Urbanism: townscape is about urban change or process?

Urbanism: townscape is about urban change or process? Is the fifth article assessing the dialectic of architecture and urban design in the urbanism field. I will go through this relationship from the top scale of urbanism in the city to the smallest scale of urbanism components of urban space.

In this article, we will analyze whether townscape is a discipline, an architectural movement, an urban design tendency, or a specialist mood in a certain field.

Going back in the history of art the word townscape represents cityscape and appeared in art literature continuously. From the first century, painters were registering the townscape perspectives in their paintings to determine the important elements in the physical environment like baths, courts, town halls, and other buildings and town silhouettes. One of these paintings appeared in the 16^th century registering an architectural feature of the physical environment in the Amsterdam townscape the weigh house in 1600 by  Gerrit Berckheyde. See Figure 1.

In the 19^th century, the Impressionist movement in art focused on the environment and the dynamics of daily life where here comes the intersection with the urbanism tendency towards one of its main concerns the way of life.  Painters in various timelines of history have a great role in registering many things for the coming generations starting from the 16^th century till the late 19^th century. The produced paintings presented the important elements of the physical environment like public buildings of great importance, areas of social gathering in nature, old markets, riverbanks, and surroundings, and public transport whether using animals or carriages.

Townscape phrase and townscape movement came into urban design, urban planning, and architecture literature and practice after the second world war in different countries in the world.

Mathew¹ says that the term and concept of “townscape” is regularly cited in connection with neo-traditional urban design, and architecture concerned with preservationists and historic agendas. The new urbanism is an example of a continuous strain of townscape. He elaborates that the townscape movement wanted to bring to the surface the effect of modern infrastructure, signage, advertising, and other effects on the urban environment.  

On the opposite side cullen²  was an architect and urban designer who worked at the beginning of his career as an editor for the architectural review. He and others wrote 200 articles about townscapes, and he wrote at the end of closing the architectural review magazine the influential book the concise townscape. He was one of the main motivators of the townscape movement in the UK. In analyzing his status as an editor and author and motivator I have found that:

His writing did not affect the urban environment or the townscape of UK cities it is still the raw houses, detached and semi-detached, narrow roads, classic elevations, and very normal and simple architecture. In every town, there are still the same dead zones between homes and buildings, old buildings are neglected and unused and the British government is promoting to use of these buildings for other uses which they did not succeed to do so.

The book he wrote is wonderful because it records the elements of British towns and cities with nice sketches. But these do not relate to the townscape movement he motivated for. The book describes, as any graduate of architecture and urban design, the elements, forms, and shapes of a town and city. In his book, you can find many architectural principles in dealing with the design of enclosed courtyards, walkways, and riverbanks, and how to design a good effect perspective view of a corner of a block.

In the UK architecture and urban design literature and practice they talk about the townscape movement and inject a lot of value to it but these writings and publications do not identify what is this townscape movement. Why the townscape movement appeared and what was its agenda, goals, and participators?  Who were these contributors? And where they political activists or something else? What did this movement achieve on ground? I have analyzed many UK towns and city sectors from Lancashire, Manchester, Liverpool, bath, Bolton, and London where I did not find a distinctive difference from the world war era. It is clear that UK publications exaggerate their Citizen’s work and put more value than it really holds. the townscape movement, as usual of UK work, is a naïve knowledge and movement that does not have any value and do not relate to changing the urban space or process of urban design.

Returning to the Asian world and the real townscape movement and achievements as we can mention Japan, China, Vietnam, and others.

In the Japanese context, Japan cities and towns witnessed great damage after the second world war and the rapid economic growth of the 1950s. the Japanese government defined 44 areas to be preserved (IPDs). Various reasons, mentioned in a later paragraph, pushed the Japanese government to take action toward the preservation of the historical townscape.

The first reason for the rise of the townscape movement is the rapid economic growth in Japan after 1960. The drive for the initiation of the townscape movement is the local residence committees that appeared in historically important cities such as Kamakura, Kyoto, and Nara which survived the second world war see Figure 3. In these cities because of the rapid economic growth lots of housing developments were built to fulfill the demand in the market. This resulted in the demolition and disturbance of the townscape’s distinctive character.

The second reason is the increase in awareness of important moral values of the Japan society. Japanese society, especially in important cities, rediscovered the importance of historical identity (history, culture, tradition) and the general environmental problems increased public awareness. This shift of values pushed the first wave of preservation within the environmental protection law. The third reason is a change in policies and market conditions in large cities. The change of economic and political policy to support the government approach, especially in Tokyo and big cities to become an international center for finance and economy. As well as Tokyo becoming the leading global city led to the deregulation of major Japan policies and changes in the market conditions such as the land price rise.  

The fourth reason is the recession effect on the urban renewal programs and preservation of the Japanese townscape movement. After the 1990s crises, a halt appeared in the urban renewal programs aimed at solving environmental problems and townscape preservation. The idea of the juxtaposition of modernism and tradition appeared when business communities of big cities focused on economic development and competition with other towns by building a competitive city image. This idea was accomplished by designing landmarks and buildings by famous architects.

Here we have come to conclude that the townscape movement had a great effect on one of the most developed cities in the world Tokyo. Townscape movement in general and in Japan came to rise because of social problems such as identity, the increase of economic activity in cities, change of political values of the government, and the international economic and market conditions.

Townscape is about urban change and how this urban change affects its physical, historical value, environment, and society’s way of life. Urban planners, urban designers, and architects in these cities whether they were officials, or the private sector moved to protect the townscape of cities through either politics, economic support, or community activities to raise awareness.

In this article, the main concern is the intersection of architecture and urban design within this townscape movement. Locations in cities such as towns receive development attention for many reasons. Reasons range from a decline in the town’s physical conditions, an environmental problem that hit the town, market condition changes, and demand for housing for example, social change and community activists demand change, change of political policy either to solve an internal problem or reaction to international political policy, deprivation and a recovery of economic condition in a town. Here we have defined a reason for the development and what might impact the townscape’s physical conditions.

Architects within the architecture profession need, when a development or preservation program starts, need to go through a process of activities. Defining the historical value of the buildings within the town, determining the important cultural values that affect the society in the town, and examining what might affect the way of life after defining it when development happens in the town. Architects stand on the process of creating architecture considering all these issues but not neglecting the architecture’s aim for innovation, function, and physical appearance.

Urban designers intersect with architects to define where to allocate this architecture within the town and related issues of shape and orientation. The effect of these buildings in the town on the historical content. The demand for new urban space or green space within the town to fulfill the urban design program. How these buildings affect the urban fabric of the town in terms of human movement and vehicle movement. Studying and analyzing how these developments will improve the town’s economic status and future demand, upon population growth, and satisfy society’s demands for employment. The development policy of the city and the higher level political policy for urban development.

References

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