town planning trends in europe

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE V B ARCH 21/09/2016

• IN THE NEOLITHIC PERIOD, AGRICULTURE AND OTHER TECHNIQUES FACILITATED LARGER POPULATIONS THAN THE VERY SMALL COMMUNITIES OF THE PALEOLITHIC, WHICH PROBABLY LED TO THE STRONGER, MORE COERCIVE GOVERNMENTS EMERGING AT THAT TIME.

• THE PRE-CLASSICAL AND CLASSICAL PERIODS SAW A NUMBER OF CITIES LAID OUT ACCORDING TO FIXED PLANS, THOUGH MANY TENDED TO DEVELOP ORGANICALLY.

• DESIGNED CITIES WERE CHARACTERISTIC OF THE MINOAN, MESOPOTAMIAN, HARRAPAN, AND EGYPTIAN CIVILISATIONS OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM BC (SEE URBAN PLANNING IN ANCIENT EGYPT). THE FIRST RECORDED DESCRIPTION OF URBAN PLANNING APPEARS IN THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH: "GO UP ON TO THE WALL OF URUK AND WALK AROUND. INSPECT THE FOUNDATION PLATFORM AND SCRUTINISE THE BRICKWORK. TESTIFY THAT ITS BRICKS ARE BAKED BRICKS, AND THAT THE SEVEN COUNSELLORS MUST HAVE LAID ITS FOUNDATIONS.

• DISTINCT CHARACTERISTICS OF URBAN PLANNING FROM REMAINS OF THE CITIES OF HARAPPA, LOTHAL, DHOLAVIRA, AND MOHENJO-DARO IN THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILISATION (IN MODERN-DAY NORTHWESTERN INDIA AND PAKISTAN) LEAD ARCHEOLOGISTS TO INTERPRET THEM AS THE EARLIEST KNOWN EXAMPLES OF DELIBERATELY PLANNED AND MANAGED CITIES.

• THE STREETS OF MANY OF THESE EARLY CITIES WERE PAVED AND LAID OUT AT RIGHT ANGLES IN A GRID PATTERN, WITH A HIERARCHY OF STREETS FROM MAJOR BOULEVARDS TO RESIDENTIAL ALLEYS.

• ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THAT MANY HARRAPAN HOUSES WERE LAID OUT TO PROTECT FROM NOISE AND TO ENHANCE RESIDENTIAL PRIVACY; MANY ALSO HAD THEIR OWN WATER WELLS, PROBABLY BOTH FOR SANITARY AND FOR RITUAL PURPOSES.

• THESE ANCIENT CITIES WERE UNIQUE IN THAT THEY OFTEN HAD DRAINAGE SYSTEMS, SEEMINGLY TIED TO A WELL-DEVELOPED IDEAL OF URBAN SANITATION

PRE-CLASSICAL

INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION

MESOPOTAMIAN


PLANNING OF MILETUS

Classical and Medieval Europe

• THE GREEK PHILOSOPHER HIPPODAMUS (5TH CENTURY BC) IS REGARDED AS THE FIRST TOWN PLANNER AND ‘INVENTOR’ OF THE ORTHOGONAL URBAN LAYOUT. ARISTOTLE CALLED HIM ‘THE FATHER OF CITY PLANNING', AND UNTIL WELL INTO THE 20TH CENTURY, HE WAS INDEED REGARDED AS SUCH.

• GREEK CITY-STATES STARTED TO FOUND COLONIES ALONG THE COASTS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN, WHICH WERE CENTRED ON NEWLY CREATED TOWNS AND CITIES WITH MORE OR LESS REGULAR ORTHOGONAL PLANS

HIPPODAMUS ORTHOGONAL URBAN LAYOUT

• FOLLOWING IN THE TRADITION OF HIPPODAMUS ABOUT A CENTURY LATER, ALEXANDER COMMISSIONED THE ARCHITECT DINOCRATES TO LAY OUT HIS NEW CITY OF ALEXANDRIA, THE GRANDEST EXAMPLE OF IDEALISED URBAN PLANNING OF THE ANCIENT HELLENISTIC WORLD, WHERE THE CITY'S REGULARITY WAS FACILITATED BY ITS LEVEL SITE NEAR A MOUTH OF THE NILE.

