Revisiting and Rethinking Contemporary Urban Design

MONU Magazine, 2013

This essay presents some ideas on how to fix the disasters in European urban planning and design: how to repair Europe's damaged urban fabric. Governments have made tremendous efforts to implement solutions to problems that were obvious to everyone. Unfortunately, these solutions only exacerbate the situation, for reasons I discuss. Urbanist ideas have been applied since the 1930s that contribute to the deplorable state of urban life in many European cities. The effects of applying the 1933 Athens charter were so disastrous that a new one had to be prepared in 2003 (presented in Lisbon, not in Athens). Shamefully, the New Charter of Athens 2003 is unknown to most government planners in Europe. Time and again, politicians are seduced into constructing showcase projects that boast an alien, "contemporary" look. I also address the link between bad urban planning and ecological disaster. First published in two parts as "City of Chaos", Greekworks.com (May & June 2004), then as Chapter 20 of: Shifting Sense – Looking Back to the Future in Spatial Planning, edited by Edward Hulsbergen, Ina Klaasen & Iwan Kriens, Techne Press, Amsterdam, 2005, pages 265-280. Italian version is Chapter 10 of "No Alle Archistar", Libreria Editrice Fiorentina, Florence, 2009: pages 179-211.

The main trouble for a big city - as a megalopolis - is the disintegration of the traditional Forma Urbis idea and of the urban identity. Even if in the US metropolis is characterized by exasperated serial iteration, made in this way in just 3 centuries, is still possible to recognize the necessary relationship between different territory parts and it’s still clear the dialectic between buildings and countryside, between downtown and periphery, between housing and production area. While in new realities everything is uncontrolled and often reduced to shapeless heap of built up. The concentration of millions of inhabitants, as a result of an extreme process of urbanization producing an amplified confusion of urban spaces, is causing a new and unexpected level of use the area and the downfall of every social equilibrium. This kind of places are ruled by the indifference of the whole hierarchy built and lack an order well-balanced between housing, Tertiary’s sector areas, commercial areas, production areas in all urban space scales possible, as is made in the best tradition of the city (in metropolis too). This space is assuming the paradoxical “a priori shape” aspect and seems in lot of its parts equivalent and homogeneous. New icons of representation, the so-called “containers”, are accidentally put into the city, as effort to ri-polarize it. These are complex urban situations and architectures that seem to evocate today the fast dynamism condition, typical in the new millennium, showing ephemeral dimension and communicate the idea of transparency, lightly and movement. The courses “Typological and Morphological Characters of Architecture ” and “Architectural Design”, in the Department dICAR, Polytechnic in Bari, left to the writer, are focused on the research on the evolutionary process that recalls, generally, the urban complexity and also to spread the necessary knowledge to understanding urban development. Moreover the ways that urban organism shows itself, with its contradictions, considered in a conceptual "shape", are the beginning of the planning thinking. This attitude, especially reported to the complex urban situations, express our capacity of being able to be active in our epoch, through a critical and not parasitic exercise breaking with the past but in continuity with what has been historically transmitted and inherited.

2007

Salama, A. M. (2007). Book Review: Nikos A. Salingaros: A New Vitruvius for 21st Century Architecture and Urbanism. Archnet-IJAR-International Journal of Architectural Research, Volume 1, Issue 2, PP. 114-131. ISSN # 1938 7806. ______________________________________ This article adopts the premise that the work of Nikos A. Salingaros marks a true beginning for seriously regaining what cultures and societies have lost throughout the years through the work of many architects, urbanists, and decision makers. It explores the three monographs he has written and views them as a new “De Architectura” for 21st century architecture and urbanism. The article reflects on Vitruvius’s De Architectura and sheds light on selected evolutionary aspects of architecture and the anti-vitruvian practices that continued for hundreds of years, but intensified over the last century. It reviews the attitudes of anti-vitruvian architects that contributed to severe socio-cultural and contextual problematics. The views adopted in this article are based on the conviction that the theories and writings of Salingaros are a reaction and a conscious positive response to these practices, and that these theories will invigorate the creation of humane and livable environments.

