College of Environmental Design
Department of Architecture, UC Berkeley
Architecture Slide Library
Arch 170A Fall 1995 James Study Aid 24
I. From trade fairs to the development of commercial architecture: the reurbanization of Europe from the 11th century onward. Medieval cities outside the feudal city, internal governance by wealthy citizens. Integration of commercial, production, and domestic spaces within individual houses. These usually timberframed. early stone example Jew's House, Lincoln (England) 1170-1180. Religious minorities within the city: Synagogue, Worms (Germany), begun 1174: separate double-aisled, groin-vaulted halls for men and women, torah scrolls in niche facing Jerusalem, bima from which they are read. Urban religious authority could be secular as well as sacred: Papal Palace, Avignon (France), 1334-1352 for Popes Benedict XII and Clement VI, a semi-defensible residence organized around audience and banqueting halls.
II. Ideal city planning: preference for rectangular planning as seen in Aigues-Mortes(France), 1272 -1300 by Louis IX, as a new town (bastide). Port for embarkation upon Crusades. Church and marketplace as competing centers of urban life. Importance of city walls and gates in defining as well as defending the city.
III. Successful cities in northern and southern Europe and the emergence of a secular, civic architecture to challenge religious and feudal authority.
A. Bruges (Belgium), center of textile production and port for international textile trade. Paved streets and canal system with piped drinking water. Market halls and Belfry (1282-96). Other public buildings include Town Hall, lodge halls, and Hospital of St. John.
B. Siena Image1 . Image2 (Italy), center of textile production and banking. Religious focal point (Cathedral crowning a hilltop) versus secular one: Piazza del Campo lined with private palaces and the Palazzo Publico (1298-1348). Tension between religious and secular imagery within the architecture and decoration of this town hall: gothic windows, machicolations, and tall bell-tower.
Castles: actually associated as much with founding and defense of cities as with country side. White Tower (Tower of London), London (England), built c 1180 by Gundulf of Bec for the Norman King William I. Located just inside Roman walls, the largest stone construction in Britain since Roman times. Importance of chapel as well as spaces for secular rule. Single tower form replaced by circuits of walls punctuated by towers during the Crusades (European invasion of the Middle East). German expansion along the Baltic: Teutonic Knights (Knights of the German Order) based after 1309 in Marienburg (Malbork, Poland). Castle, c1270-1400, constructed largely of brick with emphasis on splendour and variety of interior spaces rather than thickness of walls.
Markethall, Cremieu (France), 1315 -1321: offered a roof over heads of those who sold mostly agricultural products.
Casto Edward Vocal Jr.
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