Creative clusters in the regeneration of Valletta and the cultural politics of Strait Street

The paper aims to unfold the narrative of development in a creative cluster project for the regeneration of Strait Street in Valletta, Malta. This is approached by first examining the distinctive, historically contentious background of the neighbourhood and, thereafter, unpacking the development narrative of policy documents and the discursive and material constructs about the creative city approach to regeneration strategies in the city. Using a ‘system-wide’ analytical framework, this material is then scrutinized to gain an understanding of the specificities involved and, finally, discuss the crucial features of the key dimensions elucidating the potential strengths and weaknesses of the case     

Historical narratives as strategic resources: analysis of the Turkish international contracting sector

The Turkish contracting sector has an enviable reputation for operating in high-risk international markets. The sector’s ability to respond to market instability could meaningfully be construed as sectoral-level capability. We aim to demonstrate how history can be mobilised in a formalised “strategy text” to create a strategic narrative on the sectoral level. The Geography of Contractors as published by the Turkish Contractors Association (TCA) ostensively portrays the strategic development of Turkish international contractors over four decades. Such quasi-historical narratives are routinely mobilised for the purposes of creating a shared memory on the sectoral level. The chosen strategy text draws from multiple narrative fragments derived from past experience to generate a strategic agenda for the future. The representation given to multiple voices reflects the pluralistic nature of strategy making praxis. The overarching strategy narrative reflects a performative intent in legitimising some practices whilst discrediting others. Narrative analysis demonstrates the way in which actors, actions and events are positioned within a plot structure, with direct implications for the enactment of future strategic practices. The findings suggest that strategic actions can only ever be identified in retrospect and that such arguments are always made with an eye on the future.     

从王致诚的书信看圆明园对法国英中式 园林的影响

从源头解读西方人如何识读中国园林设计，利于探寻中国园林文化观点与理论传播的有效衔接方式。王致诚涉及圆明园描写的书信，是1749—1782年间法国唯一一份全面展现中国园林营建细节的直接材料。基于书信背景的梳理，重点展示了信中圆明园的特点；结合书信的传播，对信中圆明园作用影响的历程、主要表现等进行了叙述。透过书信，圆明园在地形水系、建筑物与构筑物群组、园内活动三方面影响法国英中式造园实践，加深了法国人对中国园林品位的认识。     

叙事／制作系列——时空机器①

简要介绍了东南大学建筑学院的概念设计作品“时空机器”，阐述了有关“叙事／制作”的教学思想。     

现象学视角下的当代城市景观体验

当代城市景观在以空间生产为主导的快速城市化下,由地域和文化的融合转为全球化的时空分异。现象学的出现反映了城市环境中主体的失落和缺失,是对城市象征资本生产和消费的批判。在全球化宏观叙事下城市景观符号的生产和消费中,非线性的叙事方式、＂超空间＂的城市场景,以及视觉化的知觉系统导致城市体验中＂场所精神＂产生消解。因此,以现象学方法重构新的都市生活体验成为一条颇有意义的道路。     

Peaceful,Pleasant and Private: The British Domestic Garden as an Ordinary Landscape

This paper uses narrative accounts of private gardens in Britain from the Mass-Observation Archive (MO) to explore ideas of landscape, privacy and attachment that emerge from daily practices and routines in these ordinary domestic spaces. We argue for the domestic garden as a vernacular or ordinary landscape that displays tensions between the private and the public nature of home within ambivalent emotional responses. Extended personal narratives offer privileged access to a site of intense engagement and carefully guarded privacy, yet with varying levels of attachment. The garden is a space well described in Britain in its public form but less well known as a private, everyday landscape. In this way a cultural landscape study becomes a contemporary critical geography of an ordinary space.     

作为空间叙事的方法——浅析坡道对于建筑连续空间的创造

本文以坡道的演变为主线,探讨其作为空间叙事的方法而产生的异于平常的空间体验,强调了以人为主体的运动体验的追求来决定着建筑空间的叙事模式。     

Memory,narrative and display – city museums in recent initiatives and debates

Currently, the study and the exhibition of the history and artistic traces of city development are gaining new interest. Several Italian and European cities are proposing, or have just established, organisations or museums intended to ‘display’ their past. Recently a research group has been constitued at the University IUAV of Venice based on the premiss that a contemporary City Museum has to be a conduit for knowledge to a large and varied public including, on equal terms: citizens, immigrants, tourists and people with cultural and professional interests in the urban environment. In this sense Venice seems to be a very good clase‐study. While an important initiative, such as the constitution of a new Museum of the twentieth century in Mestre (the mainland of Venice) is going on, the research group thinks that this kind of institution, within the framework of a very complex and rich system of museums, such as the Venetian one, could have a wide remit. In fact, one of the special key issues for Venice in the twentieth century has been opening up its cultural and productive activities to the external world. Foreigner visitors, as well as many citizens have always had the vision of Venice as a medieval and renaissance city with a very old historical centre. Yet in the course of the twentieth century, the urban settlement had greatly changed in a very interesting and innovative way. This has to be explained and shown to both tourists and the Venetians.     

Entitlement and justice

Abstract

Drawing on interviews with people living and working in ‘disadvantaged’ Australian suburbs, this article focuses on how disadvantaged people must prove ‘entitlement’, most often through a stylised performance of ‘undeserved’ suffering which in turn reinforces a definition of need based upon character. These stylised narratives of suffering, and the stories of heroism which complement them, emerge from a local ‘war of words’. The article argues that these stories are a complex and difficult resource for urban analysts and that other, more submerged, narratives must also be incorporated in any account of poverty and injustice.     

基于空间句法的历史城区叙事空间研究

如何将历史城区的物质环境与社会文化等人文要素相结合,营造“高语境”、“原真性”的历史空间环境,是历史城区保护必须面对的重要问题。基于叙事学视角,从叙事簇群、叙事廊道、叙事点核的单元结构出发,引入空间句法量化方法,对历史城区叙事空间的空间权力表征、功能表征、特质表征给予量化解释,并为历史城区活化保护提供建议。