Greetings and welcome to Looking@Cities. It’s my intent with this blog to share with you my knowledge on cities, towns,…
The 1857 Competition for the Vienna Ringstrasse and an Analysis
In December 1857, Emperor Franz Joseph I decided to abandon the ditches, the wall, and the fortification of the inner…
Urban Design Exercises
You may have seen some of your friends and/or family pass an evening knitting, or you know someone who doodles…
S.D.U.K. (Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge)
In 1981 I presented my graduate thesis titled “Manhattan a Measure.” To write this thesis I searched for various historic city maps.…
Canal Cities
When the term “Canal City” is mentioned the first city that comes to mind is Venice, Italy. Canal cities exist though…
Medieval Skyscrapers
During the 13th century, hundreds of years before the industrial revolution, and the successive construction of today’s skyscrapers, stone towers…
The Defensive Walls of Florence, Italy
I’ve always been intrigued by the possible visual growth rings apparent in various cities. In certain historic cities these can…
“Mapping Abstract Concepts for Urban Design” a lecture presented to HTWG Konstanz – University of Applied Science, Faculty of Architecture and Design, Constance, Germany
This paper will demonstrate a number of drawing styles that fall outside the normal concept of illustrations typically used in…
Medieval New Towns
A number of years ago I discovered a book on medieval new towns titled, “Florentine New Towns: Urban Design in…
The Use of Typologies in Designing Architecture and Urban Design
“What … is type? It can most simply be defined as a concept which describes a group of objects characterized…
Subminiature Cameras
In this entry I plan to deviate from my normal writings on urban settings and will be covering my small…
Baedeker City Plans
Throughout the 17th to 18th centuries, the Grand Tour was mainly reserved for academics or the elite. Around 1840 rail…
The Legacy of Colin Rowe and the Figure/Ground Drawing
The following is a paper presented at a conference titled, “Urban Design and the Legacy of Colin Rowe,” and appears…
Giuseppe Zocchi: Choice XXV views of the main districts, squares, churches and palaces of the city of Florence
In the latter part of the 1700’s engravings of important cities became fashionable. Probably the most well-known engraver of this…
The Urban Genome: Circulation
Circulation Highways, streets, roads, boulevards, avenues, alleys, the names and function may vary but their primary concern is to allow…
The Urban Genome: Fields
• Fields In 1979 Steven K. Peterson published the seminal article titled “URBAN DESIGN TACTICS.” In this article Peterson describes…
The Urban Genome: City Gates or Points of Entrance
• City Gates or Points of Entrance City gates, in one form or another, can be found across the world…
The Urban Genome: Edges
“… The edge of a city is a philosophical region, where city and natural landscape overlap, existing without choice or…
The Genealogy of Cities (PDF’s from the CD)
In 2009 my book, The Genealogy of Cities, was published. The book displayed around 600 city plans in figure ground…
The Urban Genome: Approach
In the previous posting, The Urban Genome: The Rural Zone, I began a new series discussing what I call The Urban…
The Urban Genome: Rural Zone
“Urban design is a synthetic, inventive mapping of physical conditions which establishes whole areas of the city. In other words,…
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