The Impact of Intellectual Ideologies in Shaping the Urban Townscape from the Middle Ages to the Contemporary: The City of Baghdad Between Yesterday and Today

Abstract

Intellectual ideological transformations affect the formation of the townscape, which in turn affects the narratives of the townscape constantly, as cities undergo various transformations, including natural and sudden forced ones, through economic and social processes; accompanied by structural changes in its urban scenes to a different formal model, reflecting the spirit of the age. The townscape is the reflective text that highlights the city in the form of a serial vision and scenes that carry the effects of the past and simulate the era, where the townscape is basically built through successive visions. The research deals with the difference in the concept of intellectual ideals from the Renaissance era based on perspective and artistic concepts to technology-based aesthetics in the international style, as this led to a change in the integrated coherent scene (the traditional scene) to the technology-based scene (the technological scene), and the latest discontinuity in the narrative of the story line. The landscape in urban city centers has both intellectual and physical levels. The discontinuity occurs in the townscape at the intellectual and material levels, when the concept of aesthetics and ideals varies in different periods of time. The research aims to study the impact of the entry of different intellectual trends (ideals of each era) on the townscape, in Al-Rasheed Street in Baghdad, during different periods of time. And reading the state of interruption in the scene and its impact on the perception of the recipient.