URBAN DESIGN

THE BEGINNINGS
SETTLEMENT DESIGN
Agricultural Societies
Rectilinear Plotting
LAYOUT
Grid (or Rectilinear) product of the farmer
Circular (Fencing) product of the herdsman
-- defensive role
Radiocentric when circular settlements enlarge
-- fortress cities (i.e. Paris)

ANCIENT GREECE THE ACROPOLIS

THE AGORA
LANDSCAPE powerfully assertive GREEK TOWNS
HIGH PLACES fortified hilltop
-- sacred precinct
TOWN DESIGN = SENSE OF THE FINITE
-- Aristotles ideal size of city = 10,000 20,000 people
-- never attempted to overwhelm nature
-- buildings give a sense of human measure to landscape
THE STREET not a principal element but as a leftover space for circulation
PLACE OF ASSEMBLY market (agora)

ANCIENT ROME THE REPUBLICAN FORUM

THE IMPERIAL FORUM
URBAN DESIGN Greek: sense of the finite
Romans: political power and organization
USE OF SCALE Greek use of scale is based on human measurements
-- Romans used proportions that would
relate parts of building instead of human measure
MODULE Greek use of house as module for town planning
-- Roman use of street pattern as module
-- to achieve a sense of overpowering grandeur
-- made for military government
THE STREET Greeks: as a leftover space for circulation
-- Romans: street are built first; buildings came later
PLACE OF ASSEMBLY Greeks: market (agora)
-- Romans: market, theater, and arena
MEDIEVAL ERA PIAZZA DEL CAMPO, SIENA

DECLINE OF ROME Dark Ages, but not for urban design

URBAN SETTINGS Military strongholds, castles, monasteries, towns
MILITARY STRONGHOLDS Acropolis and Capitoline Hill
CASTLES built atop hills, enclosed by circular walls; radiocentric growth
MONASTERIES citadels of learning, laid out in rectilinear pattern
MEDIEVAL TOWNS
-- like Greek towns, small and finite in size
-- lacks geometry
-- became parts of larger territorial states
-- growth and population created the need for marketplaces

MEDIEVAL ERA TOWN DESIGN

VISIBLE EXTERIORS suit the viewing conditions of small spaces
VISTA considerations and HUMAN SCALE fine accents in landscape
STREET LAYOUT is functional, although with no logical form
MEDIEVAL ERA sets the stage for RENAISSANCE
-- skill of builders
-- wealth of bourgeoisie and nobility
-- organization of the military and new force in gunpowder
-- development of political powers and expertise
-- new organizations
-- scholarly knowledge of the church
3 MAJOR EVENTS MARKING TRANSITION FROM MEDIEVAL TIMES
-- Dawn of science
-- Fall of Constantinople
-- Discovery of the New World

FROM MEDIEVAL ERA TO RENAISSANCE ERA

MEDIEVAL URBAN DESIGN were to be discarded
-- sense of scale
-- intimate relation between house and street
MEDIEVAL SYSTEM OF TOWN DESIGN
-- truly livable; humanist basis
RENAISSANCE SYSTEM OF TOWN DESIGN
-- the role of the individual as builder of his town was lost
RENAISSANCE EARLY DEVELOPMENTS
IDEAL CITIES
-- 1440 (beginning of Renaissance)
-- Leon Battista Alberti foremost theoretician
-- Albertis De Architectura treats architecture and town design
as single theme (just like Vitruvius)
ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF EARLY RENAISSANCE
-- Public Works
-- Civic improvement projects
REBUILDING FERRARA
-- Palazzo Diamenti most famous structure
-- Biaggio Rossetti architect and town planner regarded as
one of the worlds earliest modern urban designers
-- Rossettis plan:
1. Street widening, new buildings, wall improvement
2. Enlarge the town
3. Carry on with the plan
LESSONS FROM ROSSETTIS EFFORT
-- Repair an existing city
-- Plan for enlargement
-- Decide which to concentrate effort
-- Lay down a plan that is logical and realizable
-- Provide framework for others to build upon

