Introduction:What Landmarks Are, and Why They Are Important - Landmarks: GIScience for Intelligent Services

Geography Reference

In-Depth Information

are spatially related does not require this to be so. Non-reference points are more

likely to be defined in terms of their relation to reference points than vice versa,

and the judged distance from a reference point to a non-reference point may not be

equal to the same distance judged in the reverse direction”. Landmarks, to be used as

points of reference, must be objects that are relatively better known than the other

objects in their neighborhood. In this regard, Appleyard [ 1 ] , the urban designer,

had already postulated: “We have to go beyond Lynch's identification of known

urban element types. We must determine the reasons why these elements are known

which means discovering the attributes that capture attention and hold a place in the

inhabitant's mental representation of his city” (p. 131). But generally in urban design

and architecture the notion of landmarks is restricted to the build environment, or

more precisely buildings, and falls too short for the purpose of catching human

mental spatial representations or, correspondingly, intelligent spatial systems.

1.1.4

An Artificial Intelligence Approach

Prototypes allow an ostensive capture of the meaning of a category, i.e., by example.

Someone may explain the concept of landmarks this way: “Landmarks are, for

example, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Pyramid of Giza, Taj Mahal, Uluru, the Great

Wall, and Golden Gate Bridge.” Ostensive approaches are not uncommon. Think

of the “top 100” lists on the internet (Fig. 1.3 ) not in an extensional but ostensive

way. Similar lists of examples can be collections of personal favorites, lists of travel

promoters (“must-do's”), crowdsourced lists (e.g., surveys), or lists produced from

data mining (e.g., a search engine's number of hits, or your favorite travel website's

lists ranked by reviews submitted by travellers). These lists tend to produce the more

agreeable, less ambiguous entities of a class.

On 28 June 2013, Kate Schneider, travel editor of News Ltd., wrote: “Kings

Park War Memorial in Perth. Fremantle prison. Melbourne's Block Arcade.

What do these places have in common? Well, they've all made a list of the

nation's best landmarks by travel website TripAdvisor. Yep, really. According

to the site, they are among the top spots to go in Australia for “enriching and

entertaining experiences”. The list was based on millions of reviews submitted

by travellers on the site over the past year. It also includes iconic Aussie

attractions such as the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge,

mixed in with grim locations such as the Port Arthur Historic Site. The list

had us wondering, is this the best [Australia has] to offer the world?”

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