Conceptualizing Urban Imaginaries: Starchitecture, Placemaking and Future City Design Paradigms

Tigran Haas^1,

¹Associate Professor, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Cite this paper:
Tigran Haas. Conceptualizing Urban Imaginaries: Starchitecture, Placemaking and Future City Design Paradigms. Journal of City and Development. 2024; 6(1):1-15. doi: 10.12691/jcd-6-1-1

Abstract

This thematic, conceptual research paper delves into the intricate relationship between urban imaginaries and the multifaceted evolution of cities. Urban imaginaries, as collective mental constructs, encapsulate diverse cultural, social, and economic dimensions, profoundly influencing city revitalization, cultural preservation, and sustainability. These imaginaries are pivotal in guiding urban planners, fostering community involvement, and steering urban development toward equitable and sustainable futures. The concept of “Starchitecture,” exemplifying iconic architectural projects, emerges as a tangible manifestation of urban imaginaries, significantly shaping cityscapes and cultural narratives. Furthermore, the paper examines the concept of Placemaking, which integrates urban imaginaries into tangible lived experiences, nurturing a sense of belonging and community identity. It highlights the symbiotic relationship between urbanism and imaginaries, emphasizing adaptability, sustainability, and resilience as key factors in ensuring cities evolve in harmony with the visions and aspirations of their inhabitants. Transitioning to green cities and integrating sustainable transportation with smart city technologies are crucial in aligning urban development with environmental sustainability and responsive, culturally attuned initiatives. This scholarly paper adopts an investigative methodology based on qualitative secondary data and archival and document analysis of various theoretical discourses in city urbanism. A focus of this paper is also the investigation of dominant paradigms under the urban imaginaries’ framework, examining shortly five key urbanism ideals. It includes a case study on the emerging Gulf urbanism exemplified by “The Line,” offering insights into its role within the broader context of urban imaginaries. The discussion extends to the concepts of happy cities and the livability of urban imaginaries, encompassing historical and aesthetic dimensions. The paper concludes by addressing the intersection of spatial justice, green futures, and urban imaginaries. It underscores the vision of creating equitable cities that challenge spatial inequalities and foster environments where everyone can thrive. Ultimately, urban imaginaries are presented as transformative forces, shaping inclusive, sustainable, and just cities.

Keywords:
urban imaginaries placemaking urbanism spatial justice smart city resilience revitalization transformation starchitecture transurbanism the line sustainability multimodal transport

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References:

