The volume brings together contributions by leading scholars and young academics with experience in the urban potential of the territory in situations not necessarily linked to the dense metropolis, its compact form or to city sprawl. What brings these scholars together is their common reflection on this central theme, though from varied disciplinary and experimental backgrounds. They offer new forms of representing social and spatial processes of the contemporary society.

This book explores new forms and modalities of relations between people and space that increasingly affect the life of the city. The investigation takes as its starting point the idea that in contemporary societies the loss of our relationship with place is a symptom of a breakdown in the relationship between ethics and aesthetics. This in turn has caused a crisis not only in taste, but also in our sense of beauty, our aesthetic instinct, and our moral values. It has also led to the loss of our engagement with the landscape, which is essential for cities to function.

The authors...

Departing from a survey on the post-modern landscapes of tourism, this book explores the transformations the city has undergone and the way it has become a simulacrum offered to tourists, spectacularised with the aim of increasing its capacity for attraction. The experiences dealt with in the papers of authors belonging to different disciplinary fields, emphasise the city's tendencies to create "stage-set contexts" of the private type, be it historic quarters, theme parks or hypermarkets. Issues like aestheticisation, thematisation and genericity are dealt with, conceptual categories that...

The volume brings together contributions by leading scholars and young academics with experience in the urban potential of the territory in situations not necessarily linked to the dense metropolis, its compact form or to city sprawl. What brings these scholars together is their common reflection on this central theme, though from varied disciplinary and experimental backgrounds. They offer new forms of representing social and spatial processes of the contemporary society.

The Reinvented City reflects on externity, the principal feature of a reinvented city. Three basic trends of the city are investigated; "discomposed," "generic" and "segregated" phenomena with the loss of the city as a space of social interaction and communication. Important questions are posed: What is the true public sphere in contemporary societies? What is the contemporary public space corresponding to it? In what way can the city project construct contemporary public space?

This book explores new forms and modalities of relations between people and space that increasingly affect the life of the city. The investigation takes as its starting point the idea that in contemporary societies the loss of our relationship with place is a symptom of a breakdown in the relationship between ethics and aesthetics. This in turn has caused a crisis not only in taste, but also in our sense of beauty, our aesthetic instinct, and our moral values. It has also led to the loss of our engagement with the landscape, which is essential for cities to function.

The authors...