Girona (Spain), City of London (United Kingdom), Palermo (Italy) and Poitiers (France) are cathedral cities of different status, size, geographical location and level of preservation of the medieval fabric.
They have been selected for this study as much for their differences as for their similarities, and will be used to provide a range of experiences.
Despite their differences and distance, their history and topography present interesting parallels ad common themes that will be explored by URBS.
The City of London in England, on the bank of the River Thames, is now one of the world’s most important financial centres. It was greatly damaged during WW2 and extensively redeveloped during post-war reconstruction.
The City of London has a daytime population of workers and visitors of about 500,000, but it has only about 9,000 inhabitants, mostly living at the very edges of the city.
Palermo on the isle of Sicily is a Mediterranean city, the historic center has almost the same area as the City of London, about 2.7 km2, but it is densely populated with about 22,000 inhabitants. It was heavily bombed during WW2, however, was never radically redeveloped and preserves a deeply stratified historic built environment.
The City of London and Palermo today are part of metropolitan areas, in the Medieval period they both were capital and port cities, both had changes of regime with the Normans Conquest in the 11th century, which had a profound impact on their landscapes.
The historic centre of Girona in north Catalunia is a walled city perched on a hill, with much of its medieval built environment still standing.
The historic centre, or Barri Vell it is a popular visitors’ attraction. With about 3,500 inhabitants it is scarcely inhabited compared to the other areas of Girona, however, the population has been steadily growing in the past decade, showing perhaps a reversal of the depopulation trend affecting many cathedral cities in the Mediterranean region.
The University of Girona is located there and it is a prominent activity in the old city. Palermo and Girona are located in the Mediterranean region, both were in territories dominated by Arab rulers and culture at various times before the 11th century.
Poitiers in central-west France is in a strategic geographical position connecting the north and south of France; the city has a well preserved historic built environment and part of the line of the ancient fortifications has been replaced with tree-lined boulevards, as often it is the case in France.
It also has medieval buildings of special importance, such as the 4th century Baptistery of St John. It is a University city with high student to resident ratio having about 88,000 inhabitants and 28,000 students.
Poitiers has interesting historical parallels with the other case studies as well as unique features. In the 12th century was the capital of a large domain with close links with Angevin England and London.
In Poitiers, 12th century developments are connected to the patronage of a woman, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was also involved in building the Romanesque cathedral. This adds a further gendered dimension to the landscape.
All the cities had thriving medieval Jewish communities, with residential quarters. The spatial relations of these quarters within the cities needs to be analysed, as well as the heritage value that they have today.
Dialogues with Antiquity: these four cities were selected also because they were founded in Antiquity, within the boundaries of the Roman Empire; therefore their urban form and built environment is influenced by the material remains of Antiquity. The memory and preservation of the material culture of Antiquity was a deliberate choice in medieval cities, however, this may have had different expressions in the four cities.
URBS 