An Investigation of the Perception of Neoclassical, Eclectic, Modernist, and Postmodern Architecture within Different Urban Landscapes: Athens vs. Paris

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear author,

I find Your research and results fascinating and interesting.

You elaborated limitations and findings thoroughly in excellently written Discussion, but I struggle with few mutually connected things, namely: (a) relevance or applicability of the study and (b) the relation to the special issue topic: “Evolving Landscape Research: From Renewable Energy Landscapes to Future Frontiers”.

Ad (a) We live in a world and time where majority can form an opinion but how true and relevant that is from professional perspective is jet to be seen. In the case of this research, therefore, maybe the fact that majority of respondents are connected to architecture, civil engineering or urban planning is an advantage - some questions are:  why the study was not conducted in the way to distinguish results according to disciplines? Why the study did not aim at specific reference group of people? I think that in the Introduction or/and in the methodology part of the paper there should be incorporated context and detailed description of how and why the study was designed this way as well as a comment on the participants in general. Also, was the study approved by any Ethical Board and if yes please state so.

Ad (b) the only true connection to the special issue topic is given in the introduction and after reading the paper through it seems to me that this is addition which is not a crucial part of the paper. The sustainability is a complex topic and as such should be better elaborated/more precisely determined – for example: could  be grounded in the sustainability goals which could also later be discussed and concluded.

Having said these general comments, I conclude that results of Your study are relevant and they were, to some point, for me surprising, therefore the results reveal new insights. In the next part, there is a list of comments which are more technical in nature with suggestions and proposals for exact corrections in the manuscript:

A. Notes on Abstract

A.1. I would suggest writing it as one paragraph (without empty row) for visual clear distinction of abstract from the rest of the page information. 

A.2. The second abstract sentence “Clearly, this is not by chance since the varying preferences over those movements are difficult to quantify, let alone explain” is to me redundant in the overall abstract because it is stating the problem, but the third sentence does not directly reply why then this problem is address and how this methodology addresses it. I would suggest to either delete this sentence or to better connect it with the third one (for example instead of: “in this work, we explore” You could state “in this work, we propose quantification methodology based on the analysis of the public preferences … ”)

A.3. In my opinion, if You are giving the number of participants already in the abstract, instead of overall number better would be to give exact numbers for both Athens and Paris (or remove the number detail).

B. Notes on Introduction

B.1. Please explain the first sentence or/and give reference to it “…are important for a transition to more sustainable living environments”? You could connect it to sustainability agenda and goals if You had that in mind while writing this sentence. And do not forget to come back to this later in discussion.

B.2. For me the ending sentence as a whole in the first introduction paragraph is confusing and I think should be reformatted: “This is connected to the that fact that the success… contribution to living spaces…” – please check the that in grammatical sense. what kind of success? And who considers it subjective? Isn’t all research on perception exploration of subjective domain? What did You have in mind under the “living spaces” here?

B.3. Please check if the reference here is missing to support the idea written as “…originating from potential public opposition movements motivated by negative perception from a landscape impact context”. Maybe more directly connect this with Your research aim and sustainability mentioned before.

B.4. In the subtitle under the paragraph 1.2. Athens is written with small letter.

B.5. For me the formulation of time period is in reverse logicand I would suggest instead of “…as they are today since the 16th century” to write in different order: since when as they are still today…

B.6. Is it “classism” or classicism? Please check these words.

B.7. Word ‘and’ is redundant here: “In this new Roman-Greek age, and Athens obtained…”

B.8. Why is important that Athens was 43rd city of the ottoman Empire?

B.9. I am not sure if the historical overview which You currently have in introduction and in methodology (section 3.2.) is places well in the overall structure. I think that it should be shorter in the introduction reduced only to the most important notion why this context is important for the study and more detailed in the methodology section.

B.10. Please add ending sentence(s) of introduction which are also introduction to the next section od article (Materials and Methodology) because the current transition from introduction to methodology is discontinuous. I suggest hereto point out why Paris and Athens as case studies.

C. Notes on Materials and Methodology

C.1. Statement “… which of course also had deep impacts on the landscape and the perception of the landscape of the city per se.” should be explained further – what kind of impacts?

C.2. There is misspelling the word ‘his’ is probably ‘this’ in the sentence “An exception to his is the …” 

C.3. Please ground and rethink the sentence “… are some of the most debated ones and can therefore provide an amplitude of interesting insights” – this whole sentence is too colloquial and should be significantly written in more relevant manner.

C.4. Please reconsider the structure of the paper, more precisely if the section ‘3.3. Questionary results’ could have a title without results for example ‘3.3. Questionary design’ and if the next section “3.4. Comparative results” could be separate chapter under new number 4. (such as 4. Comparative analysis of questionary results). I think that these small changes in the structure would improve readability of the paper and understanding of Your study.

