Starting with the 2002/2003 winter semester, the ETH Zurich interdisciplinary postgraduate program explored the complex relationship between concrete city forms, the way in which they are perceived, the factors that influence them and their effects on utilisation.
The organism of the city is subject to numerous influences which, partly as economic, political or administrative interests and partly as social or cultural factors, can affect the genesis or development of its form. However, as a form of artistic expression with its own tradition of different urban designs and concepts, town planning also represents a reaction to its own history as a formal design issue. Translated from the design stage into the built reality, the form of the city determines certain ways of life while at the same time being open to far more uses and interpretations than were planned for it.
Descriptions, analyses and comparisons of historical examples were used to illustrate the effectiveness of conditions outside the realm of architecture, the qualities of specific formal and aesthetic design decisions, and their social consequences. In this way, the graduate lectures demonstrated the discrepancies between social requirements and architectural decisions in urban development, as well as their relevance to today's town planning.
In the fall of 2008, the postgraduate program got suspended.
The organism of the city is subject to numerous influences which, partly as economic, political or administrative interests and partly as social or cultural factors, can affect the genesis or development of its form. However, as a form of artistic expression with its own tradition of different urban designs and concepts, town planning also represents a reaction to its own history as a formal design issue. Translated from the design stage into the built reality, the form of the city determines certain ways of life while at the same time being open to far more uses and interpretations than were planned for it.
Descriptions, analyses and comparisons of historical examples were used to illustrate the effectiveness of conditions outside the realm of architecture, the qualities of specific formal and aesthetic design decisions, and their social consequences. In this way, the graduate lectures demonstrated the discrepancies between social requirements and architectural decisions in urban development, as well as their relevance to today's town planning.
In the fall of 2008, the postgraduate program got suspended.