URBAN DESIGN

UNIT II

HISTORY OF CITIES

The building of cities has a long and complex history. Although city planning as an organized profession has existed for less than a century, all cities display various degrees of forethought and conscious design in their layout and functioning. Early humans led a nomadic existence, relying on hunting and gathering for sustenance. Between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago, systematic cultivation of plants and the domestication of animals allowed for more permanent settlements. During the fourth millennium B.C., the requirements for the "urban revolution" were finally met: the production of a surplus of storable food, a system of writing, a more complex social organization, and technological advances such as the plough, potter's wheel, loom, and metallurgy. Cities exist for many reasons, and the diversity of urban forms can be traced to the complex functions that cities perform. Cities serve as centers of storage, trade, and manufacture. The agricultural surplus from the surrounding countryside is processed and distributed in cities. Cities also grew up around marketplaces, where goods from distant places could be exchanged for local products.

HISTORY OF CITIES

Religious elements have been crucial throughout urban history. Ancient peoples had sacred places, often associated with cemeteries or shrines, around which cities grew. Ancient cities usually had large temple precincts with monumental religious buildings. Many medieval cities were built near monasteries and cathedrals. Cities often provide protection in a precarious world. During attacks, the rural populace could flee behind city walls, where defense forces assembled to repel the enemy. The wall served this purpose for millennia, until the invention of heavy artillery rendered walls useless in warfare. With the advent of modern aerial warfare, cities have become prime targets for destruction rather than safe havens. Cities serve as centers of government. In particular, the emergence of the great nation-states of Europe between 1400 and 1800 led to the creation of new capital cities or the investing of existing cities with expanded governmental functions.

Cities, with their concentration of talent, mixture of peoples, and

The city of Madurai developed around the Meenakshi Amman Temple

EVOLUTION OF URBAN FORM

The first true urban settlements appeared around 3,000 B.C. in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley. Ancient cities displayed both "organic" and "planned" types of urban form. These societies had elaborate religious, political, and military hierarchies. Precincts devoted to the activities of the elite were often highly planned and regular in form. In contrast, residential areas often grew by a slow process of accretion, producing complex, irregular patterns that we term "organic." Two typical features of the ancient city are the wall and the citadel: the wall for defense in regions periodically swept by conquering armies, and the citadel -- a large, elevated precinct within the city -- devoted to religious and state functions. Greek cities did not follow a single pattern. Cities growing slowly from old villages often had an irregular, organic form, adapting gradually to the accidents of topography and history. Colonial cities, however, were planned prior to settlement using the grid system. The grid is easy to lay out, easy to comprehend, and divides urban land into uniform rectangular lots suitable for development.

ANCIENT CIVILIZATI ONS

MESOPTAMIA N CIVILIZATION

INDUS CIVILIZATIO N

THEE

THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATIO

EVOLUTION OF URBAN FORM

We usually associate medieval cities with narrow winding streets converging on a market square with a cathedral and city hall. Many cities of this period display this pattern, the product of thousands of incremental additions to the urban fabric. However, new towns seeded throughout undeveloped regions of Europe were based upon the familiar grid. In either case, large encircling walls were built for defense against marauding armies; new walls enclosing more land were built as the city expanded and outgrew its former container. During the Renaissance, architects began to systematically study the shaping of urban space, as though the city itself were a piece of architecture that could be given an aesthetically pleasing and functional order. Many of the great public spaces of Rome and other Italian cities date from this era. Parts of old cities were rebuilt to create elegant squares, long street vistas, and symmetrical building arrangements. Responding to advances in firearms during the

A SKETCH OF MEDIEVAL ROME WITH THE CO,LOSSEUM AT THE CENTRE

MAP OF MEDIEVAL ROME

A SIMULATION OF THE MEDIEVAL MARKET PLACE IN

EVOLUTION OF URBAN FORM

We associate the baroque city with the emergence of great nation-states between 1600 and 1750. Ambitious monarchs constructed new palaces, courts, and bureaucratic offices. The grand scale was sought in urban public spaces: long avenues, radial street networks, monumental squares, geometric parks and gardens. Versailles is a clear expression of this citybuilding model; Washington, D.C. is an example from the United States. Baroque principles of urban design were used by Baron Haussmann in his celebrated restructuring of Paris between 1853 and 1870. Haussmann carved broad new thoroughfares through the tangled web of old Parisian streets, linking major subcenters of the city with one another in a pattern which has served as a model for many other modernization plans.

