VISUAL SEMIOTIC ASSESSMENT OF STREET FAÇADE: CASE STUDY OF HERITAGE PRECINCTS OF INDIAN CITIES

Abstract

Towns with historic significance provide evidence of cultural and architectural evolution of that community over time. Conservation of these towns is important to protect this historical, cultural and architectural heritage. View-scape have an important role to play in order to have an understanding of these historic environment in towns and cities. There are several studies on perceived quality of urban environment that try to establish harmonious relationship between architecture of these view-scape that include streetscape and landmarks, and people around it. In Indian context, several studies and research focus on the appearance of monuments from streets of heritage precincts, establishing the view- scape for these monuments. But there is a need to analyse the views not only from the streets but of streets as well, to sustain the cultural as well as the architectural identity of a city. These streets are constantly threatened by surrounding urban development which disturbs the traditionally framed views. This study attempts to fill that gap by studying the architectural elements of these street facades that give the city its identity in present scenario. The aim of the study is to investigate visual identity of street façade of historic Indian cities, according to the perception of users of the place. The major objectives of the study are to conduct user preference survey to evaluate architecture of the street façade of heritage precincts, to prioritise the architectural elements of these street façades by semiotic analysis and validate it by user testing through eye tracking as a part of the analysis. And then finally to establish a visual identity of these historic cities for the users according to their visual perception and preference. To achieve these objectives, the study uses semiotic tools to analyse the architectural elements of street facade of the study area. The study takes case of two Indian cities, Jaipur and Lucknow, with rich historic, cultural and architectural background and the characteristics of architecture of the heritage area with high footfall are studied. In these cities architectural style still exists in its pure form in heritage precincts and also has been evolving with time in other parts of the same city. The outcomes include one visual palette of identity design for each city, user preference of architectural elements and the detail methodology for visual image identification. These findings may support the policy framework that enhances the visual image of the city.