At home in home care? Contents and boundaries of the ‘domestic’ among immigrant live-in workers in Italy

How ‘at home’, if at all, migrants feel in their everyday lives abroad is a neglected research issue, with meaningful implications for immigrant, social and housing policies. Their employment as live-in care workers with elderly clients is a unique site to address it, as this article aims to do, based on an archive of life histories of immigrant women in Italy. Co-residential domestic work foregrounds migrants’ need for a domestic space of their own, within the place of someone else. Building on immigrant women’s narratives, I explore what senses and dimensions of domesticity, or even of home, are negotiated in their routine interactions with older clients and the latter’s family members. Within a dwelling place which conflates work and domesticity, the cognitive, emotional and practical dimensions of migrants’ gendered home experience are nothing obvious. How is home-making – as a set of practices oriented to pursue security, familiarity and control – enacted under these circumstances? Is the cultivation of a sense of home beneficial to the clients only, or do immigrant women themselves feel at home somehow? Different ‘modes of domesticity’ are discussed, at the intersection between continuous expectations of home-making and discontinuous ways of feeling at home.     

Determinism,idealism and the politics of environmentalism—a view point

Over the past 15 years there have been ideological shifts in the ecologically‐based environmentalist movement. The earlier emphasis was on reactionary ideologies of neo‐Malthusianism and the lifeboat ethic, romantic anti‐urbanism and rural escapism. These were strongly underpinned by the notion of naturally‐imposed limits on human endeavour which sprang from a philosophy of environmental determinism. Now there is more emphasis upon human free will and less which is escapist, defensive and socially regressive. The green movement is increasingly compatible with socialism, but there is still a large ideological gap between “Green” and “Red” wings of the movement. Green Greens are idealistic, and mistakenly believe that they have discovered a new politics which are “above” the politics of class conflict. They call for a common unity and for spiritually‐inspired value changes, and erroneously think that their ecotopian vision is becoming a widespread reality. Green socialists, however, are more realistic because their analysis is materialist. They do not divorce social and environmental reform from the need to change the social‐economic mode of production, and therefore hold out a solution which is more genuinely revolutionary and has more relevance to the mass of people.     

How architectural drawings work — and what that implies for the role of representation in architecture

A distinction between imaginative and notational use of architectural drawings is introduced. The case of Mies's Brick Country House is used to suggest that drawings in the imaginative mode are often architectural works in their own right, and that they can function as works by invoking a special mode of visual attention. Such an attention is essentially an act of visual representation or depiction, in that it involves sustained perceptual parsing of the drawing in terms of objects or figures that are not literally present but are still responsive to propositional thought. It is further shown, with the help of some recent work in philosophy, cognitive science and art criticism, how such a representational mode of viewing drawings leads to an imaginative engagement that is the hallmark of an aesthetic experience. It is finally suggested that such a potency of depictive representation has been exploited through history, not just in making presentational drawings, but in the visual design of buildings as well. The purpose of representation, thus, is not so much to use an artefact — say a building — to state a proposition, but rather to help to give it a perceptual structure that can sustain imaginative engagement.     

Prospects for the Compositions of City Planning System in China——Initiated from the development and puzzlement in modern western city planning

This essay is intended to draw up anoutline for the study of this subject,thougha big one,since the present development ofcity planning in China can provide the neces-     

The palace,the city and the past: controversies surrounding the rebuilding of the Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul, 1990–2010

In step with economic and political growth, the Korean government is in the process of restoring the main palace, the Gyeongbok Palace, of the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910), which was destroyed by the Japanese during the colonial era (1910–1945). The ensuing public debate regarding the method and extent of the restoration has brought to the fore the significance such a project carries in Korean society of the twenty‐first century. The restoration of this palace complex has created a number of controversies relating to history and the built environment, urban morphology and national identity. Questions about historical authenticity, both in terms of what has happened to the site since the palace was destroyed and the best means of restoring it; questions about the historical origins of Seoul and the need to restore the palace to make its role in this clear; questions about the methods and materials of restoration, are all matters of debate. There are also cultural and political issues: the role of the built environment in aiding public education; sustaining a sense of national identity; encouraging the development of traditional craftsmen’s techniques for public benefit; bolstering self‐confidence for national progress and expanding the infrastructure for the Korean tourism industry. This paper argues that not only is the physical restoration of the ‘new’ historic buildings and structures important, but also the cultural and social meanings (as outlined above), and that these justify the controversial restoration of the national historic monument.     

The city of corpses? Contested urban identity and the stigma of crime in Adelaide,South Australia

Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia, has long been referred to as the City of Churches. This moniker denotes Adelaide to be a city of pious refinement and conservatism. Indeed, Adelaide’s landscape is replete with numerous and very beautiful churches. However, urban identities are more complex than simple landscape reflections and are constructed, contested and re-contested by actors both internal and external to a given place. Indicative of this is the alternate moniker for Adelaide as the City of Corpses. The origins of this alternate place identity lie in a series of violent crimes, serial killings and unexplained disappearances over a span of some 40 years. These crimes are said to have shocked Australia and, combined, have come to be construed as ‘signals’ that beneath Adelaide’s genteel surface something sinister lurks.     

Corporate Capital and the Techniques of Modernity—Problems in the Mass Production of Space,Image, and Experience

This article seeks to accomplish two tasks. The first is to employ a materialist approach to the study of architecture that emphasizes the nature of practice as a set of techniques within history, rather than emphasizing the form of the finished work. The second task is to study the implications of the corporate franchise for the practice of architecture and for the landscape and to argue that this particular device has participated in the establishment of a new category of architectural production, that is, a mass production of architecture. The article also suggests that such mass production has created a new physical context—accessible networks of accommodation—that serves to fulfill a vision of the United States as a complex, integrated market.     