Toward the latter half of the eighteenth century, particularly in America, the city as a setting for commerce assumed primacy. The buildings of the bourgeoisie expand along with their owners' prosperity: banks, office buildings, warehouses, hotels, and small factories. New towns founded during this period were conceived as commercial enterprises, and the

BAROQ

TRANSITION TO THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

Cities have changed more since the Industrial Revolution than in all the previous centuries of their existence. New York had a population of about 313,000 in 1840 but had reached 4,767,000 in 1910. Chicago exploded from 4.000 to 2,185,000 during the same period. Millions of rural dwellers no longer needed on farms flocked to the cities, where new factories churned out products for the new markets made accessible by railroads and steamships. In the United States, millions of immigrants from Europe swelled the urban populations. Increasingly, urban economies were being woven more rightly into the national and international economies. Technological innovations poured forth, many with profound impacts on urban form. Railroad tracks were driven into the heart of the city. Internal rail transportation systems greatly expanded the radius of urban settlement: horsecars beginning in the 1830s, cable cars in the 1870s, and electric trolleys in the 1880s. In the 1880s, the first central power plants began providing electrical power to urban areas. The rapid communication provided by the telegraph and the telephone allowed formerly concentrated urban activities to disperse across a wider field.

The industrial city still focused on the city center, which contained both the central

Early American factories were located outside of major cities along rivers which provided water power for machinery. After steam power became widely available in the 1930s, factories could be located within the city in proximity to port facilities, rail lines, and the urban labor force. Large manufacturing zones emerged within the major northeastern and midwestern cities such as Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Cleveland. But by the late nineteenth century, factory decentralization had already begun, as manufacturers sought larger parcels of land away from the congestion of the city. Gary, Indiana, for example, was founded in 1906 on the southern shore of Lake Michigan by the United States Steel Company. The increasing crowding, pollution, and disease in the central city produced a growing desire to escape to a healthier environment in the suburbs. The upper classes had always been able to retreat to homes in the countryside. Beginning in the 1830s, commuter railroads enabled the upper middle class to commute in to the city center. Horsecar lines were built in many cities between the 1830s and 1880s, allowing the middle class to move out from the central cities into more spacious suburbs. Finally, during the 1890s electric trolleys and elevated rapid transit lines proliferated, providing cheap urban transportation for the majority of the population. The central business district of the city underwent a radical transformation with the development of the skyscraper between 1870 and 1900. These tall buildings were not technically feasible until the invention of the elevator and steel-frame construction methods. Skyscrapers reflect the dynamics of the

PITTSBUR GH CLEVELA

DETROIT

FEATURES OF ANCIENT HINDU TOWNS

Ancient cities of India possess well planned streets, art of pottery, drainage ditches, bulky granaries, and large bath sources for ritual cleansing Constructed on a raised platform, most major buildings were made from brick

There existed small two room structures to enormous two storied houses with courtyards
Ancient Indian cities belong to the Bronze age beginning from 3300 BCE

The most intriguing facts about the ancient Indian cities is that they have remained the same with slight dash of contemporaneity
Modern Indian cities have verily grown upon the ruins of the ancient cities in India

FEATURES OF ANCIENT HINDU TOWNS

HARAPPAN

CITIES

THE HARAPPAN CITIES: A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture is evident in the Indus Valley Civilization making them the first urban centers in the region. The quality of municipal town planning suggests the knowledge of urban planning and efficient municipal governments which placed a high priority on hygiene, and accessibility to the means of religious ritual. As seen in Harappa and Mohenjo-daro this urban plan included the world's first known urban sanitation systems. Within the city, individual homes or groups of homes obtained water from wells. From a room that appears to have been set aside for bathing, waste water was directed to covered drains, which lined the major streets. Houses opened only to inner courtyards and smaller lanes. The ancient Indus systems of sewerage and drainage that were developed and used in cities throughout the Indus region were far more advanced than

