Urban Designscapes and the Production of Aesthetic Consent

Guy Julier
Additional contact information
Guy Julier: Leeds School of Architecture, Landscape and Design, Leeds Metropolitan University, Calverley Street, Leeds, LS1 3HE, UK, g.julier@leedsmet.ac.uk

Urban Studies, 2005, vol. 42, issue 5-6, 869-887

Abstract: Studies on the identity formation of urban centres and the use of aesthetic markers within that regeneration process largely fall into two camps that reflect their respective academic provenance. On the one hand, this effect is assessed by reference to urban planning and architectural processes. Here, the interest is firmly in the design hardware of buildings, streets and public spaces and how they are used to differentiate and communicate. On the other, this is reviewed by reference to the marketing strategies of place branding. Here the emotional software of brand identity programmes, as carried through literature, websites, the copywriting of slogans and other largely two-dimensional platforms comes into view. Within the remit of 'culture-led regeneration', the article considers a more extended version of the role of design in this process. Designers are implicated among networks of urban elites that decide strategies. But their involvement takes the process of design-led regeneration beyond buildings or leaflets to a loosely coherent, hegemonic network of signifiers to produce what I call 'designscapes'. The article takes a critical approach to three designscapes: Barcelona, Manchester and Hull. In doing so, it evaluates contrasting approaches while keeping in view the interactions of design elites and their public, the flows between individual and collective consumption and their roles in forming an urban habitus.

Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/00420980500107474 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:42:y:2005:i:5-6:p:869-887

DOI: 10.1080/00420980500107474

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().