Icsc 2006

Focusing on the relationship between built environmental characteristics and environmental preference, the present study aims to investigate the expressed aesthetic preference toward different architectural styles of buildings in reference to how old they are. The graph model of Mallot (2000) assumes that the main issue relative to the spatial behaviour refers to the relationship between type of memory and perception: the complex movement plans (Gärling et al. 1984) are based on landmarks and require the activity of long term and declaratory memory as well as snapshot that are compared with the real vision. According to the literature on the cognitive maps (Lynch 1960; Evans et al. 1984; O’Neill 1991; Golledge 1992, 1999; Holding 1994; Kearney and Kaplan 1997; Allen 1999), Mallot’s study confirms the importance of buildings in the orientation. The meanings associated to the building are manifold: i.e. aesthetical (Stamps 2000; Nasar 1994), of pleasure (Hildebrand 1999) or regional identity (Grauman 1978): they permit a function of orientation as well as a decisional frame based on individual preferences. Moreover the architectural-urbanistic aspects relative to the ‘‘visualized space’’ (i.e. aesthetic aspects, spaciousness and size) can be considered as indexes of Perceived Environmental Quality (Bonaiuto et al. 2002). Starting from these studies we aim to deepen the psychological-social content of the preference for buildings of one’s own city. We hypothesize that more ancient buildings could result more pleasant than more recent ones: in particular (cfr.