Port Cities Between Global Networks and Local Transformations

Throughout history, the access to large bodies of water facilitated the foundation, rise and prosperity of human settlements. Besides the vital quality of fresh water, the connecting potential of water was the decisive factor that prompted these developments. Since centuries, oceans, seas, rivers and lakes allowed for transportation, exchange and trading. Thereby, they connected places around the world and enabled a direct connection between different cities, states and cultures on a global scale. Over time, these distant places faced similar challenges and took part in related developments. People around the world developed ports, warehouses, and other facilities to accommodate rapidly changing types of ships and containers, from papyrus boats to sail ships and super tankers; and neighboring cities had to contemporaneously adapt to new technologies, flows of goods, people and ideas.

Of course, the unique geographical, topographical, climatic, economic, political, and historical conditions of each port city led to the development of individual forms, but still port cities developed common threads as they faced similar challenges from flooding, piracy or cholera to shifting shipping networks. Water has become a linking element that unites locations that are far away from each other to a community of destiny. Needless to say, these strong connections also result in close architectural and urbanistic relationships between port cities. The artificial coastlines, ports and waterfronts that can be found in these cities come along with facilities such as wharfs or quays, piers or jetties, docks and various specialized structures. Besides that, particular constructions like trade buildings, passenger terminals, warehouses, head offices, beacons, loading cranes and other facilities can be found in port cities all around the world. In turn, ports require connection to efficient means of transport for the movement of goods and people, as well as they require large workforce and thereby close residential areas and urban infrastructures.

The History of port cities goes back to the Mesopotamian city foundations. Transportation on water was easier and more efficient than overland transport. Furthermore, it allowed for connecting places that were difficult to reach by land, and therefore port cities became hotspots for knowledge and cultural transfer. Many port cities prospered during the Middle Ages due to their trade relations and some got wealthy after the discovery of the New World. There, in the overseas colonies, it was again port cities that were founded first and that gained importance as colonial capitals. Here, the direct exchange of goods, people and ideas took place. A new era begun with industrialization. Not only the ships got larger and faster thanks to steam engines and more durable iron. Also, the ports required adaption to the new circumstances, railways were built and new canals and basins substantially changed the appearance of the ports. As the facilities grew, the historic ports that often existed in close proximity to the city centers could not keep up with novel needs of space and technology. At the latest when containerization in the 1960s led to an entirely new era of transportation, the days of the historic harbors that dominated the cities appearance for centuries were doomed. But it gave way to new developments, to the discovery of water as an enriching quality. Subsequently many cities like London, Baltimore, Barcelona, Osaka, or Hamburg built new waterfronts with diverse urban formulas, focusing on corporate headquarters such as in the London docklands, diverse leisure and shopping oriented redevelopment projects, such as in Baltimore, or multifunctional urban districts such as in Hamburg.

The lectures deal with a variety of built form and urban layouts and demonstrate their transformation. A focus lies on the unique way of intercontinental exchange of knowledge and specific solutions that led to distinctive architectural phenomena that can’t satisfactorily be explained by western canonic architectural history. They demonstrate how similar buildings types, from engineering structures to urban areas and specific buildings emerged in relation to each other as part of long existing global exchanges. The module pays respect to structures like port and shipping related headquarters or logistics centers and engineering facilities, refineries, container terminals, and the actual form of the port. On an urbanistic scale, it addresses aspects like transportation infrastructure, train connection and the occurrence of shipping related districts like Chinatowns, red light districts, sailor towns, amusement facilities, hotels, and migrants’ towns. This includes the architecture of the port infrastructure, such as ware- and storage houses, industry buildings or cruise ship terminals. The scope of the lecture covers ancient ports and architectures, their development through the Middle Ages and early modern era until the end of the 20th century. It pays attention to paradigm changes in technical and cultural respect, deals with the influences of trade routes, colonialization and industrialization, the relocation of ports as a consequence of containerization, the redevelopment of historical ports and the current shaping of waterfronts.