University of Utah E Publications

Piombo, Pablo Vazquez

English

The urban landscape of Zacatecas: transformation of the surrounding buffer areas

Shrestha, Subik

Davis, Howard

An investigation of the transformation of downtown Eugene's building and retail morphology (1965 to 1985) after the implementation of the pedestrian mall

Lombardini, Giampiero

ISUF 2020: CITIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY  
 
SELF-ORGANIZATION, SPONTANEOUS CONSCIOUSNESS, CRISIS AND 
TERRITORIAL CYCLES. AN INTERPRETATION OF SAVERIO MURATORI 
THOUGHT 
Giampiero Lombardini, Assistant Professor of Town and Regional Planning, Department of Architecture and 
Design, University of Genova (I),  
ABSTRACT 
In the thought of Saverio Muratori, the territory is the organic unity that defines the meaning and 
limits of reality. In the built environment, nature (interpreted and modified by human activity) and 
cultural processes achieve the maximum levels of synthesis all those processes that, together, 
define a civilization. The territory, in its ongoing rebuild, continually redefines the materials and 
the logic inherited from previous eras. The evolution of territorial structures that arises from this 
dynamic can be seen as a cyclical process in which the succession of different crisis cause, from 
time to time, change in the structures of a civilization. In this process, we can identify the dialectic 
between nature and culture and between technology and ethics. In this paper, we will investigate 
the role that the processes that the "self-organization" play into this cyclical and relational dynamic 
of territorial transformation. New forms and patterns (physical and social) emerge trough e 
relational process. The self-organization processes characterize the period when a settled 
population build its environment through the spontaneous consciousness. Conversely, historical 
periods characterized by “crisis” are those in which the self-organizational processes lose their 
impulse and the control technologies (physical and social) arise together the critical consciousness. 
The creative role of liberating self-organizational processes so is opposed to the processes of a 
“planning” authority. The dynamic between freedom and control, and between spontaneous and 
critical consciousness can be a key by which to read the transformations of territories in the 
present age of globalization and radical urban transformations. 
INTRODUCTION  
The method of reading and project of the territory that Saverio Muratori had painstakingly built in 
a long journey of personal reflection that had gradually touched the themes of architecture, 
philosophy, history (with several other articulations of thought) has aroused since the beginning 
wide and heated debates about its disciplinary correctness and about the possibility and usefulness 
of its application. Although the reflections on the territory and on the ecumenes almost exclusively 
affected the long final period of his life, it may in some sense surprise that Muratori not only never 
participated in his life, if not very laterally, in the drafting of any "instrument urban planning”, but 
the problem of how to translate his reflections on the city and the territory never arose. His thinking 
was clearly placed on another level and the effort was aimed entirely at trying to steal the 
"structuring" elements of man's ways of settling on Earth. The problem of how to act in a world that 
appeared screwed around an epochal crisis and of planetary dimensions could have been 
answered, interpreting some passages of his last writings, only in full awareness of this crisis, which 
appeared to him with all ethical evidence and therefore political and therefore not within easy 
sector shortcuts.  
BACKGROUND  
The post-metropolitan territory (and the territory in general) can be read as a succession of cycles 
of territorial settlement. The material history of the territory is the history of the forms of its 
2 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
settlement and is not linear, but it’s characterized by cycles of innovation / consolidation, 
centralization / dispersion, employment / abandonment, colonization / restructuring. Sometimes 
these settlement dynamics act simultaneously (they are synchronous), in other cases they alternate 
over time and are differentiated in space (diachronic changes). The geographical space (the 
physical and morphological characteristics of the territory), condition the different territorial cycles 
(above all the first cycles) that are always the result of an uncertain and unstable equilibrium 
between population and environmental resources. The forms of settlement inherited from the past 
also condition future developments, sometimes posing as constraints sometimes as opportunities 
(reuse of previously shaped structures).  
Despite the objective difficulty in approaching the complexity of his thought and, however, to some 
extent, the areas of reflection that belong to strands of thought (philosophical, historical, 
architectural) now clearly overcome, remains a "hard core" of thought that continues to arouse 
interest, evidenced by several contributions that have appeared in recent years that have 
confronted this thought trying to detect the elements potentially heralding further developments 
(RAVAGNATI 2012, CATALDI, 2013 MARETTO, 2012, TAGLIAZUCCHI, 2015). Without wanting 
to anticipate conclusions that would in any case be hasty, we can read in this recent recovery of 
interest the attempt to recover that unitary (holistic one would say today) vision of the man-
environment relationship so pervasive in Muratori's thought and at the same time so current (and 
increasingly felt as necessary). 
MURATORI’S THOUGHT ABOUT TERRITORY AND ENVIRONMENT  
Among the other ways that have recently been suggested to re-read Muratori's thought, we can try 
to reconstruct some of Muratori's lines of thought starting from the considerations elaborated in his 
last contributions around the concept of environment. Muratori makes a very occasional use of the 
term environment (MURATORI, 1963b, 1967, MARINUCCI, 1976), whose definition is changing, 
affected by the shifting of interests that sees the attention move from the building object, to the 
fabric and from this to the city and finally to the territory. If initially the environment was considered 
by Muratori in a strictly architectural environmental sense and was linked to a 'typifying' vision of 
the creation of the urban fact, moving towards the concept of territory also changes the role and 
definition of the environment. If in fact the territory is finally defined a 'global architecture', a 
concrete manifestation of a civilization within its living space, in parallel, the environment becomes 
the inextensible heritage of man, the stable heritage of civilization once it has reached its 
maximum. A civilization which, once it has reached a balance with its own life support, can from 
that moment grow only from within, that is, in content. The transformation that can be made - said 
Muratori as early as 1967 - will not be so much on the side of the territory-environment as, 
primarily, on the side of human consciousness, called to administer the former as conservation, 
understanding, adequate use and no less mindful of the its history. The territory of the ecumenical 
world must be increased with new experience, that is, with new freedom and new responsibility, 
from which to derive any hypothesis of transformation of the environment itself. In the long 
Muratorian reflection, the arrival to a form of organicism is almost inevitable, if you retrace the 
meaning of its reflection. For Muratori, in fact, not only the city is an environmental organism, that 
is, an individual in a conservative and historical sense, homogeneous in the fabric and unitary in 
the system, supportive-integrative and inseparable from its natural environment, but the whole 
regional civil territory has the same characteristics of historical-environmental individuality and 
proceeds for fundamental functional structural typicalities. Civilization itself has this character: 
something opposed to the causal determinism of the analytical sciences in which there was a 
3 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
negative and limiting tendency to quantity and linearity, while on the contrary the environment-
territory proceeds in its evolution through internal modifications of its typical structures -organics 
differentiated in an individual and historical-environmental sense.  
Muratori, while giving the territory-environment the value of an individual, never resort to the 
concept of identity: in general, he prefers to adhere to the concept of individuation of Jungian 
derivation which can be defined as that evolution of the state of consciousness that allows the 
human being to recognize the environment and to recognize it. The concept of typical-organic 
structures is very close to it, albeit with the limits (but also with the suggestions) that we can 
highlight today in such a deeply organicistic reading (between territory and organism, Muratori 
does not establish at all a metaphor or even an analogy , but it recognizes a perfect identity: the 
territory is, in itself, an organism, the result of the combination of a law of permanence with a law 
of cyclicity. The environmental element therefore has a prominent role, because, in its quality of 
fixing , testing and preserving historical variations and transmitting them as the basis and condition 
of future variations (not unlike what happens for a living organism), presents itself as the substantial 
space-time synthesis that indicates a clear indication to operate and defines its limits The 
