Abstract

Outskirts have been treated as empty places due to the special attention which is given to the city center. However, this does not mean a lack of identity. Each society has its own, unique landscape because it is the re ection of the collective imagination and the decisions of a social group. Owing to their common origin and parallel evolution, the cities of the southern metropolitan area of Madrid can be grouped as a unit.  is research will try to name a common identity: the landscape that represents them.

As well as context, self-perception and external representation (a dialogue with what is foreign) are the intervening factors in the process of building an identity.  ere are other agents generating space as well. Urban planners create conceived space, around which spatial practices revolve, the perceived space by city dwellers. In its own right, culture produces lived space through spaces of representation. Identity is found where the perceptions of the space-producing agents meet.

By analyzing the history of territory, grouping together veritable stories which mould a community and looking for the image that has been transmitted from the territory to other places, the aim is to name this identity, to form an image of the southern outskirts of Madrid, so that it can be revisited.  is image, like the perceptions that give shape to it, is dynamic and does not intend to represent an absolute truth but a reference, both in contents and in methodology.

 e multidisciplinary and open approach to diff erent narratives has been essential to draw up an honest and complete picture of the outskirts and to understand its plurality in terms of scale and scope.

Key words

Image_Territory_Representation_Metropolitan_Area

_Perception_Landscape