Cities, like any other forms of human settlements and like works of art, are in constant flux, a process of shaping and reshaping, of being erased, demolished, newly designed, renovated, and preserved. Like a canvas on which marks of artistic activities—lines, scratches, stains of colors, and spots—are visually documented, the urban landscapes accumulate and display through their particular structures, planning, architecture, parks, and public monuments histories of urban creativity and imagined landscapes of inhabitants. Thus could be read both the plethora of built substances that turns a space into a place and the markers of remembering and forgetting. Sites epitomize durations and changes and embody a sense of time.
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