environment constitutes the face of the world of man, whereby it becomes the mirror of man's 
consciousness, indeed his own experience and his memory, both in the singularity of his moments. It 
is such a total and substantial process that every demolition and replacement, even a radical one, 
is not enough to eradicate it. In the self-conscious process that occurs in times of crisis, the method 
of transforming the territory is basically made up of operating only as awareness, knowledge, 
responsibility and therefore 'freedom in preserving, enjoying and enjoying while conserving' 
(MURATORI, 1967). 
In being every environment first of all a direction, a preference and a choice already made many 
times, the Muratorian idea (source of many discussions) of historical reading as an operating 
history is manifested. In reading Muratori's writings, however, it can be observed that the concept 
of operating history (also present in the hypothetical title of his last unfinished work) changes 
substantially, when the object of analysis is no longer the building episode but the territory. If, in 
fact, in the Muratorian logic, at building level, to find the rules for the future development of urban 
fabrics (MURATORI, 1960), as known, it would have been necessary to resort to a conscious use 
of the "a priori type", in the case of territory, this "having to be" fades into the search for that 
virtuous relationship between man and the environment which should provide not already a 
preordained system of rules, but a variety of "sustainable" settlement principles, if only because in 
the environment they are sedimented and there it is a reminder of past failures and inconsistencies.  
KNOWLEDGE, CONSCIOUSNESS, TERRITORY  
The reversal that Muratori operates in the categories of consciousness that lead him to a "reversal" 
in the cyclical process of aesthetics with logic (CATALDI 2013) leads not only to the re-evaluation 
of architecture as a mirror of civilization (architecture-territorial), but also to the territory as a 
collective work of art, as such less subject to the individual inventiveness and therefore more 
representative of the civil world of man, of which it constitutes, on a larger scale, a sort of artificial 
second nature to be protected with the utmost care. As an art fact, therefore, the territory is by its 
nature a heritage and sediment of creative and creative practices of new meaning, even in the 
dimension of constant maintenance of balance with the environment. Indeed, it is precisely the 
changing (but 'typical') forms of this relationship that constitute the essence of the 'territorial' artistic 
fact. 
4 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
In this context, the program for the modification of the environment (which is such only in so far as 
it is inhabited and lived by man: without man, in the thought of Muratori, even the environment 
would not exist) does not close, and could not to be otherwise, in a predetermined pattern: the 
environment in fact, by resolutely tightening the process of life, always offers new individual 
openings. But only as a development of its historical process, from which it cannot be separated, it 
is conditioned by it, but not bound in an absolute way: it will be the exercise responsible for the 
management of the territorial environmental heritage to find the solutions, deriving from the past 
not already the rules preconstituted and perhaps not (or not so much) of the "genetic" rules, but 
rather a story of successful solutions and man-environment balance that can be the basis for new 
development hypotheses that today we could define co-evolutionary. The reading of the historical 
process forming the environment-territory thus understood is therefore fundamental to grasp the 
field of feasibility of the development and modification hypotheses, but it is not closed: it offers 
basic schemes on which to engage the transformations and offers the criteria for evaluating their 
compatibility and organicity. Where Muratori refers (in another step) to the metaphor of the 
watercourse (already used by Jung for psycho-analytical studies) which in its flow towards the 
valley, "finds" its best path by digging the bed where the soil structure in the flow of territorial 
history, the settlement adapts to it, attempting (not always succeeding, also due to the senselessness 
that each era brings with it) to optimize the process at each step, to a pre-existing structure that 
does not preorder everything but however it affects development alternatives. In this perspective, 
Muratorian studies anticipate (and could also find fertile ground for development) in the most 
recent studies of the life sciences: neo-evolutionism, autopoiesis, self-organization and emergency 
and, in general, all the studies related to the thought of complexities that tend to make human 
sciences and natural sciences converge within a single system of thought (CAPRA, LUISI 2014). The 
vital patterns that characterized (and differentiated) the different "environments", that is the 
different civilizations before the capitalist homologation (which Muratori had lucidly anticipated), 
far from having a deterministic origin, constitute the result of processes of co- evolution of man-
environment of a very long period which, in current conditions, we also have the right to 
completely cancel, but which also represent extraordinary opportunities to invent sustainable 
futures.  
CONCLUSIONS 
One of the most significant results of this long reflection carried out by Muratori on the territory and 
its natural landing was that of recognizing an environmental limit in every context, a limit that 
presides over every historical-environmental formation. This recognition is one of the most relevant 
and anticipatory innovations of Muratorian thought and, although often understood as a 
deterministic (if not moralistic) variable, it leaves open, if observed more carefully, the possibilities 
of responsible and critical action (as conscious of the past) but free. The environmental limit of a 
civilized territory is a concrete reality in constant evolution, but precisely oriented: it is organicity 
and individuality together; production of ever new individuality precisely because total vision, not 
element, central vision which is the ever-changing circle and life. It can be objected, quite clearly, 
that things did not go in the direction desired by Muratori, that is, there was not that responsible 
awareness of one's environment that would have oriented the settlement developments in the 
territories of modernity in very different ways . That deep concern for the mechanisms of 
"dissolution" of the territory (and therefore, fundamentally, of the city and its vital tissues) already 
evident at the time, and often analyzed in the margins of the maps of the unfinished Atlas of the 
territory, ended up prevailing in prevaricating on the ways of building the built space. On the other 
hand, the issue of urbanization and that of parallel abandonment which increasingly intersect 
5 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
spatially and temporally has already been recognized and analyzed in the cyclical model 
developed by Muratori: the cycles of expansion and rarefaction traced both in Mediterranean 
area, but also identified in the history of the Indian and Chinese ecumenes reinforce the theses 
developed starting from the studies on Rome on the cyclical nature of the settlement processes. In 
the moments of crisis that such cycles inevitably determine, the only solution has been found from 
time to time in the adaptive capacities with respect to the environment (not always optimal, but 
rather often full of errors) elaborated through the accumulation of a critical conscience that in the 
past, it has already allowed companies to self-recognize the founding traits of their vital 
environments and to design the consequent adaptive strategies on them, according to a process 
which, taken back to current paradigms, could be defined as resilient. The size of today's 
urbanization processes is obviously completely out of scale compared to those known in the past, 
but the Muratorian method of patrimonial reading of the territory, in some of its anticipatory and 
still current intuitions, can be the starting point for further reflections.  
REFERENCES 
CAPRA F., LUISI P.L. (2014), Vita e natura. Una visione sistemica, Arezzo, Aboca 
CATALDI G. (2013 - a cura di), Saverio Muratori architetto. A cento anni dalla nascita. Atti del 
convegno itinerante, Aion Edizioni, Firenze.  
MARETTO M. (2012), Saverio Muratori: il progetto della città, Franco Angeli, Milano.  
MARINUCCI G. (1976 – a cura di), Autocoscienza e realtà nella storia delle ecumeni civili : 
lezioni 1971-72 di Saverio  Muratori, Centro studi di storia urbanistica, Roma.  
MURATORI S. (1960), Studi per una operante storia urbana di Venezia, Istituto poligrafico dello 
Stato, Roma.  
MURATORI S. (1963a), Studi per una operante storia urbana di Roma, Centro studi di storia 
urbanistica, Roma. 
MURATORI S. (1963b), Architettura e civiltà in crisi, Centro studi di storia urbanistica, Roma. 
MURATORI S. (1967), Civiltà e territorio, Centro studi di storia urbanistica, Roma.   
RAVAGNATI C. (2012), L’invenzione del territorio: l’atlante inedito di Saverio Muratori, Franco 
Angeli, Milano. 
TAGLIAZUCCHI S. (2015), Studi per un’operante storia del territorio. Il libro incompiuto di Saverio 
Muratori, Tesi di Dottorato, Università di Bologna (relatore Prof. M. Agnoletto) 
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR 
Giampiero Lombardini, Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture and Design, University of Genova (I). 
giampiero.lombardini@unige.it  


