ABSTRACT
Cultural landscapes must be understood as the products of specific political economic formations (Cosgrove, 1984). The production of 'postcard' images constitutes a practice of representation by which meanings are constituted and communicated. Such shared meanings help to some degree to constitute the reality they aim to represent. In particular, material, cultural landscapes stimulate active, although not necessarily conscious, readings (King, 1996). Often, people uncritically accept cultural ideas and social relations embedded in the built environment because they are taken as non-ideological material facts, when indeed they are representations that have become alienated or naturalized to the point that their social origins may be lost.
