Steele, Brett

From CollabLandWiki

Steele, Brett. 2001. Transitory ImageSpaces: Urbanism 2.0 in Trans Urbanism V2

This reading relates to the branding within urban centres. It explores the discrete, local, spatial structures of the marketing-driven logics re-shaping the setting for interventions in London. It discusses the significant ways in which heritage and retail operate similarly and highlights the repetitiveness of spaces and surfaces within a city.

The identity of a city is becoming so uniform that you can feel familiar in any given country. Advertising’s single greatest invention: brand name recognition. – Gap stores look like Gap stores. Guggenheim museums look like Guggenheim museums. Cities are beginning to feel alike due to the identical franchises that line the streets.

Spaces are connected by a global image infrastructure that at once makes all places and all differences between such places, the outcome of artificial design decisions.

This article is significant to my position as it explores the effect of branding and mass production within urban cities. Cathedral Square has become the tourism hub of Christchurch, with souvenir shops, hotels, and Starbucks (which comes back to the idea of brand name recognition.) How does this effect and change the role of the Square or for that matter the identity of Christchurch City if every street is identical?

How rent of these old heritage buildings affects the character of the space for example Starbucks in the old post office building. Big brands can afford these spaces. But it also discuses how malls (retail machines) in suburbs are drawing people away from the historic centre of the city, this directly relates to part of the issues with central Christchurch with people being pulled out to suburbs such as Riccarton.

Further notes: Blog