Urban Squares in Late Bronze Age Ugarit: a Street View on Ancient Near Eastern Governance

This article explores the historic development of greenery in market square spaces using the example of the Polish town of Zakliczyn in Lesser Poland. Contemporary Polish conservation policy aimed at preserving a public space’s historic values is often at odds with the needs and demands of the general public, whose members appear to be in consensus that urban public spaces, especially market squares, should feature more greenery. This study traces the spatial development of Zakliczyn’s market square throughout the last 150 years based on historic cartography and iconography, as well as contemporary orthophotomaps, and demonstrates that greenery in this historic market square is indeed a relatively recent phenomenon, although scant fragments of it did appear as early as immediately before World War II. It also contrasts the greenery in market squares from the People’s Republic of Poland period (1947 to 1989) with the most recent revitalizations occurring during the past 5 years.

The urban square has been a distinguishing characteristic of European cities for millennia. However, in the context of small towns, where the square is often the sole identifier of their physical urbanity, its role differs from that of large towns. This fact is substantial within national administrative systems that endorse desirable urban status to rural settlements endowed with urban morphology. It is also important in times of extensive EU-subsidized actions aimed at improving the quality of public space in small underresourced towns. However, many projects fail to draw from and respond to the specifics of the local context, and, by focusing on the details and disregarding the basics, they may defeat their purpose. Departing from extensive field observations in Poland, this paper puts theoretical framework and current trends in urban design into relation to various elements of a square's spatial configuration in order to arrive at degrees of their urban significance. By interpreting the fundamental values embedded in the morphology of market squares, this paper attempts to isolate the cultural archetypes that shape our perception of such places as urban. The proposed analysis could be used to meet the main goal of market square revitalization, namely to visually articulate urbanity.

In the paper market squares in small towns of Lower Silesia region are presented, their area does not exceed 1 ha. For the present work 15 localities were selected: 10 towns and 5 villages which formerly had civic rights. The variety of shapes of market squares mainly resulted from the fact that the towns were founded in a different way. Most of them were formed as completely new settlements, the so-called settlements “on a rough root”, the other ones developed from boroughs or commercial villages. It should be pointed out that the function of a market square is its crucial feature. In the course of time the market square in many towns underwent transformations of its function along with the loss of importance as the central place of a town. Today market places for wholesale as well as for retail trade are designed at other points of a town. An old market square remains till now as an imposing place, although it may also be used as a car park. Concluding, it may be established that market squares...

The article explores changes in the organization and functioning of public space in cities in the context of sociocultural dynamics – from antiquity to modernity. The sociocultural features of open urban space in ancient Greece and Rome, Renaissance Italy, modern Europe, the USA, Latin America, Ukraine are clarified. The experience of the functioning and management of public space is analyzed on specific examples of world- famous urban squares – Antique agora, roman forum, piazza del Campo in Siena, piazza della Signoria in Florence, piazza San Marco in Venice, Union Square in New York, Latin American squares, Bibikovsky boulevard and University park in old Kyiv, "Maydan" – Independence Square in contemporary Kyiv. Particular attention is being given to transformations of ceremonial, religious, recreational, economic, political, aesthetic and moral functions of open public space. Urban squares are places for official celebrations and religious rituals. They serves as a place of a rest, realization of creative ideas and are a conductor of public communication. Public spaces create opportunities for trade, affect the formation and retention of real estate prices, and are a means of attracting investment and business development in them and adjacent territories. All these provide opportunities for uniting citizens for joint projects and activities, political protests or symbolization of power. It is noted that the cultural value of the modern square is manifested in architectural forms, aesthetics of recreational areas and historical monuments, and is associated with its ability to be a place for the proclamation and implementation of high moral ideals of order, equality, solidarity, freedom, independence, human dignity, the value of moral rights and civic virtues. From the time of antiquity to the present day, the central squares of cities, as a public space, reproduce the aesthetics of the city and become a symbol of spiritual and political power, since temples, municipalities, financial and commercial institutions, theaters, and restaurants are often concentrated in such spaces.

Celem badania jest ocena przestrzeni publicznych rynków w małych miastach województwa łódzkiego pod względem zróżnicowania w zakresie współczesnego zagospodarowania i funkcji zabudowy przyrynkowej. Tak postawiony cel i zakres badania podyktowany jest przede wszystkim niewielką liczbą tego rodzaju opracowań w literaturze przedmiotu. Przywołanie kontekstu genetycznego elementów struktury urbanistycznej stanowić ma w tym wypadku punkt wyjścia dla rozważań nad współczesnymi różnicami w zagospodarowaniu i funkcjach zabudowy przyrynkowej. W pracy posłużono się metodami z zakresu badań krajobrazowych, morfologii miasta oraz funkcjonalizmu (struktury funkcjonalnej). Najważniejszymi źródłami danych były inwentaryzacje urbanistyczne oraz mapy historyczne z XIX wieku i pierwszej połowy XX wieku. Oceniono poziom otwarcia rynków oraz istniejącą strukturę funkcji mieszkaniowej i usługowej według powierzchni całkowitej kondygnacji. Odnotowano w tym zakresie duże zróżnicowania w grupie badanych rynków. W niektórych spośród badanych miast na niski poziom obudowania placu rynkowego wpływ mają wciąż zniszczenia II wojny światowej. W większości badanych miast funkcją dominującą w zabudowie przyrynkowej są usługi. Wyjątek stanowią najsłabsze ekonomicznie Krośniewice, gdzie przy rynku dominuje funkcja mieszkaniowa. Na współczesny stan zabudowy i jej funkcji przyrynkowych zauważalny jest wpływ uwarunkowań historycznych, a także potencjału demograficznego oraz ekonomicznego miast.

Must Art Have a ‘Place’? Questioning the Power of the Digital Art-Scape

Greater Poland is a historical region with the highest number of medieval urban settlements in Poland. During archaeological rescue excavations conducted in connection with urban revitalisation projects (especially concerning market squares) and the modernisation of utility networks over the past two decades, remnants of buildings and infrastructure have been uncovered, which contribute to the understanding of the urban centres’ evolution over the centuries. Their origins date back to the issuance of town privileges, which occurred in the medieval or early modern periods. Whereas, a significant transformation in urban development emerged in the 19th century, marked as an open, paved square surrounded by tenement houses. The dynamic landscape of urbanism from the 13th to the 18th century is illuminated by these archaeological studies; however, they require further enrichment through analogies from other centres, iconographic sources, as well as relevant literature and archival materials. The gathered information paves the way for a deeper understanding of the historical spatial organisation of the market square, the forms of infill structures (such as town halls and commercial buildings), transformations of the façades surrounding the market square, and infrastructural elements such as pavements, wells, drains, and water supply lines. Valuable insights into historical changes are also provided by observations conducted within existing architectural monuments that include masonry built in the medieval or early modern periods.

Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) is a robust tool to systematically evaluate the effects of design decisions on spatial performance and to identify the relationship between the space and its users. Although there is a growing body of POE research on complex buildings, such as hospitals and education spaces, studies on the POE evaluation of public open spaces are limited. More importantly, few studies have investigated public squares designed at the periphery and how they are used. This study aims to identify the extent to which spatial configuration of public squares is related to users’ behavior (i.e., modes/distances of access, level of satisfaction). For this purpose, we focused on four peripheral urban squares located in Istanbul, Turkey. The methodology applied in the study includes a synthesis of three types of expertise: 1) behavioral mapping of urban squares (through the analysis of patterns of use based on direct observation), 2) cognitive evaluation of spaces based on perceived factors (through user questionnaires), and 3) quantifying urban public spaces objectively (through the methodology of space syntax and urban morphology). The results identify associations between objective characteristics of public spaces designed at the peripheral districts, patterns of use and users’ perception of these areas, to a certain extent. For example, the variety and intensity of activities within the square as well as the length of occupancy are highest for Avcılar square, which is most integrated within its urban surroundings with reduced average block size. An important finding is the association between the average street connectivity levels of these squares with their pedestrian catchment areas. In other words, the more integrated a public urban space is with its surroundings (800mt buffers), its users will access this space on foot from a larger distance. Based on these findings, spatial configuration as measured by space syntax measures appears to be an explanatory measure assessing the potentiality of public open spaces for bringing users together, hence, creating a lively, well-used space. However, the results also point to some disagreements between the perceived (users’ evaluations) and objective (syntactic analysis) measurements, which indicate that both types of measurements are needed in POE research of public spaces.

The Power of Assembly

Imaginings of cities are powerful...imagination can be either an escape...or an act of resistance or both (Bridge and Watson 2000: 16). Imagination and the city are closely entwined for Gary Bridges and Sophie Watson who organise the relationship between the city and the imagination in two areas: how the city affects the imagination and how the city is imagined. They see that the city provides both constraints and stimulus on the imagination of all its inhabitants. From screenwriters to urban planners to policy makers to city visitors from suburbs or country towns, each person has his or her imagined city and this is reflected in the way we live (lifestyle), where we choose to live (urban versus suburban) and how we use public and private space. The effects of the city on the imagination are also apparent from the way cities are represented in film, the way they are planned and how they are produced in a range of discourses. However, these diffuse imaginations can be opposing and it these opposing imaginations that forge the distinctions between an imagined city and an urban imagination. So where is this evident? The most visible evidence is found in the use and role of public space. Both Mike Davis and George Morgan document how public space is viewed as a threat giving rise to what Davis calls defensible space and a clear demarcation between public and private space (1994, 79). Davis witnesses that this practice, when applied, results in a fortress mentality of guarded properties and walled-in private suburbs that is destroying accessible public space(1992, 226). Documenting a more sociological approach is Jane Jacobs' argument that the city and social interactions within are a street ballet (2000, 107) and Lewis Mumford's notion of urban drama (2000, 92). This sociological approach views public space as providing an opportunity for people to invest in and interact. These longstanding opposing views toward public space as either a threat or an opportunity are a large part of the urban imagination and have consequences for the way in which the city is designed and planned. General concerns on security are evident by the ever-increasing reliance on architecture to provide security. This is most noticeable in urban areas where the rise of defensible space is apparent. Defensible space can be achieved by applying a commonly accepted practice amongst urban planners known as CPTED (pronounced sep-ted and standing for Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design). CPTED recognises that proper design and effective use of the built environment can lead to a reduction in the fear and incidence of crime, and an improvement in the quality of life (Howe, http://www.cpted-watch.com, 2002). CPTED principles are built on four overlapping strategies of natural surveillance, territorial reinforcement, natural access control and target hardening. These strategies are equally apparent in urban theorists like Morgan, Davis, Bridges and Watson; indeed even Jacobs can be seen as an early pioneer of CPTED with her views on natural surveillance. However, the application of these strategies differ in the separation of public and private space and how public space is designed and planned. Davis may concede CPTED's existence as perhaps only one small component of urban theory and practice that, for the most part, he argues, ignores the existing trend of fortifying the built and natural environment: Contemporary urban theory has been strangely silent about the militarisation of city life that is so grimly visible at street level (1992, 223). For Davis, who is referring to Los Angeles, Hollywood fiction has, ironically, been more realistic and politically perceptive in its representations of the urban. And these representations support Bridge and Watson's view of how the city affects the imagination as they only extrapolate from actually existing trends (Davis 1992, 223). Davis also sees a post-Liberal Los Angeles obsessed with the physical (security systems) and collaterally with policing of social boundaries through architecture. Such developments though are not unique to LA. In Australia the use of CPTED principles, though relatively low-key, are applied to the new Brisbane Busway Stations. In this instance it is the use of natural surveillance, a design concept primarily aimed at maximising the visibility of people and space through site location (parallel to highly utilised suburban streets and a major freeway) and site design (use of glass walls and bright lighting). The application of CPTED principles indicate that the role public space plays in a community has been in the imagination of the planning fraternity and the wider public for many years. Whilst the Brisbane Busway initiative may seem tame in comparison to enfortressed LA, Morgan reveals how CPTED principles have been key to urban and suburban planners in Australia since the late-nineteenth century and involved the imposition of middle-class ideals of how and where to live. Drawing on Sydney's urban planning response to two contrasting moral panics in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Morgan locates an ironic contrast between the fear of a dense and public sociability at the turn of the [20th] century and the contemporary fear of urban crime which is based on lack of sociability in street spaces that are not occupied or controlled (1994, 80). This contrast depicts the use of public space as associated with inner urban living to the more private existence of outer suburban living which has its roots in the urban planning undertaken in the late nineteenth century. The planning at that time was a response, in the main, to middle-class fears of social ills and disease that over-crowding in the inner city were thought to produce. This same middle class further extended their influence by pushing a population outward and in the process changed the use of public space by disconnecting the existing social and cultural networks of established communities. This outward movement eventuated in suburbs that were founded on the modernist thought of progress reflected in decentralisation, growth in car ownership and a denial of traditional urban life which were seen as dissonant and unacceptable (Morgan 1994, 82). These unacceptable traditions of a gregarious street life were controlled ultimately by urban planning through the design of new suburbs that were sold as a utopian landscape that offered land ownership a concept only previously dreamt or imagined. As the populace spread and thinned out, new communities developed. These new suburban arrivals adapted similar lifestyles and a degree of homogeneity formed within the community that eventually established and then fostered a socio-psychological division between public and private personas as suburban living nurtured a more private existence (1994, 84). This division is a very real danger to Jacobs' idea of a city as a street ballet and to Mumford's notion of urban drama as it takes the view of public space as not a place to stop and interact but as a space to be used, in many cases literally, as a thoroughfare to another private destination. This use of public space is exemplified in the everyday activity of driving a private vehicle straight from work to home. And, more importantly, this use of public space has detrimental affects on the role of public space, most noticeably on streets and sidewalks a city's most public of spaces. Jacobs recognises that the key to making a neighbourhood a community and making a city livable is, first and foremost, the use and safety of the street: Streets and their sidewalks, the main public places of a city, are its most vital organs, Jacobs suggests, and if a city's streets look interesting, the city does so (107). Jacobs addresses the issue of safety as the fundamental task of a city street and sidewalk and is critical of planners, and their inability to understand that people and their subsequent activity leads to attracting even more people to use or watch a sidewalk. By indicating that nobody watches an empty street, Jacobs implies that people do not seek emptiness from an urban setting and by removing the players from the drama also means removing the audience: in this case, the street's natural observers or, in CPTED terms, the safety net that natural surveillance can provide. Despite this apparent resonance between CPTED planning and critical urban theory, there are important distinctions. Mumford's sociological view of what a city is supports Morgan's and Jacobs' views that planners often did not understand the social web of community. In questioning the role of the city as a social institution Mumford identifies a handicap in that planners have had no clear notion of the social functions of the city...(and)... derive these functions from a cursory survey of the activities and interests of the contemporary urban scene (2000, 93). The risk as witnessed with the spread of garrison-suburbia is that the physical organisation of the city may deflate the essential drama and imaginative spur that Mumford believes a city requires. When Mumford identifies that the city fosters art and is art; the city creates the theatre and is the theatre (2000, 94) he is urging that planning considers the fulfilment of people's imaginations, or put another way, their fantasies. The physical layout and organisation of a city is not an end in itself and it must not solely shelter the human body but also the human imagination; it must not simply be at the convenience of industry but must account for social and cultural needs. Or as Mumford states the physical organisation of a city, its industries and its markets, its lines of communication and traffic, must be subservient to its social needs (2000, 94). Thes

