Modernization of cities in Lithuania in 1960-1990 and complex investigation of its influence on urbanism as social-spatial phenomena.
In order to comprehend the history of Lithuanian urbanism, as well as for the sustainable future development of the cities, it is crucial to comprehend and to analyze using the advanced methods the past changes of Lithuanian cities and the patterns of functioning of urban structures determined by them. The period between 1960 and 1990 of the Soviet modernist urbanization is of unquestionable importance in this regard, as it had radically changed urban territories, lifestyles, and imposed then new and different models of urban planning. Moreover, these models are still viable in Lithuanian urbanism even after the restoration of the independence despite the different social, economic, and cultural context and without any scientific evaluation of their suitability for the present day. The aim of the project to perform the complex analysis and evaluation of the changes of the social-spatial genotype of the large Lithuanian cities determined by the modernist urbanization of the Soviet era using the interdisciplinary theory of networks and mathematical network models as the main methodological tools is undoubtedly relevant. Without such analyses it is impossible to understand the development of Lithuanian cities, the peculiarities of their functioning and to solve the problems of their rehabilitation, improvement of quality of life etc. The project will encompass the collection, analysis and presentation in the GIS database of historical data, the development and application to three largest Lithuanian cities of the model of multimodal network and the evaluation of the transformations of the urban spatial structure genotypes in the period 1960 – 1990 and their significance in the context of urban development from 1939 until 2016. The project results would be significant for the urban history research and for the analysis of the peculiarities and patterns of functioning of the cities of the country, for the forecasting and management of their changes.
Project funding:
Research Council of Lithuania (RCL), National Research Programme “Modernity in Lithuania”
Project results:
Database of photos, plan and texts on informal usage of public spaces in Kainas, Klaipeda and Vilnius in 1939-2016; adaptation of the sociotop model for Lithuanian cities and conduction of the research in selected areas; creation of multi-modal graph model of public spaces for Kaunas, Klaipeda and Vilnius; GIS database with integrated results of space syntax multi-modal analysis and content analysis results of the informal use of public spaces. The results will be published in a number of article and collective monograph.
Period of project implementation: 2017-03-31 - 2019-12-31
Project coordinator: Kaunas University of Technology
