The 11th International Symposium on Advanced Technology (ISAT-Special) Toward 2050 and Beyond Innovative Technology for Sustainable

Societies. Tuesday, October 30, 2012. Hachioji Campus, Tokyo, Japan

EKO NURSANTY Department of Architecture University of 17 Agustus 1945 (UNTAG) Semarang, Indonesia.

In thinking about tourism it is difficult to ignore landscape. Touring takes place in a place Place has a particular meaning, indicating a site which is meaningful, either in itself or because of the memories, feelings and emotions we bring to it.

Tourism activity

Take place to place

Sense of place

The importance of place as opposed to space, the role that the geographic imagination plays, the way in which the spirit of a site, its genius loci, converts a place into a destination are all critical questions for tourism studies, and all questions which draw directly upon theories of landscape. (J.B. Jackson,1980)

Place

Geographic imagination

Destination

Spirit of space

Space

The land as landscape, that shaped by both natural and human factors.

Landscape Natural

Human Factors Lands

Cultural geography is the cultures manifestations upon the land, is the true object of human geography, which aims at explaining areal differentiation. The positioning of culture as it shaped and was shaped by the physical world as synonymous with human geography inspired an attention to landscape. (Hettner, 1963)

Culture upon the Land

Culture upon the Land

Cultural Geography

Culture upon the Land

Culture upon the land

The meaning(s) of any object in the world is multivalent, richly contextual and our understanding and unraveling of these meanings is best explained by sign theory

This act of meaning making, the linkage between mind and world, and belief and action is the subject of this research which treats this process in the context of the tourist experience of culture within the urban landscape

Contributions towards the understanding of tourism, offers a theoretical framework for understanding the way in which meaning is educed from the built environment.

Cultural norm Social norm

Landscapes

societis

It brings to bear core geographic understanding of landscape and place meaning to the interdisciplinary field of tourism studies in an investigation of tourism practices in urban areas.

Place

Landscape

It offers insight into the ways in which the banal and the monumental, the quotidian and the touristic play out in the context of urban tourism by proposing the concept of the tourist prosaic, a hybrid understanding of the spaces in the city which matter to tourists.

Cities are not simply open air museums, repositories of art and heritage, but are the sites of home and work for the large populations that reside there or in the surrounding suburbs. Cities accommodate industry, offices, stores, residences, hospitals, places of worship, and all the infrastructural trappings from waste disposal to satellite towers that make life possible in the contemporary city. They can be cacophonous, claustrophobic, liberating and overwhelming. The functional aspect of cities makes touring a complex endeavor that entails the tourist to be able to make sense of the landscape.

Borobudur temple is built to represent many layers of Buddhist theory. From a birds eye view, the temple is in the shape of a traditional Buddhist mandala. A mandala is central to a great deal of Buddhist and Hindu art, the basic form of most Hindu and Buddhist mandalas is a square with four entry points, and a circular centre point. Working from the exterior to the interior, three zones of consciousness are represented, with the central sphere representing unconsciousness or Nirvana.

The phenomenal world, the world inhabited by common people. This base level of Borobudur has been covered by a supporting foundation, so is hidden from view. A corner of the covering base has been permanently removed to allow visitors to see the hidden foot, and some of the reliefs. See image to the right.

The transitional sphere, in which humans are released from worldly matters.
The four square levels of Rapadhatu contain galleries of carved stone reliefs, as well as a chain of niches containing statues of Buddha. In total there are 328 Buddhas on these balustraded levels which also have a great deal of purely ornate reliefs .

The highest sphere, the abode of the gods.

The three circular terraces leading to a central dome or stupa represent the rising above the world, and these terraces are a great deal less ornate, the purity of form is paramount.

the focus upon the interaction of humans and environment served as a counter to the environmentally deterministic views

the positioning of culture as it shaped and was shaped by the physical world as synonymous with human geography inspired an attention to landscape

It is the analytical notion of cultural landscape as uncovered through detailed field work as well as archival studies, drawing upon a myriad of sources to understand the look of the land, and the necessity of being versed in the nature and culture of a place which allows for an understanding to be formed by the researcher who is usually in the role of outsider.

landscape method demonstrates three things:

1.

2.

3.

Looking is important, and not just looking and seeing, but looking and interpreting the large scene and the small details up close, immersing oneself into the picture, providing a multi-sensual experience, a kinesthetic engagement with the landscape. Important information is to be gleaned about a culture from investigating the vernacular elements of the landscape, both the sublime and the unsightly front lawns and strip malls in America for example and in many cases it is the vernacular elements that will tell you more than the large scale symbolic sites; Landscape is a much broader term than the way it is presented in the Sauerian sense, rather it can include an examination of the garage or the front lawn as well as an entire community and while the physical aspects are important it is the human elements which are rich in interpretive possibilities.

Landscape scholars have long been interested in the association between culture and the built environment, but this is not necessarily the case for the average person. The ways in which people make sense of the landscapes they find themselves in, through observation, through conversation and through photography.

the interviews and images give voice to the complex interaction between expectation and experience and the interpretive process which is undertaken when the tourist is faced with the materiality of the city.