City and man: research strategies in cultural discourse

The article attempts to systematize the methodological approaches that have developed in the cultural studies of the city, considering it as a space for the generation and functioning of meanings. Since the city’s semantic reality can only be addressed if there are various forms of interaction between it and the individual, it is this aspect that has become the key to identifying basic urban strategies. The first strategy, giving priority to the person, involves the exploration of the city as a created space. The following options for its implementation are the consideration of the individual as the meaning-generating principle of the city, the description of the imagery of the latter in the perceptions of its inhabitants, as well as an appeal to the phenomenon of “geniuses of place” capable of giving new meanings to the urban space. However, the second strategy proceeds from the recognition of the dominant role of the city in its relationship with man, which already implies a reference to the semantic foundations of his being, set by the structures of urban space, and, as a consequence, the consideration of the city dweller through his representation in images, types, projects.