UNIT-I

URBANISM IN HISTORY

Outline of forces shaping urbanism. Urbanism of river valley civilizations. Morphology of pre-
industrial European cities to include Greek and Roman cities, medieval European towns,
Renaissance urbanism and ideal cities. Outline of historic cities of India. Temple town
urbanism of Tamil Nadu. Mughal city form. Medieval cities of India. Colonial urbanism in
India.
Evolution of Urbanism in India:
• Most of the early civilization have sprung on the banks of some navigable rivers or at any
natural port which not only provide security to the town but also acted as a communicating
link from one civilization to another.

• Physical Safety and communication links are the two prime factors which lead to the
development of towns.

• The earliest civilizations were seen on the banks of rivers like Nile, Ganga, Sindhu.

• Towns flourished since prehistoric times in India. Even at the time of Indus valley
civilization, towns like Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were in existence.

The second phase of urbanization began around 600 BC. It continued with periodic ups and
downs until the arrival of Europeans in India in 18th century.

Urban historians classify towns of India as:

• Ancient

• Vedic

• Medieval

• Pre-independence (colonial)

•Post-Independence

Ancient period:

• Ancient period is considered to be between 3000-5000 BC .

In this period, so many towns were created with some unique features.

• Development of towns taken place like

1. Indus valley civilization

2. Vedic towns

3. Buddhist towns is considered to be the ancient period

Indus valley civilization: (3000 B.C)

• It was located on the bank of river Indus(presently in Pakistan) and Ravi.

• In 1920, excavation was done by a British Archeologist in Indo-Gangatic region.

• He found that there is an old city/civilization and there was human settlement named
Mohenjo-Daro (which means Hill of Deads).

• It was covering an area of about 260 hectares with Harappa(on bed of river Ravi) now in
Pakistan; Kalibangan in Rajasthan; Lothal, Sukortada and Dholavira in Gujarat; Rakhigadhi
in Haryana, shows that it was developed around 4000-3000

Salient features of Indus Valley Civilization:

1. Street of 9m width divided the city in 12 blocks each of 365m x 244m.

2. Layout of street was based on ‘grid-iron’ pattern.

3. Series of houses were arranged around open-to-sky central court.

4. They dependent fully on ventilation and roof lighting.

5. Houses with G+1 storey made of kiln-brick with complete bathing establishment.

6. City had effective system of drainage.

7. It had a Great bath of 7m width, 12m length and 2.4m depth made of bricks at bottom and
was made waterproof by providing layers of bitumen and it formed to be part of ritualistic
bathing forming part of Hindu temple.

Materials:

• Lived in pits

• Molded mud bricks were used to line the dwellings

• Bricks were used to make square and rectangular houses

• Houses with G+1 storey made of kiln-brick

Streets:

• The streets were broad varying from 9 feet to 34 feet

• Lanes were joined with the streets

• Each lane had a public welt

• Street lamps were provided for welfare of public.

• Street of 9m width divided the city in 12 blocks each of 365m x244m.

 • Layout of street was based on ‘grid-iron’ pattern

Drainage System:
• The elaborate drainage system
• Each house had horizontal and vertical drains
• House drains emptied themselves into the main drains which ran under the
main streets and below many lanes
• There were underground drains for the streets
• These drains were covered by stone slabs
• The soak pits were made of bricks
• The house drains were connected with road drains

Great Bath:
• 7m width, 12m length and 2.4m depth
• Made of bricks at bottom and was made waterproof by providing layers of
bitumen and it formed to be part of ritualistic bathing forming part of Hindu
temple

Vedic Period

Vedic

Aryan Dravidian

Vishwakarma prakash(town planning)

“Shilpshastra” wrote by “Architect Mansara” discussed study on soil,
topography, climatology and various layouts like
• Dandaka
• Swastika
• Padmaka, Nandyavarta
• The main roads were aligned east-west to get the roads purified by air.
• Short roads were aligned in north-south direction. Roads running around the
village were preserved for priests
• Moats were all around the town to secure the town for outside forces

Town Planning
• Sthapatya Veda (part of Atharva Veda) - layout of a city
• Smriti Shastra - street layouts (micro & macro)
• Vaastu Shastra - treatises on architectural planning
• Arthashastra - environmental management
• Manasara Shilpa Shastra – Grama Vidhana & Nagara Vidhana
 • A traditional city designed according to the principles of sacred
geometry was based on cosmological theories. – Vaastu Purush
Mandala

