Image beyond the form. Representing perception of urban environment

Perception, awareness and appreciation of the built environment are essential skills in urban representation and design. Among the different perceptual dimensions, the visual, or more precisely the visual-aesthetic dimension is the field that better expresses its potential in representation. The study, in an analytical-applicative perspective, addresses the reading of the relationship between forms and uses, symbols and meanings of an urban public space characterized by a recent transformation. The architectural stratifications and practices of use lead to the definition of space, in its tangible and intangible components. In this regard the analysis of the historical drifts, traced back through images and drawings, help us to make visible the mutations and the processes helpful to understand and describe its actual order. The aim of the research is to investigate the visual dimension of an urban space, both in its material and immaterial connotations, and its relationship with the stratified or new uses, explored by multiple and diversified tools of urban representation.