Urban Landscape: Multidimensional Analysis, Interdisciplinary Approach, Comparative Perspective - AHSV10741

• Title: PVP 2 Urban Landscape: Multidimensional Analysis, Interdisciplinary Approach, Comparative Perspective
• Guaranteed by: Institute of General History (21-USD)
• Faculty: Faculty of Arts
• Actual: from 2021
• Semester: summer
• Points: 0
• E-Credits: 4
• Examination process: summer s.:
• Hours per week, examination: summer s.:2/0, Ex [HT]
• Capacity: unknown / unknown (unknown)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: not taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Is provided by: AHSV10740
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment
• Guarantor: Mgr. Stepanida Sashnikova
• Incompatibility : AHSV10740
• Is incompatible with: AHSV10740, AHSV10786

Annotation

Last update: Mgr. Stepanida Sashnikova (09.09.2019)

The course envisages the analysis of the urban landscape from multiple points of view: anthropological, philosophical, semiotic, literature; and the examination of the urban area on different dimensions (capital city, small town, district, particular public place or architectural objects), situated in distinct regions (Western Europe, Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, the United States) during diverse periods of time (from the 18th to the beginning of the 21th century).

This approach allows to apply comparative perspective, aimed on the understanding of the urban landscape in its entirety.

Aim of the course

Last update: Mgr. Stepanida Sashnikova (09.09.2019)

The purpose of the course is to investigate the causes, peculiarities and consequences of the urban landscape foundation and functioning in different contexts; to study various senses and perception of the city space by the inhabitants, and their interaction and mutual influence on each other.

Descriptors

Last update: Mgr. Stepanida Sashnikova (09.09.2019)

Urban development; semiotics; mental map; place identity; sense of the city space; public place. 

Course completion requirements

Last update: Mgr. Stepanida Sashnikova (09.09.2019)

Attending and taking part in the lectures and seminars.

Literature

Last update: Mgr. Stepanida Sashnikova (09.09.2019)

1.     Bell M., Hietala M., Helsinki. The innovative city. Historical Perspective, Helsinki, 2002 (introduction).

2.     Benjamin W., Paris, Capital of the 19th century, in: Benjamin W., Reflections, New York, 1987.

3.     Clark P.  (ed.), The European City and Green Space: London, Stockholm, Helsinki and St. Petersburg, 1850–2000, Oxford, 2009.

4.     De Certeau M., Introduction; Spatial Stories; Walking in the cities, in: The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley, 2002.

5.     Eco U., Function and Sign: The Semiotics of Architecture, in: Leach N. (ed.), Rethinking Architecture. A reader in cultural theory, 2005, pp. 173 – 193.

6.     Ganau J., Invention and Authenticity in Barcelona’s Barri Gotic, in: Future Anterior, 2006, n.3, 2.

7.     Hayden D., The Power of Place: Urban Landscape as Public History, Cambridge, 1995.

8.     Kinerk Michael D., Wilhelm Dennis W., Dream Palaces: The Motion Picture Playhouse in the Sunshine State, in: The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, 1998, 23, pp. 209 – 237.

9.     Klusáková L., Between Urban and Rural Culture: Public Use of History and Cultural Heritage in Building Collective Identities (1990–2007), in: Klusáková, L., Teulières, L. (eds), Frontiers and Identities. Cities in Regions and Nations, Pisa, 2008, pp. 299–322.

10.   Lynch K., The Image of the City, Cambridge, 1960.

11.   Mitin I., Visualizing Place as a Palimpsest: Mental maps in Russian Geohumanities, in: “Journal for Theoretical Cartography”, 2017, 10.

12.   Yudin G., Koloshenko Y., Strategies of Manufacturing the Tourist Experience in a Small Town: Local Community and Symbolic Construction in Myshkin, in: Klusáková L. et al. (eds), Small Towns in Europe in the 20th and 21st Centuries: Heritage and Development Strategies, Prague, 2017, pp. 74 – 96.