2009

The phenomenon that has intensively been recorded in contemporary Greek urban reality is the observed deviation between built urban environment and the process of teaching urban planning in universities. The particularities of local architecture, products of the effort of adapting the peculiar urban landscape combined with the existing climatic conditions, are often ignored in order to create impressive elements (most times copies of international corresponding) aiming at superficial impressions than to function and duration. “Impression of the moment “often restricts urban formations to smoothly integrate within existing urban terrain and prohibits project to adequately adjust the existing environmental conditions. As soon as young students from architectural schools begin their profession as licensed architects, they realise the amount of legislative restrictions they have to face in order to adjust their practices to contemporary Greek urban status. Consequently, they are “trappe...

Article, 2025

According to the UN-Habitat 2020 Population Data Booklet, the world population living in the existing 1934 large metropolises is 2.6 billion people: one-third of the world's population. By the year 2050 will be 66% of the world population living in cities. There are 8936 intermediate cities in the world and urban agglomerations today occupy 7.6% of land mass of the planet. These data are alarming due to the density of construction, the consumption of resources, emissions into the atmosphere, the amount of waste and a long etcetera that they imply. However, beyond all those factors that today are "integrated" into the "planning" of the city, there is the failure of architecture and urban planning, which around the world is evident in the daily lives of people, every time that, in contemporary urban conglomerates, the intersubjective relationship of their inhabitants, with the environment and among themselves, is almost impossible for the exercise of a truly free, fraternal, fair, equitable and happy life. Therefore, I call for a deep reflection on what I consider should be a return to the Architecture of the City and on the possible extinction of urbanism.