[1]	Jacobs, J. (1961). The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York, NY: Random House.
[2]	Lynch, K. (1960). The Image of the City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
[3]	Gehl, J. (2010). Cities for People. Washington, DC: Island Press.
[4]	Duany, A., Plater-Zyberk, E., & Speck, J. (2000). Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. Berkeley: North Point Press.
[5]	Glaeser, E. (2012). Triumph of the City. New York, NY: Penguin Books.
[6]	Florida, R. (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class. New York, NY: Basic Books.
[7]	Florida, R. (2017). The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class—and What We Can Do About It. New York, NY: Basic Books.
[8]	Soja, E. (2010). Seeking Spatial Justice. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
[9]	Harvey, D. (1996). Justice, nature, and the geography of difference. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
[10]	Whyte, W. H. (1980). The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Washington, DC: The Conservation Foundation.
[11]	Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
[12]	Castells, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
[13]	Çınar, A., and Bender, T. (Eds.). (2007). Urban Imaginaries: Locating the Modern City. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
[14]	Lindner, C., and Meissner, M. (Eds.). (2019). The Routledge Companion to Urban Imaginaries. London, UK: Routledge.
[15]	Lang, R. E. (2003). Edgeless Cities: Exploring the Elusive Metropolis. Washington D.C: Brookings Institution Press.
[16]	Kotkin, J. (2007). “Opportunity Urbanism An Emerging Paradigm for the 21st Century.” Barbara Jordan Mickey Leland Center at Texas Southern University in Houston and the La Jolla Institute of Ontario, California (Research Report for the Greater Houston Partnership).
[17]	Bruegmann, R. (2005). Sprawl: A Compact History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[18]	Mitchell, W. J. (1999). e-topia: Urban Life, Jim - But Not as We Know It. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
[19]	Haas, T. and Westlund, H. (editors) (2018). In The Post-Urban World Emergent Transformation of Cities and Regions in the Innovative Global Economy, Routledge: New York and London.
[20]	Mitchell, D. (2018). The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
[21]	Brenner, N. (2019). New Urban Spaces: Urban Theory and the Scale Question. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
[22]	Sennett, R. (2018). Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
[23]	Harvey, D. (2020). The AntiCapitalist Chronicles. London, UK: Pluto Press.
[24]	Davis, M. (2017). Planet of Slums. London, UK: Verso.
[25]	Jameson, F. (2016). Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London, UK: Verso.
[26]	Davis, M. (2018). City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. New York, NY: Verso.
[27]	Soja, E. (2017). Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
[28]	Ponzini, D. (2024). The Faces of Contemporary Cities. New York, NY: Rizzoli.
[29]	Jencks, C. (2005). The Iconic Building: The Power of Enigma. London, UK: Frances Lincoln.
[30]	Koolhaas, R., and Mau, B. (1995). S, M, L, XL. New York, NY: Monacelli Press.
[31]	Frampton, K. (2007). Modern Architecture: A Critical History. London, UK: Thames & Hudson.
[32]	Ponzini, D., & Nastasi, M. (2016). Starchitecture: scenes, actors, and spectacles in contemporary cities. Berkeley, CA: The Monacelli Press.
[33]	McNeill, D. (2015). Global Cities and Urban Theory. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.
[34]	Landry, C. (2000). The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators. London: Earthscan Publications.
[35]	Harvey, D. (2012). Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. London, UK: Verso Books.
[36]	Massey, D. (2014). Space, Place, and Gender. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
[37]	Amin, A. (2013). Land of Strangers. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
[38]	Project for Public Spaces. (2020). “What is Placemaking?” Retrieved from https://www.pps.org/article/whatisplacemaking. (Accessed December 15, 2024).
[39]	Borja, J., & Muxí, Z. (2016). Urban Paradigms: From Planning Culture to Landscape Urbanism. Barcelona, Spain: Gustavo Gili.
[40]	McCann, E. (2017). “Governing Urbanism: Urban Governance Studies 1.0, 2.0 and Beyond.” Urban Studies, 54(2), 312-326.
[41]	Batty, M. (2018). Inventing Future Cities. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
[42]	Harvey, D. (2016). The Ways of the World. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
[43]	Moreno, C. (2024). The 15 Minute City: A Solution to Saving Our Time and Our Planet. New York, NY: Wiley.
[44]	Krieger, A. (2006). “Territories of urban design.” In J. Rowland and M. Malcolm (Eds.), Urban Design Futures (pp. 18-28). London, UK: Routledge.
[45]	Fraker, H. (2007). “Where is the urban design discourse?” Places Journal, Berkeley 19(3), 61-63.
[46]	Kelbaugh, D. (2008). “Three Urbanisms: New, Everyday, and Post.” In T. Haas (Ed.), New Urbanism and Beyond (pp. 40-47). New York, NY: Rizzoli.
