Belgrade's urban transformation during the 19th century: A space syntax approach

Hadrien Fouillade-Orsini

doi:10.5937/gp22-18026

Abstract

This paper focuses on the change in terms of spatial structure of the city centre of Belgrade occurred during the 19th century with the urban renewal and sprawl. Space Syntax methodology was used in order to analyse and quantify the spatial configuration properties of the old town inherited from the Medieval and Ottoman period, but also to understand the changes produced by the remodeling of the borough during the Principality of Serbia according to the academic architectural style. A scan from the Radoje Dedinac plan of Belgrade from 1815-1830 conserved at the City Museum of Belgrade has been used in order to capture the old town morphology. Despite an abundant literature describing the incredible metamorphosis of the oriental part of the old town, the sources that have scientifically evaluated the urban transformation produced are very few. The Space Syntax methodology helps filling this gap. Axial maps of Belgrade between 1815-1830 and of nowadays have been generated and analysed in order to capture spatial intelligibility and synergy of the city before and after the urban transformation. Finally angular segment analysis has been used to understand the spatial morphology of both the organic urban form and the modern grid system.

Highlights

From the first decades of the 19th century, Belgrade experienced a huge urban transformation which reshaped the cityscape and erased the oriental character of the town (Đurić-Zamolo, 1977)
Despite many books and articles focusing on the urban metamorphosis of Belgrade in the 19th century, there are few quantitative analyses of that urban change
The analysis of spatial configurations after and before the urban transformation with the Space Syntax methodology proved that the modern planning increased the spatial performance of one of the most important area within the Serbian capital city

Summary

Introduction

From the first decades of the 19th century, Belgrade experienced a huge urban transformation which reshaped the cityscape and erased the oriental character of the town (Đurić-Zamolo, 1977). Based on a set of theories and techniques Space Syntax aims to quantify the spatial configuration of city open spaces and buildings. According to the theory the way a space is laid out affects the human behaviour and movement (Hillier& Hanson, 1984). People and socio-economic activities are differently distributed both in urban open spaces and building interiors due to the properties of their spatial configurations. According to Hillier (2016), cities are made to create contact For this reason, the spatial cognitive quality is very important as human behaviour, during travel, is directly influenced by spatial knowledge. The possibility offered by Space Syntax to compare different spatial morphologies is very important to understand the history of cities. The computation of different measures makes possible the comparative analysis of different urban morphologies

Methodology

Findings

Conclusion