Byera Hadley research reports
Jake Kellow / 2024
Tracing the Amber Road
Housing, Architectural History, Communities
Europe
For over two millennia, the Amber Road served as a major trade route across Central and Eastern Europe. Connecting the Baltics to the Mediterranean, it allowed for the trading of amber, furs, bronze, food and other goods across Europe and the world.
This research surveys the architectural repercussions of trade by following in its ancient footsteps. Tracing the Amber Road from Gdansk to Venice, it explores the history and architecture of trade across a diverse range of social, economic, climatic and cultural contexts.
It focuses specifically on the marketplace typology to provoke investigation at the crux of trade, architecture and public discourse in the built environment. Visiting six case study markets in Gdansk, Wroclaw, Vienna, Budapest, Ljubljana and Venice, it analyses the architectural characteristics and urban contributions of each market to determine their markers of success.
