Writing the City Square

Writing the City Square PDF Author: Martin Zerlang
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000865703
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The history of cities is also the history of city squares. The agora, the forum, the piazza, the plaza: All presuppose the idea of a center. It’s a material and mental phenomenon. Literature is an important part of this history, and the interplay between the square as physical space and the square as literature is the topic of this book. This is an encyclopedic book combining an overview of the history of city squares with a plethora of analytical examples of its reflection in literature: Literature uses the city square as a frame; city squares serve as frames for drama; novels and other kinds of literature comment on city squares; city squares are sources of inspiration for all sorts of literary activities. Socrates in the agora, Cicero in the Forum, Calderón in the Plaza Mayor, Corneille in the Place Royale, Richardson in Grosvenor Square, James in Washington Square, Woolf in Bloomsbury Square, Döblin and Gröschner in Alexanderplatz, Rodoreda in Diamond Square in Barcelona, DeLillo in Times Square, Al Aswany in Tahrir Square, the Maidanistas in the Maidan of Kyiv: These are just some of the examples presented and analyzed in this book. The book is of direct interest for researchers, students, and professionals such as architects and urban planners, but it is written in a way that makes it accessible for all readers with an interest in urban culture, architecture, history, literature, and cultural studies.

City Trees

City Trees PDF Author: Henry W. Lawrence
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813928005
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
For those who have ever wondered why we have trees in cities or what makes the layout of cities like Paris and Amsterdam seem so memorable, City Trees: A Historical Geography from the Renaissance through the Nineteenth Century by Henry W. Lawrence provides a comprehensive and handsome guide to the history of trees in urban landscapes. Covering four centuries of development in the cities of Europe and America, this book shows how trees became integral to urban landscapes by looking at the historical evolution of the spaces in which they were planted and how these spaces were used. Reflecting on the impact trees have had on what many consider to be the fundamental aspects of city life--people, buildings, social and economic activity--Lawrence draws on graphic materials, written descriptions, local histories, and archival research to provide a unique look at the tree's role in urban landscape history. Primarily concerned with aesthetics, power, and national traditions, Lawrence reflects on the differing impacts city trees have had on multiple aspects of culture, from their roles as symbols and their representation of economic prosperity to the differing ways nations planted their trees, which gradually blended into an international style of urban planting. Complete with fascinating illustrations, City Trees will appeal to those interested in urban history and geography as well as the general public interested in cities, cultural history, and landscape design.

The Jewish Ghetto and the Visual Imagination of Early Modern Venice

The Jewish Ghetto and the Visual Imagination of Early Modern Venice PDF Author: Dana E. Katz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316738566
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Dana E. Katz examines the Jewish ghetto of Venice as a paradox of urban space. In 1516, the Senate established the ghetto on the periphery of the city and legislated nocturnal curfews to reduce the Jews' visibility in Venice. Katz argues that it was precisely this practice of marginalization that put the ghetto on display for Christian and Jewish eyes. According to her research, early modern Venetians grounded their conceptions of the ghetto in discourses of sight. Katz's unique approach demonstrates how Venice's Jewish ghetto engaged the sensory imagination of its inhabitants in complex and contradictory ways that both shaped urban space and reshaped Christian-Jewish relations.

Culture, Urbanism and Planning

Culture, Urbanism and Planning PDF Author: Manuel Guardia
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317155777
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
The relationship between culture and urbanism has been the focus of much discussion and debate in recent years. While globalisation tends towards a homogeneity, successful 'global cities' have a strong individual - and particularly cultural - identity. The economic value of the culture of cities lies not only in the arts taking place there but also in the city’s fabric, its architecture, and in its cultural heritage. This volume brings together a team of leading specialists to examine the policies of image and city marketing which have developed over the past 15 years and whether these are a continuity of earlier strategies. Featuring case studies which illustrate diverse perspectives on linking culture, urbanism and history, the book reviews heritage and planning culture, looking at the experience of urbanism in the 'Old Historic City'. The book also assesses the increasingly important issue of urban images and their influence on planning strategies.

Ancient Urban Planning in the Mediterranean

Ancient Urban Planning in the Mediterranean PDF Author: Samantha L. Martin-McAuliffe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317181328
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
New Directions in Urban Planning in the Ancient Mediterranean assembles the most up-to-date research on the design and construction of ancient cities in the wider Mediterranean. In particular, this edited collection reappraises and sheds light on ’lost’ Classical plans. Whether intentional or not, each ancient plan has the capacity to embody specific messages linked to such notions as heritage and identity. Over millennia, cities may be divested of their buildings and monuments, and can experience periods of dramatic rebuilding, but their plans often have the capacity to endure. As such, this volume focuses on Greek and Roman grid traces - both literal and figurative. This rich selection of innovative studies explores the ways that urban plans can assimilate into the collective memory of cities and smaller settlements. In doing so, it also highlights how collective memory adapts to or is altered by the introduction of re-aligned plans and newly constructed monuments.

