Conservation-transformation dichotomy in the historical evolution of city walls: Reflections on urban morphology

Abstract

City walls with their physical, social, symbolic, political meanings have influenced spatial formation and progress of urban morphology as they have been affected by different morphological approaches and practices as well. Since their first formation, city walls have had a role of demarcation of boundaries limiting the urban growth and controlling the expansion, and separation of the cities into districts. However, this deterministic feature of city walls has evolved through different approaches mainly focusing on transformation and conservation in time. In order to understand how those approaches come into existence in the urban fabric and how urban morphology responds the compelling situations emerged, this study aims to explore the historical evolution of city walls, drawing on examples of different morphological cases with key sites including Amersfoort, Carcassonne, Dubrovnik, Istanbul, Paris, Vienna and Xi'an. As main results of this comparative assessment pointing out the challenges and potentials, transformation approaches accelerating the expansion of the city is emerged through creation of different uses at the exact location of the former walls in Paris, Amersfoort and Vienna while conservation approaches in Istanbul address the walls solely as architectural structures, and cause fragmented urban fabric in the surrounding today. Based on the findings, it is considered that the disconnection between approaches and their ways of practice regarding the city walls and urban form should be solved through integration with the relevant disciplines to the urban morphology and multi-dimensional perspective.