Ferrara is the first MODERN city in Europe

Jacob Burckhardt, 1860

RENAISSANCE LEONARDO DA VINCI

SKETCHED A CITY STRADDLING A RIVER
RIVER STREAMS supply water and carry away waste
MULTILEVELS for multiple functions
PROPOSED MOVABLE HOUSES anticipated the greenbelt concept
SATELLITE TOWNS for workers
LESSONS: Growth or functional improvement is not necessarily an advantage
POPES IN ROME the real say in urban design at that time
RENAISSANCE REBUILDING ROME
PROBLEMS: Circulation, defense, water supply, sanitation
SOLUTION: Popes have to undertake civic improvement projects
PILGRIMAGE St. Peters Cathedral improved
Campidoglio (Romes city hall) improved
DOMENICO FONTANA architect commissioned by Pope Sixtus V
FONTANAS PLAN streets were visually accented using OBELISKS
OBELISKS - as stakes, as GUIDEPOSTS for the whole city
- as SCALE REFERENCE POINTS for successive designers
DESIGN PRINCIPLE architecture of ancient Rome
-- new design of early Renaissance

RENAISSANCE BUILDING GROUPS

ST. PETERS CATHEDRAL Bramante
TEMPIETTO miniature version of St. Peters Cathedral
CARLO FONTANA basilica inside the Colosseum
BORROWED DESIGN Renaissance from Medieval, Romans from Greeks
ANDREA PALLADIO developed precise theories of proportion and module
PALLADIOS PROTOTYPES - Roman country villa (rural)
- Roman Forum (urban)
PALLADIAN INFLUENCES George Washington and Thomas Jefferson
FOUR BOOKS OF ARCHITECTURE
examples of plazas (the modern forum)
COLOSSAL or GIGANTIC ORDER Palladios San Giorgio Maggiore

RENAISSANCE THE CAMPIDOGLIO

One of MICHELANGELOs finest works
Seen at a distance as a whole composition
EQUESTRIAN STATUE of Marcus Aurelius
-- Serves as Centerpiece or Guidepost
ENTRANCE RAMPS widen toward the top
-- perspective effect and stairs appear shorter
-- similarly, SIDE BUILDINGS are not parallel
Significance of a REMODELLING JOB
RENAISSANCE URBAN PLAZAS: FRANCE & ENGLAND
JACQUES ANDROUET DU CERCEAU
-- French architect who visited Rome
-- Brought plaza idea to Paris, France
INIGO JONES English architect, brought the Renaissance plaza to London
-- Bedford Square started in 1631
-- Covent Garden modeled after Livorno
OTHER PLAZAS IN LONDON
-- Leicester Square started in 1635
-- Bloomsbury Square 1665
-- Six more plazas were built before 1700
RENAISSANCE PLAZA
one of the elements of urban design par excellence
-- but did not tie whole city together
-- Rossettis Ferrara (street system); Fontanas Rome (guidepost system)

RENAISSANCE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

PARKS and GARDENS tie the city together
-- connecting the palace and the town
VILLA & GARDEN
rural counterpart of PALACE & PLAZA
ITALY gardens are never too large
-- built as TERRACES because of hilly land
FRANCE elaborate system of landscape design
-- roots from large HUNTING FORESTS
-- ROND POINTS high ground intersections
RICHELIEU application of rond points idea
-- 1630, landscape design of palace started
-- Jacques Lemercier architect
ANDRE LENOTRE -- landscape architect of Richelieu
-- Western worlds master of landscape architecture