Silpasasthras refers to four distinct categories of habitation settlements within the

forts and fortified cities;

• Janabhavanas : houses for common mass

• Rajbhavanas : palaces and gorgeous mansions for ruling class.
• Devabhavanas : religious shrines.
• The public buildings such as public rest house, public gardens, public
libraries, public tents, reservoirs, and wells
• Ancient town classification: according to shape and purpose
• Dandaka
• Nandyavarta
• Sarvatobhadra
• Swastika
• Prastara
• Padmaka
• Karmukha
• Chaturmukha

Dandaka:
• Literally means a phalanx or a staff.
• It is usually a rectangular or square.
• Its streets are straight and cross each other at right angles.
• No. of streets vary from one to five running parallel to each other.
• Town offices and panchyats are located in the eastern portion of the
town.
• This type of town is considered auspicious for Brahmins
• 300 Brahmin families.
Swastika :
o Based on mystic figure swastika.
o There are two streets passing through center.
o Traversing streets are planted in clock wise direction.
o Ramparts defend the village and a ditch is to enclose these rampart

Nandyavarta:
• It may be square or Oblong
• It is divided in 4 main vitthis
• The town has four large streets along the sides.
 • Five or seven sets of such streets, with a row of houses on each side.
• The lanes which are traverse between the main roads should have no houses
• Vithis is a streets which is lined with houses.
• Small roads are at interval of six or seven rajjus ( 1 Rajju = 10 dandas = 60
feet).
• Usually streets are 3,4 or 5 dandas wide.

Madurai:

o The old city of Madurai is considered to be designed according to the

Rajdhani plan, described in Manasara, one of the Shilpasastra, and has
the fivefold concentric rectangular formation with Meenakshi-
Sundareshwara Temple at a very centre point.
o The city was a well planned one with bazaars and many broad streets with
high and luxurious mansions on both sides.
o The city was built around the temple complex as the focal point with a
combination of a concentric street pattern
o The streets concentric to the temple complex formed the major streets viz.,
Chithirai Streets, Avani Moola Streets and Masi Streets.
 o The next order of streets is perpendicular to the above streets and lead to
the temple entrances.
o The developments within and beyond these streets are on an irregular
pattern
o A definite hierarchy of street pattern was adopted with the width of the
Streets decreasing as they branched out, ending up in stone paved streets
and lanes the width of some being just 0.60 m.
o The entire city was enclosed within the fort walls and surrounded by a
moat.
o The fort walls have been razed down and the moat filled up to form the
present day Veli Streets.
o Settlement pattern-
o Caste and occupational hierarchies.
o Amman Temple is at the center
o Royal Palaces, Brahmins and Priests at the first concentric rectangle
o Traders, Kishatriyas and Vaishnavaites on the second rectangle
o Lower caste Sudras and immigrants zoarashitrains in the third rectangle.

Sarvatobhadra- (Thanjavur)

• It is oblong or square and divided into interlineal chambers

• In center temple dedicated to Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva is located
• No. of car streets varies form one to five with a boulevard going around the
village
• Pavillions, Rest houses, colleges halls at several corners
• Town is secured by a wall and a ditch with four large gates on the sides
and many gates at corners
• Hamlets for vaisyas and shudras should be allotted towards the south
• Drapers and weavers have their quarters in between west and the south
west
• Blacksmits are to be quartered between varuna and vayu and further
• opposite to them are fishermen and the butchers.
• Physicians are to assigned between Vayu and Soma.
• Huts of chandalas and outcastes in the further outer proximity
• Tanks and reservoirs should be constructed either in south or in the
intermediate quaters
Prastara –
• Space is divided into 4, 9, or 16 wards by a network of streets
• These streets vary from 6,7, 8, 9, or 11 dandas
• In wards roads are planted in chess board system
• But they are not divide in equal no of plots.
• Division was according to degree of rank or wealth of the person.
• The village is enclosed walls and ditches with four principal gates
on south and subsidiary ones in the corners
Padmaka :-

• Its Length and Breadth are made equal while the enclosing walls are circular
or it can be quadrangular, hexagonal, or octagonal.
• The divide edifice or council house should be at the center
• Round about this plot should be planted streets no. four to eight and they are
line with houses
• There should be gates in four cardinal directions

Karmukha :Poompuhar

• Its shape is semi circular or semi elliptical, like a bow.