CITY OF ALEXANDRIA,


Classical and Medieval Europe

• The Romans used a consolidated scheme for city planning, developed for civil convenience. The basic plan consisted of a central forum with city services, surrounded by a compact, rectilinear grid of streets. A river sometimes flowed near or through the city, providing water, transport, and sewage disposal. Hundreds of towns and cities were built by the Romans throughout their empire. Many European towns, such as Turin, preserve the remains of these schemes, which show the very logical way the Romans designed their cities

• They would lay out the streets at right angles, in the form of a square grid. All roads were equal in width and length, except for two, which were slightly wider than the others. One of these ran east–west, the other, north–south, and intersected in the middle to form the centre of the grid. All roads were made of carefully fitted flag stones and filled in with smaller, hard-packed rocks and pebbles. Bridges were constructed where needed. Each square marked by four roads was called an insula, the Roman equivalent of a modern city block

STREETS

INSULA

RIVER

ALLEYS

• Each insula was about 80 yards (73 m) square. As the city developed, it could eventually be filled with buildings of various shapes and sizes and criss-crossed with back roads and alleys

600 years old Fortress town Elburg in The Netherland• The deep depression around the middle of the 14th century marked the end of the period of great urban expansion.


THE BASIC LAYOUT OF THE CITY :• IS AN EIGHT-POINT STAR, CREATED BY OVERLAYING TWO SQUARES SO THAT

ALL THE CORNERS WERE EQUIDISTANT. • THIS SHAPE IS THEN INSCRIBED WITHIN A PERFECT CIRCULAR MOAT. • THE TALISMANIC POWER OF GEOMETRY AND THE CRUCIAL IMPORTANCE OF

ASTROLOGY, FILARETE PROVIDES, IN ADDITION TO PRAGMATIC ADVICE ON MATERIALS, CONSTRUCTION, AND FORTIFICATIONS, NOTES ON HOW TO PROPITIATE CELESTIAL HARMONY WITHIN SFORZINDA.

• FILARETE'S IDEAL CITY, BUILDING ON LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI'S DE RE AEDIFICATORIA, WAS NAMED "SFORZINDA" IN COMPLIMENT TO HIS PATRON; ITS EIGHT-POINTED SHAPE, CIRCUMSCRIBABLE BY A "PERFECT" PYTHAGOREAN FIGURE, THE CIRCLE, TOOK NO HEED OF ITS UNDULATING TERRAIN IN FILARETE'S MANUSCRIPT

RENAISSANCE EUROPE(1300-1600

FILARETE'S IDEAL CITY "SFORZINDA"

PALMANOVA OF ITALY

RADIAL STREETS

FORTIFIED CITY


ENLIGHTENMENT EUROPE• AN EXCEPTION TO THIS WAS IN LONDON AFTER THE GREAT FIRE OF 1666 WHEN, DESPITE MANY

RADICAL REBUILDING SCHEMES FROM ARCHITECTS SUCH AS JOHN EVELYN AND CHRISTOPHER WREN, NO LARGE-SCALE REDESIGNING WAS ACHIEVED DUE THE COMPLEXITIES OF RIVAL OWNERSHIP CLAIMS

• THE GRAND MODEL FOR THE PROVINCE OF CAROLINA, DEVELOPED IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE GREAT FIRE, ESTABLISHED A TEMPLATE FOR COLONIAL PLANNING. THE FAMOUS OGLETHORPE PLAN FOR SAVANNAH (1733)

• THE BASIC PLAN UNIT IS A WARD, 600 FEET TO A SIDE IN THE NORTH-SOUTH DIRECTION, AND 540 FEET TO 600 FEET IN THE EAST-WEST DIRECTION. STREETS AND BUILDING LOTS ARE ORGANIZED AROUND A CENTRAL OPEN SPACE OR SQUARE. EACH WARD HAS A NAME. WARDS WERE ORIGINALLY ORGANIZED AS URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS WITH DIRECT CORRELATION TO GARDEN AND FARM LOTS IN OGLETHORPE'S EXPANDED REGIONAL PLAN SYSTEM.

• THE STREETS BOUNDING THE WARDS ALLOW UNINTERRUPTED MOVEMENT OF TRAFFIC. INTERNAL STREETS ARE INTERRUPTED BY THE SQUARES TO CREATE A PEDESTRIAN-FRIENDLY SCALE.

• AN EARLY MAP OF SAVANNAH, DRAWN BY JOHN MCKINNON CIRCA 1800.• THE RESULTING PATTERN FEATURES EIGHT BLOCKS TO A WARD. THE LARGER FOUR BLOCKS ON THE

NORTH AND SOUTH SIDES OF THE SQUARE ARE CALLED TYTHING BLOCKS AND ARE FURTHER DIVIDED BY EAST-WEST LANES.

