The Spatial Organization of Ancient Greece Cities, Case study: Priene City from Hellenistic period (Third Century BC)

Abstract

The city of Priene is one of the most important historical cities and represents a basic reference of the gridiron plans which has applied in many contemporary cities in the world. Priene city was built on the slope of a steep topography with a rigid grid system, this contradiction made the city unique. However, urban studies did not give much attention to the spatial organization of historical cities by quantitative methods. This paper investigates the main planning characteristics and the spatial organization of ancient Greece cities in term of axiality and convexity by generating axial lines of the city. The spiritual and mundane zones such as Agora, Acropolis and other civic buildings were located on the integrated spaces which are directly connected to the city gates. The spatial articulation between the religious and secular spaces was clear to enrich the spatial values of the city. Space syntax analysis has shown a lower degree of axial integration of convex spaces, a high degree of axiality, little deformation of the system, more synchrony, and moderate intelligibility.