Constructing Kanchi

This book traces the emergence of the South Indian city of Kanchi as a major royal capital and multireligious pilgrimage destination during the era of the Pallava and Chola dynasties (ca. seventh through thirteenth centuries). It presents the first-ever comprehensive picture of historical Kanchi, locating the city and its more than 100 spectacular Hindu temples at the heart of commercial and artistic exchange that spanned India, Southeast Asia, and China. The author demonstrates that Kanchi was structured with a hidden urban plan, which determined the placement and orientation of temples around a central thoroughfare that was also a burgeoning pilgrimage route. Moving outwards from the city, she shows how the transportation networks, river systems, residential enclaves, and agrarian estates all contributed to the vibrancy of Kanchi's temple life. The construction and ongoing renovation of temples in and around the city, she concludes, has enabled Kanchi to thrive continuously from at least the eighth century, through the colonial period, and up until the present.

Late Middle Kingdom Temple Bakery at South Abydos

Recent excavations have exposed the original bakery belonging to the mortuary temple of Senwosret III at South Abydos. Initially founded as a six-chambered building, the bakery was expanded in several phases to become a larger complex that housed a series of chambers dedicated primarily to large-volume hearth baking. Associated ceramics show that baking practices involved parallel use of rough-ware trays (aprt) and cylindrical bread molds (bDA). The bakery was linked by a walkway system with adjacent buildings also involved in the production and supply of offerings to the temple. One of the neighboring buildings appears to have been a companion brewery that was removed and replaced during a phase of alteration to the production area. The bakery and related structures are components of a larger shena or production zone that once extended nearly 300 meters along the edge of the Nile floodplain between the temple and town at the site of WAH-swt-¢akAwra-mAa-xrw-m-AbDw. Evidence from the bakery and neighboring structures shows that the layout of the shena was an extension of the urban plan of the town of Wah-Sut. Flanked by the main institutional buildings, the site was spatially organized around this multi-activity production zone which formed the site’s economic and industrial nucleus.

Reinventing the Capital: The Ideological Use of Monumental Architecture in Michael VIII Palaiologos’ Constantinople (1261–1282)

After the recapture of Constantinople (1261), Michael VIII Palaiologos (1259–82) re-shaped the city through extensive building activities. Though scholars have previously considered the involvement of Emperor Michael in the urban restoration of the capital, no attention has been devoted to the links between the different aspects of this programme of renewal. This paper advocates for the presence of an ambitious and systematic urban plan behind Michael VIII’s commissions focussed on the restoration of the southern shore of Constantinople and related to the political, religious, ideological, and aesthetic policies of this emperor.

Analysis of urban elements orientations to characterize the spatial extension of the foundation of the Roman city of Amida

The structure of the historical center of the city of Diyarbakır is largely inherited from the Roman city of Amida, through numerous testimonies still present in certain urban elements, such as buildings or cadastral parcels. The detailed analysis of the orientation of these urban elements in the current urban plan of Diyarbakır can contribute in particular to a better understanding of the different eras of foundation of the city of Amida and their spatial extensions. This research proposes to compare two methods of extraction of orientations from urban elements of the city of Diyarbakır. First, historians carried out a manual survey of the orientations from an aerial photograph, which made it possible to bring out two frames corresponding to two eras of the founding of the Roman city of Amida. These orientations were then compared with those extracted automatically from the geographic databases of cadastral parcels and built-up urban elements captured at a large scale. If the results obtained with the two methods converge, they also show differences, both on the orientation values and on the spatial extension of the two frames observed. These differences may contradict the initial observations, but are also sources of new perspectives of research on the spatial extension of the different periods of foundation of the Roman city of Amida. Finally, the results of this research tend to show that the two approaches prove to be complementary in detecting ancient urban structures in a contemporary city plan.

Rigenerazione urbana e paesaggio. Il caso di San Severo

The Municipality of San Severo has implemented the Regional Territorial Landscape Plan of Apulia at local level through a participatory process that, with the contribution of literature (poetry in particular), has involved experts, designers, teenagers, as well as associations operating in cultural, social, environmental and productive fields. Through the adaptation of the General Urban Plan to the PPTR, the implementation at local level of the Territorial Projects constituting the Strategic Scenario of the Regional Plan and the improvement of the governance tools aimed at involving the city and the territory, the contents and the methodology of the Mosaic Charter emerged as a strategy of protection and valorisation of the “Mosaic of San Severo”, that aims at identifying the territory.

