Through the Eyes of the Beholder: the Role of Culture in City Brand Architecture: A Case Study of Lyon, France

City branding through architecture refers to conscious and coherent efforts to fulfill visitors’ expectations about a place. The expectations that the visitors bring with themselves to the tourist attractions influence their mental image of the place. In urban tourism, cultural elements and cultural indices are significantly important for attracting more visitors and shaping their mental images. In post-modern age, social, spatial and cultural structures play an undeniable role in tourism development and city popularity. Space creation, city special characteristics and its associated appealing mental images bring people and cities international fame. For branding, architecture, city image- making process, and urban management need to be based on cultural and historical elements to succeed in creating visual attractions and featuring the elements in specific fields for a place or a city. Therefore, city branding is properly aligned with targets, words, design, urban architect and place branding.  This research is an attempt to identify the cultural elements and explain how these elements as the main tools of architecture contribute to city branding and sustainable urban tourism. Given that Lyon in France is an internationally recognized destination benefiting from a proper historical and cultural themes and relative success, it has been selected as case.