study of ctes began wth the consderaton of socal processes such as class formaton, mmgraton, revoluton, and ndustralzaton. In ths lterature, the cty operates prmarly as a settng, or laboratory for the study of these processes. Grafted sometmes uncomfortably onto ths foundaton s a cultural hstorcal approach, now several decades old, whch figures the cty symbolcally and decodes meanng n ts buldngs, spaces, populaton, usually wthn the natonal frame. Ths cultural-hstorcal approach was wdely practced by scholar-crtcs such as Lews Mumford, Jane Jacobs, Kevn Lynch, and Rchard Sennett, who explored the relatonshp between the cty’s bult form and ts ntangble cultural lfe.2 _{That stream of scholarshp forcefully entered} the hstorcal professon wth the publcaton of Carl Schorske’s landmark Fin-de-Siècle

Vienna (1980). Schorske, drawng heavly on art and archtectural hstory, showed how

the cultural meanngs of a cty’s form could be lnked to the larger, natonal narratves of hstorcal development, especally those of poltcal culture. Schorske also drew on the growng hstory of urban plannng, whch traced the ntentons and vsons of those responsble for self-conscous and delberate urban development.

Whle the aesthetc dmenson of the urban envronment has been central to the cultural tradton and to the plannng tradton n urban hstory, only recently have scholars begun to examne that whch s precsely visual n urban culture, socety, and poltcal lfe. Recognton of vsual culture as a field of urban experence arose from many quarters: from Kevn Lynch’s focus on cogntve mappng n urban plannng; from the rse of cultural geography4_{; from cnema studes; and from a broadenng of} the fields of art and archtectural hstory to nclude the vernacular and the popular.5 _The dea of a ‘cultural’ or ‘symbolc’ landscape, developed most keenly by such geographers as Y-Fu Tuan and Dens Cosgrove, demanded greater consderaton of the connecton

2 See Sennett, Rchard, See Sennett, Rchard, The Fall of Public Man, New York 1976; Mumford, Lews, The Culture of Cities, New York 1938; Lynch, Kevn, The Image of the City, Cambrdge, 1960; and Jacobs, Jane The Death and

Life of Great American Cities, New York 1961.

3 See Pnkney, Davd H., See Pnkney, Davd H., Napoleon III and the Rebuilding of Paris, Prnceton, N.J 1958. Collns, George R. and Crasemann Collns, Chrstane, Camillo Sitte and the Birth of Modern City Planning, New York Columba Unversty Studes n Art Hstory and Archeology, No. 3, (1965). Dyos, H.J, Cannadne, Davd and Reeder, Davd A. (eds.) Exploring the Urban Past: Essays in Urban History, Cambrdge, UK, and New York 1982.

4 Rowntree, Lester B. and Conkey, Margaret W.,‘Symbolsm and the Cultural Landscape,’ Rowntree, Lester B. and Conkey, Margaret W.,‘Symbolsm and the Cultural Landscape,’ Annals of the

Association of American Geographers 70:4 (Dec. 1980) 459-474.

5 See Lynch, See Lynch, The Image of the City. Bruno, Gulana, Streetwalking on a Ruined Map: Cultural Theory and

the City Films of Elvira Notari, Prnceton, N.J. 1993; Ventur, Robert, Scott Brown, Dense and Izenour,

Steven, Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form, Cambrdge, Mass: 1977; Fredberg, Anne, Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern, Berkeley 1993; and Henkn, Davd M.,

between the materal and the symbolc domans.6 _{In the earler phases of urban hstory} (the economc/socal and the cultural) a buldng or publc square was analyzed accord-ng to the archtect’s or planner’s relatonshp to the ntellectual, aesthetc, and natonal context. The questons of orgnal ntent or purpose were of paramount mportance. Questons of mpact were certanly rased, but the overarchng goal was to explan how ctes have taken the forms and functons that they have, how those forms and func-tons operate wthn natonal and economc systems, and also wthn dstnct epochs such as the Renassance, Vctoran or Post-war eras.

Post-war eras

Havng already accounted for the myrad bult forms (concentrc, grd, radal, etc), hav-ng counted the multtudes of urbantes, havhav-ng assessed ther orgns, possessons, and socal condtons, havng charted the rse and fall of socal movements, t s tme to ask new questons. The project of studyng ‘urban cons’ attempts to solate a crtcal,

visual element n the constructon of urban experence and denttes, and also n the

constructon of extra-urban developments (natons, deologes, economes, empres, global culture).

