Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qlrfm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T11:54:37.953Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The shaping of urban morphology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2009

George Gordon
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Alexander Pope unwittingly offered valuable solace and encouragement to students of urban morphology when he observed, in An Essay on Man, ‘A mighty maze! but not without a plan’. The search for guiding principles shaping morphology, for the formative, generative and adaptive processes operating in space and through time, is a major goal in the field of urban investigation. Every settlement consists of a number, or a mosaic, of distinct morphological units. These units can be classified on various dimensions such as period of development, building style or functional use. The units vary in size and complexity, or heterogeneity, of elements. On occasion, complexity was incorporated into the original design, as in the case of the Georgian New Town of Edinburgh. More commonly, complexity emerged as a result of subsequent adaptation, alteration and partial or total replacement of elements such as plots, blocks, frontages or townscapes. A fundamental, though rather neglected, concern of the morphologist is the identification of formative, generative and adaptive processes and the establishment of a relational model incorporating all of the interactive components, i.e. factors, processes, morphological elements and agents involved in the decision-making process.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History Yearbook , Volume 11 , May 1984 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1 A. Pope, An Essay on Man.

2 Norborg, K. (ed.), Symposium discussion, International Geographical Union Symposium in Urban Geography (1962), 463.Google Scholar

3 Carter, H., The Towns of Wales (1965)Google Scholar, and idem, ‘Transformations in the spatial structure of Welsh towns in the nineteenth century’, Trans. Hon. Soc. of Cymmrodorian (1980).

4 Conzen, M. R. G., ‘Alnwick, Northumberland. A study in town plan analysis’, Trans. Inst. British Geographers (1960), XXVII.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Whitehand, J. W. R., ‘Background to the urban morphogenetic tradition’, Inst. British Geographers Special Publication no. 13 (1981), 16.Google Scholar

6 Idem, ‘Conzenian ideas: extension and development’, Inst. British Geographers Special Publications no. 13 (1981), 145.

7 Brooks, N. P. and Whittington, G., ‘Planning and growth in the medieval Scottish burgh: the example of St Andrews’, Trans. Inst. British Geographers, n.s. II (1977), 278–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Straw, F. I., ‘An analysis of the town plan of Nottingham: a study in historical geography’ (M. A. thesis, University of Nottingham, 1967).Google Scholar

9 Slater, T. R., ‘The analysis of burgages in medieval towns’, Dept. of Geography, University of Birmingham, Working Paper 4 (1980).Google Scholar

10 Ibid., ‘Urban genesis and medieval town plans in Warwickshire and Worcestershire’ in T. R. Slater and P. J. Jarvis (eds.), Field and Forest: an historical geography of Warwickshire and Worcestershire (1981).

11 Whitehand, J. W. R., ‘Fringe belts: a neglected aspect of urban geography’, Trans. Inst. British Geographers, XLI (1967), 223–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Barke, M., ‘The changing urban fringe of Falkirk: some morphological implications of urban growth’, Scottish Geographical Mag., XC (1974), 85–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Whitehand, J. W. R., ‘Building cycles and the spatial pattern of urban growth’, Trans. Inst. British Geographers, LVI (1972), 39–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Building activity and intensity of development at the urban fringe: the case of a London suburb in the nineteenth century’, J. Historical Geography, I (1975), 211–24.

14 Carter, H. and Wheatley, S., ‘Fixation lines and fringe belts, land uses and social areas: nineteenth-century change in the small town’, Trans. Inst. British Geographers, n.s. IV (1979), 214–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Slater, T. R., ‘Family, society and the ornamental villa on the fringes of English country towns’, J. Historical Geography, IV (1978), 129–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Binford, H. C., ‘Land tenure, social structure and railway impact on North Lambeth 1830–1865’, J. Transport History, II (1974), 131–52.Google Scholar

17 Ward, D., ‘The pre-urban cadaster and the urban pattern of Leeds’, Ann. Association of American Geographers, LII (1962), 151–65.Google Scholar

18 Carter, H. and Rowley, G., ‘The morphology of the central business district of Cardiff, Trans. Inst. British Geographers, XXXVIII (1966), 119–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Stanislawski, D., ‘The origin and spread of the grid-pattern town’, Geographical Rev., XXXVI (1966), 105–20.Google Scholar

20 Porteous, J. D., ‘The nature of the company town’, Trans. Inst. British Geographers, LI (1970), 127–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Lockhart, D. G., ‘Scottish village plans: a preliminary analysis’, Scottish Geographical Mag., XCVI (1980), 141–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Norborg, op. cit.