Self-organization, spontaneous consciousness, crisis and territorial cycles. An interpretation of Saverio Muratori thought

Wu, Wenke

ISUF 2020: CITIES IN THE TWENTY -FIRST CENTURY  
 
RESEARCH ON THE WEAVING STRATEGY FOR THE RENEWAL OF  
HISTORICAL BLOCKS 
Wenke Wu, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, China 
ABSTRACT 
The historical block is a symbol of city civilization. Changes of the times and rapid development of 
economy have caused great changes in the form and space of historical blocks, and also their decay 
in different degrees. How to solve the contradiction between the decline of historical blocks and the 
development of urban modernization has become the key. The weaving design, originated from 
western urban planning, is widely used in the revitalization of historical cities. It inherits the context of 
the original block, restore the form and activates its potential by gradually embedding new elements in 
the space required for transformation, so as to adapt historical blocks to modern cities. This paper 
explores the strategy of weaving design in the renewal of historical blocks. Taking some 
contemporary renewal projects of historical blocks in Europe and China as main objects, the study 
analyzes and summarizes the weaving methods and strategies from three aspects of urban, 
architecture and tectonic, trying to make contributions to the renewal and development of historical 
cities in the future. 
This paper is subsidized by NSFC project which is named as <Research on Time and Space 
Elements and Expression System of “Sharing Architecture”>, NO.51978468. 
Keywords: historic block, urban renewal, weaving strategy, modern and tradition 
INTRODUCTION  
With the advent of the information age and the development of economic globalization, the 
contradiction between the decline of historical blocks around the world and the development of urban 
modernization has gradually intensified. The rapid construction of the city has cut off its connection 
with tradition to some extent, so that many historical blocks have been demolished and abandoned. 
Nowadays, it has become the consensus of society to inherit the historical context and protect various 
historical and cultural heritages. To realize the revitalization of historical blocks, on the one hand, the 
remaining buildings should be protected. The outdated problems in terms of function, structure, and 
form should be solved in various ways. On the other hand, the new buildings used to weave the 
texture of the block need to be in harmony with the context of the overall environment. Many 
contemporary architects have paid great attention to the renewal of historical blocks. Through 
theoretical and practical research, they try to find a way to realize the harmonious coexistence of new 
and old buildings. They are committed to solving the contradiction between tradition and modernity to 
achieve the sustainable development of urban economy, structure and morphology. 
BACKGROUND  
Since the 1960s, the importance of historical areas and blocks in cities has once again been valued. 
The rise of historical conservation is largely related to the decline of modernism. Because modernism 
draws inspiration and power from the era of machinery and large industrial production, emphasizing 
the difference from the past. Early modernist urban planning was anxious to solve the dirty and 
crowded environment of the city. In this process, history was considered to be an obstacle to social 
development. Large areas of historical blocks were demolished, giving way to integrated development 
and efficient transportation system. After 1945, the need for urban reconstruction after the war gave 
modernism the first opportunity for large-scale practice. Compared with partial repairs and 
renovations, integrated development was a more efficient and popular way of urban renewal. But a 
series of problems caused at the same time also appeared. Europe and the United States have begun 
to rethink the large-scale development of urban construction methods. Representatives include Jane 
Jacobs and Herbert Gans. After the 1970s, with the development of the global economy, the rising 
2 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
trend of environmentalism and deindustrialization, comprehensive development was no longer taken 
as urban planning policy, which also heralded the beginning of postmodernism. 
Postmodernism expresses its appreciation of the value of historical cities and urban morphology. In 
Collage City, Colin Rowe criticized that modernist architecture lost attention to the external 
environment and historical context. Aldo Rossi's Neo-rationalism believes that history and modernity 
are continuous. History is the origin of the city, and the city continuously draws inspiration from history 
to obtain development and change. Postmodernism's emphasis on place sense and historical context 
has gradually become a consensus. For historical blocks, it is certain to affirm its value and protect it, 
but the way of preservation has always been a problem worthy of exploration. The structure and form 
of historic blocks can be continued through weaving design and gradual approach. However, how to 
deal with the relationship between the old and new buildings, and how new buildings reflect their own 
characteristics of the times are still urgent problems need to be solved.  
METHODOLOGY  
Through literature research and case method, the contemporary renewal strategies of historical 
blocks are analyzed from both theoretical and practical aspects. Relevant theories about the renewal 
of historical blocks and the application of weaving strategy of new buildings are summarized. This 
paper studies the contemporary cases in Germany, Denmark, China and other historic blocks which 
are regenerated through weaving design.  Based on historical and environmental backgrounds, the 
cases are analyzed from three levels of urban, architecture, and tectonic, and summarizes the 
weaving design strategies for renewal of historical blocks. 
FINDINGS  
Related Theories 
There are usually two ways of architecture renewal of historical blocks. One is to renovate and 
transform the historical buildings by means of functional replacement. The other is to develop and 
build new buildings on the original site of the historical buildings that have been demolished due to 
lack of value, so the original texture could be weaved and sewed up. The paper mainly focuses on the 
second renewal method. 
The new design must fully respect the texture and architectural features of the original historical 
blocks to achieve overall context harmony. As for how to achieve contextual harmony, Steven 
Thiesdell has mentioned in Revitalizing Historic Urban Quarters that there are three methods: 
contextual unification, contextual juxtaposition, contextual continuation. Contextual continuation 
reflects the ideas of postmodernism, and it is also a generally accepted view which means there is 
continuity between modernity and tradition, and history can provide impetus for development. 
However, unlike contextual unification, the imitation of form alone cannot stimulate the vitality of 
buildings and blocks. What is needed is the contemporary interpretation of tradition, in which elements 
in the traditional context are re-expressed through contemporary design methods, so as to truly 
continue the vitality of tradition in the present age. 
Professor Chang Qing of Tongji University believes that preserving historical blocks does not mean 
keeping them in origin state. For new buildings in the historical environment, the local historical 
context needs to be inherited, but the ways are not only imitation. Because inheritance is not only to 
pass down the heritage itself, but also to connect the past with the future, so as to inspire the creation 
of today with the essence of heritage. In Coexistent System of Old and New Buildings in Europe, 
Professor Zhang Ming of Tongji University emphasized the continuation of the city and history based 
on a series of case study. In the rehabilitation and renovation project of the former residence of Yan 
Tongchun, which is current site of Jiefang Daily, Professor Zhang put forward the design concept of 
"Renovation through History", which means the purpose of architecture is not only to include the past, 
but also to transform the pasts into the future. This view is now widely accepted by the public. 
3 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
Contemporary Cases for Renewal of Historic Blocks through Weaving Strategy 
Around the world, there are many cases of renovation of historic blocks through new constructions. 
Architects use different architectural languages to deal with the relationship between the old and new 
buildings in historical blocks, but there are also many universal rules and strategies. This paper 
attempts to analyze and summarize them from three aspects of urban, architecture, and tectonic. 
Urban 
 ( urban context, street 
pattern, space system) 
A.James Simon Gallery B.Jixi Museum C.Lianzhou Museum of Photography 
Architecture 
 ( space, form, facade) 
D.Tsingpu Yangzhou Retreat E.Jishou Art Museum F.European Hanse Museum 
Tectonic 
 ( technique, material, color) 
G.Kannikegården Conference Center H.European School Copenhagen I.Kult Cultural History Center 
Figure 1 This is a table that shows contemporary cases for renewal of historic blocks. 
(Source: A. ©Ute Zscharnt for David Chipperfield Architects, B. ©Li Zhe, C. ©Zhang Chao, D.©Pedro Pegenaute, E. 
©Tian Fangfang, F. © Werner Huthmacher, G. ©Anders Sune Berg, H. ©Adam Mørk and Hampus Berndtson, I. ©Brigida 
Gonzáles.) 
 
