occupied walls and the aegean sea paradigm

8/3/2019 Occupied Walls and the Aegean Sea Paradigm

1/25

OCCUPIED WALLSand the Aegean Sea paradigm

Aristodimos KomninosMassachusetts Institute of TechnologySMarchS - Architecture & Urbanism

Cambridge, December 2011


2/252


3/25


4/254

Intoduction

is paper examines the evolution of town fortication from an urban point ofview that is the relation between the walls and the civic structure. It then focuson the special case of vernacular settlements in the Aegean Sea (and speci-cally the insular complex of Cyclades), and analyzes the typical conguration ofthe city walls and how this aects the urban structure. Following an overview ofcontemporary city walls this paper attempts to articulate an argument about theuntrammeled way cities grow today and cite provisions about the future of urban

evolution.

Brief Historical Background

City walls appear rather early in history, almost at the same time with the rstformation of communities (ill. 2).People soon realized that the integrity of their community was oen threatenedby attacks; therefore some counter-measures had to be considered. However, therewere cities, like Sparta and Rome that did not possess any fortications until muchlater, merely relying on their military forces for defense.In Western world, the most important period of fortication and wallicationstart right aer the end of Pax-Romana (27 BC -180 AD) [1] and lasts throughoutthe Middle Ages reaching its peak during the 14th centurt before the renaissancewith the arrival of blackpowder and cannons. In order to respond to that challenge

fortications will reach the highest sophistication level with the appearance of starshaped fwalls and bastions.e ever escalating power of military forces will gradually undermine the defen-sive capabilities of city walls, until the era of advanced artillery and air force whereis made clear that any target that can be located, can be destroyed.

Classication of fortications

Fortication technology and design changed drastically throughout centuries.However, in terms of their relation to the city, there have been small variations.ere are three basic typologies independent of the general shape or formation ofthe city based on 3 elements. e walls. the urban fabric and the core, wich refersto an administrtive, religious or cultural center .

ere are three categories common wall (ill. 1a) acropolis (ill. 1b) as even cities that once had only an acropolis later on extended their defensive linearound a broader part of the city oen more than once. (ill. 1c, 1d)ere could be mentioned a third case as an exception to the rule; this of linear,and long distant walls. e Great Wall of China, is the most well known exampleand functioned as a preventive counter-measure, rather than a city defensive wall.e Long Walls of Athens is the best known case of defensive walls connecting twodistant places, in this case the main city to the harbor. (ill. 3, 4)

How did cities grow beyond the walls?

e way cities were formed in relation to their walls is not standardized. Townsgrew within a predened and pre-existing frame dictated by city walls or, as AldoRossi explains, found themselves enclosed within walls long aer their originalformation. At the end of Pax Romana the cities marked their boundaries byerecting walls, they enclose a smaller surface area than the Roman cities had,Monuments and even well-populated areas were abandoned outside of these walls;the city enclosed only its nucleus.[2]e element of high density was common for both cases of towns built within oraround city walls. It is very important for the understanding of those patterns therealization of the synchronous military and social realm. Most of those cities were

1a

1b

1c

1d


5/255

4. Athens and the Long Walls

3. Excavation works reveal part of the South-

ern Long Walls, February 2010, Athens

2. Mycenae: Plan of the Acropolis.


6/256

built under the impact of constant fear against unexpected enemy raids and sud-den attacks. e city had therefore to develop a passive defense system either withpermanent fortication surrounding the city as a whole or by growing denselyclose to the city walls that would oer an immediate shelter in case of an emer-gency.However, the most common expansion pattern is that of a city concentrated insideor around a walled perimeter that later expanded along pre-existing axes; natural(riverside, waterfronts) or manmade (streets).Rossi on the other hand, considers external pre-established urban cores as equally

strong expansion factors.

e original nucleus enclosed within the walls extendsitself according to its own specic nature; and to this formal individuation cor-responds a political individuation. On the outskirts of the city develop the bourghiof the Italian ciy, the faubourgs of the French city. [3]Interestingly enough, the two examples mentioned by Rossi, are an abbey in Parisand the monastery of Sarn Gottardo in Milan, which both are cases of communi-ties organized within enclosed walls.