2009

The present employment seeks to approximate the city as a specific anthropogenic transformation of the biosphere as well as a distinct reflexive human design approach towards the environment – ultimately as "culture and geography's largest artifact, the product of a very complex play of greatly varied forces" (Vance Jr 1990: 4). In short, this statement not only points out the object of research to be covered but also enfolds its quandary: What makes us characterize so diverse entities, such as Rothenburg, Ur and Mexico City, which originated in topographically completely unlike settings at a time difference of well more than 3000 years, with the same term – city (Jansen)? And what allows us to draw one transition line from our contemporary urban forms back to the Bronze Age, in which – to common knowledge – the city has its origins? Exactly for its variety and constant transformation the 'artifact' city is hard to grasp, why most researchers abide by functional aspects for a general understanding and focus formal aspects only in a historical perspective. Still, in addition to the variety of functional assessments there also persists the notion of a formal urban continuum, which appears to be only partly explained by the diverse functional definitions. This present thesis thus shall add to the according manifold functional examinations and ratiocinations, an approach to the city by means of considering the significance of its continuing form and investigating the general factors that determine this form. To this end factors and systemic relations will be elaborated that generally determine urban form, beyond their factual existence and diversity in time and space, an thereby allow for a consistent formal term. The starting point for this contribution to basic urbanistic research constitute two considerations, which both however do not belong to this discipline: The first comprises a phenomenological reasoning, that suggests a differentiation and yet intrinsic relation between factual cities and a theoretical concept that serves as an ideal perception of how a city should be. This ratiocination, which was well established by the art historian Giulio Argan in his "Storia dell'arte come storia della città", forms the basis for the suggested perception of an abstractum urban form that consequently allows for an examination of its constitution and characteristics. The second involves a systemic understanding, that implies a distinct interrelation of various factors that yet erratically afford cities. This ratiocination goes back to the sociologist Niklas Luhmann, and allows explaining the variety as well as the unpredictability of factual urban forms in course of the diversity of opinions and interests involved, while he concurrently insinuates the investigation for conditioning and contingency formulas that determine the process of interrelation. These considerations together constitute as a thought model the Urban Matrix, a dissipative, that is an open dynamic system, in which time and space independent parameters by interrelation cause the origination and development of time and space dependent urban forms. Thence the system itself remains abstract, yet determines the concrete motivations of those participating in the design process and ultimately the very factual formal result 'city'. These thoughts imply that the suggested approach is primarily a theoretical-normative occupation, dealing with abstract concepts rather than the actually built environment. Thus, the reader will be confronted with a search for preferably simple and yet copious wordings that shall explain the features of the different conditioning parameters as well as their interrelation within the Urban Matrix. Still, for the purpose of unambiguousness, this endeavor effects a demonstration of complex circumstances, from which sometimes suffers a convenient readability, as well as familiar expressions have to be put in another context and, where necessary and appropriate, neologisms have to be introduced. Likewise, the argumentation at times has to revert to other disciplines that obviously feature their own language use, which might at first appear to be alien to an urbanistic approach. Of special interest are here the Formal Concept Analysis by Bernhard Ganter und Rudolf Wille, as well as the consierations on Semantics by Gottlob Frege. The key hypothesis for the suggested approach is the differentiation between Quality and Quantity, which in formal concept analysis is expressed by the correlation of Attributes and Objects, and in semantics by the dichotomy of Intension and Extension. In this context urbanistic quantities are bound in time and space, whereas urbanistic qualities allow for an induction of general aspects. These are examined against the background of an idealized urban foundation and eventually summarized to parameters of urban form. Thus, usually only a safe and healthy place is attractive for the establishment of a city; thence safety and health become criteria for the whole urban development, and ultimately refer to a parameter attractiveness'. The key conclusion of the thesis however points to the existence of a conditioning system, which factors can be scientifically determined, when yet it offers no injective, surjective, or bijective relations (Eineindeutigkeit), nor any other mathematical formula that insinuates a calculatory approach towards urban form. With this system a retrospective explanation is possible, a prospective predictability still impossible, comparable with Heinz von Foerster's 'Non trivial machine' (Foerster 1985: 62 ff.). Accordingly, the attractiveness of a city can be explained by its safe and healthy location, but not all attractive cities need to locate at especially healthy and safe places, nor give such places a warranty for future attractiveness and prosperous development. Altogether the thesis consists of four main parts: 1. An introductory Western Reflection of Western Urbanism since the industrialization, which with the development of urbanism as an academic discipline forms the starting point and the scope of an urbanistic basic research – whereas for the lack of a concise field of research this reflection does not represent a classical introduction, but a summarizing intellectual and receptional history followed by the suggestion of another approach and its hermeneutic predicament; 2. The explication of a thought model, which conceptually describes the Causes of Urban Development with its phenomenological and systemic principles and consequently a derivation of abstract factors, whereas this procedure builds the basis for the induction of qualitative parameters of urban form; 3. A Commonsensical Catalogue, which defines the qualitative parameters and their criteria – as well as considerations regarding the establishment of secondary factors within this parametral frameworks; and 4. An Outlook onto the Urban Matrix as an integrating system, which conditions the origination and the development of urban form – whereas firstly the parameters are calibrated with those concepts introduced earlier, secondly the interrelation amongst the different parameters are discussed, and ultimately some rough ideas on possible practical applications are presented. As stated in the subtitle of this elaboration, the suggested thought model does not represent a concluded theory despite its aimed conceptual conclusiveness; on the contrary shall the discussed phenomenological and systemic considerations initiate further theoretical employments in an urbanistic basic research – last not east, to eventually produce a common perception of the city as very own field of research and work, despite the ongoing acceleration of urbanistic processes that aggravates this task (Seifert 2003: 11). Many of those topics discussed in this thesis derive from the author's experiences during his employment at the Department History of Urbanization (RWTH Aachen University); and many impulses stem from discussions with Michael Jansen, which altogether dealt with the in its substance irresolvable question 'What is a city?' Argan, Giulio C.: Storia dell'arte come storia della città, Riuniti, Roma, 1983 (1989, Kunstgeschichte als Stadtgeschichte, Fink, München). Foerster, Heinz v.: Entdecken oder Erfinden. Wie läßt sich das Verstehen verstehen? In: Gumin, Heinz & Heinrich Meier (eds.): Einführung in den Konstruktivismus, pg. 41-88, Oldenbourg, München, 1985 (1992, Piper, München). Frege, Gottlob: Über Sinn und Bedeutung. In: Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, vol 100, pg. 25-50, 1892 (Patzig, Günther: Gottlob Frege. Funktion, Begriff, Bedeutung, Fünf logische Studien, pg. 40-65, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1962/75; Frege, Gottlob: Sense and Reference. In: The Philosophical Review, vol. 57, pg. 207-230, 1948). Ganter, Bernhard & Rudolf Wille: Formale Begriffsanalyse. Mathematische Grundlagen, Springer, Berlin (1999, Formal Concept Analysis. Mathematical Foundations, Springer, Berlin / New York) Luhmann, Niklas: Einführung in die Systemtheorie, Carl-Auer, Heidelberg, 1992. Seifert, Jörg: Urban Research: Biopsy and Density, VDG, Weimar, 2003. Vance Jr, James E.: The Continuing City. Urban Morphology in Western Civilization, John Hopkins, Baltimore, 1990.

