'The Mistakes of the Past '? Visual Narratives of Urban Decline and Regeneration

Paul Long and David Parker's, analysis of the emergence of modernity within the architectural structures of a vanishing postmodern city, reveals that architecture embodies a form of relativism which is firmly established within the authors' nostalgic memories of a bygone past. They argue that a form of propaganda, is responsible for the transition in change, from the past to the present, where visual imaginery in the form of billboard posters, fortify and inform people of the change. The approach of modernity, with its emphasis on architectural redevelopment and the demolition of standardised, postmodern, concrete structures, is described as a 'liberation of the pedestrian from the tyranny of the motor vehicle'.

This is a modernist view of change, which the authors' disagree with. Through the analysis of the past and present they identify how visual imagiery has informed people of such changes. The public discussions occur through the use of public relations, where debate within the public sphere is encouraged before the actual building of such structures. They make an interesting distinction between postmodern structures of the city, with new modern visual imagery that depict the emergence of modernity by the visual rhetoric of animated plans that 'dramatize the alleged failures of the recent past' and a modernist argument that the imagery depicts a 'hope in the spatial transfiguration' where architectural information through visual rhetoric is used as propaganda to highlight finished developments and planned demolition of postmodern structures that show failings of the past, are tranformed into modern spaces.

They describe this process as 'urban imagery' the planning and destruction of a postmodern age. The use of such visual imagery, according to the authors', is an important aspect of the change that allows the inhabitants to play an important role within the decision-making process, which is either met with acceptance or resistance. Furthermore, such visualisation of modernity is not just restricted to the visual imagery that portrays change, but also through the planning process where reflexion of changes and visualisation of plans emerge, before they are committed to visual imagery that promote the change. This utopian vision for the creation of modernity can easily be compared to the urban development of 19th century, Paris, where the city was completely rebuilt, its postmodern structures demolished and replaced by pristine, modern, and practical architecture that celebrated modernity. It is interesting that Paris's architectural structure stll remains postmodern today.

The replacement of postmodern is not just restricted to the modernisation of architecture, but through the depiction of modernist visual imagery in the form of new art structures and European influence of retail environments. These new structures within modernity, cater for a consumerist demand for the 'new'.


'Commerce depends on the free flow of pedestrians consuming imported goods within vehicle-less shopping enclaves. The eyes of the consumer, the tourist, the potential property developer and the portfolio architect must be seduced by the urban skyline.'