Observing urban landscapes. View-points for the representation of contemporary city [abstract]

Through a sequence of images that runs in parallel to the text, the contribution proposes a reflection on the languages that allow the documentation of both the material and the ephemeral qualities of the contemporary city. Three visions of the urban spaces are proposed; three projections, three visions obtained from different points of view, from the sky or from the street. A first vision of the city, (concerns projections on the vertical plane), allows the reading of the endless production of Street Art, a language that conforms the urban space through its skin, the wall, producing opportunity for urban recycling and artistic production. The second visions of the city (concerns pro- jections on the orizontal plane), is the view from above: some photographers are interested in representing urban spaces through a point of view that seems almost to simulate the abstraction of an orthogonal projection: Andreas Gursky (Bangkok, Ocean), Yiorgis Yerolymbos (Orthographs), Andreas Gefeller (Supervisions). The third vision of the city (concerns the projection on the oblique plane), the photographic capture of urban episodes is kept walking across a medium-sized Italian city, taken as a case study. The languages of the Drawing and the Photography are proposed as irreplaceable means of expression and privileged places of experimentation in all phases of the knowledge of the architecture and the environment.