Pienza

Pienza PDF Author: Charles Randall Mack
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501746049
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
Pienza, a small hill town in north central Italy, represents one of the major architectural masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. Starting in 1459, under the sponsorship of Pope Pius II, it was rebuilt into a model Renaissance cityscape. Renamed in the pope's honor, Pienza is both a monument to papal will and the high point in the career of the supervising architect, Bernardo Rossellino. Because its physical state has changed only slightly since the fifteenth century, Pienza offers us a unique opportunity to see a variety of building traditions (Roman, Florentine, Sienese) and theoretical positions (Brunelleschian and Albertian) combined in an almost perfectly preserved urban environment. "The town," writes Charles Mack, "is a Renaissance Williamsburg without the artificiality of restoration." Pienza, the first book-length treatment of the subject in English, traces the entire redevelopment of the community, from conception through construction, and establishes Pienza's place in the story of Renaissance architecture.

The Geometry of Urban Layouts

The Geometry of Urban Layouts PDF Author: Mahbub Rashid
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319307509
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 461

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Book Description
This book presents a compendium of the urban layout maps of 2-mile square downtown areas of more than one hundred cities in developed and developing countries—all drawn at the same scale using high-resolution satellite images of Google Maps. The book also presents analytic studies using metric geometrical, topological (or network), and fractal measures of these maps. These analytic studies identify ordinaries, extremes, similarities, and differences in these maps; investigate the scaling properties of these maps; and develop precise descriptive categories, types and indicators for multidimensional comparative studies of these maps. The findings of these studies indicate that many geometric relations of the urban layouts of downtown areas follow regular patterns; that despite social, economic, and cultural differences among cities, the geometric measures of downtown areas in cities of developed and developing countries do not show significant differences; and that the geometric possibilities of urban layouts are vastly greater than those that have been realized so far in our cities.

The Chinese City in Space and Time

The Chinese City in Space and Time PDF Author: Yinong Xu
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824820763
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description
Drawing on a wealth of primary materials detailing the city's history, customs, and urban construction as well as on recent work in Chinese history, culture, and religion, Yinong Xu examines characteristics of building and transformation in pre-modern Suzhou, characteristics that, while particular to the city's own historical development, reflect or were determined by factors representative of China's urban history in general.".

ARCHITECTURE, ARCHAEOLOGY AND CONTEMPORARY CITY PLANNING - Proceedings of the workshop

ARCHITECTURE, ARCHAEOLOGY AND CONTEMPORARY CITY PLANNING - Proceedings of the workshop PDF Author: Giorgio Verdiani
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1326112082
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description


Drawn to Design

Drawn to Design PDF Author: Eric Jenkins
Publisher: Birkhäuser
ISBN: 3035624674
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
The book is a guide for students and teachers to understand the need for, the role of and the methods and techniques of freehand analytical sketching in architecture. The presentation focuses on drawing as an approach to and phase of architectural design. The conceptual goal of this approach is to use drawing not as illustration or depiction, but as exploration. The first part of the book discusses underlying concepts of freehand sketching in design education and practice as a complement to digital technologies. The main component is a series of chapters that constitute a typology of fundamental issues in architecture and urban design; for instance, issues of "façade" are illustrated with sketch diagrams that show how façades can be explored and sketched through a series of specific questions and step-by-step procedures. In the expanded and updated edition, a new part explores the questions and experiences of large architectural offices in applying freehand drawing in the practice of architectural design. This book is especially timely in an age in which the false conflict between "traditional vs. digital" gives way to multiple design tools, including sketching. It fosters understanding of the essential human ability to investigate the designed and the natural world through freehand drawing.

Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization

Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization PDF Author: Richard Sennett
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393346501
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 435

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Book Description
This vivid history of the city in Western civilization tells the story of urban life through bodily experience. Flesh and Stone is the story of the deepest parts of life—how women and men moved in public and private spaces, what they saw and heard, the smells that assailed them, where they ate, how they dressed, the mores of bathing and of making love—all in the architecture of stone and space from ancient Athens to modern New York. Early in Flesh and Stone, Richard Sennett probes the ways in which the ancient Athenians experienced nakedness, and the relation of nakedness to the shape of the ancient city, its troubled politics, and the inequalities between men and women. The story then moves to Rome in the time of the Emperor Hadrian, exploring Roman beliefs in the geometrical perfection of the body. The second part of the book examines how Christian beliefs about the body related to the Christian city—the Venetian ghetto, cloisters, and markets in Paris. The final part of Flesh and Stone deals with what happened to urban space as modern scientific understanding of the body cut free from pagan and Christian beliefs. Flesh and Stone makes sense of our constantly evolving urban living spaces, helping us to build a common home for the increased diversity of bodies that make up the modern city.