Cities as Texts: Urban Practices Represented or Forgotten in Art History

Abstract

In the writing of art history, cities have conventionally been approached as a compound of “objects” designed by an “author”, the meanings of the urban forms identified as characteristics of the forms. However, if we accept that meanings are not universal, that different communities (sub-cultures) attach different meanings to a built form, cities may be studied as texts implying multiple interpretations. As texts, urban forms are seen as representations of the network of urban practices— heterogeneous elements like institutions, regulations, philosophical presuppositions, and the different ways to live a city—of each sub-culture.

In this context, to demolish a building or part of a city is to erase representations of other practices, essentially unrecoverable histories of particular meanings. A study of the four historical forms of Helsinki South Harbour from 1640 to today indicates how one urban form—the neoclassical administrative center established by the Russian Empire—has dominated the “reading” of the area and how the other histories, attached to its role as a commercial and industrial focus, are being forgotten. By establishing the notion of cities as representations of urban practices, art historians can contribute to the survival of a variety of interpretations of cities in our memory.