• FOUR SMALLER BLOCKS FRONT THE SQUARES ON THE EAST AND WEST. THESE ARE CALLED TRUST BLOCKS.

• TYTHING BLOCKS ARE SUBDIVIDED INTO LOTS 60 FEET IN WIDTH THAT ARE SOMETIMES FURTHER DIVIDED INTO INCREMENTS OF 20 OR 30 FEET, THEREBY CREATING A DIVERSE PATTERN OF BUILDING SIZES AND TYPES.

• NEW AND PERFECTLY ORDERED CITY, THE KING COMMISSIONED THE CONSTRUCTION OF BIG SQUARES, RECTILINEAR, LARGE AVENUES AND WIDENED STREETS – THE NEW MOTTOS OF LISBON. THE POMBALINE BUILDINGS WERE AMONG THE EARLIEST SEISMICALLY PROTECTED CONSTRUCTIONS IN EUROPE.

OGLETHORPE PLAN

FAMOUS OGLETHORPE PLAN FOR SAVANNAH (1733)


Eixample district of Barcelona

• THE EIXAMPLE IS CHARACTERIZED BY LONG STRAIGHT STREETS, A STRICT GRID PATTERN CROSSED BY WIDE AVENUES, AND SQUARE BLOCKS WITH CHAMFERED CORNERS (NAMED ILLES IN CATALAN, MANZANAS IN SPANISH).

• THIS WAS A VISIONARY, PIONEERING DESIGN BY ILDEFONS CERDÀ,

• HE CONSIDERED TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORT ALONG WITH SUNLIGHT AND VENTILATION IN COMING UP WITH HIS CHARACTERISTIC OCTAGONAL BLOCKS, WHERE THE STREETS BROADEN AT EVERY INTERSECTION MAKING FOR GREATER VISIBILITY, BETTER VENTILATION AND (TODAY) SOME SHORT-STAY PARKING SPACE.

• THE GRID PATTERN REMAINS AS A HALLMARK OF BARCELONA, BUT MANY OF HIS OTHER PROVISIONS WERE IGNORED: THE FOUR SIDES OF THE BLOCKS AND THE INNER SPACE WERE BUILT INSTEAD OF THE PLANNED TWO OR THREE SIDES AROUND A GARDEN; THE STREETS WERE NARROWER; ONLY ONE OF THE TWO DIAGONAL AVENUES WAS CARRIED OUT;

• THE INHABITANTS WERE OF A HIGHER CLASS THAN THE MIXED COMPOSITION DREAMED OF BY CERDÀ. THE IMPORTANT NEEDS OF THE INHABITANTS WERE INCORPORATED INTO HIS PLAN, WHICH CALLED FOR MARKETS, SCHOOLS, HOSPITALS EVERY SO MANY BLOCKS. TODAY, MOST OF THE MARKETS REMAIN OPEN IN THE SPOTS THEY HAVE BEEN FROM THE BEGINNING

ENLIGHTENMENT EUROPE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona


• THE INDUSTRIALISED CITIES OF THE 19TH CENTURY HAD GROWN AT A TREMENDOUS RATE, WITH THE PACE AND STYLE OF BUILDING LARGELY DICTATED BY PRIVATE BUSINESS CONCERNS. THE EVILS OF URBAN LIFE FOR THE WORKING POOR WERE BECOMING INCREASINGLY EVIDENT AS A MATTER FOR PUBLIC CONCERN. THE LAISSEZ-FAIRE STYLE OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT OF THE ECONOMY, IN FASHION FOR MOST OF THE VICTORIAN ERA, WAS STARTING TO GIVE WAY TO A NEW LIBERALISM THAT CHAMPIONED INTERVENTION ON THE PART OF THE POOR AND DISADVANTAGED. AROUND 1900, THEORISTS BEGAN DEVELOPING URBAN PLANNING MODELS TO MITIGATE THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE INDUSTRIAL AGE, BY PROVIDING CITIZENS, ESPECIALLY FACTORY WORKERS, WITH HEALTHIER ENVIRONMENTS

MODERN URBAN PLANNING

GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT• "GARDEN CITY" DERIVED FROM THE IMAGE OF A CITY BEING SITUATED WITHIN

A BELT OF OPEN COUNTRYSIDE (WHICH WOULD CONTRIBUTE SIGNIFICANTLY TO FOOD PRODUCTION FOR THE POPULATION), AND NOT, AS IS COMMONLY CITED, TO A PRINCIPLE THAT EVERY HOUSE IN THE CITY SHOULD HAVE A GARDEN.

