In urban design we talk constantly about places: we design them, we narrate them, we regenerate them. Yet behind this apparently simple word lies a concept that is far denser than everyday practice tends to acknowledge. A place is not just any space: it is the phenomenological field where events, perceptions, memories and material forms intertwine in a balance that is often fragile and always in transformation. Understanding it means equipping ourselves with more refined tools to read and design the contemporary city (Sepe, 20213).
According to Christian Norberg-Schulz (1980), place is the space in which events occur: not a neutral container, but a concrete reality within which human beings dwell in the world. It is no coincidence that he speaks of genius loci, the “spirit of place”, as an intrinsic character, an atmosphere that derives as much from materials and morphology as from the meanings people attach to them. For designers, this is an invitation to conceive place as a complex entity, irreducible to its physical dimension alone.
Along similar lines, Georges Perec (1997) reminds us that places are not given: they must be won. Space is a “doubt”, an open field that becomes meaningful only through practices, signs, habits, narratives. The moment we consider a place as “obvious”, we stop grasping its deeper sense. This is a valuable perspective for urban design, especially when working on everyday or marginal spaces, where experiential quality emerges more from patterns of use than from formal design.
A crucial contribution also comes from Berque (1999), who distinguishes between the material and the phenomenological dimensions of place. Every place is at once topos – measurable, comparable – and khôra – immaterial, qualitative, non-commensurable. This duality poses a fundamental challenge: design has to operate on both levels, combining morphological analysis, perceptual inquiry and symbolic interpretation. Neglecting one means either reducing place to a mere object or dissolving it into pure narrative.
From a more explicitly urban planning perspective, Patsy Healey (2010) emphasises that place acquires meaning when people infuse it with value, assigning it a role within “the flows of their lives”. It therefore does not coincide with an administrative boundary or simply with a cluster of buildings: it is the weave of relationships, practices and atmospheres that makes us feel we are somewhere. For urbanists, this reinforces the idea that design should be understood as the construction of relational capacities, and not just of forms.
Historically, place has also been a key architectural and symbolic element. Aldo Rossi (1984) recognised in the locus a foundational value: sites deliberately chosen and invested with cultural meaning, where images, memories and built forms sediment over time. The piazzas painted by Renaissance masters, he observed, fix a place in a single moment that is at once unique and universal. Place thus becomes an archive of collective memory, a symbolic device, a persistent structure even through radical material transformations.
At the same time, places are sensory systems. The urban image, as Kevin Lynch (1960) teaches, emerges from the interaction of identity, structure and meaning: landmarks, paths, edges, nodes and districts form the grammar through which we recognise and inhabit the city. Smells, sounds, materials, light and shadow all contribute to the construction of character, often more than functions or regulations do. Urban design that ignores perception risks producing technically “correct” spaces that are nonetheless devoid of atmosphere.
Place, however, is not only perception: it is also identity. As Edward Relph (1976) points out, there is a fundamental distinction between identity of (the intrinsic identity of a place, made of permanences and character) and identity with (people’s identification with that place). Place identity is a negotiated process, made up of narratives, shared memories, symbols and conflicts. It is not a fixed image or a purely aesthetic attribute: it is a dynamic gradient, a flow that changes as societies, economies and behaviours evolve.
This is where Marc Augé’s (1995) notion of the non-place becomes relevant: airports, highways, shopping malls, hotel chains and transit spaces are environments with little rootedness, identity or stable relationships. But place and non-place are not rigid opposites: they often overlap and transform into one another. Even the most anonymous spaces can acquire relational value, while historic places can lose significance if reduced to mere backdrops.
In the age of global networks, Manuel Castells (1989) adds another layer: the “space of flows”, a dimension in which organisational logic is placeless, while material elements remain anchored somewhere. This tension saturates many contemporary urban transformations: neighbourhoods designed to attract global flows risk losing alignment with local needs; conversely, peripheral places may find new centralities through immaterial forms of connection.
What does all this mean for placemaking practice? First, we need to recognise that place is a total phenomenon, made of forms, practices, memories, symbols, perceptions and relationships. Second, we must adopt an approach that is sensitive to social complexity: designing implies understanding “who lives where, what they do, what they want”, as Healey suggests. Finally, we need to accept that identity is not a heritage to be preserved in a museum-like way, but a process to be carefully supported.
Augè, M. (1995), Non-places: An introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, London, Verso
Berque, A., Conan, M., Donadieu, P., Lassus, B., et Roger, A. (1999) Mouvance. Cinquante mots pour le paysage. Paris, Éditions de la Villette
Castells M. (1989) The informational city, Blackwell, Oxford.
Healey, P. (2010) Making Better Places, Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Lynch, K. (1960) The image of the city, Mit Press Cambridge, Mass
Norberg-Schulz C. (1980), Genius Loci, Rizzoli, New York
Perec G. (1997) Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, London, Penguin
Relph, E. 1976 Place and Placelessness. London,Pion
Rossi, A. (1984) The Architecture of the city, Mit Press, Cambridge, Mass
Sepe, M. (2013) Planning and Place in the City, Routledge, London, New York