Arch 562 Introduction to Urban Sociology

The Origins of Urbanization and The Characteristics of CitiesUrbanization After A.D. 1000

The Medieval Order and the Birth of Planning

Melek Erçakıca / 075347Melek Erçakıca / 075347

Damascus

Cities first settled in the Fertile Crescent a few thousand years after the discovery of agriculture. With technological improvement in agriculture and transportation, population was increased but with famine and disease it was decreased.

With the industrial revolution, urbanization increased dramatically. When the population changed agriculture to the manufacturing, cities became the dominant for human civilization.

•URBANIZATION

Fertile Crescent

•Location of the Fertile Crescent

Cities arose in India (1000-400BC), China (700-400BC) and the America (100BC). Than cities diffused from China to Korea (108BC-313AD) and Japan (650-700AD) and from China and India to Southwest Asia (700-800AD).

But most historians said that the cities that emerged around the globe after A.D. 1000.

•URBANIZATION

•World Map between 1000AD to 1500AD

Medieval Ages, which is commonly known as “Middle Ages” started from A.D. 395 to A.D. 1453, when the Istanbul was discovered by Turkish people (some sources accepted A.D. 1492, when was Cristof Colomb discovered America).

During the Middle Ages; important development happened in agriculture and trade. Most important characteristics of Middle Ages were: buildings designed with the Gothic Style. Huge wide areas was designed for trade, entertainment and bazaars but streets are very narrow and used as communication space.

•“MEDIEVAL AGES”~ “MIDDLE AGES”

•Example from Oxford with Gothic style buildings.

Medieval cities catagorized in to two groups:1. ‘Organic’ cities2. ‘Inorganic’ cities

In general, there were three basic pattern of the medieval town;

1. Corresponded to their historic origin: Towns which were came from Roman days usually kept their rectangular system . In the original center, they designed monastry or a citadel.

2. Their geographic characteristics: Towns that developed out of a village or a group of villages settled under a monastery or a castle. It designed more closely to topography.

3. Their mode of development: Towns were designed for improve colonization: central place left open for the market and public assembly.

Venice, Florance, Paris, Bruges, Londra, Milano, Damascus, Siena were the most important towns in the Middle Ages.

•MEDIEVAL CITIES

•Photo from Genova

•Photo from Pisa•Photo from Bruges

•MEDIEVAL CITIES

•Genova, Florence, Venice etc were the most important trade cities during the medieval period.

•Photo from Middle •Ages Florance Walls

•Photo from Venice

•MEDIEVAL CITIES

•Photo from Florence

•A street view from Siena A street view from Siena (Right side). The buildings (Right side). The buildings arranged according to the arranged according to the topography.topography.

•MEDIEVAL CITIES

•Plan of Siena (Left Plan of Siena (Left Side). The square for Side). The square for the public assembly.the public assembly.

•Picture from Bologna. The city Picture from Bologna. The city kept their rectangular system.kept their rectangular system.

•MEDIEVAL CITIES

•Picture from Amsterdam Picture from Amsterdam medieval city on the slopy medieval city on the slopy area.area.

Towns of the Middle Ages disproved this ideas:1. Organic plan is regular with meaningfulness,2. Irregulrity with intellectual confusion.And with their variety, they embody a universal pattern.

Each medieval town turn a unique situation. In its plan, presented a harmony of forces and a unigue solution. The agrement was complete and the purposes of town life and confirm the pattern.

•MEDIEVAL CITIES

•MEDIEVAL CITIES

•Oxford High Street where the building seen in harmony.

•Plan of Noerdlingen with organic shape.

•Photo from Carcassonne.

The medieval city was a combination of little cities, each with different degree of autonomy and self-sufficiency. Each of them formed by social needs also each of them enriched and supplemented with purposes.

The each quarter of the city had its own church or churches, often had a local market, always had its own local water supply, a weel or a fountain. Each city developed without disturbing the main city. And it should be from six or less than six quarters.

•MEDIEVAL CITIES

In the medieval city, open places in front of the big market places and cathedral were in formal shape square. But sometimes the marketplace would be an irregular figure, sometimes triangular, sometimes many-sided or oval, to define the borders and define the shape of the open space.

•MEDIEVAL CITIES

•Brussel in Belgium. Good example for the formal shaped square, where defined with formal shape buildings .

•Plan of Siena. Good example for the irregular shaped square and irregular building form.

Most of the medieval plans were irregular or organic or informal. Because usually areas had natural slope and during Middle Ages there were no need any wheeled traffic and drainage system was not important so they built their buildings according to the natural contours. Usage of the natural contours more economic than the digging area.

During the medieval planning all the trees cut down and old balks defined the rural fields. Custom and property rights became a life, and once established in the form of lots, boundaries, permanent rights of way, are hard to change or remove.

Organic planning moved from need to need, from opportunity to opportunity, and in a series of adaptations, finally it become in harmony and purposeful, so that planning become a complex, and hardly less unified than a pre-formed geometric pattern.

