Zprávy památkové péče 2020, 80(1):17-23 | DOI: 10.56112/zpp.2020.1.04
Structure and shape. A morphometric/topological view of an urban structure and the issue of describing its character
- Ústav urbanismu FA ČVUT
The topic of the article is the historical urban environment, specifically its urban structure in terms of the spatial arrangement of the city's building elements. The article focuses on an analysis of the morphology of urban structure and presents a procedure for describing its spatial qualities. Such a procedure should complement standard evaluations of historical meanings and aesthetic qualities of urban heritage (in the Czech professional environment, this is usually focused on characterizing the main features of a historical urban landscape: dominant features, compositional vistas and views, panoramas, building types, styles and materials, etc.). Complementing this traditional approach with the procedure presented in the article should lead to a more comprehensive grasp of urban qualities and more effective appropriate protection and conservation of building heritage, as well as to a more sensitive development of its settings.
The core of the article is the introduction of the system entitled basic set of maps, i.e. the arrangement of the monitored properties of the urban structure into a database in the geographic information system for the purpose of its effective analysis and description. This section presents and justifies both the recommended scope of mapping (in terms of monitored scales and time periods) and data sources (current and archival). This part is followed by an example of analyses of the basic set of maps and a suitable way of their use for evaluating changes in the character of the urban structure.
In the following part, the procedure of analysis that precedes the evaluation is given using illustrative examples. The final recommendations can be summarized in two theses: 1. The evaluation must take place over purposefully prepared map materials (see the content of the basic set of maps); 2. For the delimitation and specification of morphologically homogenous localities, the evaluation of the properties of the development in relation to the urban block is as important as is its evaluation in relation to the street space.
Keywords: urban structure, urban morphology, geographic information systems (GIS), basic map set
Published: March 1, 2020 Show citation
References
- M. R. G. Conzen, Alnwick, Northumberland: a study in town-plan analysis, in: Transactions and Papers - Institute of British Geographers 27, 1960, III-122.
Go to original source... - Karel Kuča - Věra Kučová, Metodika identifikace a klasifikace území s urbanistickými hodnotami, Praha 2015.
- Karl Kropf, The handbook of urban morphology, Chichester 2017. Go to original source...
- Kevin Lynch, Good City Form, Cambridge 1981.
- Jacob Leonard Dibble, Urban morphometrics: towards a quantitative science of urban form, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow 2016.
- Jan Jehlík et al., Metodika komplexní identifikace a ochrany atributů hodnot historických měst a jejich veřejných prostorů pro záchranu a zachování jejich autenticity, Praha 2020.
- Petr Kratochvíl, Městský veřejný prostor, Praha 2015.
- Karel Maier (ed.), Urbanistická čítanka, Praha 2000.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), which permits non-comercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.