Advisor: Prof. Tawfiq Abu Ghazzeh

Abstract:
The research described in this thesis starts by accepting the basic concepts and methods of the descriptive theory of space, known as space syntax (Hillier and Hanson,1984).

Space syntax, as developed at the Bartlett School, University College London, proposes a fundamental relationship between the configuration of space in a city and the way that it functions. The analysis of space in terms of its configurational properties or syntax may, according to the theory, allow us to determine some aspects of the functioning of different spaces (old and new) at Jerusalem. It is the aim of the work described in this thesis to test this proposition in different spaces at Jerusalem, by comparing traditional and contemporary spaces, using space syntax.

Four different local areas at Jerusalem were tested, since this city has its own conditions in its urban forms generated through political and social conditions. The first area belongs to the first kind of spaces, old ones, which are found in the Old City. The other three areas belong to the second kind, the new spaces, and they are in order: the city center of the West Jerusalem, Al—lssawiyya and Ramot Settlement.

The basic argument of this thesis is that the Old City at Jerusalem, even though its 6000 years old (from its oldest records), can be worked just like the new spaces created at the city. The results include a basic confirmation of the ability of space syntax methodology to predict the intensity of the occupation of public space by people in the four areas.
So the process of investigation followed here goes in two levels: at the level of the individual space embodied in the local area, and at the level of the local area embodied in the whole city. It can be concluded that the old city (in its spatial configuration at least), is not less important than the center of the city and the settlements, which was built on a main master plan from its beginning. The Old City is much more integrated than the whole city in general.