•MEDIEVAL PLANNING

•MEDIEVAL PLANNING

•Siena is the best example of the slopy city. It was locatede on the slopy area and designed according to the natural conturs.

The organic curves in the medieval town was the emphasis on its central core. In most towns, is a central quarter or core, surrounded by a series of irregular rings, which have the effect of enclosing and protecting the core.

•MEDIEVAL PLANNING

•Bergues, with its certain geometric form in its central core, only three streets come together at the center.

Because of the limiting elements in the medieval plan kept both for an old town on a Roman foundation, like Cologne, or for a new town like Salisbury. The wall, the gates, and the civic nucleus define the main lines of circulation. The wall, with its outside moat, cannal or river, it made the town an island. Walls bounded the economic classes and kept them in their boundaries.

When the town gates were locked at sunset, the city was isolated from the outside world. Such enclosure helps to feeling unity and also security.

•MEDIEVAL PLANNING

•Plan of Noerdlingen.

City Wall

Moat

•Bridge from Noerdlingen.

The opening of the wall was “a meeting place of the inside and outside”. From the door there was a customs house, a passport office, immigration control point, and a triumphal arch.

Where the river or traffic slow down, gate were built there for traders left their loads. Also storehouses built near the gate and the inns and taverns were together, and in the intersection point of the streets, craftsmen and merchants opened their shops.

In the medieval town to understand the plans or towns one building must be taken as a focal point. It was especially the elements of nuclear components, like the Castle, the Abbey, or Friary, the Cathedral, the Town Hall. But mostly the Cathedral taken as a key.

The central point of the town is the Church. The church needed forecourt to provide the entrance and exit of the worshippers. The theological orientation of the church, is toward the East, but often the church set at a non-conforming angle to a regular pattern of streets. Often the market settled close to the church because it is there for people frequently come together.

•MEDIEVAL PLANNING

•MEDIEVAL PLANNING

Example of the medieval planning

Outer wall

CathedralTown Hall

Main square

First line of wall

In the medieval ages streets were different. Trade buildings or institutional buildings were created a self-contained quarter which was called as “island” and buildings were not use the public ways. Islands formed with the castle, monasteries or colleges also in more advanced towns with industrial section.

In medieval new towns, houses had a two street frontage, one loked to the street with twenty-four feet wide and other one looked to the alley with seven feet wide. Generally street was used as a communication place by the pedestrians and secondly it used for wheeled transportation.

The streets were narrow and sometimes irregular but frequently it had sharp turn points and closures. The streets were paving. When the wheeled vehicles became life, the streets lost its natural underfooting.

•MEDIEVAL STREETS

In some medieval cities very narrow streets became more confortable in winter. Streets were covered with large overhangs and this was protected pedestrians both from rain and from direct sun light. Small varietions in height, in building material, the rooftop profile and different window opennings and doorways gave the street its own identity.

The medieval towns had a character of blank walls from a Classic Greek thus had a character in its residential quarters also cities had another important characteristic from ancient city. The street frequently edged on each side with an arcade and this formed the open end of shop. This also give better shelter then narrow street.

•MEDIEVAL STREETS

•MEDIEVAL STREETS

•Example of the alley with seven feet wide

•Example of the streets.

In the Medieval period especially the building material was timber. It was easy to constructed, quick and cheap. But timber had very importanat disadvantages. One of them, it had to be protected from climate factorsand the most important one is it burnt.

Because of that fire was the important enemy of the medieval cities. From fires too many cities were re built again and again.

After the times, buildings were started to constructed with stone. Also they try to calculated loads on the beams and columns and constructed buildings timber framed buildings with masonry foundations.

Also brick and tiles were became a popular building material in Amsterdam, Lübeck and Gdansk.

•MEDIEVAL PERIOD BUILDING MATERIAL

•MEDIEVAL PERIOD BUILDING MATERIAL

•View from Saxon, Romania. Example of the tiber houses.

•Example of the tiber houses.

•MEDIEVAL PERIOD BUILDING MATERIAL•Amsterdam (Left side), Lübeck (Right side) and Gdansk (middle) example of the building with brick material.

•MEDIEVAL DWELLING

The medieval houses was designed for a individual living.

The buildings were two stories. The office, kitchen and storage on the ground floor. Living & dining room also bedroom on the first floor.

Masonry was the general construction material, but wood frame with clay and roofed with thatch also preferable.

On the facades opennings had no glass and just protected with shutters.

•MEDIEVAL DWELLING

First Floor Plan Ground Floor Plan

G

H

F

B

A

A: OfficeB: KitchenC: CourtyardD: WeelE: PrivyF: Living RoomG: Sleeping RoomH: Courtyard

D E

C

•REFERANCES

Kostof, S. (1991). The city Shped: Urban Patterns and meaning through history. Boston: Little Brown

Mumford, L. (1989). The city in history: It’a origin, it’s transformations and it’s prospects. San Diego: Harcourt, Brace & Co.

Pounds, N. (2005). The medieval city. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press

www.wikipedia.com