Patterns in Morphological Evolution: Comparing Changes in Six Medieval City-Centres in the Low Countries (1720-2020)

Sahar Abdollahi; Martin de Jong; Jurian Edelenbos; Jan Fransen

doi:10.60923/issn.2612-0496/18088

Authors

Sahar Abdollahi IHS, Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam

PhD researcher specializing in the evolution of urban morphology, with a particular focus on medieval cities in the Low Countries. Sahar’s academic interests encompass urban sustainability, climate change resilience, and the intersections of historical urbanism with contemporary challenges. She holds her master’s degree in urban management and development, and she is currently in the final stages of her PhD at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS), Erasmus University Rotterdam. Passionate about the legacy and future of cities, her work bridges the past and present to explore sustainable urban evolution.
Martin de Jong Rotterdam School of Management and Erasmus School of Law

Ccientific director of the Erasmus Research Initiative for the Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity and professor at Rotterdam School of Management and Erasmus School of Law (Rotterdam, Netherlands). He is also a visiting professor at the Institute of Global Public Policy, Fudan University (Shanghai, China) and the Smart City Institute of HEC-Liège (Belgium). He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in public administration from Erasmus University/Leiden University (joint degree) and a PhD in systems engineering and policy analysis from Delft University of Technology. He publishers and lectures extensively on topics of urban governance, smart and sustainable urban development, city branding, cross-cultural management and cross-national institutional comparison.
Jurian Edelenbos School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Full professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, The Netherlands. Jurian Edelenbos is the team lead of the Governance & Pluralism team at the Department of Public Administration and Sociology. He is also the Academic Lead of the Erasmus interdisciplinary group of Vital Cities and Citizens. His research interests are network governance, the democratic legitimacy of governments, urban (re)development, trust in government, boundary-spanning leadership, public participation, community-based initiatives and public engagement in academic research.
Jan Fransen Institute of Housing and urban development Studies (IHS), Erasmus University Rotterdam

Senior researcher urban governance and economics, Institute of Housing and urban development Studies (IHS), Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands. Jan studies, lectures, and offers advice on the inclusion of marginalized communities in urban development, with a focus on local economic development, smart cities, and resilience. He has worked in 30 countries in Africa, Europe, and Asia. His present research interests include the resilience of informal settlements in Kenya, inclusion in smart city programs in Kenya, India and Indonesia, frugal innovation, and inclusive knowledge sharing processes.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.60923/issn.2612-0496/18088

Keywords:

urban form, medieval cities, kevin lynch, low countries, urban morphology evolution, historical comparative analysis

Abstract

To the perceptive observer, similarities in the urban structures and architecture of medieval city centres in the Netherlands, Belgium, and a strip of North-Western France will stand out. Indeed, they have been part of the Low Countries for a long time until separation led them to be governed by different institutional regimes for the past few centuries. This paper offers a novel qualitative method to examine the evolution of urban form through time, based on Kevin Lynch’s urban form elements. It systematically compares the changes in the morphology of the historical centres over the past three centuries with the help of digitised maps. Changes in Lynch’s morphological elements (nodes, edges, landmarks, and paths) are analysed to understand the characteristics of the urban evolution in six cities. In this contribution, we have studied three large cities (Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Lille) and three mid-sized ones (Leiden, Leuven, and Arras), all of which have well-preserved city centres. Our findings are based on a unique way of using well-developed historical cartography for mapping the morphological evolution over time and allow for further in-depth investigation of which trends and events cause these changes.

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Patterns in Morphological Evolution: Comparing Changes in Six Medieval City-Centres in the Low Countries (1720-2020)

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