• This type of plan is used at sea shore.
• Towns like Pattana, Kheta, or Khavarta are planned in this manner.
• Pattana has preponderance of viasyas.
• Kheta is generally inhabited by Traders and Laborers.
• It has two car streets and one principal streets.
• If bow faces west then one car streets runs from south to east and other from
north to east and principal street runs from west to east and other runs from
north to south.
• Houses range on both side of them.
• It may have desirable no. of gates

Cahturmukha: Srirangam

• It is square or oblong in shape lying east- west.

• There are four car streets on four sides.

• Two large streets crossing at right angles in the center dividing the whole site into
four blocks or wards.
• Four principal gates are raised placed on the terminus of two highways and no. of
supplementary gates at corner.

• Each ward is planted with four smaller roads crossed by same no. of them.

• The south eastern ward is alloted for Brahmins.

• South- western for ruling class.

• North- Eastern and North- western to traders.

• Sudras or artisians and labour class are relegated to the extreme borders

Buddhist period: (up to 320 AD)

• During the period of Emperor Chandragupta Maurya, Kautilya and Chanakya was
the chief minister who wrote the famous “Arthashastra”, a treatise of Town
Planning.

Features stated in it were:

1. Regulation of zoning depending on communities.

2. Highway (Rajamarga) to be parallel to the main cardinal direction.

3. Road were aligned in grid-iron form.

4. Rajmarga to be not less than 30 ft. or nearly 3 lanes of traffic.

• The excavation carried out at Patliputra, capital of Magadha (now in Bihar),
shows evidence of advance knowledge of planning.
• Taksha-sila and Nalanda, the renowned place for learning were formed in this
period. •
• Nalanda consist of three main essentials – stupas, temples & hotels for monks. It
had 300 halls for accommodating 10,000 pupils and libraries were nine-storeyed
high.

Medieval period: (350-1500 AD):

FEATURES OF INDIAN MEDIEVAL TOWN:

• No planned and systematic urban growth. Only fortress towns under the
patronage of chieftains and petty rulers could grow.

• Small urban centres was the ‘rule’, and only capitals were having busy life.

• All centres – ‘dasturs’ (districts) as well as ‘parganas’ (tehsils) beside capitals

in nature were also ‘garrison towns’ where armies were invariably stationed
for protection.

• Medieval towns were walled, encircled by an outside moat.

• Medieval town site was usually governed by physically significant terrain; it

was either on a hill flanked on the other side by a water body, or it was
guarded by a ring of mounds.

• Medieval town used to have its first nucleus often as a fortress of walled
property of a landlord, its internal roads being controlled to connect the market
place lying directly before the gate of the castle or place of worship.

• Urban centres of the medieval times were surrounded by agricultural land,

and farmers and labourers commonly were having their dwellings near or
outside the town limit.

• The areas within the walls of a town near its bound were occupied by artisan
castes engaged in handicrafts.
• Wealthy merchants were having their mansions around the market place in
the central area, while the administrative officials and high-ranked army
personnel’s’ residences were around the palace or the place of worship.

• The entire structure of a town was divided into socially hierarchical classes
controlled by the chieftain or bishop.

JAIPUR CITY

• The layout of the city of Jaipur wonderfully links the concept of a Shastric city
with the practicalities of the chosen site.

• Grid-iron pattern planning and its location was at the base of the hills

• According to this shastra the site should be divided into grids or mandalas
rangung from 2x 2 to 10 x 10.

• Gives prominence to the cardinal directions.

• Plan of jaipur is a grid of 3x3 with gridlines being the city’s main streets.

• The central axis of the town was laid from East to West between the gates of
the Sun(Suraj pol) and the moon(Chandpol)
• This was crossed by two roads at right angles dividing the town into nine
almost square, almost equally sized blocks, which were further sub divided by
lanes and alleys all at right angles.

• But by building the western boundary of the city right up to the hill’s southern
apex, it provided a continuous line of defense.

