In the studies of social memory of cities I came across the following assertive: It's not only human beens that have an identity and build nets of simbolyc meanings on objects but also a culture does the same. In this line one can say places have a culture, taken from the memory. (Jan Assman)

Hi Shikhar,

You might find bits in my thesis of interest:

http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/6557

My shorter thoughts:

Culture acts as an empty container for many 'things' - the things created by humans. Culture is shaped by space, time and context – as porous and elastic boundaries of transience and transcendence. Understanding the lenses used to make sense of reality [culture] - who, where, how, and why are crucial. Or in other words, understanding the culture of Culture(s), culturing it/them, and being cultured.

(^_

@Shikhar,

Culture is product of humans. It includes both tangible and intangible aspects of human creation. For example, from dams, canals, settlements, pottery, buildings etc. all are a few tangible aspect of culture, a few example of intangible aspect of culture or religion, ideology, language, caste, state or nation state boundaries which are difficult to conceptualise as a spatial concept etc. However, culture over space, its origin and diffusion are always examined from a historical perspective.

Naturally, culture existed in physical space and give meanings and images to it. Sacred spaces, personal space, sex space etc. are a few example. Physical space is also produced and modified by culture depending how a culture takes physical space and things within it.

To some, it is an object of human labour, to some it is resource field, to some some parts are sacred, to some it is like geometric space to some it has capricious surface. it all depends on cultural background of a group, community and society.

You can find very fascinating ideas on this topic in the book of E.T. Hall: Hidden Dimensions

Thank you all for your perceptions.. :) it would be great to get some more..

Very interesting question. For a sociologist as me, culture is the whole background where a net of mutual expectations that links individuals and groups. Culture, as a background, is some kind of "air" that involves everything, also the space.

An interesting derivation of that idea: environment only can be correctly understood with the "special specie" (and its special features) inside.

Marialuce,

Do you think pyramids, Taj Mahal, Mayan temples and other ghost or abandoned by a community are not cultural places. Cultural places of dead communities are source of considerable amount of exchequers in several countries.

@ Shikhar,

For your interest I am giving below a reference from Indian and western perspective:

Tamil Geographies- Cultural Constructions of Space and Place in South India

Edited by Martha Ann Selby and Indira Viswanathan Peterson

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

One would define culture and its relation with physical spaces- by a) the value that the people of the culture assign to the space. b) its entrenchment in their collective memory c)any significant impact the space has had upon the formation, or destruction, of the culture.

Marialuce,

Very true, but do you think that cultures which produced them are still alive as they were then?

I also think that Taj Mahal is a Muslim legacy and heritage in India. Do the existing situation will change, we are living in a democracy then was monarchy.

Have you put the wheel of industrialisation in Europe backward. New economy, new society, new needs have given birth to new ideas of town planning and architecture. In Greek and Roman era, grandeur, extravagant use of space were important elements of architecture. Now compactness and functionality are important elements even in low density Europe. I don't think that except a few majority of European is not living in even villas or castles.

In the studies of social memory of cities I came across the following assertive: It's not only human beens that have an identity and build nets of simbolyc meanings on objects but also a culture does the same. In this line one can say places have a culture, taken from the memory. (Jan Assman)

Naturally, it is human memory that preserves importance of places over centuries. But, this memory is related with customs and traditions associated with that place, if these customs and traditions are removed there may, in no time, any cultural value of that place remain in human memory/consciously. Latter, either revived through customs and traditions or to make a place of cultural significance by an induce forged mass memory.

Last day I was reading about the pyramid of the last emperor of the Mayans. On the upper slab of his stone coffin are engraved certain pictures. A picture has been of considerable controversy, according to some the picture depicts that the king is going inside the Earth, while a clearer picture and its three dimensional replica shows that the king is traveling in the space craft with comfort and has an instrument to take air/oxygen.

Do you believe living Mayan community has the slightest idea of the spaceship or interstellar traveling which even we [present humanity] could not reach.

Anyhow, to me my field is a cultural place which was reclaimed from bushes, tree bunches etc. by my ancestors, i oil on that piece of land and get my food from it, it has great cultural and survival significance to me and its memory is alive in mind wherever I may be.

