DEFINING THE REGIONAL IDENTITY: CONCEPTUAL PARAMETER OF URBAN MORPHOLOGY

Abstract

With the beginning of a new century, we are faced with discussions and arguments about the future of our cities. It is being argued that cities have undergone a major transformation process. The morphological aspects of the cities is in the agenda of post modern discourses which debate that morphological patterns of cities are as important as economical, social, political, and cultural factors. It is a lack of understanding for the importance of morphological patterns in establishing the essence and identity of cities, due to which the modernist towns are being questioned. A growing concern for the new tools, concepts to enhance the methodological issues and to understand the essence of the morphology in urban design is being observed. This paper is concerned with developing a method for analysing the morphological essence of cities in terms of concept of genius loci. The basic premises of the methods consists of the concepts of morphology, topology and typology. With these concepts an analytical framework is established and the town of Mardin is analysed with the help of this model.