DIEGO DE ANGELIS

Urban Space as brand based Place. Visual representation of the brand versus emotional experience of the event

Tutor: Xavier Costa.The present thesis researches in what extend the visual representation of the brand is replaced by the spatial experience of the event. The aim of advertisement is no longer reduced to a representative image, yet brand identity is a feature to be experienced as well. The capitalist production of space is shifting from the fordist architecture of representation towards the postmodern event of brand-based experience. The aim of branding strategies is no longer reduced to reflect ideal images but rather to facilitate the individual’s self-realisation. Therefore the brand-based experience replaces the brand image in order to allow the emotional consumtion of space. The post-modern city generates a new topology of experience: the brand-based experience of place.

The thesis deals with the branding in a declining traditional city, which, at the same time, experiences a massive extension. In order to describe this phenomenon, the thesis uses information from the most important factors that explains the contemporary society, such as the economy, the sociology and the culture sciences.