The System of the Plan Compositional Principles of the Gothic Town Building in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Abstract

In the XVI-XVII centuries, the territory of modern Belarus in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had a widespread geometrical organization of the urban structures. In the base of regular formation there was a use of urban planning principles of Western Gothic of the XIII century. In the following centuries they have transformed according to the urban regions of different typology and have developed simultaneously with the Renaissance system of spatial forms. In this study, for the first time the analysis was performed and the principles of the creating of planning compositions of small urban settlements were found. Among the basic principles there is a paradoxical synthesis of the old Russian hierarchical structure of the fortified areas and the medieval GermanFrench and Italian design of the formation of street network. Keywords—urban planning; regular plans; Gothic; middle Ages