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Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism The making of the Chinese urban landscape

interpretation from Chinese cultural and philosophical areas. Supported by his fieldwork, Fritz recognized
perspectives, they have rarely sought to further explore that a city is not an undifferentiated mass (Larkham
how Chinese landscape perspectives may benefit from & Conzen, 2014). It possesses a spatial structure that
the incorporation of morphological analysis. Further, correlates with its developmental history. He delineated,
integrating local landscape knowledge in China and urban with broken lines, the different layouts comprising the
morphology is expected to provide a fresh approach city of Rostock (Whitehand, 2014). This pioneering work
to understanding the Chinese urban landscape and its represents a unifying approach that combines structural
management. This article is a step toward achieving this and morphogenetic studies of urban form. Since then, the
objective. development of urban morphology has achieved significant
progress in fostering an interdisciplinary understanding of
2. Literature contributing to the built environments from structural, morphogenetic, and
construction of the framework unifying perspectives.
2.1. Geographical urban morphology Following morphological studies by Schlüter and
Geographical urban morphology, which has its roots others, MRG Conzen provided a conceptual explanation
in landscape research, has a long tradition in German- of the structure of towns and cities from a retrospective
speaking countries (Gauthiez, 2004; Hofmeister, 2004; perspective by tracing their processes of development.
Jones, 2003). According to German geographers, the His town-plan analysis focused on the makeup of the
objects existing together in the landscape are in an built environment and the way it fit within the urban
interrelation (Conzen, 1978; Kropf, 1996). They constitute area, investigating “recurrent phenomena in urban
a reality that is more than the sum of the constituent parts. morphology to lead to an explanation of the arrangement
The areal character they collectively express has form, and diversity of an urban area in terms of plan types and
structure, and function and, thus, occupies a position resulting geographical divisions.” (Conzen, 1969, p. 5) His
in a system subject to development (Sauer, 1925). The morphological approach had a number of tenets. First, the
term “landscape” is, for some, a key unitary conception urban landscape comprises three interrelated urban form
within geography (Hartshorne, 1939). Similar terms complexes or elements: the ground plan (including streets,
include “area” and “region.” The geographical region is plots, and the block plans of buildings), building fabric (the
an area occupied by a singular combination of the Earth’s three-dimensional form), and land and building utilization
phenomena, constituting an open-ended spatial system (Conzen, 1960). The ground plan, which is the element
of the geosphere characterized by material form and most resistant to change, provides the framework for the
functional interactions, as well as subject to unceasing building forms and pattern of land utilization. Second,
temporal change (Conzen, 1978). In the late 19 century, the morphological structures of the urban landscape
th
German geographers explored the ways in which urban are the products and expressions of particular social,
settlements were formed. political-economic, and technological processes. Third,
Schlüter (1899a; 1899b; 1903) identified two significant urban developments can be conceptualized as a series of
dimensions of urban landscape studies. One is the morphological periods that leave distinct residues in the
structural dimension, which focuses on the analytical urban landscape (Conzen, 1969). Finally, the recognition
deciphering of spatial structure and privileges objectivity, of the residues of past periods, varying from one part of
the materiality of human occupancy on the surface an urban area to another, gives rise to spatial groupings of
of the Earth, and the distribution patterns of the built form ensembles (Whitehand, 2009).
environment. The other is the morphogenetic dimension, For Conzen, the culmination of the exploration of
which searches for explanations of the ways in which spatial urban physical development and its structural result was
structure is produced, primarily through investigating the the division of an urban area into morphological regions
interrelationship between the cultural and the natural, (Whitehand, 2001, p. 106) that “objectivate the spirit of
especially the cultural/human influence over the process society” (Whitehand, 1989; Whitehand, 1990). Research
of the landscape. This echoes the conceptualization of on morphological regionalization has made significant
landscape in terms of the interrelationships of landscape progress in the past several decades. Whitehand (1989)
elements that coexist in a dynamic system, with changes and his students (Barrett, 1996; Bienstman, 2007; Jones,
driven by natural processes and human activities. 1991) presented multiple examples of morphological
In an essay on Deutsche Stadtanlagen (“The Layout regionalization of historical urban cores and suburban areas
of German Towns”), published in 1894, Johannes Fritz in Europe. Morphological regionalization is an integrated
used town plans to compare the physical forms of urban approach that emphasizes how the various components of the

Volume 6 Issue 3 (2024) 3 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.261