Urban Squares as Places Links and Displays

To attract investment and tourists and to enhance the quality of life of their citizens, municipal authorities are paying considerable attention to the quality of the public domain of their cities – including their urban squares. Politicians find them good places for rallies. Children consider squares to be playgrounds, the elderly as places to catch-up with each other, and for many others squares are simply a place to pause for a moment.

Urban Squares as Places, Links and Displays: Successes and Failures discusses how people experience squares and the nature of the people who use them. It presents a ‘typology of squares’ based on the dimensions of ownership, the square’s instrumental functions, and a series of their basic physical attributes including size, degree of enclosure, configuration and organization of the space within them and finally based on their aesthetic attributes – their meanings. Twenty case studies illustrate what works and what does not work in different cities around the world. It discusses the qualities of lively squares and quieter, more restorative places as well as what contributes to making urban squares less desirable as destinations for the general public. The book closes with the policy implications, stressing the importance and difficulties of designing good public places.

Urban Squares offers how-to guidance along with a strong theoretical framework making it ideal for architects, city planners and landscape architects working on the design and upgrade of squares.

CONTENTS

Part 1: Introduction

• 1. Experiencing Public Open Spaces
• 2. Squares as Places, Links and Displays
• 3. Sociocultural Considerations

• 4. Public, Quasi-public and Semi-public Squares
• 5. Types based on Instrumental Functions:
• 6. Types based on Size
• 7. Types based on Degree of Enclosure
• 8. Types based on Configurations
• 9. Types based on Internal Designs
• 10. Types based on Symbolic Functions
• 11. Types based on Design Paradigms

• 12. A Score of Case Studies

1. Rittenhouse House Square, Philadelphia
2. Sproul Plaza, University of California at Berkeley
3. Paley Park, New York
4. Cours Honoréd-Estiennne d’Orves, Marseille
5. La Place des Terreaux, Lyon
6. Federation Square, Melbourne
7. Paternoster Square, London
8. Robson Square, Vancouver
9. Olympic Plaza, Calgary
10. Trafalgar Square, London
11. The Capitol Square, Chandigarh
12. Oxford Square, Sydney
13. Pershing Square, Los Angeles
14. Schouwburgplein, Rotterdam
15. The Guggenheim Museum forecourt, Bilbao
16. North and South Shanghai Railway Station Squares, Shanghai
17. Jacob K. Javits Federal Building Plaza, New York
18. Granary Square, London
19. Times Square, New York
20. Piazza San Marco, Venice

• 13. The Qualities of Lively Urban Squares
• 14. The Qualities of Quiet Urban Squares

296 pages, 3 black & white tables, 162 colour illustrations, 3 colour line drawings / 19 x 24,5 cm / English