After the second half of 20th century there have been dramatic changes in both urban life and urban space under the forces of globalisation. Changing production and consumption relations, rising suburban settlement patterns and changing lifestyle understandings have been the major impulsive forces behind this transformation of the cities. This transformation of the cities have changed the expectations from public life and public spaces. Increasing privatization, increasing surveillance and increasing use of the design themes have defined the new characteristics of public spaces. In this environment, shopping malls appear as new public spaces as an alternative to open-air public squares. Despite of perceived illness of the Turkish cities, urban open spaces still atractive places for urban life in Turkey. The focus is this study is to evaluate and compare the general and local attributes behind the attractiveness of the urban squares and shopping malls as the social and urban centers for Turkey. In this study, these attributes are investigated and analyzed through an empirical study in three different public places in Bursa; first an urban square in the city center,second an inner-city shopping mall complex having a huge urban square in front and last an out-oftown enclosed shopping mall. In the context of this survey, open-interview method is used in order to evaluate these attributes through the eyes of the visitors of these public spaces. This study reveals seven common attributes about the attractiveness behind the open-air squares and shopping malls from the visitors’ perspectives like “accessibility, comfort, diversity, urban furnitures, security, hygiene and services”. Authors of this study believe that clarifying and comparing the expectations and perceptions of the visitors of both malls and squares can be helpful to shed valuable insight to studies on healthier development of Turkish public spaces.

This research seeks to demonstrate the ways in which urban design frameworks stimulate and encourage social activities in urban public squares. We observed two public squares in Brisbane using a framework of design factors identified from existing literature to examine how such a framework correlates with user activities and engagement. The observation identifies patterns of public behaviour suggesting clear links between the design factors and the public’s engagement with them. The results show that activated areas of social gathering draw people in, and the busier a space is, both the frequency and the duration of people lingering in the space increase. The study suggests that simply providing respite from the urban environment (and/or weather conditions) does not adequately encourage social interaction and that people-friendly design factors can instigate social activities. One of the primary conclusions of this study is that members of the public in Brisbane are both actively and passively social and often seek out locations where people-watching and being around other members of the public are facilitated and encouraged. The research provides the basis for further debates on what public space in Brisbane should cater for and how it could better contribute to its urban context.

