**4.1 Traditional integrity**

Differences in ambience usually play out to the advantage of historical settings. This is not only a matter of opinion, but reflected in the concept of gentrification, which indicates the preservation and upgrading of historical urban settings, and associated with an influx of new inhabitants and soaring real estate prices [18]. Much of travelling and tourism is based on the fact that historical environments offer a kind of ambience that modern urban settings are void of [19].

Why are historical urban environments so sought after? Why do they please people? One reason is that they associate to important historical events, which are integrated into nationalistic rhetoric. A feeling of nostalgia is probably globally present in the sense that it may remind us of childhood, passed times and our identity.

However, there is another and more tangible reason for the attractiveness of historical urban settings. They are results of handicraft, built out of local materials, following local building traditions, erected by local labor force, which generate overall unity. The finest of historical buildings have pursued a very long life [20, 21]. Representing handicraft, traditional architecture possesses an additional quality. Details of buildings are to some extent distinguishable at a distance shorter than 300 meters [22]. When one approaches them, new and smaller details unfold at closer distance. Handmade environments offer continuously new excitement for a pedestrian despite the fact that she or he may have lived in the surrounding for decades.

The first cities known to history were built in a way reflecting the rationale of tribal society. Each group and segment of the local society managed and controlled its own territory. The first European cities breaking this pattern were the Greek cities of the Antique at the time when the city states and citizenship emerged. Those cities were unlocked in the sense that all parts except the privately controlled plots became available for the citizenry. Houses continued to be produced by the inhabitants for their own purposes. Plans were laid out in advance and lots were distributed by means of negotiations and consent, not as commodities exchanged on a market. Ideally, the control was executed in a communal way by the citizenry for the citizenry [23].

The earliest indication of the idea of landed value is a map of central Florence of the early 15th century, showing the taxation value of properties [24]. At about the same time, the central perspective was introduced into visual arts as a new innovation. Both of these phenomena indicate a novel way of distancing oneself. The use value of the physical setting acquired an additional exchange value. The central perspective provided the viewer with a position that used to be reserved for celestial figures and the Omnipotent. Economic and visual alienation seem to have occurred in correlation.

The relation between the citizenry and the ruler remained in some sense reciprocal. Even in the case of the Baroque city plans of the 17th and early 18th century, the people had visual access to the palace of the Prince who likewise could see every corner of the city from his palace. The religious justifications of worldly inequalities did not diminish the need for overall community. The ambience of historical urbanism expresses integrity.

#### **4.2 Modern disintegration**

The birth of modernist architecture coincided with industrialization of construction. The pioneers designed their works in a style mimicking the design of factory produced items, although the buildings were produced by handicraft [25]. An argument that has been reiterated over and over again concerns integrity of architectural expression. Modernists claim that architecture has to be honest [26]. As honesty is a relative matter, it has to be related to something. The true point of reference for modernists is time, the spirit of our time, heading for the future – whatever that may indicate. The true expression of any era can be confirmed only in hindsight, which would disqualify the assumed spirit of the present and the future as intelligible points of reference. We cannot pretend, if we want to be truthful!

By associating architectural expression with the modern rationale of continuous reinvesting and rebuilding, the destruction of historical settings became acceptable and even preferable. The place, locality and history lost their meaning as points of reference for determining environmental values. Integrity is understood in terms of the future, not in relation to the past and the actual place with its local characteristics and traditions. Consequently, modernistic urban settings and architecture have no homeland, and built environment is globally uniformed – like artificial intelligence.

There has been some opposition to these trends, for instance a quest for genius loci, the spirit of the place, for topophilia and for critical regionalism as opposed to global design [27–29]. The results are close to neglectable, and do not exceed a limited number of hailed examples. Postmodernism as architectural style is sometimes associated with anti-modernism, but more so it is another expression of modernism. Various approaches that could be summoned under the concept of retro, are also modernistic in the sense that they are integrated parts of modern settings in constant flux, whether exterior or interior.

The Baroque era still expressed reciprocity between controllers and the controlled. This changed only in the late 18th century, when Jeremy Bentham, the utilitarian, introduced the so-called Panopticon for correctional institutions [30]. Due to the design of the precinct, prisoners were constantly surveilled by the guards, who themselves were invisible to the prisoners. Societal control became unilateral. No wonder Bentham ridiculed natural and imprescriptible rights. In a context of unilateral and total control, there can be no room for any inherent right of the subdued, and benefits are much easier to calculate when they concern only those in command. All concurrent systems for urban surveillance are based on the Panopticon principle. Humans are replaced for a huge variety of surveillance technologies, exempt from the controlled.

Planning legislation of the 19th century was still based on the presumption that plot owners would exploit their property for their own needs. In case of purely speculative projects, a developer would have to stick to approved town plans and available plot supply [31]. A century later, planning legislation was turned the other way around to suit large scale speculation in rising land values. Despite the existence of public planning monopolies, developers acquired the right to develop land much as they pleased [32, 33]. The development of planning legislation in Sweden is a case in point. Planning is in practice removed from the public to the corporate sphere and made a club good.

Consider the overall shape of urban environment. Historical cities produced in a traditional way, express an endless variety within an overall unity. This is likely to be the most important single factor that makes historical environments so attractive. That is their ambience. Modern settings express the opposite: Monotonous labyrinths within an overall chaos. Consequently, orientation and identification

are made almost impossible, and the best, if not only way to orientate is to use electronical equipment for navigation. That is certainly a need of today, but it is a previously unknown need that did not exist when human habitats were laid out in an intelligible way.