Property rights,urban land markets and the contradictions of redevelopment in centrally located informal settlements in Bogotá, Colombia,and Buenos Aires,Argentina

Following rapid urban growth over the past four decades, informal settlements originally located in peripheral areas of large Latin American cities are now occupying increasingly valuable land in the central city. As a result, these communities are facing intense redevelopment pressures with important implications for housing accessibility. Although this situation is common in the region, central city redevelopment assumes a variety of forms depending on shifting approaches to land titling under different urban governance regimes, resulting in variegated, formal, and informal land markets. This comparative historical case study of Bogotá, Colombia, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, suggests that urban redevelopment planning has drawn on two contrasting discourses of property rights: one privileging private market approaches based in the economic theory of Libertarianism; the other favouring state authority and redistribution building on the ethics of Utilitarianism. In both Bogotá and Buenos Aires, however, de facto land-titling policies have shifted between the principles of Libertarianism and Utilitarianism under different political regimes, and neither market- nor state-oriented approaches have served to safeguard low-income residents’ access to housing. Instead, the shifting influence of each discourse has structured formal and informal land markets in ways that complicate long-standing debates surrounding land titling in informal settlements.     

Shan-shui myth and history: the locally planned process of combining the ancient city and West Lake in Hangzhou, 1896–1927

In early modern China, several modern construction plans were carried out in Hangzhou's ancient city centre and West Lake, leading to the formation of a lake-city combined urban form, which is now valued for its uniqueness and characteristically Chinese cityscape aesthetic. The catalyst for this process of combining the ancient city and West Lake was a plan titled ‘Building a New Market’ (1914), developed on the basis of a draft presented in the Zhejiang provincial assembly during the late Qing Dynasty, striving for urban renewal by promoting West Lake. After the Xinhai Revolution, seizing the opportunity of physical and temporal changes, local officials successfully implemented this plan by using pioneering planning methods to strengthen the link between the ancient city and West Lake. The steps of this plan's implementation, namely ‘pull down the city wall – build roads – construct new market’, widely influenced other cities in the early 1920s. Also, this plan led to two subsequent projects, the Circling Road plan (1920) and West Lake Expo (1922/1927), furthering the urbanization reform of West Lake aimed at making it part of the city.     

Diversity of new uses in post-industrial landscapes: diverging ideals and outcomes in the post-industrial landscapes of Lowell,Massachusetts and Norrköping,Sweden

This paper presents an inventory and an analytical model regarding the diversity of current uses found in the post-industrial landscapes of the former textile cities of Lowell, Massachusetts and Norrköping, Sweden. The model relates the diversity of current uses found in these regenerated, post-industrial landscapes to the priorities emphasized in their redevelopment process, which is relevant because opposing ideals such as regeneration and diversity may collide with those of preservation and conservation. Empirical data gathered primarily by observations and theories relating to the importance of diversity/multi-functionality in urban settings form the basis of the paper’s analysis.     

Shaping Seoul’s memories: the co-evolution of memorials,national identity,democracy and urban space in South Korea’s capital city

This paper examines the evolving subjects, forms, symbolism, and spatial constellation of the diverse memorials erected in Seoul since 1953. It explores how these memorials have expressed shifts in national identity towards democracy since the end of dictatorship in 1987. It illustrates how commemorative intentions in this massive, rapidly-changing metropolis have intersected with other urban design aims and pressures. The analysis reveals an evolutionary progression in memorial themes, from heroic statues that re-establish roots of Korean national identity and independence, to marginal grassroots memorials and wider themed precincts that present more inclusive, democratic, complex narratives of identity and history.     

Poetic Dwelling in the Repressive Urban Space——A Spatial Narratological Study of the Existential Crisis in J. D. Salinger's “The Young Folks”,The Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey

<正>In the 1950s and early 1960s,the American society took on an air of unprecedented material prosperity.However,the flourishing economy failed to provide people with the spiritual content they expected to come with it.The inanition in the spiritual world and the affluence in the material world created a sharp contrast which led to a growing sense of anxiety and dissatisfaction.As a result,"many Americans reacted to these developments with ambivalence,even hostility."(Brinkley 1999:     

History,civilization and urban planning development in China — report from the 10th Academic Committee of Planning History & Theory Conference: 26–29 October 2018, Guilin,China

ABSTRACT

The 10th Academic Committee of Planning History & Theory (ACPHT) Conference took place on 26–29 October 2018, in the Guilin University of Technology (Guilin, China). The annual conference was held for the first time in 2009. Themed ‘Urban Planning in the Course of Civilization’, the 2018 conference probed the continuation and evolution of planning history from different civilizations, defined here as cultural characteristic at a particular place and time. More than 200 delegates attended the conference, bringing together researchers from the fields of planning history, architectural history, city design, public administration, cultural heritage protection, archaeology, art and media, municipal aviation, to socialize and share their work with each other, and to gain insight into interdisciplinary historical research methods. Based on a selection of relevant panels and roundtables, the report explores four prominent themes discussed in the conference: planning history in different historical periods, urban form and heritage, the practical role of planning history, and interdisciplinary approach. The relationship between civilizations development and planning history is illustrated through four topics. It also summarizes the academic consensus, theoretical significance, problems and difficulties, and future-oriented experience of the conference.