Roughness: unveilings to tourism urbanization and built heritage

Abstract

This paper discusses the concept of “roughness” as the driving principle in the analysis of the relationship between tourism development and built cultural heritage. It’s a theoretical reflection of an exploratory and descriptive nature that aims at synthesizing existing knowledge while providing new interpretative and analytical guidelines. Working from previous studies it was possible to identify the dialectics of the relationship between cultural heritage and tourism development with perspectives centering on two classification categories, their intrinsic value and their market value. The study presents a re-think of the concepts of roughness and heritage used in urban planning aimed at re-interpreting urban space for tourism, re-appraising their possible application to heritage sites in the city. The results may open up new perspectives for urban planning and roughness and balance out the advantages and disadvantages of re-working the city space for tourism.