23 Carter, H., ‘A decision-making approach to town plan analysis: a case study of Llandudno’, in Carter, H. and Davies, W. K. D. (eds.), Urban Essays: Studies in the Geography of Wales (1970), 66–77.Google Scholar

24 Idem, The Study of Urban Geography (1981), 164.

25 Mortimore, M. J., ‘Landownership and urban growth in Bradford and its environs in the West Riding conurbation, 1850–1950’, Trans. Inst. British Geographers, xlvi (1969), 105–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Rowley, G., ‘Landownership and the spatial growth of towns: a Sheffield example’, East Midland Geographer, VI (1975), 200–13.Google Scholar

27 Springett, R. J., ‘The mechanics of urban land development in Huddersfield 1770–1911’ (Ph.D thesis, University of Leeds, 1979).Google Scholar

28 Gordon, G., ‘The historico-geographic explanation of urban morphology: a discussion of some Scottish evidence’, Scottish Geographical Mag. (1981), 21–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 For example, Beresford, M. W., ‘The back-to-back house in Leeds, 1787–1937’, in Chapman, S. D. (ed.), The History of Working Class Housing (1971), 93–132Google Scholar; Dyos, H. J. (ed.), The Study of Urban History (1968).Google Scholar

30 Jnr, J. L. Vance, ‘Institutional forces that shape the city’, in Herbert, D. T. and Johnston, R. J. (eds.), Social Areas in Cities (1978), 97–125.Google Scholar

31 Openshaw, S., ‘A theory of the morphological and functional development of the townscape in an historical context’, University of Newcastle, Department of Geography Seminar Paper 24 (1973).Google Scholar

32 Whitehand, J. W. R., ‘The basis for an historico-geographical theory of urban form’, Trans. Inst. British Geographers, n.s. II (1977), 400–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Ibid.; 32, 402–3.

34 Ibid., 32, 412–13.

35 Gordon, op. cit., 16–26.

36 Youngson, A. J., The Making of Classical Edinburgh (1966).Google Scholar

37 Ibid.

38 Kellett, J. R., ‘Property speculators and the building of Glasgow’, Scottish J. Political Economy, VIII (1961), 211–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Robb, J. G., ‘Slum and suburb in nineteenth-century Gorbals: a small scale study of socio-residential change’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Strathclyde, 1981).Google Scholar

40 Chalklin, C. W., The Provincial Towns of Georgian England (1974), 74–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Ibid., 78.

42 Ibid., 89.

43 Ibid., 97.

44 Sutcliffe, A., ‘Architecture and civic design in nineteenth century Paris’ in Growth and Transformation of the Modern City, Procs. Stockholm Conference (1979), 89–100.Google Scholar

45 Chalklin, op. cit, 111.

46 Edwards, K. C., ‘The Park Estate, Nottingham’, in Simpson, M. A. and Lloyd, T. H. (eds.), Middle Class Housing in Britain (1977), 153–69.Google Scholar

47 Ibid., 159.

48 Ibid., 167–8.

49 Ibid., 154.

50 Personal communication, 1964.

51 Smith, P. J., ‘Site selection in the Forth Basin’ (Ph.D thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1964).Google Scholar

52 Ibid.

53 Burnett, J., A Social History of Housing 1815–1970 (1978).Google Scholar

54 Gordon, G., ‘Working-class housing in Edinburgh, 1837–1974’, Wirtschafts-geographis-che studien, Vienna, v.3 (1979), 68–86.Google Scholar

55 Rodger, R. G., ‘The origins of Scottish town planning’, paper presented to conference Planning History Group, Edinburgh (1978).Google Scholar

56 Ibid., ‘The law and urban change’, Urban History Yearbook (1979), 77–89.

57 Ibid., ‘The evolution of Scottish town planning’ in G. Gordon and T. R. B. Dicks (eds.), Scottish Urban History (1983), 71–91.

58 A. Sutcliffe, ‘Environmental control and planning in European capitals 1850–1914: London, Paris and Berlin’, in Growth and Transformation of the Modern City, op. cit. 71–88.

59 Minett, J., ‘Gretna-Britain's first Government sponsored new town: 1915–17,’ paper presented to Planning History Group Conference, Edinburgh (1978).Google Scholar

60 Smith, op. cit.

61 Ibid.

62 J. Butt, ‘Working-class housing in the Scottish cities 1900–1950’, in Gordon and Dicks (eds.), op. cit., 233–67.

63 Garside, P., paper presented to Planning History Group Conference, Birmingham (1981).Google Scholar

64 Butt, op. cit.

65 Sim, D. F., ‘Patterns of building adaptation and redevelopment in the central business district of Glasgow’ (Ph.D thesis; University of Glasgow, 1977).Google Scholar

66 Whitehand, J. W. R., ‘Land-use structure, built-form and agents of change’, Inst. British Geographers Special Publication no. 14 (1983), 41–59.Google Scholar