3.0. History and Evolution of Public Squares

According to Levy (Levy, 2012), the main difference between a public park and a public square is that “on a square, citizens are not connected to manifestations of nature, but to the heart of urban culture, history and memory”

3.0.1 Classic Period3.0.1a AGORA

Figure 8: Athenian Agora, Second Century A.D

The public squares of ancient Greece may be divided in two classes:

o those which were conceived and constructed as a planned formal architectural space such as in Miletus. o And those which were formed slowly about a conserved open space without a consistent or simple geometric enclosed space.

o and those which were formed slowly about a conserved open space without a consistent or simple geometric enclosed space.

Figure 9: Miletus and its Agora

3.0.1b FORUM

Likewise, the Roman Forum was a large open space for people to come together for political, economic and social activities. The fusion of agora and acropolis was the Roman forum, according to Mumford, as it contained more events with more formal order (such as shrines, temples, the hall of justice and the council houses). Rome is traditionally reported to have been founded by the union of several tribes in the eighth century B.C. This union was symbolized by the establishment of a common market place and assembly which was sanctified with a temple. Rome was thus built from its very beginning on its main square(the heart of the city), the Forum Romanum, with institutions of government, religion, and commerce.

Figure 10: The Roman Forum

Hills and buildings on this site emphasized the enclosed character of the square. The sides of the Forum had a strong simple pattern of almost matching arched facades of two basilicas approximately forty feet high. The forum contained curtained sites which were sacred and could not altered or built upon. These considerations highly affected the layout of the square and the evolution of its development. The physical need for an open space, the numerous facilities of the forum, and the surrounding major commercial area resulted in a large and regular volume of people to make use of this square. (Mumford, 1961)

3.0.2 Medieval Town Square

In the medieval era, the concept of a town was entirely different from the Greeks and Romans. The earlier medieval towns are characterized by extremely narrow, irregular street patterns and squares. Church is the dominating architectural element with its parvis in front, serving as the only open space, without any planned relation to the surrounding town. (Zucker, 1959)

According to (Zucker, 1959), medieval towns evolved from four different beginnings as follows,

o from existing Roman cities, preserving the old plan in the scheme of their reconstructed streets;

o around existing castles, monasteries, or independent church structures, their local immunity areas becoming the nucleus of later expansion;

o out of favourable located trading posts at a crossroad, or at a ford across a river, or at a harbour or bay, etc;

o as newly founded and organized communities.

The form of the first and the last towns developed into regular shapes; while the other two towns had followed their existing irregular shapes. Accordingly, the form of the squares in these towns represented the same basic differences.

Influence of the Roman origin in the town, in the first group, may be evident as a whole, however the ancient forum does not take place in the form of the later medieval square. Early medieval towns France, Germany, the Low Countries and England, in the second group, “developed very slowly and without a preconceived plan”.The era that the church gains more power induced the town to grew around this, “physical nucleus of power”, the monastery or the individual structure church. “The parallel existence of two separate squares”, one before the church and the other as market square, used to be the medieval towns significant aesthetic feature.

Figure 12: Existence of 2 separate squares

Figure 11: strict schematism of the gridiron system and planned squares

The third group represents the towns developed around small trading centers. During 12th and early 13th centuries especially in Germany, main traffic arteries became marketing centers in the shape of a broadened street. The last group, the newly founded towns, represented a rigid and schematic identity in France, and in contrast, a less regular, individualistic character in Germany. Basic difference of this group from the others is based on the strict schematism of the gridiron system and planned squares common in these new towns. (Zucker, 1959)

In a medieval town, open spaces mainly dominated by the church and the market constituting a dynamic public space for daily activities. Significant public buildings such as Town Hall and The Guild Hall were located on or next to the church plaza which is the focal point of the town. These open spaces are generally without traffic, dedicated to the pedestrian circulation.

