This paper examines the dichotomy between the philosophical and the empirical aesthetics approaches, as well as the impact of formal and symbolic aesthetics, considering the responses from users of the urban area of Porto Alegre. The aesthetic impacts caused by urban scenes with different levels of order and visual stimuli, with and without historical value and with different levels of familiarity are investigated. The existence of differences between the aesthetic responses of architects, non-architects college graduates and non college graduates is also examined. Still, the reasons for the assessments conducted by these three groups are identified. The main results show the potential of empirical aesthetics to explain aesthetic evaluations, and reveal the dominant and positive impact of the idea of order and visual stimuli in such evaluations.
Urban aesthetics; Order; Visual stimulus; Historical value; Familiarity