This presentation proposed a reassessment of two top figures of Greek contemporary architecture and town planning, whose holistic approaches transcended the placelessness and anti-traditionalist principles of Modernism. They are: Constantinos Doxiadis (1913-1975), the world famous town planner; and architect Aris Konstantinidis (1913-1993), the master-philosopher whose work in postwar Greece reconciled modernity and tradition. The two men worked chiefly during the Cold War Period, when Greece was attached to the chariot of the Western bloc headed by the United States. Doxiadis was a planner of genius who charted new paths with his theory of Ekistics. Some of his ideas were ahead of his time, such as his concept of ekistic scales, his approach to networks, his ecological concerns and his large-scale national and regional plans. His approach and teamwork were particularly effective in emergency situations such as constructing settlements in developing countries. His ability to think globally and act locally resonates in today's discourse on human settlements. Konstantinidis' buildings and theoretical texts provide a solid basis for treating timeless issues in architecture, such as expressing the spirit of a place, harmonizing buildings with the environment, the concept of building types, and concerns about rules and freedom. His approach and work was vindicated in low-income housing, public buildings, hotels and houses, particularly those located by the sea or in the vicinity of ancient Greek monuments. His ability to transcend locality and the spirit of his time is in keeping with today's changing cultural climate.

2022

The Conference provided a setting for discussing theoretical and methodological transdisciplinarity in urban morphology. The topic of the conference, Cities as Assemblages, encouraged deliberation on the processes of urban emergence and transformation from a relational perspective, as well as consideration, in research methodologies and design approaches, to the relationship between physical and human elements. The aim of conference was to address the challenges currently faced by urban morphology: bridging the gaps between different approaches, developing cross-disciplinary studies, and integrating research and practice. The themes of the conference covered theory (emergence, relationality, social sciences, and the scope of limits of urban theories), methods (embedding and combining different approaches), urban design (urban morphology and building typology) and contextual topics (conflict, divided cities and port cities) relating to the location of the Conference. Approximately 220 presentations were delivered in 45 parallel sessions. This present volume includes 49 contributions from all themes, focusing on specific subthemes: emergence, relational theories, the social sciences and urban morphology (theory), embedding different approaches into the study of urban morphology (methods) and Mediterranean port cities in a global context (focus). The papers included in this volume were, in most cases, presented within the same sessions. Under the theme of theory, the papers discuss the notion and mechanisms of emergence in the formation of socio-spatial relations, debate the idea of cities as assemblages for the description of emergence and also discuss the contradictory and multi-faceted nature of urban design. The papers within the theme of methods present a variety of mapping techniques focusing on quantitative approaches, applications of concepts and narrative tools through critical analysis, and diachronic analyses of urban development. There is a strong focus on three-dimensional form, the relationship between built and open spaces, and public space more generally. The socio-cultural dimension of form in the relations between building typology and urban space features prominently as a key to analysing the impact of design and everyday life on the public realm. In the urban design theme, public space and its use remain core elements of analysis, but with a stronger focus on the impact of the design of recent development projects, in particular transport projects, including road systems, public transport and walkability. New and subur-Preface ban neighbourhoods, gated and houseboat communities, industrial and waterfront areas were also subjects of research Finally, in the focus theme, a small number of papers cover comparative analyses of port cities and their evolution in the Mediterranean and in Asia. This volume offers a variety of the different papers that were presented at the Conference, providing a permanent record of the fruitful knowledge exchange that took place during the four days of the event, touching upon many important aspects of urban morphology and producing insights, which I believe will be invaluable for the future development of the field. I would like to thank all participants for their contributions to the Conference programme and to these Proceedings. My special thanks go to the keynote speakers: