Core Concepts in Town-Plan Analysis

‘Town-plan analysis’ developed to account for those portions of the intricate patterns of spatial organization and visual character of towns and cities that can be retrieved from a study of the chief elements of their ground plan. It investigates the configurations of streets, plots and buildings created over time as cities have grown from unpretentious beginnings or bold designs into complex territorial compositions of built environment. Inevitably, the pressures of urbanization have usually triggered extensive modifications to original layouts, producing often complex alterations to the spatial structure of the urban core and variable impacts on the successive urban fringes of cities as they have expanded and been absorbed into the urban mass. Advances in town-plan analysis have created many useful concepts to explain the dynamic processes that have shaped and altered the ground plans of cities, and a selection of the most successful concepts is presented here. They lie at the core of a coherent system of urban morphological explanation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save

• Get 10 units per month
• Download Article/Chapter or eBook
• 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
• Cancel anytime

Buy Now

eBook EUR 128.39 Price includes VAT (France)

Softcover Book EUR 168.79 Price includes VAT (France)

Hardcover Book EUR 168.79 Price includes VAT (France)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Similar content being viewed by others

Urban Morphology or Townscape? Wholes Made of Many Parts

Bigness or Vastness?

Defining Urban Science

References

• Baker NJ, Slater TR (1992) Morphological regions in English medieval towns. In: Whitehand JWR, Larkham PJ (eds) Urban landscapes: international perspectives. Routledge, London, pp 43–68 Google Scholar
• Barke M (1976) Land use succession: a factor in fringe-belt modification. Area 8:303–306 Google Scholar
• Barke M (1990) morphogenesis, fringe belts and urban size: an exploratory essay. In: Slater TR (ed) The built form of Western cities. Leicester University Press, Leicester, pp 279–299 Google Scholar
• Bobek H, Lichtenberger E (1966) Wien: Bauliche Gestalt und Entwicklung seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, Böhlau, Graz/Köln Google Scholar
• Caniggia G, Maffei GL (2001) Architectural composition and building typology: interpreting basic building. Editrice Alinea, Florence Google Scholar
• Conzen MP (1978) Analytical approaches to the urban landscape. In: Butzer KW (ed) Dimensions of human geography: familiar and neglected themes. University of Chicago Geography Research Paper 186, pp 128–165 Google Scholar
• Conzen MP (2008) Retrieving the pre-industrial built environments of Europe: the historic towns atlas programme and comparative morphological study. Urban Morphol 12:143–156 Google Scholar
• Conzen MP (2009) How cities internalize their former urban fringes: a cross-cultural comparison. Urban Morphol 13:29–54 Google Scholar
• Conzen MP (2015) Urban mapping. In: Mon-monier MS (ed) The history of cartography: cartography in the twentieth century. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 1649–1655 Google Scholar
• Conzen MP, Gu K, Whitehand JWR (2012) Comparing traditional urban form in China and Europe: a fringe-belt approach. Urban Geogr 33:22–45 ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Conzen MRG (1960) Alnwick, Northumberland: a study in town-plan analysis. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, no 27, London Google Scholar
• Conzen MRG (1981a) The plan analysis of an English city centre. In: Whitehand JWR (ed) The urban landscape: historical development and management: papers by MRG Conzen. Academic Press, London, pp 25–53 Google Scholar
• Conzen MRG (1981b) Geography and townscape conservation. In: Whitehand JWR (ed) The urban landscape: historical development and management: papers by MRG Conzen. Academic Press, London, pp 75–86 Google Scholar
• Conzen MRG (1981c) Historical townscapes in Britain: a problem in applied geography. In: Whitehand JWR (ed) The urban landscape: historical development and management: papers by MRG Conzen. Academic Press, London, pp 55–74 Google Scholar
