Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Krishna chand ch
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
Urban Square:
• Urban square is an open public space used for
community gatherings
• The first urban formations appeared 6000 years ago
• City squares were established at the cross roads of
important trade routes
• Major places of worship were placed on squares, also
used as markets
• Served as an opportunity to exercise the power of
rulers with military processions and parades
The public space
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
Function of Squares:
• Creates a gathering place for the
people
• Providing them with a shelter
against the traffic
• Freeing them from the tension of
rushing through the web of street
• Represents as a psychological
parking place within the civic
landscape
Very ‘heart’ of city
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
Reasons for development of Squares:
‘Life in public’
• Climatic conditions
• Societal structure and psychological attitude of people
• led to a form of public life – and life in public
• Made street and square the natural locale for
community activities and representation
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
Factors that formulate the Square:
• On the relation between the forms
of the surrounding buildings
• On their uniformity or their variety
• On their absolute dimensions
• On relative proportions in
comparison with width and length
of the open area
• On the angle of entering the
streets
A hole or ‘w
hole’
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
Squares – A part of living organism
‘A Living organism
’
• A Square is never completed
• Some may vanish, be destroyed. Others may be
replaced and new ones added
• A square, an accumulation of important buildings in past
may have developed into comprehensible form now
• Elements of square such as
surrounding structures,
monuments are subjected to
flux of time
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
Reasons for changes in Square
‘A Living organism
’
• Physically through the erection of new buildings & the
alteration or destruction of old ones
• Through a modification of the building line
• Psychologically, through the different way in which each
generation experiences
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Archetypes
‘Three elements’
• Square consists of three space
confining elements
• Surrounding structures, floor and
the imaginary sphere of the sky
above
• Elements are decisively defined by the two-dimensional
layout of square
• These three factors that produce final three
dimensional effect may vary in themselves
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
Classification of Squares
‘Five types’
• Closed Square – Space self contained
• Dominated Square – Space directed
• Nuclear Square – Space formed around a centre
• Grouped Squares – Space units combined
• Amorphous Square – Space unlimited
• Squares doesn't represent only one pure type, but very
often bears the characteristics of two of these types
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
Closed Square:
‘Closed’
• It is a complete enclosure interrupted only by the streets
leading to it
• Primary element of any closed square is its layout of
regular geometrical form
• The repetition of identical houses or house types, facing
the enclosed area
• Spatial balance of the square will always be achieved
by the equation of horizontal & vertical forces
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
Closed Square:
‘Closed’
Place des Vosges,
Paris, France
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
Closed Square:
‘Closed’
• Each façade fulfills a dual function
• On the one hand, it is part of an individual structure; on
the other hand, it forms part of a common urban spatial
order
• Continuity and context of the framing structures were
achieved by the Colonnade, arched arcades
• Yet, the inner courtyard with in a complex monumental
structure is not a square from the town planning view
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
Closed Square:
‘Closed’
Colonnade in Agora - Priene Arcade in Place des Vosges
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Dominated Square:
‘Dom
inated’
• Characterized by one individual structure or a group of
buildings towards which the open space is directed
• Surrounding structures are related to them
• Dominated building may be a church, a palace, a town
hall, an architecturally developed fountain, a theatre
• Usually the direction of a main street which opens into
the square establishes the axis towards the dominant
building
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Dominated Square:
‘Dom
inated’
Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris St. Peter’s, Rome
Place de l’Odeon,
Paris
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Dominated Square:
‘Dom
inated’
• Compels the spectator to move toward and to look at
the focal architecture
• Dominant square produces a directive of motion
• The dominated structure need not necessarily be
voluminous
• Very often it is merely a gate or an arch which may
dominate a whole square
• A fountain may also dominate a square it if constitutes
an entire front in with architecture, sculpture and water
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Dominated Square:
‘Dom
inated’
Piazza del Popolo, Rome
Fountain dominating the Square,
Fontana di Trevi, Rome
Pariser Platz,
Berlin
Squares subordinate to the
Street –gate axis
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Dominated Square:
‘Dom
inated’
Dominating element may also be a VoidMaria Theresien strasse, Innsbruck
Dominating element is a broad riverPraca do Comercio, Lisbon
Subordinating Square to the continuous axisPiazza Vittorio Veneto, Turin
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Nuclear Square:
‘Nuclear’
• Nuclear Square consists of a nucleus, a strong vertical
accent – a monument, a fountain, an obelisk
• It is powerful enough to charge the space around with a
tension that the impression of the square will be evoked
• It will tie the heterogeneous elements of the periphery
into one visual unit
• Dimensions of nuclear square are restricted as the
visual effect of the central monument is naturally limited
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Nuclear Square:
‘Nuclear’
Donatello’s equestrian figurePiazza del Santo in Padua,
Italy
Nelson’s columnTrafalgar square, London
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
Grouped Squares:
‘Grouped’
• In Grouped Squares, Individual squares may be fused
organically and aesthetically into one comprehensive
whole
• Each unit - the individual square, represents an entity,
aesthetically self sufficient and yet part of a
comprehensive higher order
• A sequence of squares, different in size and form,
develops in only one direction, thus establishing a
straight axis
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Grouped Square:
‘Grouped’
Sequence of Squares developed in a straight axis
Imperial Fora, Rome
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
Grouped Squares:
‘Grouped’
• Or, in a non-axial organization, a smaller square opens
with one of its sides upon a larger square, so that the
individual axes of each square meet in a right angle
• Or, a group of three or more squares of different
shapes and proportions surround one dominant
building
• Or, two individual squares fall into a coherent pattern
although they are separated from each other by blocks
of houses, thoroughfares
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Grouped Square:
‘Grouped’
Non-axial organization of SquaresPiazza and Piazzetta in Venice
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Grouped Square:
‘Grouped’
Squares around one Dominant buildingPalazzo Podesta in Bologna, Italy
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Grouped Square:
‘Grouped’
Two seperated squares with coherence
Piazza d’Erbe and Piazza dei Signori
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Amorphous Square:
‘Am
orphous’
• Amorphous is formless, unorganized, having no
specific shape
• It does not represent aesthetic qualities or artistic
possibilities
• However, if it shares some elements with the
previously analyzed squares it may appear like one of
them
• New York’s Washington square is not a closed square.
Its dimensions are so large
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Amorphous Square:
‘Am
orphous’
• Proportions of many of its surrounding structures are so
heterogeneous, so irregular, even contradictory
• Location and size of the small triumph arch are so
dissimilar to all the other given factors
• Unified impression
cannot result
• Disproportion in scale
destroys all aesthetic
possibilities New York’s Washington Square
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Amorphous Square:
‘Am
orphous’
• Place de l’Opera in Paris could not become a
“dominated” Square in spite of the monumental façade
of the imposing opera house
• Width of the Boulevard des Cupucines is running
through its off centre
• Presence of small structures like the entrance to the
Metro, scattered all over the area ruin any special effect
• These examples are “squares” from surveyor’s
viewpoint, although without any artistic impact
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
The Amorphous Square:
‘Am
orphous’Boulevard and Metro ruin Dominated SquarePlace de l’Opera in Paris
Urban DesignSquare in Space & Time
Urban Square
‘Thank You’
Thank You
References: The Square in space and time, Paul Zucker, Time-Saver Standards for Urban Design