ABSTRACT

In this article, I demonstrate my visual-material approach to researching the urban built environment as a medium of communication in its own right. Specifically, I discuss my research on second-tier cities with “world-class” aspirations, which highlights the significance of both symbolic and material resources in processes of urban regeneration and redevelopment. A visual-material approach draws not only from social semiotics and multimodality, but also from critical and material rhetoric to engage with the ways in which increasingly widespread “formats” of urban regeneration and redevelopment are mobilized to transform the urban built environment in the service of a globally appealing aesthetic. In doing so, this is also an approach that illuminates the dialectical relationship between cities’ perceived necessity to appear competitive on a heavily mediatized global stage and to intervene on their landscape in ways that mediate the everyday lives of urban communities in lasting ways.

摘要

在本文中，我演示了自己的视觉材料方法，以研究城市建筑环境作为一种传播媒介。具体来说，我讨论了我对具有“世界级”愿望的二线城市的研究，该研究突出了符号资源和物质资源在城市更新和重建过程中的重要性。视觉材料的方法不仅从社会符号学和多模式的角度出发，而且还从批判性的和物质的措辞中汲取灵感，以动员日益广泛的城市更新和再开发“形式”来为城市建设服务而改变城市建筑环境的方式。具有全球吸引力的美学。在这样做，