Rethinking the Meaning of Place: Conceiving Place in Architecture-Urbanism

The increasing spread of newly 'invented' places, designed under innovative configurations, such as theme parks, shopping malls and revamped historic areas, makes a need for a redefinition of the concept of 'place', especially from an architecture-urbanism perspective. This book provides an interdisciplinary examination of the modernization of the concept, assessing the various approaches, and categorizes the new places according to the different phenomenological experiences they are able to provide. It analyses the impact such new types of place have upon society's environmental perception, and argues how these places can contribute towards enhancing the quality of life in today's cities. Castello argues that these 'cloning places' attempt to replicate the characteristics found in urban spaces traditionally viewed as successful. Using placemaking and placemarketing strategies, their design employs environmental stimuli similar to the ones which generated the original urbanity. Illustrated with a range of international empirical studies, the book describes the enhancements that such projects can bring to today's cities, and demonstrates the hypothesis that invented spaces can become perceived as legitimate urban places. Ultimately, it puts forward a positive assessment of the quality and pertinence of "cloning places" in contemporary urban contexts, countering the criticisms that separate places believed to be "authentic" from places devalued as "invented".