The Chromatic Project as a proposal to reappraise the Urban Image. Co-management experience between the Municipal Government and the University

Abstract

The contemporary city is expressed in the building of complex scenarios, and thus inhabitants find it more and more difficult to represent, understand or signify it. In this context, color, textures, cesias and other components of urban language become essential in the structuring of the physical environment and in the construction of memorable spaces.The traditional perception and familiarity with the public space is replaced by new experiences that bring about new ways of communication and experimentation. It is therefore necessary to recover a coherence principle which allows the construction of a contemporary urban reality and its all-embracing image. (Améndola, 2000).The public management of towns sets as an objective the search for specific urban instruments with the aim of reinforcing local identity.Within the Institute of Color of the Faculty of Architecture, Town Planning and Design of the National University of Córdoba a proposal is shaped up to reappraise the image of the public space in the micro-area ?Center West? in the city of Villa Carlos Paz. The municipal management, with the participation of the university and neighbors, works towards the reappraisal of the image expression of this area, mainly by means of chromatic design of facades and other language components to foster in residents experiences of belonging, remembrances and construction of the sense of urban living. Concerning this and taking into account the landscape and the architectural, urban, touristic and commercial values that distinguish the hilly village, the chromatic project sets out a palette of colors with a clear aim to contributing to the reinforcement of the area?s identity. In this way, the urban color plays the role of a leading instrument that structures and defines the environment allowing the residents to signify if and in time make it their own.