space

A century of tourism in Europe. New challenges to the discipline of Urbanism

Tourism is one of the most important modern phenomena of the last hundred years. Not only for its economic
significance, but also by the changes it has produced in the city and the territory. Unfortunately, in many cases its economic success has exceeded the growth forecast, destroying what had been its raison d’être: the city.
Urban planning and architecture have participated in this process by showing their contempt with the physical
consequences of this slackness. The discipline seems not to have understood that we are in front of a major
phenomenon that needs its own tools to face these transformations. Nowadays, in the early twenty-first century, there are two different challenges: how to turn the tourist conglomeration in Southern European coast into a city, and how to include the matter of leisure in the postindustrial city debate.

Fissures on the Landscape. The Sandstone Quarries, Traces of the Heritage Landscape of Mallorca

The sandstone quarries are the commonest quarries in Mallorca. However, they have been always unknown
landscapes. This paper tries to offer a panoramic view of the sandstone quarries, tracking between different scales. First of all, the understanding of their territorial dimension on the island, proposing a new concept: the Quarries Territory, a landscape that allows the discovery of the quarries, only possible through the path that they offered, the differentiating aspect of each one. Afterwards, the memory and tradition that they have generated relate the elements of heritage which have emerged from them, so they are also part of cultural heritage and landscape of the island. They have become immobile transcribers of the landscape history that have generated, becoming true heritage archives of Mallorca. Finally, thinking in sandstone quarries as cultural landscapes will be obvious when the culture that generated them get back to appreciate the values described here. If this not happens, their future is predestined to disappear.

Urban Panorama Tourism Planning. A View from River Tour Course in Post-Three Gorges Era

The upstream cities of Yangtze River have been witnessing significant transforming since the beginning of the construction of the Three Gorges hydroelectric planet project. Chongqing Port Authority had its opportunity to alternate the river tourism strategy from being the upstream terminal of the golden route into creating a particular cruise course towards perceiving the panorama of continuous elevation of mountainous city, at the same time, promoting the renovation of the urban design so as to revival the typical mountain-river vista. This paper bases on the panoramic research of Chongqing peninsula; discusses the characteristic aspects of the three-dimension sightseeing of the mountainous city on the cruise route, which widely exists in the Three Gorges region as well. And this method is different from the two dimensional approach of skyline analysis which is more suitable for the topographic area. The achieved work can offer the tourism-related sectors a sustainable assistance to deal with “tourbanism” topics in the urban regeneration process in the Three Gorges regions.

Satellite Leisure in Linear Natural Reserves; A Planning Model for Tourism Resorts. Learnings from the GATCPAC Resting City

In this article we explain the landscape and legal resources that characterized the GATCPAC Resting and Vacation City (1931-38) of Barcelona – a never built project – with the aim of depicting a suitable model for other areas. This model, named as “satellite leisure on linear natural reserves”, departs from the premise of placing those settlements that are potentially aggressive to the landscape, such as tourist resorts, in protected zones. The model is specially thought for interior and natural tourism. In the article we will explain the objectives of the GATCPAC project, its characteristics and the relation between those characteristics and other contemporary urban models. After that, we will find out which parameters are still useful for the actual landscape paradigm, drawing up an extrapolation to the Catalan region.

Emerging Cross Border Tourism Region Macau-Zhuhai: Place in Play/Place to Play

This paper explores the new tourism region Macau-Zhuhai which is emerging in the south-western part of the Pearl River Delta (PRD). Since Macau’s handover to the People’s Republic of China in 1999, the former Portuguese enclave is becoming increasingly integrated into the PRD. Together with its mainland neighbor Zhuhai it is creating a bi-city region; although without coordinated planning. Currently, both cities embark on a first joint project encouraged by the Chinese Central Government on the island Hengqin. The paper is investigating the attempts of both cities to reinvent themselves as places to play and how they find themselves on the playing field of global and national forces. The paper ends with the suggestion of an alternative understanding of tourism and destinations which learns from spatial practices of a new generation of tourists in Asia.

 
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