• Conzen MRG (2004) Thinking about urban form: papers on urban morphology, 1932–1998. Conzen MP (ed). Peter Lang, Oxford Google Scholar
• Hopkins MIW (2012) The ecological significance of urban fringe belts. Urban Morphol 16:41–54 Google Scholar
• Kropf KS (1997) When is a plot not a plot? problems in representation and interpretation.In: 4th International Seminar on Urban Form, Birmingham Google Scholar
• Lafrenz J (1988) The metrological analysis of early modern planned towns. In: Denecke D, Shaw G (eds) Urban historical geography: recent progress in Britain and Germany. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Google Scholar
• Larkham PJ, Conzen MP (eds) (2014) Shapers of urban form: explorations in morphological agency. Routledge, London Google Scholar
• Lilley KD (2001) Urban planning and the design of towns in the Middle Ages: the Earls of Devon and their ‘new town’. Plan Perspect 16:1–24 ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Lilley KD (2009) City and cosmos: the medieval world in urban form. Reaktion Books, London Google Scholar
• Lilley KD, Lloyd CD, Trick S (2007) Mapping medieval townscapes: GIS applications in landscape history and settlement study. In: Gardiner M, Rippon S (eds) Medieval landscapes. Windgather Press, Macclesfield, pp 27–42 Google Scholar
• Simms A (2013) Unity in diversity: a comparative analysis of the morphological agents creating medieval towns across Europe: Kilkenny, Kalkakr and Sopron. In: Duffy S (ed) Princes, prelates and poets: essays on medieval Ireland in Honour of Katherine Simms. Four Courts Press, Dublin, pp 11–68 Google Scholar
• Slater TR (1981) The analysis of burgage patterns in medieval towns. Area 13:211–216 Google Scholar
• Slater TR (ed) (1990) The built form of Western cities. Leicester University Press, Leicester Google Scholar
• Slater TR (2008) Roads, commons and boundaries in the topography of Hertfordshire towns. In: Slater TR, Goose N (eds) A county of small towns: the development of Hertfordshire’s urban landscape to 1800. University of Hertfordshire Press, Hatfield Google Scholar
• Ünlü T (2013) Thinking about urban fringe belts: a Mediterranean perspective. Urban Morphology 17:5–20 Google Scholar
• Whitehand JWR (1981) Background to the urban morphogenetic tradition. In: Whitehand JWR (ed) The urban landscape: historical development and management: papers by MRG Conzen. Academic Press, London, pp 1–24 Google Scholar
• Whitehand JWR (1984) Rebuilding town centres: developers, architects and styles. University of Birmingham Department of Geography Occasional, Publication, p 19 Google Scholar
• Whitehand JWR (1987) The changing face of cities: a study of development cycles and urban form. Institute of British Geographers Special Publication no 21. Blackwell, Oxford Google Scholar
• Whitehand JWR (1988) Urban fringe belts: development of an idea. Plann Perspect 3:47–58 ArticleGoogle Scholar
• Whitehand JWR (1994) Development cycles and urban landscapes. Geography 79:3–17 Google Scholar
• Whitehand JWR, Carr CMH (2001) Twentieth-century suburbs: a morphological approach. Routledge, London Google Scholar
• Whitehand JWR, Conzen MP, Gu K (2016) Plan analysis of historical cities: a Sino-European comparison. Urban Morphol 20:139–158 Google Scholar

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

1. University of Chicago, Chicago, USA Michael P. Conzen

1. Michael P. Conzen

Corresponding author

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

1. Departamento de Engenharia Civil, Centro de Investigação do Território, Transportes e Ambiente, Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal Vítor Oliveira

Rights and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Conzen, M.P. (2018). Core Concepts in Town-Plan Analysis. In: Oliveira, V. (eds) Teaching Urban Morphology. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76126-8_8

Download citation

• .RIS
• .ENW
• .BIB

• DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76126-8_8
• Published : 26 April 2018
• Publisher Name : Springer, Cham
• Print ISBN : 978-3-319-76125-1
• Online ISBN : 978-3-319-76126-8
• eBook Packages : Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Get shareable link

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Copy to clipboard

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative