Integritas, proportio et claritas. The historical city – its past and present image.

Call for papers to Issue 60 of „Quart” (in print: June 2021)

We invite you to the issue of “Quart” dedicated to historical urbanism. This subject can be approached from the perspective of questions relating to the history of the city, its theory, as well as the problems of preserving its historical and artistic heritage.

The concept of spatial turn associated with the inter-war “Annales” school of Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre and its post-war continuation in the form of Ferdinand Braudel’s studies of the “longue durée of history” has been widely known for a long time. Despite the passage of years, many research centres still seem to be striving to develop research methods in line with this “turn”. This is true for all areas of specific research – linguistic research, image research, social research (with the sociotopographic method known for over 100 years), economic research.

To the highest degree this tendency also applies to historical urbanism in its broader contexts. The development of this field is also facilitated by the fact that there is a wider opportunity than in the past for analyses and syntheses related to universal history which are devoid of national complexes. They are now less concerned with issues of nation and state and more with space as a place of contact and exchange. The opening of the borders made it possible to develop comparative studies that went far beyond the borders of the present nation states. The opening of the borders has created the possibility of developing comparative studies that go far beyond the borders of current nation states. These trends have also provided an excellent opportunity to develop studies on the history of urban space.

In each of the aspects of the research of urban space as a “social product” (the city is, after all, a mode of social organisation of space), in the field of functional “mapping” of the city, and in the area of greatest interest to art historians – the analysis of the city as a “work of art”, the use of the possibility of obtaining broad research horizons (both in the sense of contexts, methods, and broader reception of the results of the search) seems extremely beneficial. It is also no longer possible today to simply analyse the city space as a secular or sacral one, as a space of production or consumption. Modern analyses also allow us to cross these boundaries as well.

We invite authors to address the following issues in their papers:
– Comparative urbanism – historical phenomena, specific functions and forms of cities created “on raw roots”, but also those developed organically.
– Images of the city – in the sense of iconography as well as the historical shaping of its architectural landscape.
– Historical and contemporary reception of the urban landscape and its individual elements: the two- and three-dimensional compositions of the city, spaces of self-representation, exhibitions, model housing estates, examples of consciously planned or spontaneous urban development.
– Traditional and latest methodologies for the study of urban history: socio-topographic research, cartography and iconography, GIS analysis and LiDAR image analysis.
– Preservation of the city’s historic landscape and methods of intervention to foster its sustainable development.

Deadline for submission of papers: 1 March 2021
The issue will be published in the 2nd half of June 2021.

Guest editor: Dr. hab. Rafał Eysymontt, UWr. Prof.

Papers (from 20,000 to 40,000 characters, in Polish or English, with up to 10 illustrations) should be submitted in the format specified in the guidelines (to be downloaded from the website: https://quart.uni.wroc.pl/guidelines-for-the-authors) to the address: quartuwr.edu.pl.

The editors reserve the right to select given papers. All the submitted papers will be subject to a double-blind review, in line with COPE guidelines. “Quart” is a regularly published quarterly journal by the Institute of Art History of the University of Wroclaw. It is indexed in ERIH+, CEJSH and BazHum databases. It was awarded a grant under the “Support for 500 Scientific Journals” Programme of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. It is included in the list of scientific journals of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education as of 31.07.2019 with 20 points.

The current number can be purchased in EMPiK chain stores. Archival issues are available in libraries and in a digitalized form in Polona website: https://polona.pl/search/?query=quart.