Policlastia – Una tipologia semiotica

If cities are conceived of as texts, can their meaning be thought of as something that may be totally erased? On the one hand, many civilizations have elaborated strategies for the annihilation of urban meaning; on the other hand, several cultures have shaped an imagery of total urban destruction. The purpose of cultural semiotics is therefore to analyze the structure of both these series of texts, in order to bring about a typology of “policlasms”: as probably nothing better than the study of iconoclasm reveals the main issues in the Christian conception of images, so probably nothing better than the study of “policlasm” reveals the cultural attitude of civilizations toward the idea of the city. Four semiotic types of policlasm are singled out. Two of them embody an internal point of view on the annihilation of urban meaning: the “catastrophic prophecy” (prediction of a destroyed city) and the “survivor’s report” (commemoration of a destroyed city). Two types of policlasm, on the opposite, embody an external point of view on the city: the “epopee of annihilation” (point of view of the conqueror) and the “apologue of the nomad” (point of view of the rejected ones). These four types of policlasm are exemplified with reference to texts from various civilizations. Such texts are semiotically analyzed in order to show what policlasms reveal on some essential features of urban meaning.