Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Esmaeil Shieh ¹
• Mostafa Behzadfar ¹
• ahmad ali namdarian ²

¹ Iran University of Science and Technology

² iran university of science and technology

Abstract

The concept of urbanscape has many complexities and ambiguities. These ambiguities lead to misunderstandings among the academic sources and professional circles. “Scape” and “landscape” have also deviated from their original meaning and nowadays are used for different purposes.  The concept of “image” and readability makes them more complex. Specially, the scape of cities has some common meanings with mystic literature in Iran leading to further misunderstanding. There are some disciplines referring to the concept of urbanscape, such as urban design, architecture and landscape architecture, and landscape urbanism. Each of these disciplines deems itself as the originator of the term “urbanscape”.
This article tries to review various literature on these two concepts and their complexities. Reviewing these concepts shows that urbanscape has been affected by different paradigms of the philosophy of science and, nowadays, there is a paradigm shift in this field.
This article shows that previous definitions have been based upon “positivist” and “critical rationality” paradigms. In these two approaches, urbanscape has been studied separate from the society. In line with this, urbanscape was considered as a physical dimension of the urban form or as perceptions of users. The development of a new theoretical framework for urbanscape needs fundamental reviewing in these paradigms. It needs a paradigm which justifies the “why” and “how” of urbanscape rather than just describing it. In other words, the new definition should pay attention to the mechanisms and basic structure of urbanscape.
This article uses the qualitative method. Reviewing Henri Lefebvre’s notions, it uses the paradigm of “scientific realism” to develop the theory of urbanscape. Urbanscape is then considered as the “output of society’s reality”, an intrinsic reality which is always reproduced. Urbanscape could not be divided into subjective and objective scape before, for the relation of these two is not just a phenomenological one. Lefebvre’s “production of space” theory is based on a new definition of dialectic leading to the concept of spatial trialectics.
From this point of view, a comprehensive framework is achieved by using phenomenology and semeiotic approach. According to these two approaches, urbanscape is not “subject or object” alone, it is also the output of a social fact conceived by users in a phenomenological and semiotic dynamic relation. Urbanscape is then divided into three categories which are produced and reproduced by influential forces on urbanscape. Perceived scape, conceived scape and lived scape are the three types of scape produced in a trialectic relation of influential forces.
These three scapes are phenomenological aspects of urbanscape. However, these three are produced by the semeiotic dimension. This dimension is the factors that can create the phenomenological aspect of scape and are called forces. Each force is trying to produce its own scape. There is a sort of complexity, competition and dialogue between the forces.
Therefore, urbanscape is neither a physical dimension nor a practical one; it has also social aspects produced by various forces.

Keywords

• Scape
• Image
• Production of Space
• Perceived Scape
• Conceived Scape and Lived Scape

Main Subjects

• Urban Design