C.5. Under the section 3.3.1. Survey setup You have error in spelling again word ‘linking’ should be ‘linking’ in the sentence “…: Sharing the reasons for linking or disliking these architectural movements”

C.6. Please repeat why these four architectural movements are highlighted when describing Table 1 and connect this to the Figure 1 and 2 in the sentence “Table 1 offers additional descriptive statistics for the ratings assigned to the four archi-287 tectural movements that are highlighted in this work (Neoclassicism, Eclecticism, 288 Modernism, and Postmodernism), providing a detailed breakdown of the distribution of 289 opinions in Paris.”

C.7. In the description of Figure 4. Please check if the age 23 is median or mode? Mean is the average of all numbers. Median is the middle number, when in order. Mode is the most common number. Range is the largest number minus the smallest number. 

C.8. Please write somewhere how, who and when in the research procedure was decided which styles will be in the questionnaire for Athens and which for Paris – what exactly were criteria?

C.9. On Figure 12 Modernist-type should be written in Yellowcolour so that the logic is the same as in Figure 13. Why are on Figure 12 and 13 now 5 styles while on Figures 3 and 8  four? Overall the styles add confusion in comparing and observing visual results.

D. Notes on Discussion and Conclusions

D.1. Type “while In Athens, preferences align…” In is written with capital letter

D.2. In general Discussion is very well written but I would suggest that innovating conclusion form (form of listing, bullets) is actually put in the discussion as a table of overall resulting concluding remarks in combination with results.

Also, overall, I believe that the study could have an impact in a sense that other researcher might want to repeat and check results for their cities and urban contexts and for that purpose please rethink of writing conclusion as direct sentences on how You would do this research if needed to do it again and in different contexts.

I hope these suggestions, which are not all obligatory, are helpful for the revision of Your manuscript mainly in forming the final and as clear as possible structure and for giving more direct thoughts on how this is connected to sustainability and redesigns within renewable strategies.

Thank You with best wishes.

Author Response

We thank you for your review. The detailed responses/revisions made according to the reviewers comments can be found in the attached revision report under "Reviewer 1".

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is well written and structured in an academically consistent, logical and flowing manner. The research methodology is clearly presented.

The subject and scope of the research hold interest; quantitative research in relation to the users' perception of urban environments can indeed provide important insight for urban designers and planners, as well as policy decision makers. 

However, the main issue here is that the paper’s discourse is not scientifically sound. The authors identify the difficulties presented by this kind of research, and extensively comment on potential issues with conclusions drawn; nevertheless, they systematically choose to ignore them and there is very limited effort to reconsider initial assumptions, on the basis of the collected data.

Weaknesses can be resumed in the following points:

- Methodology. Arbitrary decisions and assumptions are made all the way. It is not clear, for example, how the subject of quantitative research regarding users’ perception is linked specifically to sustainability issues, or indeed why it should be so, for the research to be considered worth pursuing. Next, deviations in the sample’s demographic data (both in the case of the Paris’ and the Athens’ survey) are so significant that they cannot justify any claim to a random users’ sample which could provide for broader conclusions. In reality, the research is targeted on people of a very specific knowledge background and the construction sector (should it indeed be otherwise?), as well as belonging to a limited age span; in addition, the sample is so small (34 people in the case of the Athens survey) that can hardly justify conclusions. Clarifications regarding what ‘history’ and ‘aesthetics’ mean for the authors or with respect to the reasons that lead users to prefer one type of architecture over another are generally lacking, as well as how exactly the research is ‘contextualised’. ‘Context’ can mean a variety of distinct things, according to different authors, architectural historians and theoreticians; it suffices to refer to Forty’s meticulous, albeit succinct analysis (2000) to get hold of such nuances and of some of the reasons why, any use of similar terms should be extremely rigorous, from a conceptual point of view. Finally, the use of particularly recognisable architecture in the questionnaires (such as the Parthenon, and Notre Dame de Paris) is bound to generate bias and render any inferences a contentious point of this work.

- Theoretical references / terminology. In the paper, architectural ‘style’ and ‘movement’ are used as interchangeable terms. This is, however, hardly a point of general consensus in the field of architectural theory, as well as any morphological classification of buildings; thus, it is essential for any relevant research to be solidly grounded in specific theoretical references and interpretations, which is not the case here. In fact, ground-breaking scientific references that could have been extremely useful in relation to how the perception of urban architecture is shaped by historical circumstances and facts, as for example Theocharopoulou’s work (2022, an indispensable source for the perception of modernity by a broad spectrum of users) are missing.

The paper is written in a concise and straightforward language, accessible to the reader and of a good level of English is used. However, the paper could benefit from additional editing in terms of capitalisation, punctuation, and consistency in spelling (especially with respect to architectural terms).

Author Response

We thank you for your review. The detailed responses/revisions made according to the reviewers comments can be found in the attached revision report under "Reviewer 2".