 
Urban: weaving the texture and sharing the city 
The relationship between the new buildings and the historical blocks and cities needs to be 
comprehensively considered from three aspects: urban context, street pattern and space system. On 
the one hand, the new building should fill and sew the original structure and texture, and properly 
handle the relationship with the surrounding old buildings. James Simon Gallery is designed by British 
architect David Chipperfield, which is a new entrance for Museum Island in Berlin. While filling the 
gaps in the urban texture of Museum Island, architects took different approaches to face the two old 
museums in the classicism style. It is a direct physical connection with the Pergamon Museum on the 
north side, forming a continuity of the riverside interface. While with the Neues Museum on the east 
side, by extending the street-front colonnade, an internal courtyard open to the public is enclosed, 
separating the two museums. On the other hand, the new building also needs to be integrated with 
the external urban space. It can be shared with the city by means of reserving a distribution square, 
having sinking courtyard, and opening some space of the building to the city to increase its publicity, 
in which way to stimulate the vitality of the entire historical block. Jixi Museum designed by Li 
Xinggang continues the sequence characteristics of the local traditional Anhui architecture. Architect 
made a part of the space on the other side of the road to enclose a city square through walls as a 
"city hall", guiding people to stay here to maximize the integration of museum and city. The Lianzhou 
Museum of Photography is located in an ancient commercial street with a feature of traditional 
4 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
Lingnan architecture. Architect retreated the boundary of the museum so that the pedestrian walkway 
beneath the arcades along the street could be continuous. The city square within the facade is 
completely open to the city, enhancing the publicity of the museum.  
Architecture: extracting prototypes and making contemporary reinterpretation 
At the architectural middle level, the most critical issue is to find space and form prototypes from 
surrounding natural, historical, and cultural environments, and interpret them through contemporary 
design methods. Jishou Art Museum, designed by Yung Ho Chang, is located in the ancient city of 
Qianzhou in China Hunan Province. Architect took traditional Chinese wind and rain corridor bridge as 
the prototype and made an ingenious reinterpretation to this traditional infrastructure space. In this 
way, the museum inherits dual functions of transportation and public activities, so that people can not 
only pass through, but also stay. The space prototype of Tsingpu Yangzhou Retreat is the traditional 
Chinese quadrangle courtyard. Architect adopted a grid layout and separated the space with the 
essential "corridor" element in the classical garden. The form of the courtyard is a reinterpretation of 
the conception of traditional Chinese gardens. European Hanse Museum is located in Lübeck, an 
important port city in northern Germany. The whole building is a modern reinterpretation of the Lübeck 
gabled houses. In terms of facade design, the exquisite brick four-leaf pattern of the southwestern 
gables is derived from classic Gothic architecture, which integrates the new museum and Lübeck's 
centuries-old traditional buildings together. 
Tectonic: inheriting materials and innovating construction techniques 
Through analysis, it can be found that many new buildings use traditional or local materials to 
continue the sense of place, but architects create a wonderful collision between the old and the new 
through innovative construction techniques and modern structures, which will bring people an impact 
and shock, generating greater attraction. As a finalist for the 2017 Mies van der Rohe Award, the 
Kannikegården Conference Center designed by Danish Lundgaard & Tranberg Architects is located in 
the center of the oldest city Ribe. Given the historical context of the conference centre, architects 
chose a pristine red brick that integrated harmoniously with the surrounding buildings. Architects 
hoped the structure of the new building to be significantly different from the original structure, so they 
developed a flat light brick surface that hung in overlapping ways like fish scales, simulating the 
original layout of medieval gable houses. The final effect is also a contemporary expression of the 
traditional technique of brick buildings. On the other hand, the clever combination of traditional and 
modern materials can also form a contrast. The European School Copenhagen, located on the site of 
the former Carlsberg Brewery in central Copenhagen, is an important part of Danish cultural heritage. 
Taking into account the history and environment of industrial buildings, architects continued the 
tradition by using decorative bricks. At the same time, in order to enhance the contrast of materials, 
part of the windows are wrapped with bright metal frame, which also reflects the characteristics of 
modern era. In addition, building exterior color is also very critical. Kult Cultural History Center is 
located in the town of Vreden in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. There are four old buildings built 
in different periods on the site. In order to distinguish the different historical periods of each building, 
the choice of bricks and stones presents subtle color changes. It realizes the unity of the whole 
building group to the greatest extent and expresses the diversity of its identity. 
CONCLUSIONS 
As modernism gradually turns to postmodernism, the protection and inheritance of human history, 
culture and heritage has become a consensus in society. Modernity and tradition are not antithetical, 
because history is constantly overlapping. The traditional culture is the symbol of the identity of the 
historical block, which needs to be protected and inherited. While the creativity inspired by this culture 
consistented with the rhythm of contemporary society is its endless vitality. Under the guidance of 
weaving strategy, contemporary architects can express the new buildings in the historic blocks at 
least at three levels of urban, architecture and tectonic. New buildings can be integrated with the 
historic blocks and urban environment through texture weaving and city sharing. Extracting the 
traditional prototype and reinterpret it through modern design. Using traditional and modern materials 
reasonably, and innovating construction techniques. Only when the new buildings continue the 
5 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
historical context and reflect their own characteristics and values of the times can they inherit the past 
and promote the development and revitalization of entire historical blocks. 
REFERENCES 
Rowe, C., and Koetter, F. (1984) Collage City (MIT Press Ltd, Cambridge, US).  
Tiesdell, S., Oc, T., and Heath, T. (1996) Revitalizing Historic Urban Quarters (Taylor & Francis Ltd, 
Oxford, UK).  
Rossi, A. (2011) The Architecture of the City (MIT Press Ltd, Cambridge, US).  
Zhang, M., and Zhang, Z. (2001) ‘Coexistent System of Old and New Buildings in Europe’, Time + 
Architecture 4, 18-21. 
Zhang, M., Gao, X. Y., and Zhang, Z. (2016) ‘Renovation through History: Rehabilitation and 
Renovation Project of the Former Residence of Yan Tongchun (Current Site of Jiefang Daily)’, Time + 
Architecture 4, 97-105. 
Chang, Q. (2019) ‘Six Questions about Heritage’, World Architecture 11, 14. 
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR 
Wenke Wu, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, No.1239, Siping Road, Shanghai, 
China. 569439623@qq.com 


Research on the weaving strategy for the renewal of historical blocks

Tângari, Vera R.

Benfatti, Denio M.

The process of urban form production and transformation in Brazilian coastal cities

