Unlocking the City with Context Keys

The human memory is so powerful that a place on pavement suddenly can trigger a stream of imagery from the distant past, or a meaningful story of something that once happened there. We should champion such keys to the context of a place.

Some argue that tall buildings disrupt architectural scale and cause potential environmental and climate change impacts (Image in Brisbane, Australia, Charles R. Wolfe)

When discussing the appearance of a city, particular urban issues, or profiling a specific place, the variations in individual perception and understanding should not be lost. Differences in place experience are based on a variety of focal points, including landscapes, icons, emblems, symbols, and context clues within ready perception. In sum, they explain why a place looks and feels to us like it does today.

Those same signs may point to what we might now miss but can be revived, along with arrival stories of familiarity-”this reminds me of.” In my new book Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character, I relate Paris-based artist Cadine Navarro’s powerful familiarity-based method for how to paint an urban place. Stakeholders, too, can fasten on feelings of familiarity and analyze how things they have seen before look and feel in a different place. The comfort of familiarity can win votes and sell books, art, or dwellings.