Hermeneutics and principles of quality in urban morphology

Abstract

[☺EN] It is common to ascertain the loss of quality in the urban form during the 20th and 21st centuries, especially in the current globalization scenario, and in comparison to the previous centuries. Relevant authors of the cultural and artistic critique such as Erwin Panofsky, Ernst Gombrich or Enrique Lafuente Ferrari have defended the identification of the quality in the works of creation as the fundamental objective of the critique. Due to this, the research and identification of the quality features in the urban form are pertinent in order to have useful instruments to correct this contemporary cultural loss. It is therefore proposed the identification of quality principles of urban form from a hermeneutic point of view. That is to say, each of these principles as capable of opening a certain horizon of comprehension of a specific perspective of quality. For example, we can aim at: beauty, scale, amenity, grace, order, etc. Each principle, offers then a horizon of understanding and also of urban creativity that assembles into this work from the analysis of operative subprinciples and their verification on specific expressive cases of urban form, in both, historical and current aspects. The principles in turn can intertwine offering cumulative and transverse quality options. Therefore, what is sought, is to offer a pertinent and structured hermeneutical tool for the analysis of urban form in its values of quality and excellence.