The document discusses Edmund Bacon's views on understanding cities through their history, culture, and built environments as presented in the documentary "Understanding Cities." It examines Rome, Paris, and London, highlighting key design principles used in each. Rome and Paris both drew from historical precedents and used symmetrical public squares and architectural elements to define space. London differed in having a less uniform architectural system and public spaces shaped by surrounding buildings. Bacon emphasized understanding a city's background to shape its future development.

1. İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University / Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture
ADA 264- History of Built Environment II / Section 07
Spring 2017
Lecturer : Kumru Arapgirlioğlu
Students : Serra Koz
Reflection Paper
Edmund Bacon’s Understanding Architecture
In the documentary, named Understanding Cities, some of cities and their environment
are explained with respect to their culture, ethnicity, background, approaches to the
problems, people expectations and vision and so on. Those cities are the Rome, Paris
and London which is considered as greatest achievement in the scope of built
environment. Since the beginning of mankind, human beings need to a shelter to live in
a protective environment and they built it by the help of nature but at the same time
they developed their individual residential units and started to create a “city” notion, so
that they can live together in the protective environment. For the designing a city, they
should consider some factors such as the relations between the units, solid-void
relationship, harmony and rhythm, open-close spaces, private and public places,
functionality with the proper form by pointing out some points on their culture, the
relationship between built environment and humans (pedestrian roads, human scale
etc.) and also the spirit -which is the most crucial point that emphasize on the
documentary- to create an unique design, to develop identity in the society and make
people comfortable and integrate into the lifestyle on place where they live.
The reason why architects used design principle is come from the idea of the city. They
examined historical background and ideas and put it into the basic in some times.
However, the Renaissance period have huge impact on the architecture of the city since
people started to questioning what is going on around their surroundings so that they
used new techniques such as perspective. They combined with the historical properties
with new techniques and create an ideal city, Rome, since it has a space that shaped by
the time and perspective. Also they considered the social approaches of the building
which cause a need for social places, creating public squares which is symmetrical and
defined by some architectural elements -such as obelisks, arches, columns etc.- and
mass volumes (doorway) Also, the movement became an important feature of the city.
The movement became the center of the design and people started to explore the
space. (Colloseum is one of the most important examples that define social places for
the Rome and it is also mentioned in the documentary). Another important building is

2. the Vatican Library since it shows how the art, engineer and the architecture are
combined in a single place.
Paris is another example of the ideal city which is mentioned in the documentary. It has
also the principles, same design approach with the Rome with little difference.
Architects also used the public squares but they worked on historical background
because without understanding the past, they believed that they cannot reshape city in
the future. That is the main goal of the Parisian architects and one of the most
important examples of the built environment in the Paris is Louvre Museum. For the
defining public squares they used some trees, huge water fountains. The city is also
defined by the one unifying axial truss. Different from the Rome, Paris has urban living
area which belongs to the aristocracy. In the palaces, they used medieval forms by
renovation in the gardens. (Italian Garden) the urban form can be also defined as the
conservative design because of the boundaries. Their lifestyle is also important since
they selected Corinthian lifestyle as a basis so that even their clothes seem like it
belongs to the old times.
The most different example and I think it is the most interesting one among all of them,
is the city of old London. The rationale behind the London architecture is totally
different from the Rome and Paris since the vision and point of view of the architects is
different to place to place. Creating a new language makes the difference so that the
London was the most extraordinary one. Their architectural system was not quite
obvious as Rome and Paris have. Since their public places are defined but not a uniform
shaped, the surrounding of the public areas created a different settlement among all
the buildings. As a result, we can see that there is no unity in the London but has a
simple row houses which is mostly not preferred by the people because of the non-
existing spirit. John Nash is the well-known architect work for the royal family and
important person for the London since he divided the city into two to create a
difference according to the economical statue. Also, he integrated the “parks” into the
design of London.
To conclude, most of the ideal cities have a source of a kind of sprit and vision with the
help of historical background. As the Edmund Bacon is mentioned in the documentary,
“Without understanding the background, it is not possible to reshape it in future.”