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This issue is devoted to city squares. As public spaces and elements forming the urban
structure they can trace their history right back to Antiquity and became widespread in the
Middle Ages. Over the course of many centuries squares played a highly important role not only
in city life, but also in European culture as a whole. Their typology was constantly undergoing
expansion and classification. Squares in front of palaces, cathedrals, churches, museums and
theatres, market places, squares in front of railway stations or squares within city blocks in
their various shapes and sizes are to be found in all historic cities great and small. Then there
are the famous squares of European monarchies: Rome, Paris, London Madrid or Vienna – by
turns both grandiose and intimate, these dramatisations on the theme of the city or ruler were
depicted on engravings and paintings and spawned numerous imitations.
The onset of the modern movement at the beginning of the 20th century interrupted this
tradition. The 'rebirth' of squares in the 1930s-40s meant that they were even more soundly
rejected in the post-war period. Over the course of several decades, not only were no new
squares created in most European countries, the old ones gradually fell into decline, retreating
under the onslaught of the motor car – some of them were turned into road junctions, while
many were simply used as car parks. Only in the late 1970s was there the start of a revival
in the understanding of the value of the traditional historic city, with its bustling streets and
chaotic or, on the contrary, carefully planned patchwork of densely built up and open spaces,
back streets surrounded by tightly packed buildings and breathtaking vistas that open up
unexpectedly. In this context there was also a revival of interest in squares as an indispensable
part of the urban environment, as one of its most basic elements.
In recent years the creation of new squares and regeneration of old ones has become
common practice in many European cities. Sometimes this is born of a wish to correct the
mistakes of the 20th century. But sometimes it is also the result of the Zeitgeist, not to
mention a desire to bring about an aesthetic transformation of the urban environment and
to make it a pleasanter place to be. This requires not only vision and imagination, but also
painstaking and labour-intensive planning. Modern squares are the result of the combined
efforts of specialists in urban and transport planners, architects and lighting and landscape
designers. But despite the rational thought that goes into the creation of new squares,
a subjective streak is very clearly evident in all this – the force of the effect produced by
the space itself, the history and character of the locality, the impact made by the forms and
materials. Architects who successfully design squares do more than just create a setting
and give form and content to empty spaces – they are directors of the action played out in
them and incorporate a myriad of different opportunities that make living in a city far more
attractive and interesting.
Irina Chipova
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subject
Bernhard Schulz
The renaissance of squares or the art of
creating interiors on the outside
history
Vladimir Sedov
An essay on squares
Vladimir Belogolovsky
The usefull square
pro & contra
Elena Petukhova
Evgeniy Gerasimov / Vladimir Plotkin
object
Nina Frolova
The benefit of limitations
Francisco Mangado. Plaza de Dali. Madrid
Irina Chipova
Dramaturgy of the space
Oliver Kuhn. Marstallplatz. Munich, Germany
Bernhard Schulz
Light at the end of the tunnel
David Chipperfield and Fermin Vazquez.
Refurbishment of the Paseo del Ovalo, Teruel, Spain
Artem Dezhurko
Flowers and ice creams for the football
fans
Cano Lasso. Plaza Eduardo Ibarra. Zaragoza, Spain
Nina Frolova
Contours of the past in the urban
landscape
Katrin Gustafson and Nill Porter. Old Market Square.
Nottingham, UK
Artem Dezhurko
Pedestrians fight back
Jose Carlos Marinas. Plaza de Santo Domingo. Madrid
environment
Elena Nikulina
Moscow’s squares: evolution as the
destruction of architectural form
Issues arising from rehabilitation through urban
planning
Pavel Shaburov, Irina Chipova
London and its squares
expert
Andrey Ivanov
The time has come to start thinking about
squares
Interview with the chief city architect of Moscow,
Alexander Kuzmin
Irina Chipova
Berlin‘s squares between tradition and
modernity
Interview with Hans Stimmann
Irina Chipova
Lost tradition or ‘from architecture
without squares to squares without
architecture’
Interview with Pia Pascalino and Paolo Martellotti
portrait
Irina Chipova
The space of the mental aesthetic
Interview with Boris Podrecca
gallery
Olga Korshunova
Squares for a bright future
From the legacy of drawings by Soviet architects of the
1930s and 40s
Authors of this issue
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