The contemporary city is historic: morphological studies in the digital age

Abstract

The progress of technology in the digital age has favoured urban studies, as it has generated increasingly refined tools and methods in the comprehension of urban phonemena, such as geoprocessing techniques in GIS (Geographic Information System) platforms. The excessive and unmeasured expansion of information in urban studies elicits reflextions on metholodogical instruments in the digital age. Based on the assumption that the contemporary city is historic, and therefore, a material accumulation of past idealisations, we aim to highlight the relevance of associating morphological analysis and the theoretical framework of urban history with digital cartography, as a means to understand the contemporary city in its complexity, recognizing its historicity throught its urban process. To demonstrate the potential in associating digital cartography in GIS platform with the classic approaches in urban morphology, the city of Rio de Janeiro’s Central Area was chosen as an empirical object of study, selecting cases that accentuate the traces of incomplete propositions of the last century, in order to reflect  on the possibilitied of digital age cartography in decoding the tangled desires that brought about the palimpsest that structures this part of the city.