051-0701-16L  Systematic Principles of Urban Design: Learn from the European City

SemesterAutumn Semester 2016
LecturersV. Magnago Lampugnani, H. Stühlinger
Periodicityevery semester recurring course
Language of instructionGerman


AbstractUrban Ensembles of the Modern City. Strategies for Dealing with the Twentieth-Century City
ObjectiveThe seminar will focus on case studies in order to reveal strategies for dealing with the modern city. Built urban-development ensembles from the twentieth century will be embedded in their architectural and historical context, studied with an eye to their constitutive elements and discussed in connection with current urban-planning projects. In addition to various forms of methodological engagement with urban contexts, students will experience how the disciplines of urban-planning history and urban development can be considered in a more integrated way. Moreover, they will receive feedback on how to present the result of their analyses in concise, well-structured talks and in drawings.
ContentThe approach to urban-planning ensembles of the twentieth-century city is characterized by their enormous quantity - which also makes dealing with them more difficult. The building stock dating from this era is immense. There is little discussion currently of how larger spatial contexts - housing estates, neighbourhoods, entire cities - can be not just designed and planed but also continuously developed as overall ensembles. Moreover, strategies, instruments and procedures for dealing with the vestiges of twentieth-century urban planning have yet to be established. In the seminar we will discuss how specific approaches to analysing, assessing and further developing of specific case studies have been formulated and explored recently as well as the extent to which they are experimental and deviate from traditional means for preserving and developing the city. Any discussion of an example of urban planning from the previous century must begin with precise analysis: taking up its original urban-planning principles in their historical dimension and all of the features that affect urban planning. The seminar will emphasise this sort of contextual discussion of modern urban space.
Lecture notesThere will be no script handed out.
LiteratureLiterature will be distributed as bibliographical list at the first session.