5

e Occupied Walls

e way towns and villages were defended is related to the era, the location, theenemy, the available resources and technology.In most cases, fortications are stand-alone urban artifacts. ere mostly are indi-

vidual structures wrapped around cities but completely detached from any otherstructure; an actual wall.However, throughout history there are some cases where fortications were notmerely defending infrastructures but could also be found as individually protected

units or organically connected members of the actual part of the city; an inhabitedwall; an occupied wall.e rst examples of those cases are the Donjons and Chateaux, situated withinthe walls as detached castles, or on the walls, serving as watchtowers. Donjonswere small keeps where the local Lord used to live and eventually became a shelteror the last line of defense of the city. [4]e defense model of isolated communites, and specically monasteries was alsoone of the rst to introduce the concept of self-containment; in a structure thatoers both housing and protection for a large number of people.A stunning example of to that comes from Rossis description of the settlementVisigoths created within the building shell of a Roman amphitheater in Nimes,providing shelter and ecient protection for two thousand people. [5] (ill. 8)is typology of defensive walls that were embedded into the community as oc-cupied, living spaces was widely adopted by monasteries. e typical structure ofa monastery is a courtyard surrounded by a perimeter wing, hosting the chambersof monks, which has a rather solid and unied exterior faade as medium to pro-tect the monastery from attacks. (ill. 9, 10)e rst Christian coenobitic monastery was established in Egypt between 318and 322 and was rapidly followed by thousand others that spread from the Egyp-tian desert to Palestine and the Judean Desert, Syria, North Africa and eventuallyWestern Europe. It is said that by the end of 4th century there were some 7000monasteries in Egypt alone. [6]

6a

6b

5. Belltower, San Gottardo, Milan

6a. Cateau de Loches, Section through Donjon6b. Chateau de Loches, Plan of the Donjon


7/257

9

7b

7a

10

7a. Abbaye de Saint-Germain des Pres.7b. Abbaye de Saint-Germain des Pres. Floor plan

8. Amhitheter in Nimes.9. Saint Catherines Monastery plan, Mount Sinai.

10. Monte cassino aer bombing attack.

8


8/258

12

e proximity of the hellenic territory with Egypt and Palaistine through the Ae-gean Sea, together with the intense commercial activity in the area, totally justifythe way greek villages and towns were aected. Proof of this inuence, is themonastery of Panagia Chozoviotissa (ill. 13)in Amorgos island, which is said to befound by exiled monks from Chotzeva monastery in Palestine (ill.12).e resem-blance in topography and typology of the two is evident.Despite the large number of monasteries throughout the Aegean Sea, this was notthe only form of fortication. However, its basic structure had a strongly impacted on most forms of protected settlements.

11

Historical background of military activity in the Aegean Sea

In order to further understand the defense practices in the Aegean, it is importantto briey present the historical and social context of that time.During the time of East Roman Empire, the maritime territory of the AegeanSeaenjoyed a peaceful and safe period, solely interrupted by the oensive activ-ity of the Arabs who occupied the island of Rhodes in 654 BC, spreading fear andforcing the insular communities to abandon their coastal settlements and seek forsecure locations within the inner part of islands mainland. e fortications builtat the time followed an informal and rather hasty construction method, out of fearof Arabs attack, which produced a tight and dense urban environment, transform-

ing drastically the comfortable urban life citizens used to enjoy. Hostile activitydeteriorated aer the 9th century with the outspread of Saracens piracy.Aer the reinstatement of the Byzantine domination in the Aegean Sea aer 961,fortications throughout the Aegean were built or reinforced.Byzantine Empire was dissolved in 1204 by the 4th Crusade. e following yearsand especially the second half of Venetian occupancy bequeathed to the AegeanSea an extensive network of settlements vulnerable to sea attacks; supplementedby a more protected network of settlements situated on the closest hill above theports. [7]However the spate of Ottoman raids and piracy forced the Latinos conquerors totake more systematic measures, as the islands one aer the other were depopulat-ed. Exception to that is the case of Antiparos, where in 1440 a new castle was builtfor people to settle and cultivate the island. e way the castle was built combined

14


9/259

13

15

11. Arkadi Monastery, oor plan

12. Chotzeva monastery, Palestine.

13. Panagia Chozoviotissa, Amorgos, Greece.

14. Slave Market

15. e Citadel and the port, Rhodes, 1853.


10/2510

safety and space savings. Its walls were formed of the rear wall of three-storey ad-jacent dwellings, arranged around a square courtyard. e tower within the centerof the densely built village functioned as a last resort in times of emergency.eresidents came from the only gate every morning aer making sure that there wasno eminent danger, and get back on time, before closing for the night. e systemwas later applied anew in the 16th century in Kimolos and the southern part ofChios [8]Most of these settlements are the sole, or primary, settlement of the islands. econstruction of this extended network engaged entirely new settlements, like the

case of Antiparos, occupancy of older forti

ed coastal sites of the Hellenistic era,which were abandoned during the Middle Ages as well as compilation of new con-structions and ancient parts found on site, like the example of Paroikia in Parosisland.Urban fortication is a constant element from late antiquity to modern times.ere is no settlement anywhere in Europe, the Middle East and North Africawhich is to house administration or goods that does not have any, even rudi-mentary, fortications (Fortress, Fortress Tower, fort enclosure, natural fortica-tion) and guard. However, this structure is reversed as the cities of Europe andthe Mediterranean expanded their trade activity and developed communicationnetworks. [9]

Fortications as social capital in the Aegean.

e fortication should be interpreted as a component of economic and socialidentity of the cities. Both in the western Mediterranean world and the Muslim,the fully developed city was synonymous to fortied city. [10] Looking back to theMediterranean and European realm aer the Middle Ages, such forts port-cities ofall sizes were found wherever mainland merged with the coast or where major searoutes encountered straits or islands. Aegeans, geographical specicity of diasporaand density of islands required almost as term of survival, the creation of suchpowerful poles; in other words, no island could prosper if it lacked of a strong portthat connected the island to the outside world and neighboring communities.In general, the fortications were constructed during times of generalized naval

warfare. During centuries-lasted intervals, old fortications and the enclosuresformed by the exterior walls of houses provided sucient defense, being capableof blocking small groups of attackers, but unable to provide protection to organ-ized military attack. Aer the 16th century, the settlements spread beyond thoseboundaries. e number of attacks and siege accepted the insular cities aer the13th century were small compared to their precedent history. War incidents werecommon in islands during certain periods of major changes. ere were townswhere several consecutive generations did not experienced any attack or had beenoccupied by enemy troops.It now becomes clear that the constantly changing military status in the AegeanSea conducted this variety in permanent and semi-permanent defense congu-rations. Places with limited resources like the Aegean islands could not aordpermanent city walls throughout their territory due to both lack of space andavailability in raw materials. e scarcity of attacks that allowed this intermediatedefensive redundancy together with the pre-existing fortication model of mon-asteries explains why the typology of inhabited city walls found fertile groundin the Aegean Sea. It was the only way for the local societies to get the most out oftheir land without sacricing anything for the erection of single purpose struc-tures as the city walls are.

18

17

16

16. Paroikia Castle, Paros

17. Antiparos Castle

18. Patmos monastery.

19. Out row of buildings on edge of settlementtowards sea, Molyvos, Lesbos.

20. Anavatos, Chios


11/2511

19

20


12/2512

Defensive Walls in the Aegean islands societies.

Vernacular architecture, in the Aegean and beyond, follows one singlerule in any given traditional structure; serving more than one purpose.erefore the defense of the town could not but addresses simultane-ously to critical issues for the growth and organization of citys civicstructure. As described earlier through the examples, the typical form ofcity walls, throughout the Aegean Sea, is consisted by a series of housesbuilt right next to each another without any spacing between them whileturning blind facades towards the external perimeter of the wall struc-

ture.

is strategy surpasses the single task of defending the settlement,as at the same time provides housing in a place where land is limitedand valuable. Moreover, by using houses as fortications, the town wasexempted from taking care of the maintenance of the defense line or thesurveillance of the area. ose task were undertaken by the permanentdefenders of the town; its own citizens.

What is interesting about the Aegean islands is the level to which thewalls dictated the scale of the urban fabric. By studying the form ofthose organizations, one could conclude that there were two major fac-tors that shaped them over the years that is, the topography & landscapeof the location as well as the limits imposed by the city walls.In other words, given the irregular nature of local topography and the

fact that towns used to have established and inviolable limits, there hadto be inventive and ecient growth within those boundaries. It is by this

very need that the form of towns was pushed towards a more compactand humane scale. Limits dictated the narrowness of streets and the lackof trees along them, the small size and number of communal spaces, thelimited vehicular access, and eventually the evolution of the town as oneunied organism.is urban methodology reveals a life philosophy based on economyof scale and an established value system that balanced scarce avail-able resources; both human and natural. Vernacular societies were notpossessed by this contemporary urge to grow and expand, rather thanpursued addition to the existent by preserving the same quality of lifeand space, driven by a seamless set of ordinances and rules. ose regu-

lations that rather came as innate value system were expressed throughevery aspect of social life. In a vernacular society economic activityis homeotelic to Gaia. [11 ]Philosopher and environmentalist EdwardGoldsmith states, explaining that vernacular economies are designedto promote and maintain the social integrity and stability. I believe thatphysical proximity is the only condition under which such societieslived and prosper. erefore, the imposition of spatial limitations wascrucial to the formation of this urban and social environment.

A city developed between the walls of a castle. ese walls comprised itsexact boundaries as well as its landscape. e presence of this city - itsmeaning, its architecture, and the actual way it came to be dened,- is arecord of its transformations. Only the prexesting condition of a closed andstable form permitted continuity and the production of successive actionsand forms, In this way, form the architecture of urban artifacts, emerges inthe dynamic of the city. [12]

Aldo Rossi, e Architecture of the City

21. Astypalaia, Church inside the Castle.

is is a vivid example of how private or communalbuildings can have multipurpose fuctions, in this case,a church, a defensive wall and a gate.


13/2513

22.e typical form of city walls, throughout theAegean Sea, is consisted by a series of houses builtright next to each another without any spacingbetween them while turning blind facades towardsthe external perimeter of the wall structure.

e fortied hill village in Pyrgos on ira: (a)the main gate in a defensive wall of houses, (b)secondary gates, (c) main square, (d) publicoven, (e) churches.

23. Naxos, axonometric view, details and generasection of the settlement.


14/2514

24a 24b

A case study of medieval urban design

Four examples from Chios Island will render the characteristics of cities withinhabited walls presented above.All four settlements are widely known as Mastihochoria that is vil lages that pro-duce the well-known mastiha.

Exactly because of their precious goods those villages were oen under attacks andraids by pirates, therefore, the defense of the settlement became of great impor-tance. Most of the villages in Chios seem to have been fortied and have similarcharacteristics.is can be inferred from specic references to thebuilding ofof central towers in villages at the beginning of the 16th century, and the place-names, which in many settlements allude to fortications.e eorts of Genoese conquerors to defend themselves seem to have been on abroader scale, and to have included the construction of a large number of smallfortications, isolated towers, and purely military fortresses, as well as the rein-forcing of already existing settlements. It is believed that the general lay-out anddesign of the fortied settlements was governed by a broad design framework, ifnot an actual plan.e form of all four settlements (Mesta, Olympoi, Pyrgi and Kalamoti) could be

described as essentially one building built on two layers in the middle of a valley.e lower level addresses to all the public and secondary functions like streets,communal spaces entrances to dwellings, storage and stables, while all the privateand residential spaces both interior and exterior are found on the upper level. ehouses along the perimeter of the village, all built with massive stone walls, turntheir window-less facades towards the exterior of the settlement, generating aparticipatory defensive wall for the protection of the village. is defensive wallis interrupted by a small number of gates allowing the control of the entrance intothe village.It was necessary, for reasons of defence, to be able to move about the t roofs ofthe houses, which accordingly had to be at the same height throughout the settle-ment.is factor, together with the dense continuous network of buildings, the

24, Aerial photograph of the village of Kalamoti,taken in 1934

24b. Aerial photograph of the village of Mesta,taken in 1934

24c. Aerial photograph of the village of Pyrgi,taken in 1934

25. Aerial photograph of Olympoi, Chios. Closeup.


15/2515

24c25


16/2516

relative independance of the ground oor and the upper oor plans, and the crea-tion of living space over the streets at rst oor level, all give the medieval villages,particularly Mesta, the air of a megastructure [193]. e settlements, appear,that is to consist not of individual houses, but rather of a single shel, with seperatesections performing the functions of residences; within this shell movement takesplace at three totally independent horizontal levels (on the street, inside the house,and on the roofs), which communicate vertically by means of staircases from thestreet to the rst oor, from which the roof can be reached through the open ter-race. Defensive actions were fought on the roofs, which were also the route for a

retreat to the main tower. Wherever the outer perimeter was consisted simply ofa wall tere vaulted particoes inside it with arrow slits. e main towers, normallyrectangulat in plan were entered by means of a drawbridge that was invariablyhigher than the ground oor.[13]Comparing the structure of Mastihochoria and that of contemporary cities oneimmediately identies the major dierence. On the one hand the nite availableurban space in Mastihochoria and on the other hand the open-ended form aerwhich our cities grow. e open-ended form means that a city could grow in-nitely.is is advantageous from several points of view. It is though rather obviousthat such freedom has certain limits over which it stops being an advantage andturns into a disadvantage. e fact that the Aegean villages grew within clearly de-ned ends, created an urban whole of a recognizable and tangible scale. at scaleallows the perception of the modulus, the general pattern as well as the product of

its repetitive use which remains within observers visual comprehension. If we addto this the homogenous materials and building techniques it becomes clear thatthe humane scale achieved by those vernacular communities is the dierentiatingpoint that contemporary urbanism could never reach.

27

26

1

28

26. Mastihochoria, dwelling entrance.e lower level addresses to all the public and

secondary functions like streets, communal spacesentrances to dwellings, storage and stables,

27. Street, Mesta, Chios28. Mesta, Chios. One of the small towers

in the north-east corner of the village29. Street, Pyrgi, Chios

30. Pyrgi, Chios e Kastanias house.Two plans and a section


17/2517

29

30


18/2518

Recent History of city walls and the urban impact

`As mentioned in the beginning of this essay, the reason why cities stopped build-ing defensive walls is primarily due to the radical change of military oensivetactics and technologyA large number of defensive fortications were built in the 19th and 20th centuryusing contemporary materials like concrete and iron, however their defensive rolewas drastically undermined aer the end of WWI,e last version of defensive wall was the concept of defensive line that shiedaway from cities and into the battleelds. Defensive lines of WWI, signalized the

end of the defensive walls era as they failed to intercept the attacks of the Germanmilitary forces.is is how the era of traditional fortications, defending the edges of the city,comes to an end leading to a time where the defense line shis into strtegical loca-tions that consist part of a broader defense plan. As a consequence to this new warphilosophy, defense tactics and urban congurations were altered as well.erefore the cities, freed from the limitations imposed by walls expanded theirdevelopment territory . Old city walls were either gradually dismantled as result ofurban expansion or turned into monuments and sightseeings within an alreadyscattered city fabric.

31a

31e


19/2519

However, city walls did not solely dened the edges of the city.ey sort of identi-ed historical periods of a citys course through time as well as social, cultural andmorphological evolutions. us, ones citys nite territory becomes the famoushistorical city center. At the same time, new boundaries and fragments, mostlyunder the form of infrastructure (streets, railways, etc.) carry on this innite layer-ing of cities . Most of the times is not about actual, impermeable limits, rather thanpsychological fragments, usually linked with the social-economic environment.Moreover, the existence of those successive layers, shapes a dynamic relationbetween the city center, the suburbs and the exurbs. e bigger the city grows the

higher the older parts of the city are valued. Paris makes an illustrative example ofthis phenomenon throughout Roman times, the Middle Age, Rennaissance andthe modern era.

31. Paris: Expansion of the city and succesive

contruction of new layers of city walls.

a. 56 BC, Site on Island chosen for defence.

b. 508 , First walls surrounded buildings onisland. Second walls on north side First begin-nings of axial growth along each road issuingfrom the walls.

c. 1180, Paris under Louis the VII. Axial growthoutside the walls has developed into centers atroad intersections.

d. 1180-1223, New walls, include much greater

area. Central growth takes place around the ab-beys and churches erected mostly on the sites ofthe old Roman temples.

e. 1367-1383, ird wall on north side includesadded area. City shows marked growth on northside within the walls and on the south side,outside the walls.

f. 1422-1589, e Tuilleries cause strong axialgrowth out the Faubourg St. Honor.

c

g

31d

31h


20/2520

Contemporary and non-defensive walls

Did the end of defensive walls signied the end of walls at large?Events occured from 18th century until our days prove of the contrary.ere have been several cases in the past where walls have been erected to servepurposes other than defense. An early example is that of Paris, where along withits expansion and during a period ofnancial recessement, Louis XVI decided tobuild a tax wall. Once a merchant entered the city, he would have to pay a tax onhis goods. Not surprisingly, this was a very unpopular innovation.

[14]

Such measures triggered a new age in wallication of the cities that unlike aegeaninsular societies aimed at segregating the society and highlighting the disparitiesof the cities rather than bringing them together. Recent history abounds with un-fortunate examples of such walls. with Berlin Wall outstriping all.e list goes onwith numerous cases that still survive until our time; Belfast Peace Walls (1969),Gaza strip-West Bank Barrier (1994), Baghdad Barrier (2007), USA-Mexico Bor-der Wall, etc.However, our societies do not only posses material walls but also immaterial.In her book City of Walls, Prof. Teresa P. R. Caldeira, makes a comparison be-tween her hometown Sao Paulo and Los Angeles, outlining the impact of privati-zation and segregation in modern cities. She explains that those bewalled and se-

cured enclosed communities were erected on a foundation of fear; that describ[15]es perfectly the causes that led traditional fortications to come about. On theother hand, unlike vernacular societies and economies, privatization has radicallychanged the urban space as public life takes place in seggregated and enclosedenvironments such as malls, gated communities entertainment centers and themeparks. is is the fortication of our times.In this debate over enclosed and unied cities Jencks will argue on ethnicallyheterogenous cities that respect the tolerance thresholds, maintain culturaldistances and seggregate collectives. Mike Davis and Edward Soja will system-atically criticise Defensive Architecture expressed over the case of Los Angeles.Soja characterized it as Polynucleated and decentralized [16] while in his bookCity of Quartz Davis will simply call it Fortress L.A.

Welcome to post-liberal Los Angeles, where the defense of luxury life-styles is trans-lated into a proliferation of new repressions in space and movement, undergirded bythe ubiquitous armed response. is obsession withphysical security systems and,collaterally, with the architectural policing of social boundaries, has become a zeit-

geist of urban restructuring, a master narrative in the emerging built environmentof the 1990s We live in fortress cities brutally divided between fortied cells ofauent society and places of terror where the police battle the criminalized poor.Mike Davis, City of Quartz - Excavating the future of Los Angeles - Fortress LA[17]

And there rises the question; what is wrong with the seggregation of urban spaceand life into enclosed clusters , since that model produced successive urbanenvironments in the past? e major contradiction between those cases is thedierence in domestic scale and the exterior relation of the cluster to the sour-ounding landscape. e immediate environment of those four villagesi n Chioswas not consisted of other hostile or competitive clusters, rather than by a naturalenvironment that matched perfectly the scale of the settlement while providing allthe necessary goods for the communitys autonomous survival and prosperity. Asfar as the domestic scale goes, the individual character of contemporary lifestylewould never balance the public life density and dynamic of traditional settlements


21/2521

West Bank Barrier, Bethleem

Ethnical map of Los Angleles

e map of Los Angeles seen through the eyes ofa Conerned Citizen.


22/2522

Future Walls

Urban planning has partially managed to respond in the challenge of open-endedcities introducing the concept of green-belts and greenways. In essence, a greenbelt is an invisible line encircling a certain area, preventing development of thearea, allowing wildlife to return and be established. is concept addresses suc-cesfully the issue of a large community identied within nite boundaries, andreinstates citys lost connection to a sourounding landscape of appropriate propor-tions. It fails though to prevent the urban sprawl generated by this very contami-

nation.

What makes the greenbelt concept so important, is the mediums through whichthe urban problem is approached. e idea , that landscape IS the new forticationof the city oers a whole new breath to the polemic of citys reconstitution.Year aer year, it becomes clear that the factor that will dene every aspect of fu-ture life is sustainability. Zero carbon and energy projects are undergo worldwideleaving no space for second thoughts.

Masdar City Initiative is the most ambitious urban project ever undertaken interms of sustainability and energy eciency. As Foster & Partners describes theproject:

e principle of the Masdar development is a dense walled city to be constructed inan energy ecient two-stage phasing that relies on the creation of a large photovol-taic power plant, which later becomes the site for the citys second phase, allowing forurban growth yet avoiding low density sprawl. Strategically located for Abu Dhabis

principal transport infrastructure, Masdar will be linked to surrounding communi-ties, as well as the centre of Abu Dhabi and the international airport, by a network ofexisting road and new rail and public transport routes.

Rooted in a zero carbon ambition, the city itself is car free. With a maximumdistance of 200m to the nearest transport link and amenities, the compact networkof streets encourages walking and is complemented by a personalised rapid transportsystem. e shaded walkways and narrow streets will create a pedestrian-friendlyenvironment in the context of Abu Dhabis extreme climate. It also articulates the

tightly planned, compact nature of traditional walled cities. With expansion carefullyplanned, the surrounding land will contain wind, photovoltaic farms, research eldsand plantations, so that the city will be entirely self-sustaining.e description begins and concludes with the idea of an autonomous walled city.e urban concept that lies behind Masdar project is the notion of the city

sustainable capacity within certain limits. e technology and design embodiedwithin the city are able to function eciently as long as the city maintains its origi-nal planning that lies within a predened perimeter. Together with the intention ofcreating a surrounding landscape that will provide all necessary power and goodsto the city, Masdar concept perfectly matches the self-sustaining model of the

vernacular aegean settlements. [18]

Of course Masdar initiative is not driven by an idealistic communal ethos butrather by the current laws of the market. In a time where sustainability is emerg-ing as the ultimate value (both nancial and ethical) that keeps the global marketgoing, urban planners and designers have no choice but producing plug andplay sustainable systems. Such systems are possible only under the condition ofcomplete entities that have a start and an end. Sustainability is impossible to beachieved in an innite system.

is is the future of urbanism. Seen as completenancial products, urban projectsought to have a clear vision, planning strategy and anticipated gains.


23/2523

Green Belt, Portland

Masdar Headquarters, Abu Dhab


24/2524

e social integrity pursued by traditional communities through fortication oftheir settlements is the direct equivalent of the energy eciency goal imposed bycurrent urban projects. And since sustainability is, as stated, the driving global

value of our times, it is highly probable that this will be the connecting glue offuture societies. In years to come ethos and aesthetics will be examined under theprism of sustainability

I will conclude this arguement by quoting the veryrst question that led my re-

search on city walls all along.

Concepts for megastructures have been developed in recent years in response tothe needs of a highly urbanized society with extensive technological and manage-rial know-how at its disposal. With some degree of surprise one wouldnd relatedmegastructure concepts implemented and in use for sevl hundred years in the AegeanIsland towns. e best preserved examples and closest conceptual relatives to thecurrently proposed megastructures are four small settlements on the island of Chios(Mesta, Olympoi, Pyrghi and Kalamoti), where each is essentially one buildingbuilt on two layers on aat site and within a polygonal exterior form. Are there anycomparisons to be made wich could eventually be course lies in further study. But

perhaps even at this early stage one might suspect that the key to useful comparisonsis a better understanding of the issues relating to human scale as a basic dimen-

sional denition of human needs, which have remained unaltered despite consider-able change, particularly technological, during recorded history. [18]

C. Michailides

Above: Masdar, Abu Dhab

Below, Olympoi, Chios

[1], [2], [3] Aldo Rossi, e Architecture of the City, 1966.[4] Sidney Toy, A History of Fortication - From 3000 B.C. to A.D. 1700, London 1955[5] Aldo Rossi, e Architecture of the City, 1966.[6] Monastery. Wikipedia, e Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, December2011[7] Nikos Mpelavilas, e insular and maritime territory, e Aegean Sea, Cartographyand History, 15th to 17th century, Athens 2010.[8] Georgios Pallis, Eleni Petraka, Banev Gencho, Castles of the Aegean, 2005[9] Nikos Mpelavilas, e insular and maritime territory, e Aegean Sea, Cartographyand History, 15th to 17th century, Athens 2010.[10] Nikolai Todorov, e Balkan City, 1400--1900, Publications on Russia and EasternEurope of the School of International Studies, University of Washington.[11] Edward Goldsmith, e Way: an ecological worldview, Rider Books, 1992.[12] Aldo Rossi, e Architecture of the City, 1966.[13] Charalambos Bouras, Greek Traditional Architecture, Melissa publishing house,Athens, 1983.[14] History of Paris. Wikipedia, e Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Decem-ber 2011[15] Teresa P.R. Caldeira, City of Walls - Crime, Segregation and Citizenshi in Sao Paulo,University of California Press, 2000.[16] Soja (1989:208)[17] Mike Davins, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, Vintage, March1992[18] C. Michailides, Aegean island towns: a current view, Shelter in Greece, Architecturein Greece, 1974


25/25

Aerial photograph of Olympoi, Chios

occupied walls and the aegean sea paradigm

Documents