Urban Square:

• Urban square is an open public space used for community gatherings

• The first urban formations appeared 6000 years ago

• City squares were established at the cross roads of important trade

routes

• Major places of worship were placed on squares, also used as markets

• Served as an opportunity to exercise the power of rulers with military

processions and parades.

Function of Squares:
• Creates a gathering place for the people

• Providing them with a shelter against the traffic

• Freeing them from the tension of rushing through the web of street

• Represents as a psychological parking place within the civic landscape

Factors that formulate the Square:

• On the relation between the forms of the surrounding buildings

• On their uniformity or their variety

• On their absolute dimensions

• On relative proportions in comparison with width and length of the open

area

• On the angle of entering the streets

Classification of Squares :
• Closed Square – Space self contained
• Dominated Square – Space directed
• Nuclear Square – Space formed around a centre
• Grouped Squares – Space units combined
• Amorphous Square – Space unlimited
• Squares doesn't represent only one pure type, but very often bears the
characteristics of two of these types.

Closed Square:
- It is a complete enclosure interrupted only by the streets leading to it
- Primary element of any closed square is its layout of regular
geometrical form
- The repetition of identical houses or house types, facing the enclosed
area
- Spatial balance of the square will always be achieved by the equation
of horizontal & vertical forces.

The Dominated Square:

- Characterized by one individual structure or a group of buildings
towards which the open space is directed .
- Surrounding structures are related to them.
- Dominated building may be a church, a palace, a town hall, an
architecturally developed fountain, a theatre.
- Usually the direction of a main street which opens into the square
establishes the axis towards the dominant building.

- Compels the spectator to move toward and to look at the focal

architecture
- Dominant square produces a directive of motion

- The dominated structure need not necessarily be

voluminous
- Very often it is merely a gate or an arch which may dominate a whole
square.

The Nuclear Square:

- Nuclear Square consists of a nucleus, a strong vertical accent – a
monument, a fountain, an obelisk
- It is powerful enough to charge the space around with a tension that
the impression of the square will be evoked
- It will tie the heterogeneous elements of the periphery into one
visual unit

- Dimensions of nuclear square are restricted as the visual effect of the

central monument is naturally limited

Grouped Squares:
- In Grouped Squares, Individual squares may be fused organically and
aesthetically into one comprehensive whole
- Each unit - the individual square, represents an entity, aesthetically
self sufficient and yet part of a comprehensive higher order
- A sequence of squares, different in size and form, develops in only
one direction, thus establishing a straight axis.
- Or, in a non-axial organization, a smaller square opens with one of its
sides upon a larger square, so that the individual axes of each square
meet in a right angle
- Or, a group of three or more squares of different shapes and
proportions surround one dominant building
- Or, two individual squares fall into a coherent pattern although they
are separated from each other by blocks of houses, thoroughfares
- The Amorphous Square:
- Amorphous is formless, unorganized, having no specific shape
- It does not represent aesthetic qualities or artistic possibilities.
- However, if it shares some elements with the previously analyzed
squares it may appear like one of them.
- New York’s Washington square is not a closed square. Its dimensions
are so large.
- Proportions of many of its surrounding structures are so
heterogeneous, so irregular, even contradictory
- Location and size of the small triumph arch are so dissimilar to all the
other given factors
- Unified impression cannot result
- Disproportion in scale destroys all aesthetic possibilities
- Place de l’Opera in Paris could not become a “dominated” Square in
spite of the monumental façade of the imposing opera house
- Width of the Boulevard des Cupucines is running through its off
centre
- Presence of small structures like the entrance to the Metro, scattered
all over the area ruin any special effect
- These examples are “squares” from surveyor’s viewpoint, although
without any artistic impact