A HARAPPAN TOWN

CITY OF

FEATURES OF ANCIENT HINDU TOWNS

HARAPPAN

CITIES

The advanced architecture of the Harappans is shown by their impressive dockyards, granaries, warehouses, brick platforms, and protective walls. The massive walls of Indus cities most likely protected the Harappans from floods and may have dissuaded military conflicts. Most city dwellers were traders or artisans, who lived with others pursuing the same occupation in well-defined neighborhoods. Materials from distant regions were used in the cities for constructing seals, beads and other objects. Although some houses were larger than others, Indus Civilization cities were remarkable for their apparent, if relative, egalitarianism. All the houses had access to water and drainage facilities. This gives the impression of a society with relatively low wealth concentration, though clear social leveling is seen in personal adornments.

FEATURES OF ANCIENT HINDU TOWNS

- AYODHYA

Ayodhya is an ancient city of India, the old capital of Awadh, in the current Faizabad district of Uttar Pradesh Ayodhya is the birth place of Hindu God Shri Ram, and the capital of Kosala Kingdom. This Hindu holy city is described as early as in the Hindu Epics. During the time of Gautama Buddha the city was called Ayojjh (Pali). Under Muslim rule, it was the seat of the governor of Awadh, and later during the British Raj the city was known as Ajodhya or Ajodhia and was part of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, it was also the seat of a small 'talukdari' state. It is on the right bank of the river Sarayu, 555 km east of New Delhi The ancient city of Ayodhya was one of the most ancient, largest and most magnificent of Indian cities and the holiest of the world It was the venue of many an event in Hindu history, today preeminently a temple town. This city was also a significant trade center in 600 BC Ayodhya during ancient times was known as Kosaldesa. The Atharvaveda describes it as "a city built by Gods and being as prosperous as paradise itself".

FEATURES OF INDO ISLAMIC CITIES

The Mughal cities:

Agra Delhi Fatehpur Sikri Lahore The city of red sandstone buildings Fatehpur Sikri is said to be the look- alike of the mosque in Mecca It was planned as the cultural, commercial and administrative center of the Mughal empire The city is built completely using red sandstone and is a blend of Islamic and Hindu architectural elements The sandstone is richly ornamented with carving and fretwork

Planning of Fatehpur Sikri:

Naubata Khana: It is located at the entry point to the city and the road

FEATURES OF INDO ISLAMIC CITIES -

FATEHPUR

SIKRI
Imperial complex:

The treasury, the offices, Daulat Khana, The haram sara or Ladies palace Well connected and highly planned complex

FEATURES OF INDO ISLAMIC CITIES -

FATEHPUR

SIKRI
Diwan-I-Am:

Palace where ruler meets general public Typical feature of all Mughal palaces One end of court is an elevated pavilion

Daulat Khana:

Comprises the Diwan-i-Khaas, the Khwabgah, the Anup Talao, the Turkish Sultanas pavilion and other minor structures

BRITISH COLONIAL CITIES

A number of new towns and new suburbs were built to house the British, and the pattern of new town planning changed. India was still divided into administrative districts as under the Mughals, and the towns which functioned as district headquarters were the ones where most of the new architecture was built.

The planning and urban design policies of the British followed certain principles (a) their perceptions of the nature of the Indian city, (b) the fear of further revolts along the lines of the Mutiny of 1857, (c) Haussmanns plan for Paris which had become so popular in Europe and which advocated cutting through and demolishing old city centers to make space for new construction and boulevards, and (d) planning techniques already in use for Britains industrial cities

BRITISH COLONIAL CITIES

The economic boom of the later half of the 19th century translated into frenetic building activity in British India The application of urban design guidelines resulted in the unified character that old British settlements in India still possess

