Representation of urban image in the information age: A case study of Galata

Abstract

Advances in information technology have led to the definition of a new era, called the information age. Information technologies bring changes to urban life in both physical and intellectual level. Moreover, Information and communication technologies have changed the city's definition, formation, and perception in many ways.The first section of this thesis examines how the information technology revolution affected urban life, and how it had led to the emergence of new urban theories. Theoretical studies are presented in this section; in particular, issues such as digital city, e-city, informational city, sentient city. Many thinkers, sociologists, urbanists, architects, such as Manuel Castells, William J. Mitchell, Christine Boyer, and their works are examined. Such studies play a role in determining the theoretical framework of the study, and clarifying issues about the breakdowns of urban information technology. Then, to build a theoretical framework for the proposal, an extended study about the city image and visual continuity is accomplished.The second part consists of the visual representation of urban environment. In this chapter, urban and architectural representation tools and interfaces are analyzed. Definitions of notions such as maps, mapping and cartography are given, as well as technological changes occurring in the field of cartography is discussed. The emergence of new technologies related to urban representation are examined. Geographic information systems, Internet maps, GPS, geo-tagging, 3D visualisations, mobile technologies and topics such as virtual and augmented reality are among the tools that represent urban information. These tools are introduced in this chapter and near future scenarios are discussed. Then, extended information about interactive city guides will be given and various types of interactive city guides, available through internet or mobile devices are investigated.In the last section of the study, a mobile interactive city guide consisting of two phases are proposed, for the region of Galata in İstanbul: these phases are the interactive mobile city guide and augmented reality application. This proposal study is based on the previous research conducted on the urban image and visual continuity. The proposal is an interface design for the urban image of Galata according to Lynch?s urban image analysis and AR visualization studies according to the voyeur/walker concepts of de Certeau.