Public Space and (Proto)-Urban Planning: Exploring Alleys, Streets and Squares in the 4th Millennium B.C.
DE ROSA, Elena
The study of the built environment has long been a concern of archaeologists exploring how social structures influence architectural planning and how architecture itself affects the reproduction of social boundaries. Nonetheless, open public areas have been mostly excluded from this framework as simply empty and un-built spaces. If human settlements are the product of the deliberate accumulation of buildings, then areas which are left void also account for meaningful constructed spaces which are managed, maintained and contended between members of society. As such, their accessibility and dimensions within a site as well as the presence or absence of public amenities can be observed to examine the level of cooperation within a settlement. Moreover, the degree of administrative control exercised over a site can also be suggested by its overall legibility, as administrators would strive to make public space as decipherable and manageable as possible. This paper will review relevant case-studies for open, public spaces in Northern Mesopotamia during the proto-urban, Late Chalcolithic period (5th and 4th millennium B.C). As villages grew into cities increasingly managed by political élites, what influence did these have on their internal organisation and their most public, functionally open-ended architectural spaces?
Session 3. Urban and Landscape Studies: Finding Interpretative Approaches [info]