An Information System and Urban Art Signaling

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present a proposal for a system of information and signage focused on urban public art. This project has been carried out as a part of Universitat de Barcelona’s Degree on Urban Design. The system was conceived as a whole in the continuity of city space, although D. Pedro IV square (Rossio), in Lisbon (Portugal) has been chosen as the study area.

The system provides a network of information articulated in three levels of approximation (virtual and physical) to artwork in the public space:

Bus and Underground orientation subsystems: These subsystems provide information in the communicative space of public transport (underground and buses), linked with existing information systems and supplementing them. These subsystems provide information at some distance from artwork, placed in resident’s and tourist’s approximation route towards the local site.

The information system application is concretized by maps which inform and orientate throughout the space.

Local identification subsystem: This subsystem provides information in situ. This system’s device consists on small informational plaques inserted in the pavement, which allow the immediate identification of the works of art. This subsystem performs essentially the function of identification.

Virtual Subsystem: This subsystem is based on the development of a public art information website, linked with the other physical subsystems. In spite of not being developed in the present work, this site will show artistic and historical detailed information as well as maps, thematic tour routes, etc.

These three levels of the urban art Information and Signage System can function in an autonomous way, in spite of their  complementarities and the existing linkage between them. They will provide integrated information routes which can be followed in various directions.