Identity, Form, Aesthetics: Structuring the Urban Image

The city is the field where political, economic, scientific, cultural, and architectural instances are in constant interplay and structurally connected, thus, representing the conditions of the society and its material existence in spatial and morphological terms. In the works of critical thinkers such as Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, Manfredo Tafuri, Aldo Rossi, Fredrich Jameson, and others, the city was the testing ground of theories and ideas that have been formative for the construction of urban images, with which individuals identify themselves. The aim of this research is to develop a theory on the city's identity through the study of urban forms and their peculiarities, urban architectures, and the image they create. Through a mixed methodological design, the concept of identity will then be interpreted on a practical level by deciphering it in the context of the main urban centers in the nascent state of Kosova, focusing primarily on its capital city, Prishtina. Prishtina and other cities are used on account of their complex urban forms and architectures – their identity –layered in different time periods encompassing contemporary pre-modern, modern and postmodern features. The identity of the cities selected as case studies and their urban image will be studied and discussed by re- reading relevant urban plans and abstracting aspects such as ideology, form, and aesthetics, starting from the aftermath of World War II to the present day. In so doing, we will structure a narrative on the urban development of the cities in Kosova and present their urban portraits. Thus, this research contributes to the creation of a model through which we understand the identity of new cities and states to unfold the layers of multiple urbanities – forms, architectures, politics, and cultures – which constitute the identity.