Fernandes, Mário Gonçalves

Mealha, Rui Passos

ISUF 2020: CITIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY  
 
MORPHOGENETIC ANALYSIS AS A BASIS FOR INTERVENTION IN THE 
OLD URBAN AREAS OF PORTUGUESE CITIES 
 
Mário Gonçalves Fernandes, Professor of Geography, CEGOT, University of Porto, Portugal 
Rui Passos Mealha, Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Porto, Portugal 
ABSTRACT 
The authors have in the last few years coordinated and developed several block plans 
commissioned by municipal authorities, targeting older urban areas in Portuguese cities. This 
paper aims to put forward some of the results stemming from reflections on the process involved in 
developing concrete proposals, materialized in plans and urban projects. 
Thus, these plans and their corresponding proposals for intervention in zones of five Portuguese 
cities – Coimbra, Viana do Castelo, Vila do Conde, Matosinhos e Porto – are compared, 
detailing the most relevant morphological aspects and highlighting the importance given to finding 
invariants and morphogenetic specificities. These will serve both as a methodology to characterize 
morphotypologically the targeted spaces and as a process to provide inspiration and support to 
the intervention, rooted in common principles and denominators and summarized in drawing. 
Anchored in broadening morphogenetic knowledge and in considering issues related with identity, 
unity and diversity (includes identifying singularities, permanencies, modifications and ruptures), 
this study points the importance of historical contextualization of the areas of intervention as a 
process which clarifies and defines directions to conceptualize urban interventions, whether to 
safeguard and regenerate, consolidate or renew.  
Finally, this study also points out how the urban project recognizes and represents the territories it 
wishes to modify and how to foresee such modification, reflecting on the need to conceive new 
analysis methodologies that allow the integration of “project materials” and urban planning 
programs into their various scales of relevance, given the current demands and unpredictable 
conditions of the contemporary exercise. 
Keywords: Morphogenetic analysis, urban project, medium-sized Portuguese cities 
THE IDEAS 
The task of drawing up an urban plan that guides the occupation and intervention in urban spaces, 
be it at the most flexible scale of the urbanization plan, where zoning is defined, but also the 
alignments, setbacks, volumetries and respective functional and typological patterns, be it at the 
detail scale of the detail plan, which reaches the design of the implantations, or even at scales and 
contexts suitable for the design of structuring public spaces, the task, we said, takes place in a process 
that uses more or less recognized methodologies and builds legally conditioned technical content, 
by relatively similar procedures. 
However, what matters to us here is the content of the proposal, the idea or driving ideas that underlie 
it, which, being able to be generated by multiple concepts and orientations, can also be, by the 
morphological approach, particularly fruitful when faced, simultaneously, as material for analysis 
and design, and as a design tool, that is, as a circumstance of departure and arrival. 
2 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
Approaching the urban plan, of any scale and legal content, as an urban project, the definition of 
urban and environmental structuring can (should, in our opinion) be based on the study of urban 
morphology, its different scales of approach, as the main support for the conceptual options that will 
support the proposals (of programming and action in the city and space of urbanization). 
The morphological approach implies an extensive collection of information on the area of 
intervention, which includes both direct observations, those that are supposedly objective and those 
that are supposedly experienced, as well as those allowed by photography (aerial and proximity), 
thematic cartography (framing, the typologies of spaces, the ecological structure and the morphology 
of the physical support, the road structure and the system of public spaces, the functional systems 
and land structure, the state of conservation and the construction systems of the buildings, the 
morphotypologies of the buildings, the singular values and dissonant factors,…), by multidimensional 
modeling of the existing situation and proposed programs, etc. 
The analysis always takes place in a multi-scale perspective, developing a GIS / CAD, so that its 
products allow the recognition of urban morpho-typologies, expressed either cartographically or 
through sections/elevations, which make it possible to explain the morphological elements and 
understand its structure, organization and spatial, structural and socio-productive significance. 
The reading of all observations, records and prospective representations, developed in different 
features, should be consolidated in the systematic search for the terms of identity of the observed 
contexts, which involves, in a more or less explicit way, the study of morphogenesis, valid and useful 
for understanding any and all circumstances of urban intervention, regardless of the temporal 
thickness, and essential in the case of the oldest and most consolidated urban fabrics, for the study 
of which there are historical documentary sources, both texts and cartography, as well as thematic 
bibliography and academic and local studies, as are the cases of urban spaces discussed here. 
As stated on another occasion, "it is not a question of repeating generic classifications, more or less 
universal, with wide support in studies on urban morphology (...), but rather, based on this 
knowledge, clarifying typologies that arise from concrete cases of the Portuguese city, which implies 
identifying and characterizing the sets and singularities, permanences and modifications, ruptures 
and continuities ”(FERNANDES, M., 2011), whose understanding requires knowledge of the genesis 
of each specific intervention area, of each place. 
The proposal always seeks to structure systems, identify “soil projects” (SECCHI, B., 1989) and deal 
with the articulation and qualification of public space. In addition, the proposals are also 
morphological, recognizing factors of image diversity and looking for elements of unity and 
coherence. However, methodologically, the first option is the conservation of significant values, 
whether heritage and classified, or other elements or groups that can be enhanced, whether for 
architectural reasons or simply visual, image, composition, and landscape framing. In fact, many of 
the main “materials” of urban design are present in the intervention contexts, as facts and artefacts 
to be highlighted as significant values that enhance the recognition, qualification and 
contextualization of the proposed solutions. 
It is the presentation of these processes, with the exemplification of options, that we will develop in 
relation to some medium-sized Portuguese cities in the context of proposals for safeguarding, 
rehabilitation, consolidation or urban renewal, namely: Coimbra (consolidation, rehabilitation and 
renovation); Viana do Castelo (safeguard, consolidation and renovation); Vila do Conde 
3 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
(rehabilitation and renovation); Matosinhos (consolidation, rehabilitation and renovation); Porto 
(consolidation and rehabilitation). 
Underlining that the idea of a morphogenetics of urban space is not considered, since, in a literal 
sense, there is no DNA of the urban space, the paths that generate morphologies are sought and it 
is important to know to recognize, in the present, the identity(s) on which the fundamental 
inspirational conceptualization of each proposal will be based. 
THE CASES 
All references should be seen as examples only and not as exclusive aspects of the approach and 
proposal. Generically, recognizing that there are intrinsic and circumstantial differences from case 
to case, it is always intended, among other sources and possibilities, to develop proposals that 
arise from: 
- Reading of traces, patterns, identity matrices that characterize the pre-existing urban mesh and 
fabrics and their morphogenesis, understanding the unity and / or volumetric and formal diversity 
as a factor of aggregate identity (street profiles, alleys and other collective spaces, morphology of 
the parcel, etc.); 
- Eminently morphological approach: factors such as the morphologies and scales of plots, streets 
and buildings lead to opting for an “in-depth” performance in the urban fabrics, looking for 
grouped and singular forms that are contextualized and with identity. 
The following are some notes on the referenced intervention instruments in the territory, namely: 
- 2001 - Plano de Pormenor do Centro Histórico de Viana do Castelo; 
- 2004 - Plano de Pormenor da Zona Ribeirinha Nascente em Vila do Conde; 
- 2007 - Documento Estratégico e Estudo Prévio de Intervenção Urbanística Para a Primeira 
Unidade de Intervenção na Cidade de Coimbra; 
- 2011 - Plano de Urbanização para a Envolvente à Rua de Recarei em Leça do Balio; 
- 2016/17 - Estudo Prévio para a Requalificação da Avenida da Boavista, no troço 
compreendido entre a Rua de João Grave/Rua do Primeiro de Janeiro e a Avenida do 
Parque. 
VIANA DO CASTELO 2001 (SAFEGUARD, CONSOLIDATION AND RENOVATION) 
- Multiscale morphological approach between plan and projects in articulation of 4 
ecosystems: city / hill / river / sea; 
- In-depth analysis of the urban fabric with the explanation, for all buildings, of the possibility 
of intervention in a gradation of 4 classes (restoration, rehabilitation, reconstruction, 
construction); 
- Resolution of impasses using proposals anchored in previous urban planning instruments 
(examples: connection of Avenida Conde da Carreira with Campo da Feira; extension to 
the east of Rua Pedro Homem de Melo and the opening of Rua Arqº José Fernandes 
Martins); 
- Eliminate visual intrusions and volumetric discrepancies, to replace, in its heterogeneity, the 
balance of the morphology of the historic center, in order to create conditions for its 
classification as world Heritage (Edifício Jardim / Prédio Coutinho, considered as the main 
4 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
element of degradation of the image of the historic center, due to its volumetry and 
location, its demolition being fundamental). 
 
