Abstract

City as a text is a complex network of cultural codes which provide reading of city for people. By this explanation, this text can investigate and analyze through semiotics approach. Exploring shows that the trends which happened after capitalism and modernism, have had influence on this text and decontextualized from its textual layers, so changing in role of signs happened (sign is an analytical media for analyzing the text). In other words, signs in modern and capitalized city, is not a cultural sign and readable ones for observers. There are only functional signs or maybe symbolic ones. Baudrillard named this changing as economic-political theory of signs. So signs decade to their lowest functions and therefore the lowest level of meaning perceived, which lead to suspending and plurality of meaning for observers. Urbanscape is the first scene which human perceived and observed when faced with the city. Therefore, urbanscape chose for analysis in this article. Defining the influential factors, which decontextualize from urbanscape, is the main goal of this research. For achieving the goal, first investigating the concepts and defining the theoretical framework done, then major urbanscape of Karaj explored as the case study. For this goal, new constructions, which decontextualize from the text (urbanscape), are considered. This analysis based on semiotic approach and economic-political theory of sign. Results shows that emphasis on functional and symbolic dimension of signs and economic and political trends lead to constructions with no compatibility to textual layers of urbanscape which make problems in readability and perception of it.