RENAISSANCE FRENCH, ENGLISH & ITALIAN LANDSCAPE

FRENCH Regarded natural landscape as barbaric
-- Man-made, preferably geometric creations
-- PHILOSOPHY absolute command of nature
ENGLISH -- Characterized by an attitude of sympathy with nature
-- PHILOSOPHY practice of taming nature
ITALIAN Terraced garden is best model of gardening in limited space
RENAISSANCE LENOTRE AND VERSAILLES
LENOTRES MAJOR CLIENT Louis XIV, the Sun King of France
VERSAILLES Lenotres greatest work, Started in 1670, completed by 1710
-- Goose Foot/ patte doie -- three roads in a single view
PIAZZA DEL POPOLO patte doie entrance to Rome
-- appeared accidentally as result of Fontanas plan
-- not formally finished until early 19 th century, by a French architect, incidentally

RENAISSANCE REBUILDING LONDON

GREAT PLAGUE 1666 GREAT FIRE OF LONDON 1667
SEVERAL DESIGNERS PROPOSED PLANS
-- Christopher Wren -- Robert Hooke -- John Evelyn -- Valentine Knight
1707-1709 laws banning use of combustible matls, led to extensive use of bricks
JOHN GWYNN produced plan for London 1766 London & Westminster Improved
-- heralded the Golden Age of building
GOLDEN AGE encompassed a 30-year period
-- ADELPHI TERRACE-- work of the Adam brothers; built along the River Thames
-- BATH created by architects John Wood, Sr. and Jr.
-- 1702, discovered by the aristocrac -- 1727, rectangular plaza (Queens Square)
-- 1754, great circle (Kings Circus) -- 1767, Royal Crescent
-- EDINBURGH 1767, Scottish architect James Craig
END OF LONDON PLAZA ERA coming of industrial era
RENAISSANCE DEVELOPMENTS IN PARIS
REBUILDING OF THE LOUVRE 1667, Lorenzo Berninis designs rejected
-- Claude Perrault a court physician
-- Viewing conditions same as Palladios San Giorgio Maggiore
and Michelangelos Campidoglio
BEAULEVARDcity is enlarged, old walls torn, creating broad, long streets
-- term derived from Dutch word bulwark
1748 proposals for new plazas
-- Place de la Concorde 1757, finished by 1770
1789 French Revolution
1793 new plan for Paris called Plan des Artistes
-- 1748, emphasis on plaza 1793, emphasis on street
NAPOLEON I Champs Elysees improvement -- Arch of Triumph
NAPOLEON III assigned Baron Georges Eugene Haussmann
-- Jean Charles Adolphe Alphand, landscape architect
MODERN CONCEPTS IDEAL TOWNS & WORKER TOWNS
CLAUDE NICOLAS LEDOUX French architect
-- late 18th and early 19th century, a new era in urban design
-- CHAUX, France (1776) principal work
LEDOUXS DESIGN an ideal plan where everything is motivated by necessity
Architecture Ledouxs book published in 1804
ROBERT OWEN English social reformer
-- NEW LANARK, Scotland (1799)
OWENITE COMMUNITIES England and United States
New Harmony in Indiana, by Owens son
Brook Farm in Massachusetts by New England transcendentalists
Icarus in Red River, Texas, by Frenchman named Cabet
Icarus failed, Cabet joined theMormons in search for the
promised land and helped lay out Salt Lake City
FRANCOIS FOURIER French social reformer -- Phalanstery
-- The New World of Industry and Society published in 1829
JAMES SILK BUCKINGHAM Victoria
-- National Evils and Practical Remedies published in 1849
ROBERT PEMBERTON Happy Colony in New Zealand
DR. BENJAMIN RICHARDSON Hygeia in United States
THOMAS JEFFERSON Jeffersonville
MODERN CONCEPTS PLANNED INDUSTRIAL TOWNS
FRANCIS CABOT LOWELL Georgiaville, RA (1812)
-- Waltham, Massachusetts -- Harrisville, NH (1816) -- Lowell, Massachusetss (1822)
OLIVE French architect, anticipated the 20th c. Garden City
Vesinet, France (1859)
OTHER INDUSTRIAL TOWNS
Essen, Germany (1863), Krupp factories called Siedlungen (worker colonies)
-- Pullman, Illinois (1879)
-- Port Sunlight near Liverpool (1887) W.H. Lever Soap Company
-- Bournville near Birmingham (1889) Cadbury Chocolate Company
-- Gary, Indiana (1906), laid out by a steel corporation, a made to order city
TONY GARNIER French architect, anticipated modern day zoning
-- Une Cite Industrielle (1901-04)
-- Plan is incredibly detailed
-- imaginary site (high plateau and level valley along a river)
-- residential on plateaufactories on valley
-- dam for hydroelectric power
-- hospital on high hill
-- smelting factories and mines at respectful distances
-- locations for sewage plant, abattoir, bakery, and civic center
-- testing grounds for cars and even airplanes!
MODERN CONCEPTS URBAN DESIGN AND MACHINES
DON ARTURO SORIA Y MATA Spanish businessman and engineer
-- created Madrids 1st streetcar and telephone system
-- La Ciudad Lineal Linear City
-- Stalingrad planned linear city
INVENTIONS INFLUENCING URBAN FORM
Electricity Peter Kropotkin (1899)
-- Railroad
OTHER VISIONARIES
Edgar Chambless, American vehicles running on rooftops
-- Motopia proposed in England
-- Eugene Henard, French, published Les Villes de lAvenir (1910)
may have influenced Le Corbusier
ANTONIO SANTELIA Italian futurist
-- La Citta Nuova enormous metropolis
-- inspired by the complex plans for the New York Grand Central area
METABOLISM GROUP Japanese architects
-- underwater cities, biological cities,cities changing their own forms,
cities built as pyramids
OTHER VISIONARIES
Edward Bellamy, published in 1887 Looking Backward, 2000-1887
-- H.G. Wells (1902-1911)

MODERN CONCEPTS RENEWED ATTITUDE TOWARD

NATURE
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES
not necessarily a sign of progress
CHIEF SPOKESMEN
- Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (French)
- John Ruskin (English)
- Henry David Thoreau (American)
ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT
- Led by William Morris, return to simpler
Christian virtues of the Gothic period
- Norman Shaw, created Bedford Park (1875-81)
GOTHIC REVIVAL IN 19TH CENTURY
Gothic period was the last original architectural era
- Frank Lloyd Wright
THE CONSERVATIONISTS AND THE PARK MOVEMENT
GEORGE PERKINS MARSH American conservationist
-- the founder of modern conservation
-- Man and Nature published in 1862, an introduction to ecology
FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED pioneer of the American park system
-- also a social reformer, concerned w/ moral disintegration in large formless cities
-- also a farmer, landscape design as olution to social ills (i.e urban park)
-- Central Park of New York City won in 1859
-- San Francisco, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, Montreal, Boston
-- Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns published in 1870
-- Cities planned for two generations ahead
-- maintain sufficient breathing space
-- design embraces the whole city
CHARLES ELIOT completed Olmsteds Boston park system
GEORGE KESSLER -- layout of Kansas City park system
JENS JENSEN -- designed Chicagos original park system
ALPHAND -- Haussmanns landscape architect
-- the French Olmsted
DANIEL SCHREBER -- a physician and educator
-- Schrebergarten small gardens for children; later, used by elderly
-- popularized the idea of the urban playground in Europe
EXPLORATIONS INTO THE PAST
ARCHAEOLOGY became a science in 19th century
CAMILLO SITTE, Viennese architect
-- An Architects Notes and Reflections upon Artistic City Planning
published in 1889

THE GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT

EBENEZER HOWARD An English stenographer
-- Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Social Reform published in 1898
-- Proponent of the Garden City concept
LETCHWORTH the first garden city (1902), located 35 miles from London
-- architects Barry Parker and Raymund Unwin
-- became a satellite of London because factories did not materialize
WELWYN -- the second garden city (1920), more successful than Letchworth
-- architect Louis de Soissons
THE SCIENTIFIC APPROACH
HOWARDS ANALYTICAL APPROACH city so large & operations so complex
-- Proper understanding can only be gained by full application of precise analysis
PATRICK GEDDES Scottish city planner. established tool for analytical approach
-- Cities in Evolution published in 1915 -- coined the term connurbation
-- laid out some 50 cities in India and Palestine
MARSH -- interrelationship between MAN and NATURE
GEDDES -- interrelationship between PEOPLE and CITIES
CONNURBATION - the waves of population inflow to large cities, followed
by overcrowding and slum formation, and then the wave of backflow

THE CITY BEAUTIFUL MOVEMENT

GOLDEN AGE OF URBAN DESIGN
From 1890 to the Great Depression (1930s), termed the City Beautiful Era
WORLDS FAIRS
as works of civic art -- application of latest technologies; faade architecture;
promise of America come to life
-- as urban renewal operations-- Jackson Park Chicago Worlds Fair,
San Francisco Marina, Treasure Island, SF
McMILLAN COMMISSION
-- AIA natl conference in Washington D.C. (1901)
-- Daniel Burnham, Augustus St. Gaudens, and Frederick Law Olmsted among present
-- plan for improvement of central Washington -- reviving the original LEnfant plan
CIVIC CENTERS
city hall, county court house, library, museum, opera house, and a plaza
PUBLIC WORKS BRIDGES, designed as pieces of sculpture
-- RIVERS, made into classical garden terraces
-- COLLEGES and UNIVERSITIES, as visions of classical world
-- RAILROADS, built Roman basilicas and baths
CITY AS A WHOLE -- Daniel Burnham father of American city planning
-- plans for Chicago, San Francisco, Manila, etc.
-- Make no little plans they have no power to stir mens blood
-- last use of French Renaissance principlesapplied at the largest scale possible
PLANNED RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITIES
Roland Park, Baltimore (1892): start of commuter suburb
-- Country Club, Kansas City
-- Forest Hills Garden, L.I., New York: commuter suburb for Manhattan (1911)
MANY DEVELOPMENTS
American city planning profession -- Zoning introduced in 1916
-- Many lessons from abroaD -- England and garden city movement
-- English architect-planners lectured in US-- English books in city planning
SUMMARY: CITY BEAUTIFUL ERA--CIVIC CENTER and COMMUTER SUBURB
THE NEW COMMUNITIES MOVEMENT
PROPONENTS Henry Wright Rehousing Urban America (1934)
-- Clarence Stein Towards New Towns for America (1951)
SUPERBLOCK CONCEPT Answer to problem of through traffic
-- Island of green, bordered by houses and skirted by peripheral automobile roads
-- Best examples -- Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles; Chatham Village, Pittsburgh
-- Community-level development
RADBURN, NJ Series of superblocks, not completed due to Depression
-- One of the most important designs conceived for the modern residential community
RADBURN IDEA Organization of town into cohesive neighborhoods
-- Clarence A. Perry -The Neighborhood Unit published in 1929; Community planning
TOWN COLONIZATION CONCEPT -- G. R. Taylor
-- Metropolitan growth through colonization, Reinforces Ebenezer Howards belief
-- Satellite Cities, A Study of Industrial Suburbs (1915)
-- The Building of Satellite Towns (1925)
REGIONAL PLANNING
ROOTS OF REGIONAL OUTLOOK Howard & Taylor: satellite colonization
-- Radburn demonstrated satellite colonization
-- Marsh and Geddes laid the groundwork
-- Henry Wright and Benton MacKaye: championed the regional outlook
HENRY WRIGHT AND PLAN OF NEW YORK
Worked under commission by Clarence Stein
Report of the Commission on Housing and
Regional Planning for the State of New York
-- Development of New York
-- Small trade centers for an agriculture society
-- Decline due to cheaper Midwestern farms
-- Industrialization took hold
-- Hudson and Mohawk valleys became spine
-- New York City became the financial heart
and core for a constellation of communities
-- Wrights plan one of finest models of regional planning
-- not officially adopted, but recommendations realized
-- led to formation of RPAA
REGIONAL PLANNING ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK
22 counties, 500 municipal districts, 10 million people, NY state, NJ and Conn.
-- Thomas Adams Scottish planner
2-volume plan produced in 1928 most complete plan study ever done
BENTON MACKAYE Originally, a forester
-- The New Exploration, A Philosophy of Regional Planning published in 1928
-- Envisioned the townless highway and highwayless towns
-- Showed NY City as the entry and exit portal for the entire US industrial empire
-- New Exploration the exploration of the wilderness and conservation had
to be expanded to include cities
ACHIEVEMENTS IN EUROPE
ENGLISH NEW TOWN MOVEMENT
Sir Anthony Barlow headed commission
The Report of Royal Commission of Distribution of Industrial Population (1940)
-- Sir Patrick Abercrombie and J.H. Forshaw
The County of London Plan (1943)
-- New Towns Plan of Hook; Plan of Cumbernauld
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
Londons Barbican area
-- Garden cities in France
-- Dourges 1st garden city in France (1919)
-- Longueau, Tergnier, Lille-le-Deliverance
-- Berlin, Germany Martin Machler
-- Baku in Russia
-- West Kungsholmen, Stockholm
-- Tapiola, Helsinki in Finland
-- Amsterdam South, Amsterdam in Holland
-- Other countries Italy, Switzerland, Israel