To help llumnate the usefulness of the concept of ‘urban cons’ we held an nterna-tonal conference n order to determne whether the category can be used as a concep-tual grd for studyng the ntersecton of vsual culture and urban hstory. The confer-ence began wth a seres of questons:

What enttes, persons (lvng or allegorcal), spaces and structures have represented partcular ctes, or cty lfe as such?

How and n what ways have the problem of urban cons and concty changed over tme? What s the relatve ‘concty’ of specfic ctes? (Are some ctes, such as Rome and Jerusalem more readly reduced to ther conc monuments – the Colloseum, the Dome of the Rock – than other ctes?)

Can ctes be magned at all wthout conc reductonsm, or s the mportance of urban cons a product of the modern era, characterzed by mass medated vsual culture n whch semotc communcaton s central to the urban condton?

What place do cons occupy n the hstory of ctes and how we know them? What roles have they played n the hstory of a partcular cty? Is ther greatest functon to nterject ctes nto a global urban narratve?

It was our desre to consder urban concty n the ancent, early modern, and mod-ern eras, and to consder examples from Asa, Europe and the Amercas. We sought to draw the research from dfferent knds of ctes as well: captals, mperal metropolses, colonal ctes, poltcal centres, and cultural beacons.

Urban icons

That research has helped define the object better and allowed us to make some first def-ntons. If the study of ‘urban cons’ s to be consdered vable as a sustaned research program, we must first clarfy, wth relatve precson, the very concept of an ‘con.’ Although the term s ubqutous n contemporary culture, as n the common reference to someone who has acheved ‘conc status,’ we nsst that to be analytcally meanng-6 See Tuan, Y-Fu, See Tuan, Y-Fu, Place and Space: The Perspective of Experience, Mnneapols 1977; Tuan, Topophila:

A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes and Values, Englewood Clffs, N.J. 1974; Cosgrove,

Dens, The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design, and Use of Past

ful, ‘con’ must denote a partcular knd of pictorial representation. The Greek eikon sm-ply means pcture; mage n the broadest sense. The Oxford English Dictionary gves us ‘An mage, figure, or representaton; a portrat; a pcture; a pcture, ‘cut’, or llustraton n a book…’7 _{Most defintons dstngush ‘cons’ from ‘symbols’ by the crteron that} cons ‘n some way resemble what they stand for,’8 _{whereas symbols, ncludng the} let-ters and words on ths page, bear an arbtrary relatonshp to ther referent. Any mark or shape can become a ‘symbol,’ by ‘standng for’ any dea or thng, but cons symbolze n a specal way. In our account, all cons are symbols, but not all symbols are cons. Iconzaton thus stands apart from symbolzaton.

Icons were orgnally defined as those memoral mages of deceased persons made by early Chrstans – akn to Egyptan mummy portrats – that were later embraced by early Chrstans and by the Eastern Orthodox Church as cult mages. These pctures were magned as authentc copes of the ‘orgnal mages’ of Chrst, the Vrgn Mary, the sants or bblcal scenes rather than as objects created by human hands. These de-votonal mages were made on small and portable wooden panels. The early practce of usng cons n Chrstan worshp rased concern about the proscrpton of the worshp of dols n the monothestc tradton. The term ‘con’ thus developed a connotaton of beng an object of uncrtcal devoton. Icons also connected vson to touch by vrtue of the ancent theory of vson n whch a vsual ray s thought to stream from the eye of the vewer to touch ts object. The form of the object then moves back along the vsual ray to mprnt tself on the memory of the vewer. The vewer n ths model s actve and connected to the object. The worshpper expects to be touched by the object of v-son as ts mage moves back along the vsual ray to mpress tself on the soul through memory.9

Whle the long hstory of the con n Chrstan devotonal practce holds mportant clues to the applcaton we seek to refine for the study of urban hstory, ts more recent use n the phlosophy of symbol systems may be more helpful to that end. After Charles Perce developed hs phlosophy of sgns n the nneteenth century, ‘con’ became a meanngful semotc term, denotng an emblem or symbol whose form s mplcated n ts meanng. Perce famously dstngushed between ‘cons’ ‘symbols’ and ‘ndexes’ as the three prncpal forms of sgns. ‘It has been found,’ Perce wrtes, ‘that there are three knds of sgns whch are all ndspensable n all reasonng; the first s the dagrammatc sgn or icon, whch exhbts a smlarty or analogy to the subject of ds-course.’10 _{Percan semotcs holds that ‘symbols’ are arbtrarly related to ther referent,} whle ‘ndexcal’ sgns bear the actual mpress of ther referent, as does a footprnt. In contemporary computer desgn, the Percan definton of ‘con’ s most fathfully sus-taned: an envelope denotes mal; a folder denotes a place to store files, and so on.

