Rob Krier: Urban Space (1979)

A Better Understanding

BY
CHANDRASEKHAR C MOHAN
110012001117
RIZVAN MOHAMED
110012001164

Introduction
The author of the Urban Space, Robert Krier was born in
1938 in Luxemburg. He ranks as one of the most influential
urban planners and architects of post modernism. As it is
also clear in his book Urban Space,
He has always taken the historic repertoire seriously. For
him, continuity and aestheticism are ways of reviving
what he regards as the art of architecture that lost its way
in modernism.
The aim of the bookUrban Spaceis to search how the
traditional understanding of urban space has been lost
within the modern cities. By explaining the terms of urban
space and its structure, he has examined whether the
concept of urban space retains some validity in
contemporary town planning and on what grounds.

Chapter 1
It analyzes the typological and
morphological elements of the urban
space.
The term urban spacecan be
simply described as external space in
town.

Chapter 1
Urban space has been structured in similar laws to
interior space as well.
Square and the street are the basic elements of the
urban space.Evidently compared to a Corridor or a
room.
The only difference is the dimensions of walls which
bound them and by the patterns of function and
circulation which characterize them.
In brief descriptions, square is produced by the grouping
of houses around an open space and the street is a
product of the spread of a settlement once houses have
been built along the available space.

SQUARES

STREET

TYPOLOGY
The Arrangement of Kriers
Typology for Urban Space
The spatial forms of urban space
derive from the three basic
geometric shapes:
square,
circle
triangle

One type of
Urban Space
on three
different
scales

MODULATION OF URBAN
SPACES
These three shapes are affected by
modulating factors which are
angling,
segmentation,
addition,
merging,
overlapping
distortion.

Play Of Spaces
The large number of building sections
influences the quality of the space at all
these stages of modulation.
Space that is completely surrounded by
buildings produces closed space and the
partially surrounded produces open space.
The differentiation of scale plays an
enormous role in all spatial forms, such as
the effect of various architectural styles on
urban space.

Morphological Series of Urban

Space
The author gives various examples
for a morphology of urban space
within this chapter, there being an
almost inexhaustible range of
possible forms exists that are mostly
from our historic town.

EXAMPLES
Piazza Navona in Rome is an
example for a geometrically complex
form. It is a combination of several
spatial forms and many streets enter
the square.
Place Dauphine in Paris is a regular
triangular square that is extremely
rare in the history of town planning.
These are usually formed by two
roads forking.

PIAZZA NAVONA

PLACE DAUPHINE

Chapter 2
It examines the erosion of urban
space in the 20thcentury.
The erosion of urban space is an
ongoing process which has been with
us for the last fifty years in the guise
of technological progress. This era
has started with the invention of new
military technology.

Chapter 2
The need of protection had imposed
a new discipline on every town: its
construction, rebuilding and
expansion. However, the colossal
pressure for expansion of cities led
planners over rapid decision making
on town planning which has resulted
with unstructured developments.

Chapter 2
Architecture was a low priority.
Functional, constructional and capital
concerns were being the most
important issues of the day.
Additionally, the influence of
industrial building on the urban
planning is another catastrophe. It
leads to numerous misconceived
developments which caused the
impoverishment of present-day

Chapter 2
Krier finalized this chapter by
showing his illustrations to support
his thesis that modern town planning
dominates over the concept of urban
space which has largely fallen into
disuse.

Chapter 3
The aim ofChapter 3is to
understand the authors viewpoint
for redeveloping a city.
Krier has suggested possible
approaches to reconstruction for
various parts of Stuttgart.

Chapter 3
Using redevelopment to weld together seamlessly the
isolated areas at those critical points, whose significance
for the pedestrians spatial awareness was eroded during
the post war years because of costly civil engineering
programmes.
Particular attention is paid in these studies to restoring the
continuity of spatial experience within an urban context.
Additionally, he designed streets and squares for
pedestrians, harmonised as closely as possible with the
existing structure and showing the utmost consideration
for the legacy of the past.

Conclusion
The book is very useful to understand the town
planning achievements of the present and the past. It is
also a well-structured book which gives an historical
summary of town planning and how it has been a
miserable failure in the contemporary town planning.
The rush of rebuilding and the priority which is given to
the traffic and to the other technologies rather than the
peoples need resulted with scattered buildings with no
proper spatial planning. This has proved the thesis of
author that the traditional concept of urban space and
its structure has been lost within modern cities.

THANK YOU