Figure 13: Piazza del Campo in Siena, Italy

3.0.3 Neo Classical Period3.0.3a Renaissance Town

From the 15th century town planning had apparently evolved and become effective in development of towns. Rational ideas were determining ideas of the Renaissance city planning. This rationalization trend was reflected in specific patterns of town layouts. The planned organization and regular shape was extended also to the layout of streets and squares. Squares developed from medieval beginnings and newly planned during the Renaissance era had differences in their physical images. Although there are differentiations in each town, “man-made order and the attempts to establish definite spatial limits are the basic rule of all these Renaissance squares” According to, (Gallion, 1986) the form of the Medieval pattern did not change but the structure is decorated with facades made up of classic elements.

A lot of theoretical concepts are realized by the designs of the gardens and parks in the 16th century. “The axial organization” and “the patterned definite designs” common in these gardens and parks interconnects garden planning with town planning regarding the arrangement of “geometrically shaped flower beds exactly like city blocks with squares in between”. (Zucker, 1959)

First realization of the utopian ideas was in Palma Nuova. “The central square is the focus of a strictly radial organization of the town”; the single architectural units such as the church, main square, streets and blocks, were structured as “elements of an identical order”.

In Palma Nuova, “the volume of houses, which line the streets and surround the squares, balances the framed open space: form of mass against form of space”. The star shape plaza in the centre would later inspire the plazas created in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Italian plazas primarily reflect the features of the concept of the Renaissance plaza, namely the purpose of establishing "spatial unity," the use of arcades to strengthen the unity of the façades surrounding the plaza and the presence of monuments, fountains, flagpoles for organizing the space of the plaza.

Figure 14: Palma Nuovo, Italy

3.0.3b Baroque City

The period that encompasses the 17th and 18th century stylistic trends is accepted as Baroque. The spatial understanding of baroque city planning is visualized by the baroque squares. It is a period of “grandeur images" concerning the orders of the kings to create super-scale palaces, gardens and squares in order to emphasize their strength and control over the people. Open spaces in this era, are laid out for visual and ceremonial effects. (Choay, 1969)

The Piazza Campidoglio of Michelangelo, in the capital of Rome, is one of the early Baroque examples that best reflects the idea of the plaza of the time. This square is topographically isolated, but like previous examples in ancient Greece, it does not have religious elements: the acropolis or the medieval cathedral. It is a "civic institution".

The square has a trapezoidal open space surrounded by two opposite-facing buildings, the present Capitoline Museum and the Palazzo dei Conservatori with an oblique angle to each other, and the Palazzo dei Senatori in the middle. This perspective perceived by the viewers approaching to the plaza helps to monumentalize the Palazzo dei Senatori, which is the “typical baroque trait”. The twodimensional pattern used in Piazza dei Campidoglio for unifying various elements such as topography and the irregular shape of the site had also helped to create this perspective.

Figure 15:Michelangelo's Piazza Campidoglio

In front of the Palazzo dei Senatori, the steps named Cordonata explain "the shift of the main axis of the hill towards the modern city and away from its ancient position facing the Roman Forum."

Michelangelo used an architectural element: Arcades in this square. Other than its function in closed Renaissance squares, here arcades function as accelerators of the movement towards the background structure.

Figure 16:The steps: Cordonata

St. Peter‟s Square (Piazza San Pietro) by Bernini (1658-77) in Rome is the greatest example of the late baroque squares. The square composed of a “monumental colonnade which delimits an oval space”.

Figure 18: St. Peter‟s Square

Figure 17: St. Peter‟s Square Plan

3.0.4 Modern City Concepts

Le Corbusier’s idea of town planning lead the 20th century cities‟ outlook. His plan for “A Contemporary City Of Three Million Inhabitants” exhibited in 1922 in Paris, introduced his four basic principles: “to de-congest the centre of cities; to augment their density; to increase the means for getting about; and to increase parks and open spaces”

Figure 19: A Contemporary City Of Three Million Inhabitants(left);Open Public space in A Contemporary City Of Three Million Inhabitants (Right)

Conclusion

Figure 20: Changes in the definition of squares/plazas within the context of Western urban space during different periods

Figure 21: Assessment of the Western squares

Figure 22: ...cont

Historically, public plazas were formed as a place maker for urban city’s political, commercial, religious, and leisure life. The evolution of such public plazas was largely dependent on the internal function, its form, and the proximity to important buildings. With passing time and usage, the plazas now act as main nodes weaving the culture of the city into it.