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The article is of high quality. However, I think it could be improved if all the figures were graphically equalised and if the tables were set up in a more readable way. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We thank you for your review. The detailed responses/revisions made according to the reviewers comments can be found in the attached revision report under "Reviewer 3".

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The sample tested is too small to be processed statisticall (about 50 people answering in Paris and less than 30 in Athens).

The questionnaire, as it is composed, can only be submitted to experts in the field, and the few photos attached to each question cannot in any way make up for the lack of specific knowledge of architectural styles. It is impossible to reduce an architectural style to 3 photos.

Overall, the way the questionnaire is designed is improper; there are theories and methodologies for the composition of questionnaires that seem to be completely unknown to the authors

With these premises, the results are not reliable.

Author Response

We thank you for your review. The detailed responses/revisions made according to the reviewers comments can be found in the attached revision report under "Reviewer 4".

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

The topic addressed by the proposed manuscript is fascinating, relevant and somehow valuable. However, the reviewer believes the issue of “The public perception of Neoclassical, Eclectic, Modernist and Postmodern architecture within different urban landscapes: Athens vs. Paris” addressed can be presented more adequately from the present form of the manuscript.

Based on the limitations of research, as the authors acknowledged the following potential biases of their results:

(i)              From the demographic data of the respondents: The higher percentage of urban planners, civil engineers and architects in the statistical sample than what would be expected from the general population – this is very likely to have affected the results if we consider the relatively small sample (only 103 participants)   

(ii)            (ii) the responses over ratings and favorability of architectural movements could be potentially sensitive to the pictures that were used within the questionnaires to represent each movement, especially for people that did not have predefined opinions over those movements - and

(iii)          in terms of the comparison of the results of the two cities it has to be noted that the age of respondents is in both cases relatively low and also that there are age differences between the two samples that might be responsible for some of the differences – namely the average age of respondents was 25 for Paris and 33 for Athens.

All the above restrictions should be critically reflected in the analysis and synthesis of the approach of this really significance research. The reviewer believes that the interpretation tone of the manuscript's contents, Sections 3. (Materials and Methods) and 4 (Discussion), should be presented in a lower tone, even in the abstract.    

The organisation of the manuscript and synthesis in writing are needed to clarify the expected results more professionally; the criteria for selecting these two cities (Paris and Athens) for the objective(s) of the research must be clearly and analytically discussed, even illustrated in the relevant table.

Figure 4. (Graph of the respondents' ages; the average age was 25 and the median was 23), and Figure 5. (Field of activity of the Parisian respondents) of the Parisian survey should be moved to section 3.3.1 Survey Setup. The same goes for the 3.3.3 Athenian survey; Figures 9 and 10 should also be transferred to section 3.3.1 Survey Setup.

Recommendations and some suggestions for improving the methodology in the future are needed. It should indicate what could be done to augment the findings. Still, early user feedback can help direct other researchers on what to use and avoid.

Minor editing of the English language required 

Author Response

We thank you for your review. The detailed responses/revisions made according to the reviewers comments can be found in the attached revision report under "Reviewer 5".

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 6 Report

I want to express my gratitude to the authors for the time they spent conducting this research.

One observation to make is regarding the number of participants in the questionnaire. Does this sample accurately reflect the population in both cities or even those working in the fields of architecture and urbanism?

Author Response

We thank you for your review. The detailed responses/revisions made according to the reviewers comments can be found in the attached revision report under "Reviewer 6".

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors, first of all thank You for detailed reply and explanations. They made second reading more easier.

Overall, you improved significantly your article although You did not convinced me that it is adequate for the special issue topic (but I leave this for guest editors to decide on suitability) nor that Discussion is too long for results to be interpreted there as a part of one more Discussion (sub)section or for the possible table version of the result overview based on current format of the conclusion. Nevertheless, I do hope that the intention of this study was to test Your methodology and that it will be part of bigger sample of respondents in the future because, although to another reviewer You answered with analogy about medicine research, I strongly disagree with that  medicine analogy since Your study does not have a test group (for example with different photos and styles) and since Your study looks into domain of public opinion which is not a question in medicine where we look into measurable factors and their relations. Having said that I suggest to authors to read one more time their paper to check if all added parts were as they imagined. There are some smaller mistakes such as last sentence of the Introduction ended in the title of the second section.

I look forward to You future work.

Sincerely.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you once more for the thorough review of our work.

We did our best to utilize and integrate your comments with the aim of improving our manuscript.

We have re-read our work and carried out multiple minor improvements including those proposed by the academic editor and several other smaller ones that serve the broader improvement of our work. We also agree with your comment regarding medicine research and our original comment in this area was mostly targeted in the fact that the said reviewer did not provide any particulars regarding his critisism of our sample, rather than the point per se.

We have also addressed the comment regarding the spacing of the Introduction and Materials and Methods Section which was a formatting error from our part.

Thank you for your time.

Best regards