PENDEKATAN SEMI-AUTONOMOUS SOCIAL FIELD DALAM STUDI DAN PERENCANAAN PERKOTAAN: TELAAH METODOLOGIS

This study discusses an approach widely used in the study of legal anthropology, i.e., semi-autonomous social field, for its potential application in the fields of urban studies and planning. This approach is considered highly relevant as it explains what and why discrepancies take place between what is dictated by state policy (including spatial planning) and what is actually accepted and applied in a semi-autonomous social field, like community or organization/company. By understanding these discrepancies, we may be able to appreciate the existence of local norms, values, and habits and, therefore, also of legal pluralism. Once again, as a legal product, urban plan is also bound to such an understanding. Two examples are taken to illustrate the application of this approach. In both illustrations, processes of elaboration, adjustment, acceptance, and conflict were demonstrated. Keywords: semi autonomous social field, rules-in-use, urban studies and planning. AbstrakKajian ini membahas pendekatan yang lazim digunakan dalam kajian antropologi hukum, yaitu bidang sosial semi-otonom, dan potensi penerapannya dalam bidang studi dan perencanaan perkotaan. Pendekatan ini dipandang sangat relevan karena menjelaskan apa dan mengapa terjadi perbedaan antara apa yang ditetapkan oleh kebijakan negara (termasuk rencana tata ruang) dan apa yang sesungguhnya diterima dan diterapkan dalam bidang sosial semi-otonom, seperti komunitas atau organisasi/perusahaan. Dengan memahami ketidaksesuaian tersebut kita dapat mengapresiasi keberadaan norma, nilai dan kebiasaan lokal dan karenanya juga dapat menghargai pluralisme hukum. Sekali lagi, sebagai produk hukum, rencana kota juga terikat pada pemahaman semacam itu. Dua contoh digunakan untuk mengilustrasikan penerapan pendekatan ini. Dalam kedua contoh, proses-proses elaborasi, penyesuaian, penerimaan, dan konflik ditunjukkan.

Constructing Kanchi

This book traces the emergence of the South Indian city of Kanchi as a major royal capital and multireligious pilgrimage destination during the era of the Pallava and Chola dynasties (circa seventh through thirteenth centuries). It presents the first-ever comprehensive picture of historical Kanchi, locating the city and its more than 100 spectacular Hindu temples at the heart of commercial and artistic exchange that spanned India, Southeast Asia, and China. The author demonstrates that Kanchi was structured with a hidden urban plan, which determined the placement and orientation of temples around a central thoroughfare that was also a burgeoning pilgrimage route. Moving outwards from the city, she shows how the transportation networks, river systems, residential enclaves, and agrarian estates all contributed to the vibrancy of Kanchi’s temple life. The construction and ongoing renovation of temples in and around the city, she concludes, has enabled Kanchi to thrive continuously from at least the eighth century, through the colonial period, and up until the present.

Assessment of Urban Greenery Status in Major Cities of Oromia, Ethiopia

This work aims at studying different green spaces’ experiences in developed countries and extrapolates the experiences to Oromia cities in Ethiopia; in order to investigate and promote greenery infrastructure in selected cities. To do that greenery practice performance data were collected in four cities, which were classified into two groups as good and weak performers. As a result, Adama and Bishoftu cities were good urban greenery performers whereas Burayu and Sebeta were weak performers. The cities were also selected non-randomly to investigate the current urban greenery practice and different green areas in each city. Eight green areas were taken as samples for observation, where qualitative and quantitative data were collected from primary and secondary sources. The assessment of data confirmed that green areas along the roadside, recreational parks, open areas, and nursery sites existed in most cities. The urban plan of some cities does exclude most green area components. Greenery sites in Bishoftu and Adama are relatively better, while in Burayu and Sebeta urban greenery are highly abused for changing to another type of land use, e.g., residential and institutional areas. The technical skills of tree planting, care, protection, and management were also observed as a collective resource.

Decoding the Urban Plan of the City of Pilsen (Plzen)

The historic centre of the city of Pilsen in western Bohemia, today a region of the Czech Republic, was constructed at the end of the thirteenth century, at a time when Gothic architecture was universal across most of western and central Europe. The Gothic style had emerged and developed during an era when social and economic changes were favouring the development of new urban settlements, and when the translation of ancient Greek natural philosophy, including astronomy, was giving rise to a new intellectual movement. This revival of the natural sciences was inevitably bound up with the Roman Catholic Church, since much of this knowledge had been preserved within monastic institutions and was now being used by theologians/natural philosophers who wanted to apply reason to theology. This paper’s analysis of the urban plan of the historic centre of Pilsen is an attempt to investigate the possible influence that the science of astronomy had on architectural thought and creativity in western Bohemia, and how this was represented in the light of scientific advancement.