Conceptual Urbanism: Towards a Method of Urban Form and Urban Design by

"Conceptual urbanism " describes the interpretive nature of a particular structure of the city perceived through the morphological examinations of urban artifacts; emphasizes the perpetually changing "realness " in the concept and the vigorous search for its verification and falsification in the urban artifacts of the city. How does a specific knowledge of the city influence the perception of urban artifacts within the city? And how does an urban artifact or a group of artifacts brings about a particular order of the city? These are complex questions that concern the nature of the artifact, the mental frame of the observer and the transaction of the two in the mind. The thesis investigates how the knowledge of the morphology of the city conditions a specific perception of urban artifacts ' formal qualities; and vice versa, how an urban artifact, by virtue of its tectonic makings, makes possible a particular mental structure of the city. Boston is used as case study to show how the conceptual structure of the city can be obtained by examinations of morphological developments of Back Bay