Urban squares are the main place for older adults’ daily activities. The spatial layout of the urban square is not only related to the construction of a healthy city and the equitable distribution of public resources, but also of great significance in enhancing the sense of gain, security, and happiness of older adults. This essay takes “health needs of older adults” as the perspective, and constructs a multi-dimensional evaluation index system of urban square space for elderly suitability in terms of physiological, psychological, and social health. It also takes six urban squares in Yiyang city center as an example and analyzes and evaluates them using GIS network analysis and the entropy weight method. The results of the study show that (1) Yiyang city center squares show the distribution characteristics of “dense in the middle and scattered around”, and the spatial distribution is not balanced, which leads to a small service area. (2) The overall intervention value of urban square space is mainly distributed between 0.291 and 0.710, with an average value of 0.481, and the overall intervention effect of the square is good. The reasons for differences in health interventions for older adults in urban square spaces centered on six aspects: the quality of the square space, the variety and convenience of travel lines, the tidiness of the environment, physical activities, safety, and social interaction. Based on this, this essay proposes three optimization strategies for the renewal of urban squares, the construction of characteristic squares, and the reconstruction of the urban square space system. The aim is to provide a reference for the future design and renewal of the elderly suitability of urban squares, so as to promote the construction of a healthy city.

This article explores a disturbing irony of certain touristic festivals and heritage sites: although these festivals and sites tend to draw heavily on the language of shared heritage and community, the dominant narratives and cultural symbols embodied in these venues sometimes celebrate more traditional and problematic ‘racial,’ ethnic, and gender hierarchies. Via a case study of the annual swallows festival held in the California Mission town of San Juan Capistrano, this article offers an illustration of the value of embracing a public interest anthropology (PIA) framework for identifying and addressing the hidden racisms underlying some heritage tourism sites. Moreover, the article suggests that the political market square metaphor for conceptualizing tourism festival management could be productively reframed and paired with a PIA approach to facilitate more inclusive, color-blind approaches to developing tourism policy.

The problem of the reconstruction of centres of Polish towns and cities after the destructions of the World War II evoke discussions even today. Over the first years after the war, in numerous cases the centres of historical cities and towns were lost; in the place of former market squares and networks of streets with tenements crowned with endwall trims, randomly dispersed concrete blocks of flats were erected, in order to satisfy urgent housing demands. The situation changed after 1980, when in Elbląg, Gdańsk, Szczecin, Kołobrzeg, a rule was adopted according to which the peripheral development of city quarters was to be recreated, restoring tenements located in historical plots of land, but contemporary in style, maintaining the silhouettes and sizes from years before. It is also possible to observe other activities in the solutions of the latest public utility buildings, which - often by using a sophisticated intellectual play - restore the climate and character of cities remembered and known from the past centuries. In the west and north of Europe there are many towns and cities, predominantly ports, which used to be members of Hansa. The organisation of Hansa, the origins of which reach back to the Middle Ages, associated a number of cities which could decide about the provision of goods to cities within a specific territory, and secure markets for products manufactured in them. Thanks to that, cities that belonged to Hansa were developing more rapidly and effectively, and the beginnings of their development within the territory of Germany and in the Baltic states date back to the 13th and 14th centuries. The peak period of the development of Hanseatic cities, where merchants were engaged in free trade with people from European countries, fell in the 14th and 15th centuries, but already in the 17th century there was a complete decline of Hansa, resulting from the occurrence of competition in the form of associations of Dutch and English cities, as well as the Scandinavian ones. From amongst Polish towns and cities, members of Hansa were e.g. Szczecin, Gdańsk, Kołobrzeg, Elbląg, as well as Cracow. In 1980 an association of partner cities of North Europe, dubbed a New Hansa, was established, the objective of which is to attract attention to the common development of tourism and trade. Nowadays, this New Hansa associates over a hundred cities, similarly to what once was in the medieval Hansa. Numerous Polish cities faced the problem of reconstruction after the destruction of the World War II. The effects varied. By adopting the programme of satisfying predominantly housing demands in the 1960s and 1970s, historical old towns in dozens of cities from amongst nearly 2 hundred destroyed by warfare of the World War II in the north and west of Poland were lost forever. Today we can still encounter ruins of Gothic churches in Głogów or Gubin, where in the place of a market square and tenements of townsmen, randomly located rows of typical four- or five-storey blocks of flats have been erected.