13. Zinovieva O., Moscow Triumphal Arches, in: European Association of Urban History, Prague, 2012.

Teaching methods

Last update: Mgr. Stepanida Sashnikova (09.09.2019)

Combination of lectures and seminars

Requirements to the exam

Last update: Mgr. Stepanida Sashnikova (09.09.2019)

A course evaluation is the paper with the analysis of one of the proposed texts and investigation of one case of urban landscape from the student’s experience. The amount of the credits for the course is 6 ECTS.

Syllabus

Last update: Mgr. Stepanida Sashnikova (09.09.2019)

1. Philosophical approach to urban landscape. Place and space. Strategy and tactics in urban landscape formation (seminar)

    Text of Michel de Certeau.

2. Urban landscape on the mental maps. Individual perception of the city (seminar).

    Text of Kevin Lynch.

3. Urban semiotics. Symbolic dimension of a city. Urban landscape as a message and palimpsest (seminar).

    Texts of Umberto Eco and Ivan Mitin.

4. Anthropology of city space. Urban landscape, formed by people’s activities. Social and national identity, and collective memory, reflected in the space (seminar)

    Book by Dolores Hayden, chapter  The Sense of Place and the Politics of Space.

5. City dimension. Structure and architecture of urban space, and activities held there, as the reflection of main political, social and cultural features of the era (seminar).

     Text of Walter Benjamin

6. City dimension. Political and social changes, new technologies and their influence on urban landscape. The participants of the urban development: top down and bottom up directions (seminar).

    Book by Marjatta Bell and Marjatta Hietala, introduction. 

7. City dimension. Immigrants’ activity as a contribution to the urban landscape. New spaces and senses of the city, formed by immigrants. Comparative perspective (seminar and lecture).

    Book by Dolores Hayden, chapter Place Memory and Urban Preservation; 

    Presentation Public Places of Russian Immigrants in Paris in the 1920 – 1930.

8. City dimension. Formation and functioning of green spaces as a result of various political, social and cultural processes. The initiators and participants of green spaces’ development and their target audience. Comparative perspective (seminar).

    Book by Peter Clark.

9. Small town dimension. Revitalization with the help of the tourism development and local community increase and reunion. Different strategies of these processes. Comparative perspective (seminar).

    Texts of Luda Klusáková and Greg Yudin.

10. District dimension. Cultural heritage of the district of different centuries. Its meaning throughout various periods, and its role in the formation of the contemporary image of the area. Top down and bottom up directions of the activities, connected with cultural heritage (lecture).

    Presentation Petrogradskaya Storona of St. Petersburg as Urban Palimpsest. 

11. District dimension. Ways of quarter successful development. Comparative perspective (seminar and lecture).

     Text of Joan Ganau.

     Presentation Petrograd district in St. Petersburg in the beginning of the 20^th century: a symbol of modernity.

12. Particular architectural objects from the point of view of semiotics, reflection of the identity, political, social, economic and cultural processes. Comparative perspective (seminar).

      Texts of Kinerk Michael D. and Olga Zinovieva.

13. Urban landscape in literature perspective. City space as the way to understand the described era and heroes. Spatial semiotics, expressed in literature. Analysis of the image of St. Petersburg in the prose and poetry of the different periods of time. Formation of new urban textual reality. The influence of this reality on the perception of the city by the inhabitants and tourists (lecture).

      Analysis of the article Peterburgskii text russkoi literatury: Izbrannye trudy [Petersburg Text of Russian Literature] by Vladimir Toporov.

      Presentation Petersburg Text of Russian Literature from the 18^th to the 21^th centuries.

Learning resources

Last update: Mgr. Stepanida Sashnikova (09.09.2019)

Texts and presentations

Entry requirements

Last update: Mgr. Stepanida Sashnikova (09.09.2019)

Bachelor's and Master's students