A city does not embody a material memory in the way a USB-stick, a written account or an archive does. It is not a medium of cultural memory (Assman, 1992). There are of course structures that are built with the intention to retain a specific memory of the past, such as memorials, museums, monuments and archives The city as a whole, however, does not remember. Only in exchange with an individual or a group of people, can an urban artifact support a performance of memory. This is always a process in the present and never a perfect rendering of the past. These urban elements are not media that transmit a fixed meaning, but rather auratic contact zones that enable a production of meaning

The city is a complex amalgamation of numerous phenomena, based on a multiplicity of dynamic interactions. Due to an increase in density, an almost continuous cooperation between the inhabitants occurs often resulting in socio-economic improvement. Considering the constant development of living standards- infrastructure, production and consumption -the city and urbanisation should generally be regarded as something positive without thereby disguising problems of social inequality and violence. This is of importance as in just a few decennia eighty percent of the world’s population will be living in urbanised areas resulting in a single, global city.

Of course, the cultural dimension of the city as a whole, which also includes symbols and rituals, has rarely been identified by science. Sociologists and geographers have investigated the city thoroughly and frequently characterised cities as a whole, but they have ignored the symbolic dimension and its interpretation. Anthropologists, on the other hand, have a lot of attention for symbols and rituals, but are hardly concerned with the city and especially not the city as a whole.

During the last decades this situation has improved. Within the general field of urban studies, urban anthropology has attracted more and more attention. One of the major contemporary tendencies in urban anthropology is urban symbolic ecology. It pursues the study of the cultural dimension of the city, oriented towards establishing the distribution and meaning of symbols and rituals in relation to the cultivated surroundings. No doubt central to this, is the process of social production and consumption of symbolism and ritual. Rituals are recurrent standardised deeds within the framework of the construction of meaning. A symbol, in contrast to a sign, is something that refers to something else; it bears extrinsic values.

Urban symbolic ecology is rooted in human ecology and especially the research of the Chicago School, which among others focused on the description and analysis of the distribution of social phenomena over urban space. Classic is the study of Burgess on Chicago, projecting a number of concentric circles on this city to specify the differences in status, ethnicity and urbanization characteristics of the population. In urban symbolic ecology, this approach is applied to symbols and rituals and several case studies have resulted in interesting and complex types of urban symbolic patterns. Urban anthropological studies of symbolism are also indebted to the work of Kevin

Lynch in The Image of the City (1960). This influence is twofold. Lynch coins three concepts in this study of American towns, namely identity (distinguishing the urban elements from each other), structure (showing the pattern of identified elements) and meaning of urban elements, in order to get to grips with the perceived reality and imageability of cities. He strongly disregards meaning, however, because he considers it too personal and also too diverse to yield systematic results. In contrast to Lynch’s opinion, but the meaning is a crucial concept in the study of urban symbolism. It is also unfortunate the town planners could apply Lynch’s perception of pattern to lines and nodes no more than that. However, every city dwellers has an image meaning of city, its structure, nodes, lines special spaces, one can make out meaning and image and find out symbols if has opportunity to read diaries of elderly who had the habit of diary writing. Further, an outsider or immigrant comes with meaning and image of the city in mind, sometimes conforming and sometimes contrasting.

I don’t think people are going to buy a scientific approach to city culture, city structure etc. To them zones and enclaves do not create meanings, images, symbols etc. in their memory unless interactions take place. It is why wandering tribes generally if not compelled by economic compulsion of survival, generally are ready to a place because they are attached to it; they cannot get rid of its symbols, meaning and image.

Please read twice:

Peter J.M. Nas (ed.), Cities Full of Symbols- A Theory of Urban Space and Culture, Leiden University Press, 2011.

Not sure it will help, but if you could look at the epistemology of culture / geography, you can start with Carl Sauer 'The Morphology of Landscapes', which started ideas about cultural landscapes and cultural geography. In a nuthshell, this article takes away the burden of determinism to focus on a more 'human' approach to culture.

Along the same lines, there is the French author, Vidal de la Blache.

Just look into anything from cultural geography it can maybe bring a new perspective. Check out Denis Cosgrove, Stephen Daniels and Don Mitchell.

Here's a short article I've just written on linking different levels/units of culture

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254258462_Why_culture_matters_in_marketing_and_where

Article Why culture matters in marketing and where?

In terms of proximity, culture does play a role even within a country. Please refer to Edward T, Hall on culture, time and proxemics. Proxemics, the study of man's spatial relations,¨¨.

Culture is definable as a variable system of principles applicable to a given space and capable of generating tangible and intangible structures within that space.