A recurring image on the city’s streets: Symbolic and functional aspects of the flagstone ‘Bilbao’

Abstract

In relation to visual anthropology, the symbolic power of certain images is stressed. The example of the “Bilbao” model flagstone is paradigmatic, since it shows how the function of urban paving elements is overcome through the interlinked process of binomial functionality-dysfunctionality. Furthermore, there is an allusion to the aesthetic quality of a kind of furniture that characterises the cities we live in.