 
Detailed Plan of the Historic Center of Viana do Castelo (2001) 
VILA DO CONDE 2004 (REHABILITATION AND RENOVATION) 
- New road entrance to the city and insertion of the light rail, maintaining the railway crossing 
bridge and adding a new road and pedestrian crossing bridge; 
- Use of a channel preserved by a previous urban planning instrument for the design and 
insertion of an articulation route in the urban network, forming an alternative to the old level 
crossing and articulating the urban network with the equipment area to the east; 
- Use of river banks to create an urban park, with educational gardens, jogging circuit, fish 
observation equipment, access to river vessels, etc.; 
- Construction of new buildings on the right bank of the river whose morphology arises from 
the reading, from downstream to upstream, of the urban form sequence. 
 
 
Detail Plan of the East Riverside Zone in Vila do Conde (2004) 
 
5 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
COIMBRA  2007 (CONSOLIDATION, REHABILITATION AND RENOVATION) 
- Urban insertion of the metro platform respecting the morphology of an urban quarter; 
- Rua da Sofia - tunnel / door - maintaining the continuity of the urban front, avoiding 
evidence of the rupture resulting from the insertion of the metro infrastructure; 
- Rua Direita - marking of alignments, volume and suppressed rhythms (horizontal and 
vertical reading - threedimensional structure); 
- Transverse articulations - alleys and passages to reinforce the levels of spatial connection; 
- West front next to Braga Parques (parking lot) - closing of traditional block for finishing the 
new collective spaces; 
- New collective spaces and new urban fronts with traditional forms and images; 
- “Bota-a-baixo” (“put it down”) area - block closing program, design of collective interior 
space and recomposition of morphological rupture. 
 
 
Strategic Document and Preliminary Study of Urban Intervention for the First Intervention Unit in the City of Coimbra (2007) 
RECAREI 2011 – LEÇA DO BALIO, MATOSINHOS (CONSOLIDATION, REHABILITATION AND 
RENOVATION) 
- Articulation of the urban fabric generated from an old 19th century road with the 
integration of housing developments; 
- Reprofiling of the 19th-century road-street, with a solution based on the preservation of 
buildings with significant value, transition of volumetries and finishing of blind plans, 
definition of double urban porticoes (loggias) and with a qualified profile of vigorous 
group image with strong identity; 
- Improvement of the centrality generated over the centuries at the intersection of old roads 
(Padrão da Légua); 
- Constitution of new public spaces, including a small park area on the north side with the the 
water line put out of the tube and a new triangular square in Padrão da Légua (south limit); 
6 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
- Resolution of deadlocks determined by surrounding barriers, such as highway and rail 
channel (“project of the limit”). 
 
 
Urbanization Plan for the Surroundings of Rua de Recarei in Leça do Balio (2011) 
PORTO 2016/17 (CONSOLIDATION AND REHABILITATION) 
- Reading of the Boavista axis at local, urban and regional scales; 
- Regularization of transversal profile, looking for coherence and continuity in an effort to 
unify profiles of multiple calibers; 
- Reprofiling of the road axis, with the insertion of the waterline on the surface, and urban 
design based on stereotomy marked by the relationships established by the geometry of 
the subdivision structure, mainly in the cadence of urban equipment (public lighting and 
furniture) and afforestation (planting of oak trees); 
- Dewatering and rehabilitation of the water line, which has now become a matrix element 
of public space in sector B2; 
- Rehabilitation and urban insertion of the water line  (Ribeira de Aldoar) outside the pipe, 
now a matrix for the public space in sector B2; 
- Conformation and reinforcement of the Urban Ecological Structure, contributing to the 
cohesion of the environmental system. 
 
7 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
 
Sector B1 of Preliminary Study for the Requalification of Avenida da Boavista, in the section between Rua de João Grave / 
Rua do Primeiro de Janeiro and Avenida do Parque (2016/17) 
 
 
Sector B2 of Preliminary Study for the Requalification of Avenida da Boavista, in the section between Rua de João Grave / 
Rua do Primeiro de Janeiro and Avenida do Parque (2016/17) 
 
 
  
8 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
REFERENCES 
 
Fernandes, M. (2011). “O estudo da morfologia urbana em Portugal”, in As Geografias Ibéricas: 
analisar o passado e perspectivar o futuro, XII Colóquio Ibérico de Geografia. Porto, 
FLUP/Associação Portuguesa de Geógrafos, ISBN: 978-972-99436-5-2 (APG); 978-972-8932-92-3 
(UP-FL). 
Fernandes, M. G. and Mealha, R. P. (2019). “Urban cartography in the morphogenetic analysis of 
urban spaces: the case of the Boavista axis in the city of Porto”, Proceedings International 
Cartographic. Association, 2, 30, Tokyo - https://doi.org/10.5194/ica-proc-2-30-2019. 
Mealha, R. P. (2007), “Requalificação da frente ribeirinha em Vila do Conde, PPZRN 2002”, in 
David, A. (coord.), Vazios urbanos, urban voids, Trienal de Arquitectura, Lisboa, Caleidoscópio, 
pp. 280-281. 
Mealha, R. P. (2004, coord.). Plano de Pormenor da Zona Ribeirinha Nascente em Vila do Conde 
(PP.ZRN.VC), Polis de Vila do Conde/Câmara Municipal de Vila do Conde, Rui Mealha 
Arquitectos e Quaternaire Portugal (polic.). 
Mealha, R. P. (2001, coord.). Plano de Pormenor do Centro Histórico de Viana do Castelo 
(PP.CHVC.VC), Viana Polis/Câmara Municipal de Viana do Castelo, Rui Mealha Arquitectos e 
Quaternaire Portugal. 
Mealha, R. P.; Fernandes, M. G. (2018, coord.). Estudo Prévio para a Requalificação da Avenida 
da Boavista, no troço compreendido entre a Rua de João Grave/Rua do Primeiro de Janeiro e a 
Avenida do Parque. Porto, Rui Mealha Arquitetos e Câmara Municipal do Porto (polic.). 
Mealha, R. P.; Fernandes, M. G. (2011, coord.). Plano de Urbanização para a Envolvente à Rua 
de Recarei em Leça do Balio, Câmara Municipal de Matosinhos, Rui Mealha Arquitectos, Lda e 
Quaternaire Portugal. 
Mealha, R. P.; Fernandes, M. G. (2007, coord.). Documento Estratégico e Estudo Prévio de 
Intervenção Urbanística Para a Primeira Unidade de Intervenção na Cidade de Coimbra, Coimbra 
Viva SRU – Sociedade de Reabilitação Urbana, S.A. (policop.). 
Mealha, R. P.; Oliveira, J.; Fernandes, M. G. (2006), “Projecto-Base do Documento Estratégico 
para a primeira Unidade de Intervenção na Cidade de Coimbra. No Lugar da Avenida Central”, 
in Monumentos N.º 25, Direcção-Geral dos Edifícios e Monumentos Nacionais, p. 144.  
SECCHI, Bernardo (1989). Un Progetto Per L’urbanistica. Torino, Ed. Enaudi. 
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR 
Mário Gonçalves Fernandes, Professor of Geography and Researcher of the CEGOT, University of Porto, 
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, Via Panorâmica, s/n, 4150-564 Porto, Portugal, 
mgfernan@letras.up.pt 


Morphogenetic analysis as a basis for intervention in the old urban areas of Portuguese cities

Ding, Zhou

Jichun, Tang

Wenyong, Tan

A graph theory into street network characteristics of the plain-type and the slope-type historical blocks: based on China's southwestern regions

Kristjánsdóttir, Sigríður

Urban morphology growth model for the 21st century city

Jian, Izzy Yi

Chan, Edwin H.W.

