Morphological analysis of urban structures – the cultural approach. Case studies of Jewish communities in Lodz and Mazovian voivodeships

ISBN 978-83-7283-842-1

Okładka: Format:  cm, Stron: 400, 2017 r

Contents

Acknowledgements                                                                                             

1. Introduction: Culture-specific Urban Structures Analyses 
2. Methodology 
3. Epistemological perspective – complexity 
4. Space, place and body 
5. Situation and habitus 
6. Culture as an everyday experience, culture and the built environment 
7. Meaning 
8. Spatial order 
9. Perception – aesthetics 
10. Cues 
11. Rhythms 
12. Geometrical description – urban design perspective 

III. Comparative analysis of neighbourhoods inhabited by Jews in pre-war central Poland                                                                                                

1. Case sty – presentation of the sources 
2. Thesis and methodological assumptions 
3. Development of Jewish culture in central Poland – classification scheme 
4. The development of Jewish settlements through ages 
5. From the eleventh century – to the end of the fifteenth century 
6. Sixteenth century – until the Partitions of Poland 
7. Partitions of Poland
8. The interwar period 
9. Neighbourhoods inhabited by Jews in pre-war central Poland – three typological levels 
10. Method of analysis 
11. The regional level 
12. The town level 
13. The neighbourhood structure 
14. Case sties 
15. Łódź (Lodz) 
16. Brzeziny 
17. Góra Kalwaria (Ger) 
18. Otwock 

VII. Conclusions                                                                                              

1. Complexity 
2. Neighbourhoods – main features 
3. Spatial order and meaning 
4. Proxemics 
5. Enclosure, geometrical analyses 
6. Transformations 
7. Final remarks 

References                                                                                                       
List of Figures                                                                                                

List of Tables                                                                                                  

The current sty is a part of the research project financed by The National  Science Centre of Poland UMO-2011/03/D/HS3/01630, entitled: ‘Morphological analysis of urban structures – the cultural approach. Case sties of Jewish communities in the chosen settlements of Lodz and Masovian voivodeships’. A large part of the
methodological research was performed in SENSEable City Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, within the framework of a Fulbright Senior Research Award.

In the course of my research and while writing this book I have met many people whose openness and goodwill helped me greatly. My first words of gratite go to Professor Stefan Wrona, the former supervisor of my PhD. I am most obliged for his proposal to involve me in tutoring activities for the Architecture of Society
of Knowledge Master of Architecture Programme in the Faculty of Architecture, Warsaw University of Technology, where I had the opportunity to develop and test some of the methods applied in the current sty. I would also like to thank him for his constant support and confidence that I would complete this work. Additionally, my thanks go to the authorities of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Environmental Engineering, especially to Professor Dariusz Gawin, the former dean of the faculty, for encouraging my scientific development and helping me prepare the current research project and funding my participation in conferences prior to its submission. I am deeply grateful to my colleagues from the Institute of Architecture and Town Planning of Lodz University of Technology, and primarily to its director Professor Marek Pabich, for the friendly atmosphere and continuous encouragement in the course of this work.

Conversations with many friends and colleagues have enriched my understanding of this subject. I would especially like to express my gratite to Professor Barbara
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, for her time and help in systematising my unpolished thoughts on the complexity of Jewish culture in pre-war Poland. I am indebted to Professor Ivor Samuels for his generosity in sharing his knowledge regarding the methodological workshop of urban morphology. Moreover, I want to express my thanks
to Professor Thomas Hubka for his valuable advice on the necessity to follow the  development of Jewish settlements against the backdrop of Polish planning of the time. Besides this, I am very grateful to Profesor Antony Polonsky for graciously verifying the chronology applied in the current volume and for his kind words about this work.

I also wish to thank Professor Carlo Ratti, the Director of SENSEable City Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology for inviting me and enabling the methodological research in the welcoming atmosphere at MIT, Urban Sties and Planning Department. I am deeply grateful to Doctor Jayasinhji Jhala for enriching the discussion and introducing me to the basics of the Anthropology of Exploration during his course at Harvard Extension School. I would like to thank Marek Web and other employees of Yivo for their warm welcome and helping me in my research with invaluable suggestions.

I am grateful to the reviewers and my colleagues who participated in conferences where I presented the partial results of the current research – for the in-depth criticism of my work, which helped me eliminate some potential flaws and improve the overall quality of the outcomes. I would also like to thank the team involved in the making of the model of the lost Jewish quarter in Łódź for their help and discussion.

My gratite also goes to Derrick Cook for his invaluable help and patience in proofreading my English writing and making it acceptable. I would also like to thank my Israeli friends, in this number Yoav Arbel of Israel Antiquities Authority, for their invaluable introduction to Jewish culture now and in the past.

To all who discussed this topic with me, encouraged and inspired me – thank you for your motivation and precious remarks. Finally, I would like to thank my family, for their support and patience in the face of my constant lack of time.