As pressure on space grew, British architecture progressed from single buildings set in open surrounding to more densely packed urban schemes, as in the cities of Calcutta and Bombay
In addition to major urban design schemes, it was the civil lines and the cantonments which remain today a major evidence of 19th century British presence, and which in turn have influenced much middle-class housing development in modern India

The cantonments and civil lines both were generally

KABUL CANTONMENT
The Cantonment was a British military settlement which was to spread out all over India wherever the British were present in sizable numbers

BRITISH COLONIAL CITIES

Originally conceived as a military base for British troops, the cantonment also began to house civilians who were associated with servicing the military, and developed into a full-fledged mini-city of its own The second half of the 19th century saw this transformation complete. Bangalore cantonment had, for example, a population of 100,000 by the early 20th century and consisted of public offices, churches, parks, shops and schools The cantonment thus developed into a European town in India, whose main house type was the bungalow.

The bungalows design evolved as a type over a hundred years. While the actual model for a bungalow remains controversial, it appears to have dual origins: the detached rural Bengal house sitting in its compound (from the word root bangla from Bengal), and the British suburban villa. It was a fusion of these two types that led to a building form which would later

BRITISH COLONIAL CITIES

The first bungalows inhabited by the East India Company agents were initially the same as the kutcha local ones, but gradually outstripped their origins to become an accurate reflection of hierarchy amongst the English community The typical residential bungalow for the wealthy, for example, was set back from the road by a walled compound

The amount of land enclosed was a symbol of status. For a senior officer a ratio of 15:1, garden to built form, was appropriate, while for a beginning rank it could even be 1:1
The early bungalows had long, low classical lines and detailing. The Gothic revival in England brought about a corresponding change in bungalow design spawning buildings with pitched roofs and richly carpentered details including such features as the monkey tops of Bangalore The Classical bungalow with its Doric, and later, in New Delhi for instance, Tuscan orders became a symbol not only of an European

BRITISH COLONIAL CITIES

The classic Bungalow British Sub urban villa

CIVIL LINES, DELHI

The Civil Lines, Delhi is a subdivision of North Delhi District in the National Capital Territory of Delhi, India and a noted Civil lines residential area in Delhi. It is one of the 12 zones under the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) It was the hub of European-style hotels in the city until New Delhi came into being in 1911

The name Civil Lines is a relic of British Raj times, when the city of Delhi was organized into separate areas where the British Military and Civilian buildings were located
Areas where civilians lived were demarcated as Civil Lines

One of the earliest modern hotels in Delhi was the Maisens Hotel, Delhi, later Oberoi Maidens, built 1903. It was situated in the Civil Lines, where all European style hotel were situated and the officers of British Raj stayed. Other hotels in the area were Swiss Hotel and Hotel Cecil, run by Robert Hotz family, which also owned Wildflower Hall and Cecil Hotel in Shimla. Hotel Cecil was later demolished

CIVIL LINES, DELHI

Civil Lines is connected to Delhi University North Campus It is now a developing district. It includes areas like: 1. Court Road 2. Rajpur Road 3. Sham Nath Marg (erstwhile Alipur Road) 4. Under Hill Road 5. Under Hill Lane 6. Police Lines 7. Shankracharya Marg 8. Raj Narain Road 9. Maharaja Lal Lane 10. Jamna Marg 11. Raj Niwas Road 12. Shri Ram Road 13. Flagstaff Road 14. Racquet Court Road 15. Ram Kishore Road

RAILWAY TOWNS
A railway town, or railroad town, is a settlement that originated or was greatly developed because of a railway station or junction at its site. Middlesbrough was the first new town to be developed due to the railways, growing from a hamlet of 40 into an industrial port after the Stockton and Darlington Railway was extended in 1830. How they developed: In some cases, a railroad town would be started by the railroad, often using a separate town or land company, even when another town already existed nearby. The population of the existing town would shift to the railroad town. This would create a major new settlement in this area, often before the railroad ever arrived at the new townsite. Indian Examples: 1. Kharagpur, West Bengal 2. Arrakoram, Tamil Nadu

S.SWETHA 10031AA059 NEHA DIGGIKAR 10031AA052 SUMATHI MOUNIKA