Luo, May Jiemei

Yao, Terry Yepeng

Wang, Qian-Cheng

Liu, Xuan

A spatial justice study of pedestrian-friendly routes to privately owned public open space in Hong Kong

Guo, Li

Zhao, Chen

ISUF 2020: CITIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY  
 
REGENERATION IN THE HISTORICAL URBAN FRINGE BELT: THE 
SOUTHWEST AREA OF CICHENG TOWN 
Li GUO, PhD Candidate, Nanjing University, China 
Chen ZHAO, Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning, Nanjing University, China 
ABSTRACT 
As a complicated assembly of continuous forms evolved for centuries, historic cities need to adapt 
to urban regeneration for they also answer for the present and future as a live organism never 
rests. Most Chinese historic areas are unsustainable for outdated facilities and decadent physical 
environment, poor in public spaces and landscape due to contradiction between contemporary 
traffic pattern and traditional street network. Yet between conservation and development could 
also be interaction other than dilemma for the traditional spatial morphology still retains its vitality 
in historic cities, featuring them with characteristics and magnetism, therefore rich in opportunities 
and momentum of development. 
Cicheng, a former county town whose layout keeps almost intact to this day, has its populated and 
commerce-clustering southwest as a crucial space for logistics, business and public services, also 
abounding in historic elements that mark the city edge, from the city wall, city gate relics and the 
moat to the transverse streets, transverse channels and bridges. However, the drastically 
modernized traffic pattern has outdated the waterway’s role in traffic and protection into out-of-
use and silt-up, widened and sped-up the through-traffic roads, thus eroded the original city edges 
despite the vitality promoted. Failing to combine with the historic urban morphology, the 
commerce-agglomerated city is rudely superimposed upon history and nature. It’s a typical fringe 
belt problem of the city caught in the conflict between constraints under historic edges and 
disorderly development, which calls for a reevaluation to whole urban morphology, for 
reasonably integrating the modern road network and historic morphological frame, satisfying 
local requirements on history, landscape and development. 
INTRODUCTION  
For the traditional Chinese cities, the edge elements are usually embodied in ramparts or moats, 
the site location, digging and gate lay-out of which reflect the cumulative effect of natural 
geography and human planning. The rampart not only means military defense, but also serves 
flood protection, simply as the moat does both in transportation, flood drainage and daily 
washing. The edge thus composed, features the traditional urban morphology and exerts shapes 
cultural symbol and psychological identification as well. However, both of them had given way to 
the progress made in the military industry since the Modern Ages, while the remaining physical 
existence hindered the urban development and expansion. Finally the city has broken through such 
traditional edges and spread onward, blurring with the outer natural morphology into a ‘fringe 
belt’. 
In the first place, the fringe belt adjoins the former city boundary and thus attached, greatly 
subjected to the traditional city’s development and expansion. Secondly, in morphological terms, it 
transitions from the urban to the natural/rural, presents kind of disorder and discontinuity in 
indented construction land and natural landscape. Thirdly, its liability in changing to accelerative 
urbanization, if without effective control, will easily spread further ad generate new ‘urban hubs’ 
that divert the traditional downtowns of vibration and marginalize them. Finally, the post-modern 
2 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
introspection on contemporary urban marginality leads us to see the inevitable expansion of new 
spaces and obligation of traditional ones to transform, for which a method is called for to 
reorganize the urban spaces along the fringe belts while sustaining the diversity and plurality, 
rendering the old and new in order and balance. 
This paper chooses the Southwestern area around the Major West Gate, Cicheng Town, Ningbo 
City for case study, combining the fringe belt proposed by Conzen, taking the morphological turn 
given rise by traffic reversion as the departure to illuminate the characteristics of traditional Chinese 
city’s fringe belt, so as to explore a criterion of values for the regeneration there and sustainable 
development. 
BACKGROUND -TRANSITION OF CICHENG’S OVERALL MORPHOLOGY AND TRAFFIC 
PATTERN  
The largely intact county town of Cixi, now Cicheng Town, had retained its original location over a 
millennium since 738 A.D., the 26th year of Kaiyuan Reign, Tang Dynasty. Fang Guan, the 
magistrate who planned it, right chose the northern upland of Ningbo Plain among hills, which 
leans on Wulei Ridge and extends onto Siming and Kuaiji Ranges, allowing Yuyao River flow 
westward through the elongated plain. To the immediate north of Cicheng, a lake named Cihu 
comes into being from water heads originates in Kan Hill and other hills, with the flanking waters 
continuing onto southern plain until contributing into Yuyao River. 
According to historical records, prior to the city’s own foundation, Fang Guan conducted a series 
of water conservancy projects, including Puji Lake (Puji means all-benefiting), Yongming Lake 
(Yongming means ever-bright), Back Lake and Minor River, which protected the county town from 
seawater intrusion or flood inundation. Among them, the transverse ‘Minor River’, called ‘Congma 
River’ (means the bluish-white pony) afterward and ‘Liberation River’ since 1949, delineated the 
southern boundary in Tang Dynasty. Today’s Major West Gate Area, from where the waters were 
diverted into the Minor River, plays a significant node’s role in the town’s humane and 
topographical relationship. 
Since dug in Song Dynasty (10th-13th c.), Guanshan River had replaced the Transverse River, 
namely the canal through, as the new regional waterway. Accordingly, the external traffic’s moved 
to the former’s bank, a couple of kilometers south of the city. The Transverse River became an 
internal waterway that nurtured commerce and recreation. And the blocks mainly extended 
eastward for more favorable topography as opposed to the sunken and water logging west. 
Throughout Ming Dynaty (1368-1644), Cixi County saw further expansion and reinforcement, 
especially during General Qijiguang’s age against the Japanese piracy. Like most Southeastern 
coastal cities thus fortified, Cixi also formed a new complete defense system comprised of rampart 
and moat, which last to this day as the town’s backbone. In Qing Dynaty (1644-1911), the rampart 
underwent additions and repair. The Transverse River turned so narrow/crowded as to be totally a 
commercial strip, flanked by residential areas of lower classes, small businessmen and 
handicraftsmen. As a contrast, the rest of the city was still an embodiment of lineage society. 
The Modern Age had saw not only simple enlargement of built area, but also expansion along the 
Transverse River beyond the Major East and West Gates, namely the Gateway Blocks common in 
China’s imperial age. As the Anti-Japanese Invasion War destroyed the rampart, the only belt 
3 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
elements remaining became the moat and ring roads that replaced some of the rampart bases. 
Since around 2000, spontaneous expansion southward has dissolved the former boundary.    
METHODOLOGY- TRAFFIC-MORPHOLOGY RELATIONSHIP  
Traffic-morphology relationship in the Age of Navigation (739-1912) 
Traditional Chinese cities mostly take full use of inland navigation, therefore located nearby major 
rivers or their branches, for which Cicheng makes an example in three morphological stages with 
the ternary development of traffic.  
In Ningbo-Shaoxing Plain, part of Lower Reaches of Yangtze River, the criss-crossed rivers and 
canals make navigation the main traffic pattern from of old. Such all-connecting waterways led the 
Cicheng section of navigation upstream to Yuyao and Shaoxing westward, and towards the sea 
eastward by Ningbo, which took the Minor River (Transverse Canal) as the main passage 
commuting with the outside. The lakes dug and converging waters from northern and western hills 
sustained the Minor River through canal networks southward. In South Song Dynasty (1127-1279), 
a newly-dug Guanshan River replaced the Minor River for outer traffic, leaving the latter to 
downtown commerce strewn in narrowed waterway under plenty of bridges and along the Lower 
Transverse Street, which arose to the top bustling hub until the Modern Age. When such river-street 
pattern expanded beyond the rampart outward, gateway blocks appeared around the East and 
West Great Gates (Figure 1). 
4 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
 
Figure 1. Traffic-morphology relationship in the Age of Navigation (739—1912s) 
Traffic-morphology relationship in the Age of Road & Navigation (1913—1980s) 
Since the Modern Age, as one among the first five treaty ports in China, Ningbo had seen profuse 
infusion of industrial achievements from the West. Surrounding Cicheng, gradually, railways and 
roads came into shape. In 1942, the Hangzhou-Ningbo Railway demolished in prevention of 
Japanese invasion was reused as a motor road. Down to 1947, Cixi had road connections not only 
with other counties, but also between her towns. And it is since 1969, with the official opening of 
5 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
Cixi-Yuyao Road that completed the road-railway composite over-land traffic by the south of the 
county town of Cixi, and turned northwestward by the west ridge (termed ‘white tiger’ in traditional 
geomancy), that a hefty southwest fringe belt entered on the stage (Figure 2). 
 
