Theories of Urban Form

Abstract

This reader takes a journey through different positions concerning form in the urban design discourse of the last half a century, with special regard to the reciprocal relationships between material space and human activities. It discusses early post-modern concepts of form, inspired by the urban texture’s figure-ground relations, as well as theories that qualify form through its performance, its social-material relations or operations of its emergence. The aim thereby is to offer a basic grid, which allows for the periodization of different form theories and provides orientation for their discussion, comparison and synthesis.