"The Lettered City" by Angel Rama is an eloquent texts on the deployment of European symbolic structures to construct material replicas of European cities in 16th century South America. Ramas work relates to Baudriallard's orders of representation and to Wally's idea of conceptual transport acoss media. A couple of quotes:
"Before their appearance as material entities, cities had to be constructed as symbolic representations. Therefore, the permanence of the whole depended on the immutability of signs themselvess - on words that transmitted the will to build the city in accordance with stipulated norms."
The conquerors stil aserted territorial claims through rituals impregnated with magic, but noe ethey required a writer of some sort (scribe, notary, chronicler) to cast their foundational acts in the form of imperishable signs."
Over the framework provided by linguistic discourse, the (city) planners stretched the canvas of graphic design. Not subject to the semantic multiplicity of words, this second layer of signs surpassed the virtue of the first as an instrument of planning."
David Mc
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