Departng from Perce, we can also say that urban cons are born as vsual objects, but they do not necessarly, or even usually, envelop ther meanng n ther form. For nstance, the Effel Tower represents Pars, Frenchness, modernty, but none of these concepts look lke the shape of the tower. In agreement wth Percan semotc terms, however, ths s stll an conc ‘sgn’ because t s a representatonal shape rather than an arbtrary symbol – rather lke the pctographc form of Chnese characters. Whle the 7 ‘con, n.’ ‘con, n.’ Oxford English Dictionary Online <http://dctonary.oed.com> (10 May 2005).

8 Quoted n ‘con, n.’ Quoted n ‘con, n.’ Oxford English Dictionary Online <http://dctonary.oed.com> (10 May 2005). 9 See Beltng, Hans, See Beltng, Hans, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, Chcago 1994. 10 Saunders Perce, Charles, Saunders Perce, Charles, Collected Papers (1931) I. III. III 195. Quoted n ‘con, n.’ Oxford English

sgnfier s an ron tower of unque shape and specfic hstorcal orgn, the sgnfied s not the tower tself, but all that the Effel Tower has come to represent as part of a global landscape. The Hollywood Sgn s an even more complcated case: a typograph-cal ‘sgn,’ t s also a monumental structure, so ts specfic, undulatng configuraton on Mount Lee above Los Angeles s the actual form reproduced. The Hollywood Sgn (as con) s a picture of the word ‘HOLLYWOOD’ that sts on the slope of Mt. Lee. The conc sgn and the lexcal one are mutually nfluental, however. Sayng or wrtng ‘Hollywood’ reproduces and crculates meanng that was also or was prevously pro-duced and crculated va the vsual configuraton of the 50-foot tall letter-sculptures on the slopes of Mt. Lee.

Urban cons, then, are sgns born when symbols become mages but are not thereaf-ter lmted to ther ncarnaton as mages. They orgnate n specfic places – cities – and convey meanngs that are not only urban but also natonal, global, relgous, deologcal, personal, poltcal, commercal, emotonal, and n all ways hstorcal, as mediated by the

urban context. Whle as a subclass of symbols they are also (wth sgns n general)

un-stable carrers of multple, perspectval, deologcal, and often contradctory meanngs, they can also acheve some measure of unversal, cross-cultural meanng.

Urban cons, accordng to Jérôme Monnet,are mages of symbols that crculate through materal supports such as books, postcards, and bllboards. In hs definton, cons are an mage of a symbol n a sort of second-order symbolzaton. An urban symbol, for Monnet, s a materal object such as Mexco Cty’s Angel monument, or the Torre Latnamerca skyscraper, or even the ubqutous Volkswagen Beetle ‘Vocho’ (‘Bug’) taxcabs of that cty. They symbolze the Mexcan naton, modernty, or democ-racy, but each symbol needs to be conzed n order to ‘dffuse ts meanng and to struc-ture a collectve representaton of place.’

Definitions

Why cons? Urban cons may have prolferated as a soluton to the challenge of the m-mensty of urban knowledge. Icons condense and reduce. They transform the chaos of the experence of the cty nto knowledge and meanng through representatonal prac-tces. The concept of an urban con helps to forge lnks between the concrete spatalty of the cty and the metaphorc spatalty of ‘magnary landscapes’; between the materal and the deal; between the shapes on the ground and the shapes n the mnd.

To summarze ALL ICONS:

– Are graphc smplficatons and condensatons of meanng. They dstl a range of deas nto a sngle representaton and act metonymcally as a substtute for a mult-faceted whole.

– Crculate across semotc forms and across meda. – Are both sngular and repeated.

– Functon as vsual clchés, despte varaton. URBAN ICONS:

– Approxmate the status of an ultmate or summary representaton of a partcular cty.

– Embed the materalty of experence but also de-terrtoralze t through the moblty of the crculaton of mages.