Advisor: Prof. Tawfiq Abu Ghazzeh
Co-advisor: Prof. Fuad Malkawi

Abstract:
The main aim of this study is to contribute to knowledge about the field of Urban Morphology. The various approaches to urban morphological analysis were discussed, and according to this discussion, an approach of analysis was proposed in which the evolutionary approach proved to be the most effective way to investigate the urban change. This approach involves following the growth of the plan to obtain a clear conception of how the plan has become the cumulative result of a diverse process kept going by successive functional impulses.

This study argues that town plan analysis on evolutionary lines is essential in urban morphology, since a proper understanding of the processes of change cannot be obtained from the analysis of relics. This approach was implemented in this study of Nablus, a city which has been influenced by several cultures. The long history of the city, along with the military and political events with their load of social and economic effects, have contributed in shaping the physical form of the city, thus providing convenient material to conduct a morphogenetic study, in which urban forms are traced back to their underlying processes. This approach, combined with the procedures accomplished by the typo-morphological analysis at An-Nasr square, is an attempt to analyze the urban form at the core of the old city, to understand its historical development, regarding its origin, growth, and transformation, in addition to examining the characteristics of the morphological periods associated with each cultural influence, thus offering a rich data base on forms and form-making processes.

The researcher concludes that, applying the evolutionary approach of town plan analysis, along with the building typology and the associated land use patterns, provides us with a full interpretation of the townscape, by providing a complete and detailed study of the processes that gradually modified the past into the existing present state of a townscape, which in turn, provides a basis of information necessary for future planning.