ARCHITECTS IN URBAN PLANNING

ELIEL SAARINEN Prize-winning plan for Helsinki in 1911
-- Teaching of architecture and urban planning
-- The City published in 1943
WALTER GROPIUS Took same approach to architecture & urban planning
RICHARD NEUTRA Rush City Reformed
LE CORBUSIER -- Fused ideas of modern architecture and city form
-- Spokesman for the International Movement
-- Une Ville Contemporaine 1922, traceable to Henards and Garniers ideas
-- Plan Voisin (Neighborhood Plan) 1925; La Ville Radieuse 1935
-- Le Plan de Paris 1937 When Cathedrals Were White 1947
-- Chandigarh, India designed the entire city
-- Concerning Town Planning 1948
-- Lewis Mumford critical of Le Corbusier
-- Helped organize the Congres International dArchitecture Moderne (CIAM
-- Conceived the CIAM grid graphic file system for recording pertinent
information in an urban study and for explaining a plan
-- CIAM grid four component sections: work, residence, circulation, leisure
MARS Group The English CIAM organization
-- Proposed a plan for rebuilding London -- Sixteen finger corridors all connected
by a major circulation spine and encircling circulation loop
ARCHITECTS IN URBAN PLANNING
LOUIS KAHN Made important designs for central Philadelphia
KENZO TANGE Plan for Tokyo
-- Circulation as determinant of urban form
-- New Tokyo over Tokyo Bay, hung on bridges
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
-- Followed Howard, Geddes and social reformers
-- The Disappearing City published in 1932
-- Broadacres every family on an acre of land
-- Marin County Civic Center north of SF, Calif.
-- Changed scheme Full Mile High Superskyscraper
CONSTANTINE DOXIADIS
Addressed the urban problem on a worldwide scale
-- Major designs are made for countries where economy and productive system
can be coordinated by policy and decree
-- Best work is in newly developing nations of Africa and Middle East
-- Architecture in Transition (1963) explains Doxiadiss total view
-- Magazine Ekistics shows Dixiadiss many plans and programs
-- Ekistics grid system for recording planning data and ordering planning process
-- Town planning as a science which includes planning and design, and contribution
of sociologist, geographer, economist, politician, anthropologist, ecologist, etc.
-- EKISTICS the science of human settlements
CHARLES ABRAMS
Housing as one prime field of endeavor for solving urban problems
-- Mans Struggle for Shelter in an Urbanizing World (1964)
BUCKMINSTER FULLER
-- Inventory of World Resources Human Trends and Needs (1963)
LEWIS MUMFORD
-- Authored some twenty books and innumerable articles
-- The City in History published in 1961, summary of Mumfords thought