A lot of reading here, but don't panic. Do a little each study session, remembering that you have a week to complete the whole of it. For those of you who are not familiar with this kind of material I make the following suggestions.
1.Try to think in terms of those ideas you learned in writing classes. Identify the thesis statements and the supporting evidence. Devote your mental energy to understanding the thesis statements rather than memorizing the data in support of these.
2.Much of the supporting evidence in this book is visual. Don't neglect the illustrations. They will help you understand as much as the textual support will, if you look at them analytically.
3.Use the study guide below to help you understand what I want you to take with you from this assignment
Chapter 1
Read this chapter quickly. You don't need to remember much about the emergence of Constantinople. You should be aware of why cities arise in the first place, and how their unique commercial role has a special social consequence. What does it mean to be a cosmopolitan person? Think, too, about how the economic development of Northern Europe differs from Southern Europe. Northern Europeans were predominantly responsible for settling North America, Southern Europeans for exploration and discovery in the first place. Why?
Chapter 2
In this chapter we are introduced to a number of different kinds of houses... partly through the text, but especially through the pictures. I want you to see if you can establish a reason for the differences between two different types. Type "A" is visible in illustrations 10, 19, 20, and 21. Type "B: is visible in illustrations 16, 17, 18, and 28. There are differences within each of these types. How can they best be explained? Another type of house can be seen in illustrations 30 and 32. What relationship might these have to the "cottages" on Ocean Drive in Newport?
Also take a look at illustration 11 on page 18. It is very common for cities and towns to be organized around an open space. We'll come back to this time and time again. Also think a little about what street names tell us.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3 gives us opportunity to talk about the idea of urban mix. We will think a little about what a social institution is, and how institutions develop unique building forms to suit their particular needs. (We have already begun to notice this with the different house forms we see in Chapter 2. ) The mix is especially rich in urban areas. We'll note later that one of the things suburbs do is shed some of that diversity for reasons we'll explore at the appropriate time.
Pay some attention to illustration 38. Here is a type of institutional housing. How do the houses in this row differ from those you observed in chapter 2? Carefully observing the difference will tell you something about the kind of people who live therein.
The city center of Amsterdam. Observe the variety of building types you see...each representing a different social institution. Institutions recognize that significant architecture enhances prestige, and it is not difficult to recognize efforts to draw attention to the importance of the instututions through the importance of their structures. The same thing happens in Boston and Bristol on their commons, to a different degree and scale.
Chapter 4
The title for this chapter is a particularly rich metaphor. Texture implies diversity. So does another metaphor, fabric. Communities represent a kind of weaving together of many elements: social classes, economic classes, ethnic communities, etc., into a functioning whole. The connections of this fabric create the pattern of streets. Look carefully at the three town plans, figures 57, 58, and 59. You should notice some immediate differences between these, and perhaps also some subtle ones, as well. How can these differences in patterns be explained?
Chapter 5
Chapter 5 provides a good summary of the previous four chapters through a comparative examination of two cities, a Northern European one (Bruges) and a Southern European one (Venice). This will be a good place to check whether you've understood the concepts you've been studying so far. For example, are there any similarities between the town plan of Bruges (figure 72) and previous illustrations of town centers? What about house forms? Do you see any familiar ones?
Pay particular attention to the labeling of figure 82. It will suggest something about the nature of urban diversity; So will the illustrations in Figures 90 and 91. Something else needs considering, too, and that is Density. Note how densely packed all these structures are, and how except for public squares, plazas, and the like, open space is confined to the rear of buildings. Why? Finally, you'll note many of the illustrations in this chapter are packed with people in public spaces. Look at these and at the activities going on in them. What do these suggest about life in urban environments?
Chapter 6
There is only one concept I want to have you take with you from chapter 6, and that is beautification. I want to have you think about how cities and towns (Bristol, for example, or the place which you call home) work to make themselves more "beautiful". And I want you to compare this with the way civic leaders attempted to beautify themselves back in the 16th and 17th centuries: indeed, through much of the 18th century, as well. You should be able to discover some differences which suggest different attitudes towards humanity and its role in the world of nature. You can see one illustration of a beautification scheme in progress in figure 105. What it shows should confirm what you see in the pictures of other great urban spaces in this chapter. What is missing from them, or walled off from them, at least?
A village square on the day of the fair. What may be empty space most days of the year comes alive during times of community activity. The Bristol Town Common us used this way during the Fourth of July festivities, and other similar community festivities.
Chapter 8
Only one concept to worry about here, too, and this is status emulation. I'm not going to do more than offer a couple of hints here. I'd like to see if you can define this idea for yourselves. There are two examples which will prove most helpful. One is to compare the Antwerp Exchange of 1531 (figure 115) with the London Exchange of 1644 (figure 116). You can also compare the houses of Gdansk, (figure 147) with houses in Bruges, remembering that Gdansk is in Poland and Bruges in Belgium. You could also consider the inspiration of many of the "cottages" in Newport, which you can browser through at http://www.newportmansions.org/ When we reach the point of reading Tracy Kidder's House we'll use these insights again.
