Medieval city gates and modern checkpoints of Nicosia for the morphological theory of attractors

The analysis of a city in its diachronic evolution provides a tool for the development of the theory of attractors. The paper analyses the case study of Nicosia, interpreting the ‘medievalisation’ process, in continuity between the Conzenian approach and the Italian School of Urban Morphology. The theory should cover in a more analytical manner what Muratori called ‘medievalisation’, a term generically describing the transfor-mation of urban routes occurring during the Middle Ages. The paper analyses the diachronic changes of routes in the city of Nicosia, Cyprus, and other multi-scalar occurrences of the attraction phenomenon applying attractors and repellers, already used in archaeological studies to interpret such changes. Checkpoints across borders share some properties with ancient city gates: both of them are a passage obligé across a 'dividing line'. Even though the 'dividing line' could pre-exist the route, new routes may appear after the establishment of the passing point and the ‘dividing line’. A diachronic perspective on the morphology of routes can show this passing point as an 'attractor' in regards to the routes. Only few routes change by attraction as revealed by the inflection analysis, other routes are instead bifurcated. The attractor causes the diachronic deformations of routes by pulling them away from their configuration, while the 'repeller' acts in the opposite direction. The path of the medieval walls of Nicosia, now disappeared, could be traced using the inflection analysis of urban routes, inferring the attractors and the diving lines. Also the Venetian city wall, determining a new dividing line and new gates acting as point attractors, can be analysed with the same methodology. The openings through those walls introduced in modern times, also seem to follow the very same morphological rules. Other modern elements, such as the presidential palace, introduced a different configuration of the city by attracting the new streets, and finally the check point opened in 2008 in Ledra street is acting today in a similar way by attracting along that route the commercial functions of the city.