GARDEN CITY THE THREE MAGNET• (1) THE PURCHASE OF A LARGE AREA OF AGRICULTURAL LAND WITHIN A RING

FENCE; (2) THE PLANNING OF A COMPACT TOWN SURROUNDED BY A WIDE RURAL BELT; (3) THE ACCOMMODATION OF RESIDENTS, INDUSTRY, AND AGRICULTURE WITHIN THE TOWN; (4) THE LIMITATION OF THE EXTENT OF THE TOWN AND PREVENTION OF ENCROACHMENT UPON THE RURAL BELT; AND (5) THE NATURAL RISE IN LAND VALUES TO BE USED FOR THE TOWN’S OWN GENERAL WELFARE.

• AT THE CENTRE OF THE CITY WOULD LAY A GARDEN RINGED WITH THE CIVIC AND CULTURAL COMPLEX INCLUDING THE CITY HALL, A CONCERT HALL, MUSEUM, THEATRE, LIBRARY, AND HOSPITAL. SIX BROAD MAIN AVENUES WOULD RADIATE FROM THIS CENTRE. CONCENTRIC TO THIS URBAN CORE WOULD BE A PARK, A COMBINATION SHOPPING CENTRE AND CONSERVATORY, A RESIDENTIAL AREA, AND THEN, AT THE OUTER EDGE, INDUSTRY. TRAFFIC WOULD MOVE ALONG AVENUES EXTENDING ALONG THE RADII AND CONCENTRIC BOULEVARDS

WELWYN GARDEN CITY

LETCHWORTH NEW TOWN


• N THE 1920S, THE IDEAS OF MODERNISM BEGAN TO SURFACE IN URBAN PLANNING.

• THE INFLUENTIAL MODERNIST ARCHITECT LE CORBUSIER PRESENTED HIS SCHEME FOR A "CONTEMPORARY CITY" FOR THREE MILLION INHABITANTS (VILLE CONTEMPORAINE) IN 1922.

• THE CENTREPIECE OF THIS PLAN WAS THE GROUP OF SIXTY-STORY CRUCIFORM SKYSCRAPERS, STEEL-FRAMED OFFICE BUILDINGS ENCASED IN HUGE CURTAIN WALLS OF GLASS.

• THESE SKYSCRAPERS WERE SET WITHIN LARGE, RECTANGULAR, PARK-LIKE GREEN SPACES. AT THE CENTRE WAS A HUGE TRANSPORTATION HUB THAT ON DIFFERENT LEVELS INCLUDED DEPOTS FOR BUSES AND TRAINS, AS WELL AS HIGHWAY INTERSECTIONS, AND AT THE TOP, AN AIRPORT.

• LE CORBUSIER HAD THE FANCIFUL NOTION THAT COMMERCIAL AIRLINERS WOULD LAND BETWEEN THE HUGE SKYSCRAPERS.

• HE SEGREGATED PEDESTRIAN CIRCULATION PATHS FROM THE ROADWAYS AND GLORIFIED THE AUTOMOBILE AS A MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION.

• AS ONE MOVED OUT FROM THE CENTRAL SKYSCRAPERS, SMALLER LOW-STORY, ZIG-ZAG APARTMENT BLOCKS (SET FAR BACK FROM THE STREET AMID GREEN SPACE) HOUSED THE INHABITANTS. LE CORBUSIER HOPED THAT POLITICALLY MINDED INDUSTRIALISTS IN FRANCE WOULD LEAD THE WAY WITH THEIR EFFICIENT TAYLORIST AND FORDIST STRATEGIES ADOPTED FROM AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL MODELS TO RE-ORGANISE SOCIETY

CONTEMPORARY CITY

CRUCIFORM BUILDINGS

CONTEMPORARY CITY

• MODERNIST PLANNING FELL INTO DECLINE IN THE 1970S WHEN THE CONSTRUCTION OF CHEAP, UNIFORM TOWER BLOCKS ENDED IN MOST COUNTRIES, SUCH AS BRITAIN AND FRANCE. SINCE THEN MANY HAVE BEEN DEMOLISHED AND REPLACED BY OTHER HOUSING TYPES. RATHER THAN ATTEMPTING TO ELIMINATE ALL DISORDER, PLANNING NOW CONCENTRATES ON INDIVIDUALISM AND DIVERSITY IN SOCIETY AND THE ECONOMY; THIS IS THE POST-MODERNIST ERA

LANDING FOR AIRPLANES

town planning trends in europe

Design