weekFAN22_2007-05-30

updated political boundary map. now it shows a hierarchy of different political levels. only for switzerland, maybe I can find informations about france and germany later. these boundaries, especially the districts, can also be read as how the city grew over time. there where new layers added on the outside of the city. some districts such a bettingen and riehen are actually villages, but they belong politically to the canton of basel-stadt.
on the level of cantons basel-stadt is a special case. it is a half-canton. in total there are 42 cantons and 4 half-cantons. this refers to the amount of representatives the canton have in the national government.
basel-stadt and basel-land are both half cantons. they separated somewhere in 1833. basel-stadt is a special case of the special cases of a half-canton because the canton is only the city itself, where as a canton otherwise in switzerland includes urban and rural areas.



the following map shows the river rhine and the modes to cross it. as mentioned before the river is a major separation line within the city, with the two parts of the settlement developing a slightly different identity.
different crossings allow to cross the water without getting wet. of course one can swim too, but this happens mainly in summer time. but its nice. (J we could try this in august... : ) )



the key to the map:
-A- the "mittlere brücke" [en - "center bridge"] is the oldest crossing on this location already several bridges existed beforehand. the first one was built in 1225 as a wooden construction, today it is a stone bridge. this one was built in 1905.
-B- bridges for general traffic. cars, pedestrians, buses and some even include the tram. called: "johanniter brücke" [name] and "wettstein brücke" [name of the district]
-C- these bridges include in addition the highway. one on a separate lane and the one in the north there runs the highway on a second level underneath the bridge level. called: "dreirosen brücke" [en - "three roses"] and "schwarzwald brücke" [name of the region towards france]
-D- pedestrian bridge but also for bicycles. this one is the latest crossing. opened just two month ago. it connects germany and france.
-E- hydroelectric power plant, that is also for pedestrian and bicycle crossing. (this example is a boundary itself. it divides the rhine in a lower and upper part. the boat traffic needs a lock and for fishes and others it is a final barrier.)
-F- railway bridge called: "schwarzwald brücke" [name of the region towards france]
-G- ferry service, but only for pedestrians and one needs to purchase a ticket. this limits the group of users and excludes others. this turns this into an exquisite mode of crossing while "normal" bridges can be accessed by anyone.

the following is a map created trough an overlay of the different layers of water, transport, political boundaries and restricted areas within the city.
there are impacts on different levels. one is the quality of the district. the transport and the enclosed areas have on several districts a very strong, often negative impact.
for example just south of the main railway station is the district "gundeldingen" situated. it is a strict rectangular developed district. it is one of the latest districts in basel-stadt. created somewhere in early 20th century just after the railway-station was relocated to the present location. it grew with the new element of the railway-station, but is also trough this element and of course the railway tracks strongly separated from the rest of the town. it is referred to "gundeldingen" usually as "behind the train station".
an other example is "kleinhueningen" in the north, just at the border to germany. this one is enclosed by several restricted areas. trough them it is separated from the city but also from the river rhine or from the large green space to its west side.



guess there are a lot more analyses to do. let me know ur comments.

weekFAN21_2007-05-25

as both of u suggested I prepared the maps new in different ways.
first the general overview with all the elements:



the rail map with the stations. here we do have only three stations for railwaylines. the main station is basel SBB, here we have the swiss and french station. the "badischer bahnhof" is the german station. the "st.johanns bahnhof" is under construction and will be only for regional trains, "s-bahn".
the exits/entrances are only at the SBB station towards both sides of the tracks. this acts as a boundary crossing.

weekFAN19_2007-05-13

I would like to pick up the topic J mentioned for the biennale in HK, boundary.
it seems to me to be a very complex term. there are many different possible concept to it. it could be understood in terms of physical enclosing or exclusion but also separating different elements or it is just understood theoretical and could be a concept to describe relations of elements (city) or relations in terms of social networks. this to just name a few possibilities, I guess it could be very interesting to explore many more possible meanings of boundary as an urban design term.
but here to my example of basel.
I tried to look at the city under different aspects of the term boundary and would like to discuss different maps.



the google image without any drawings. the one we can see even here are the natural boundaries such as the rhine. there are at least two smaller creeks cutting trough the city but their impact disappeared after they have been covered all the way trough the city around 18th century. the river is a very strong separation still. the two sides have a different identity and the so called "grossbasel (bigger basel)" on the south-west side of the rhine, sees it self as much better than the poorer "kleinbasel (little basel)" on the north-east side.



the official political boundaries are something that does exist and of course has a strong impact on the environment. here in switzerland one can kind of sense the borderline only if your right there. especially here in the city the fabric doesn't really adapt to it. it stays hidden until one finally tries to cross it.



there are two main traveling modes on the city level. one is the car and the other one is the train. here in basel, as the city is small compared to the rest of the world, there is the national rail and the national highway that represent the two modes on this level. not only in their natural manifestation as linear elements but also in terms of covered land they act as boundaries within the city fabric.

cars


rail


basel has got the big pharmaceutical industry. there are five major sites within the city of basel where such companies produce. they are all closed to the public and therefor set up large blind spots within the city fabric. this makes it, in certain areas very difficult, if not impossible, to orientate.


these are a few examples from the city of basel. I do think it could be interesting to go deeper into this topic and look at the effects these kind of physical boundaries have and how the fabric and the inhabitants cope with this. for example can be seen, that certain areas boroughs developed very specific characters because of their relations and location to these boundaries.
what do you think would it be worth looking closer, and how could this be done, maps pictures or interviews with people?