[47]	Talen, E. (2005). New Urbanism & American Planning: The Conflict of Cultures. New York, NY: Routledge.
[48]	Fainstein, S. S. (2010). The Just City. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
[49]	Schwarzer, M. (2000). “The contemporary city in four movements.” Journal of Urban Design, 5, 127-144.
[50]	Cuthbert, A. (2006). The Form of Cities. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
[51]	Barnett, J. (2016). City Design Modernist, Traditional, Green, and Systems Perspectives. London, UK: Routledge.
[52]	Haas, T., & Olsson, K. (2014). “Transmutation and Reinvention of Public Spaces Through Ideals of Urban Planning and Design.” Space and Culture, 17(1), 59-68.
[53]	Ryan, B. (2017). The Largest Art: A Measured Manifesto for a Plural Urbanism. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
[54]	McCullough, M.: Digital Ground (Architecture, Pervasive Computing, and Environmental Knowing). MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (2004).
[55]	Mitchell, W. J. (2003). *Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City*. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
[56]	Carmona, M. (2019). Public places, urban spaces. London, UK: Routledge.
[57]	Batty, M. (2013). The New Science of Cities. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
[58]	Kitchin, R. (2014). The Data Revolution: Big Data, Open Data, Data Infrastructures and Their Consequences. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.
[59]	Marcuse, P. (2009). From critical urban theory to the right to the city. London, UK: Routledge.
[60]	Townsend, A. (2013). Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia. New York, NY.
[61]	Neirotti, P., De Marco, A., Cagliano, A. C., Mangano, G., & Scorrano, F. (2014). “Current trends in Smart City initiatives: Some stylized facts.” Cities, 38, 25-36. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier.
[62]	Hollands, R. G. (2008). “Will the real smart city please stand up? Intelligent, progressive, or entrepreneurial?” City, 12(3), 303-320. London, UK: Routledge.
[63]	Kitchin, R., & Dodge, M. (2011). Code/Space: Software and Everyday Life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
[64]	Gossling, S. (2013). “Urban transport transitions Copenhagen, City of Cyclists.” Journal of Transport Geography, 33, 196-206.
[65]	Newman, P., & Kenworthy, J. (1999). Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence. Washington, DC: Island Press.
[66]	Beatley, T. (2000). Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities. Washington, DC: Island Press.
[67]	Vale, L. J., and Campanella, T. J. (2005). The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover from Disaster. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
[68]	Register, R. (2006). Ecocities: Rebuilding Cities in Balance with Nature. Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society Publishers.
[69]	Cervero, R., & Kockelman, K. (1997). “Travel demand and the 3Ds: Density, diversity, and design”. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 2(3), 199-219.
[70]	Sheller, M., & Urry, J. (2006). “The new mobilities paradigm.” Environment and Planning A, 38(2), 207-226.
[71]	Banister, D. (2008). “The sustainable mobility paradigm.” Transport Policy, 15(2), 73-80.
[72]	Young, I. M. (1990). Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
[73]	Fraser, N. (1995). From Redistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of Justice in a ‘PostSocialist’ Age. New Left Review; London Vol. 0, Iss. 212, (Jul 1, 1995): 68.
[74]	Sassen, S. (2001). The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
[75]	Rawls, J. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
[76]	Mulder, A., Brower, J., and Martz, L. (2002). TransUrbanism. Rotterdam, Netherlands: V2Publishing/NAI Publishers.
[77]	Graham, S., & Marvin, S. (2001). Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities, and the Urban Condition. London, UK: Routledge.
[78]	Feinstein, S. (2000). “New directions in planning theory.” Urban Affairs Review, 35, 451-478.
[79]	Ponzini, D. (2023). Transnational Architecture and Urbanism: Rethinking How Cities Plan, Transform. London, UK: Routledge.
[80]	Sen, A. (2009). The Idea of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
[81]	Baudrillard, J. (1994) Simulacra and simulation, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
[82]	Oldenburg, r (1989) The great good place: cafés, coffee shops, community centers, beauty parlors, general stores, bars, hangouts, and how they get you through the day, Paragon House, New York.
[83]	Castles S. and Miller, M.J. (2009). The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World (4th edition). Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
[84]	Hall, P. (1996). Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design Since 1880 (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
[85]	Moretti C. (2015). Milanese encounters: Public space and vision in contemporary urban Italy. The University of Toronto Press.
[86]	Montgomery, C. (2013). Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.