Place Coherence in Townscape aesthetics

Abstract

Abstract

The city is a human product, and it is the Place where he dwells, and so he must be interested in it and be provided the appropriate atmosphere that gives him a sense of safety, comfort, feelings of joy, happiness and a sense of beauty. Since the human subject has a multitude of needs; functional, social, as well as other needs, whenever these needs are met in the city and its Townscape and there is a Harmony between them and the Conceptions of the subjects who live in it, the place "sends" the required meanings to create aesthetic sensations and thus positive Feedback from the user will be received. From this point of view, the city and its Townscape were studied.

Thus, the research problem was defined as: weakness and disintegration in the contemporary city's urban image as a result of it lacking the vocabulary that constitutes Place and thus a decay in the possibility of sensing Beauty, especially in its urban spaces. Research hypothesis: aesthetic perception can be achieved by modeling the urban environment on concepts that enhance the characteristics of Coherence, that in turn enhance the aesthetic qualities of the Townscape. Research Objective: providing the knowledge base for the research vocabulary and then extracting the vocabulary that contributes to achieving an aesthetic appearance of the Townscape and thus the positive feelings of the viewer and the user. Research Methodology: The Analytical Descriptive-Comparative Approach.

We then extracted, based on the theoretical framework, the main vocabulary that constitute a coherent Place, namely: compactness, naturalness, interdependence, compatibility, continuity, uniqueness and Variety. Two of the Vocabularies that were extracted from the theoretical framework, namely (naturalness and interdependence) were analyzed in the study areas in the city of al-Kadhimiya. Two localities were identified, a traditional locality and contemporary one. The research found that the traditional locality contained the characteristics and relationships that constitute a coherent Place, whether visual, functional or others, with the new locality lacking most of those characteristics. And then we followed by presenting the conclusions and recommendations.