Place-identity representation and assessment of historic urban landscapes

The historical urban landscapes are complex systems and are generally recognized as shared cultural heritage, not only monumental episodes of materialization of local culture but also subjects who, through their image and identity, need specific strategies of valorisation and fruition. Design of historical urban landscape includes methodologies, tools and techniques of intervention which have as field of application the system of cultural heritage intended in the cognitive, social and symbolic of a territory and a community: from traditional, artistic, demographic, anthropological, monumental and environmental heritage to territorial and urban systems and the intangible cultural heritage, such as knowledge, practices and intangible expressions and the new contemporary cultural heritage such as places of culture and events. Representation of historical environments, according to their typological components (landscape, architecture, textures, materials, and colors), is devised to encourage a strategy of valorisation. Explanation of landscapes’ values through its benchmarking, consists of several mapping actions: from modelling to environment representation and visualization. This paper presents a strategic process based on local character assessment through a place-visualizing toolkit from environment and color representation to design coding.