A Meaning of Baroque in terms of Space Syntax: Finding a “Bridge” between Cosmology and Practicality in Cities

Abstract

A city is a spatial system that is generated in the process of searching for an ideal form. From the structure of a city, we can find paradigms of the past in which worldviews of the society are instilled. Baroque, to be studied in this paper, is interpreted as a change from ‘limitation' to ‘infinity'. There are many studies that investigated Baroque but they see the change from a single viewpoint of either cosmology or practicality. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to combine these two viewpoints for a comprehensive understanding of what paradigm has formed Baroque cities. Practicality is revealed by means of Space Syntax and our new concept, Urban Entropy Coefficient (: UEC), which is then related to cosmology. We conclude that the intention of Baroque was to configure a Multi-Center layout for the dynamic function of the city. © 2006, Architectural Institute of Japan. All rights reserved.