Figure 2. Traffic-morphology relationship in the Age of Road & Navigation (1913—1980s) 
Traffic-morphology relationship in the Age of Road (1980s—) 
6 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
Since the 1980s, Cixi-Yuyao Road has undergone several rounds of adjustment and broadening, 
which brought remarkable changes to the fringe belt morphology with new connections added. In 
general, it is the Great Major West Gate Area that burgeons fastest due to immediacy to the 
provincial highway. The most significant public buildings and spaces abound there including the 
Inter-City Bus Station and Hualian Green Market (compleed in December, 1998), and developed 
into a Major West Gate High Street, followed by such blocks along Rixin Road south to Lower 
Transverse Street and outside Major West Gate till Jiangbei Avenue (Figure 3). Therefore, an 
urban uptrend emerges there with residential buildings as high as six floors with matching 
commerce and public service facilities. 
 
7 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
Figure 3. Traffic-morphology relationship in the Age of Road & Navigation (1980s-) 
Obviously, a fringe belt had spontaneously come into being in south outside the Major East & West 
Gates due to the traffic advantage there. While the former historic boundaries became blurred, 
with elements decadent or even disappeared. Furthermore, the north side of the West Gate Outer 
Street has much of the traditional fabric preserved, thus more complex in morphology unit. As a 
contrast, the northern part of the town did not expand to the peripheries, and the rampart basically 
formed a fixation line (Figure 4). 
 
Figure 4. Fringe belt of Cicheng Town 
FINDINGS – MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS IN THE FRINGE BELT FOLLOWING THE 
TRAFFIC PATTERN TRANSFORMATION.  
The historic boundary of Cicheng is not only a linear space along the rampart and moat, but also 
an interacting belt with peripheral zones into imagery of the city of high legibility. In the first place, 
the moat constantly serving as the main passage in history is in its own right the ‘path’ element, 
while the city wall gates and waterway gates, as entrance and exit, decide the road framework 
comprised of Jiefang Road (corresponding to the South Gate), Minsheng Road-Dongzhenqiao 
Street (corresponding to the Major West and East Gates) , Zhonghua Road (corresponding to the 
Minor West Gate), Minquan Road (corresponding to the North Gate), Minzhu Road 
(corresponding to the Minor North Gate) and Shangzhi Road (corresponding to the Minor East 
Gate). As the development demanded, Cicheng needed to stride over the moat, the bridges also 
played a part in shaping the path outward. Besides, the physical boundary also signifies the end of 
urban land, which again forms the image of edge and sense of belonging to residents. 
Advantageous locations, convenient traffic, agglomerated commerce and abounding goods, all 
contribute to the gateway blocks that vibrate with the city. 
Gateway Blocks 
8 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
The West Gate, also called the Major West Gate, oversees the whole body of roads and 
waterways westward to Yuyao and assumes symmetry in both form and function with the Major 
East Gate. Right there, sub-rampart blocks emerged due to converging goods and logistics which 
saw its sprouting in late Tang Dynasty, blooming in Song and Yuan Dynasties, and omnipresence in 
all cities in Ming and Qing Dynasties around the gates. Such phenomenon was usually attributed to 
an overflow of population and commerce from inside the city, but actually, it’s more like a magnetic 
effect of traffic nodes spontaneously exerted long before the city’s saturation. 
 
Figure 5. Gateway blocks outside the West Gate on the 1937 cadastral map of Cicheng 
As for such gateway blocks’ own advantages to commercial buildings of bulky trade over inside the 
city, one could list more room, less size limits, wider street and free goods distribution, which 
sustaining shapes of the former warehouses and piers to this day. Hence forth, the exceptionally 
convenient traffic outside the rampart better facilitates production (mostly handicraft) and long 
distance communication (goods, labor and information), well nurturing a ‘primary diffusive 
tendency’ outward that enhances the appeal of sub-rampart blocks. Therefore, the ‘lowland of cost’ 
is bound to come out as economy of the city reaches a certain scale and level (Figure 5).  
By superimposing the 1937 cadastral map with the existing one (Figure 6), one comes to see the 
West Gate Outer Street extending into a certain scale, namely forming a group of gateway blocks. 
Just as the name implies, the gateway blocks are a spontaneous phenomenon responding to urban 
functional needs from reliance on convenient traffic. Typical of most historic cities in China. 
9 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
 
Figure 6. land types on 1937 cadastral entry of Cicheng 
The structural development relying on traffic 
In reviewing evolution of the fringe belt in history, though factors like political climates, economic 
conditions, geographic endowment and human intervention with nature are undeniable either, it is 
still the traffic that leads the structural development and pushes waves of changes. With due 
attention paid to traffic, we’ll see that despite the over-land traffic passages, namely Jiangbei 
Avenue and Cixi-Luotuo Road’s partaking of serving the blocks along the way as a matter of fact, 
their rapid and closed nature determines such dual role’s unsustainable future. What’s worse, such 
anemia of local traffic will harm the whole morphology of the town and undermine its further 
development. Therefore, we’re fully reasonable to say that while traffic generates the morphology, 
the latter could also shape or guide the former in layout for its own needs. 
CONCLUSIONS 
For the fringe belt around the Major West Gate Area, the transformed traffic pattern has 
engendered certain characteristics, which justify strategies in the following aspects: 
1. Teasing and confirming the new street network and traffic frameworks in the Major West Gate 
Area; 
10 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
2. Balancing the historic axis, development axis and landscape axis; 
3. Reshaping the historic and human spaces in the gateway blocks; 
4. Especially combining memorial and functional spaces around the Major West Gate Area. 
Therefore, the fringe belt offers the breakthrough to the case study with its optimal location. On the 
one hand, it provides a hull for the inner texture of the ancient city and strongly upholds it; on the 
other, it easily encourages implantation of new functions and industries that not only serves the 
urban life, but also invigorates the historic city into revival. 
As landmarks along the edge of the city, the gates and corners of the rampart not only reflect the 
topographical variation, but also respond to trends of the hills and waterways, therefore best 
embodying the overall spatial and morphological characteristics. In iconographical terms, with its 
outer contour approximating a rectangle, Cicheng could easily lead one to make up the whole 
edge imaginatively and visually once the corner and trend’s located with significant nodes like 
gates well reminding him or her, simply as the Gestalt psychology theory reveals. So for restoration 
of the rampart, a schematic display of the corners and gates will contribute greatly to holistic 
imagery and identifiablity. 
REFERENCES 
http://urbanmorphology.org/index.html.  
M.R.G.Conzen. Alinwick, Northumberland —A study in Town-Plan Analysis. London, The Institute of 
British Geographers Publication, 1960. 
 
Chen ZHAO, The City against the Mountain, by the River and thus Meanders. Collected Papers of 
the Rampart Sciences Conservation Forum. 52-55. Phoenix Publishing House, 2008. 
 
The Research on Urban Morphology Evolution of Cicheng. Nanjing University, Master Dissertation. 
2009. 
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR 
Li GUO, Department of Architecture, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 
China. Email: gl310@163.com. 


Regeneration in the historical urban fringe belt: the Southwest area of Cicheng town

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