• The mandala could not be complete in the NW due to the presence of the
hills.

• On the other hand in the SE an extra square has been added that plugged the
gap between the city and the eastern hills.

• The town has around it a masonry wall, 25ft. high & 9ft. thick, with eight gates.

• The palace building covered two blocks, the town six and the remaining ninth
block was not usable on account of steep hills. So this North-West ward was
transferred to the South-East corner of the city, making the shape of the plan
as a whole asymmetrical rather than square.

• The city’s division into nine wards was also in conformity with the Hindu caste
system, which necessitated the segregation of people belonging to different
communities and ranks.

• Following the directions of the Hindu Shilpa shastra, width of the main streets
& other lanes were fixed. Thus the main streets of the city were 111ft. wide,
secondary streets 55 ft. wide & the smaller ones 27ft. wide.

• South of the main road were four almost equal rectangles. The rectangle
opposite the palace has been broken up into two equal and smaller rectangles
by the Chaura Rasta.Thus altogether there are now five rectangles on the
south of the main road called Chowkris.
• The serving class occupied the peripheral areas.

• Another constraint was the position of the lake, which formed a part of the
pleasure garden around which the city was built. This lake lay close to the
hillside. In the original design it fell outside the main block of the city; but due
to Jai Singh’s wish to include the old garden in the city, the lake was made the
tank of palace garden.

• Public spaces can be divided into

• Chaupars
• Bazaars
• Mohallas
• Streets
 • Temples

THE MUGHAL PERIOD

• From Akbar ( 1566- 1605) to Shah Jahan

• Shah Jahan established residences in Lahore, Agra and Delhi.

• In 1638, he laid the foundations of new capital, centered around Lal Qila or
Red Fort

• DELHI-The Mughaal Capital

• The site was situated on the western bank of river Yamuna where a natural
projection formed a triangle with the land and the river.

• Muslim Urban Life

• The city was planned according to hind planning principles of shilpashastra

from vastushastra

• The site was placed on a high land as in the shastra and was kamukha or
bow shaped, for this ensured its prosperity

• The arm of the archer was Chandni Chowk. The string was Yamuna river

• The junction of the two main axes is the most auspicious point in the whole
region and was therefore the red fort.

• The city form- morphology elements

• The urban infrastructure was laid out in a geometric pattern.

• The designed infrastructure of Shahjahanabad comprised-

• The fort
• The Friday mosque.
• The two main boulevards.
• The bazaars around the Friday mosque.
• The elaborate system of water channels.
• The major gardens and the city wall.

• MAJOR STREETS - Faiz Bazaar or Akkarabadi Bazaar, was also wide and
straight

• North- south axis and connected Delhi gate of the fort with the city walls Delhi
gate and is about 1km in length.

• These major two streets developed as processional routes, as well as

commercial arteries. The streets also assumed importance for ritual events

• Five Main Streets

• Chandni Chowk and Faiz Bazaar to other gates and to different part of the
walled city.

• The streets were built as the spines of major activities and developed as
commercial thorough affairs. They connected the Ajmeri Darwaza with the
Jami Masjid and Turkman and Lahori Darwazas.

• Their intersections formed a landmark. Important buildings were located

on these arteries. The other streets were less significant and were mainly
built as access roads to the residential areas.
 PRE-INDEPENDENCE-COLONIAL URBANISM

• A grid iron model for colonial town layouts

• Location of ports and routes of railways
• When the Britishers first settled in India, they found most of the towns are
unhygienic. So they built independent colonies on the outskirts of existing
towns.
• These extensions were called “Cantonments” and “Barracks” for military
occupied areas and “Civil lines” for the residents of civilians.
• Hence they created these cantonments: – Delhi cantonment known as British
colonies. – Agra cantonment. – Bangalore cantonment. – Ahmadabad
cantonment.
• •After this, they found that the climate of India is so hot. So they developed
the hill- stations in the nearby area of cantonments. They were: – Shimla
nearer to Delhi. – Matheran nearer to Mumbai. – Kodaikanal nearer to
Chennai. – Darjeeling nearer to Kolkata.
 • In the first decade of 20th century, they took up the work of building New
Delhi. Plan was prepared based on modern town planning principle by
eminent town planner “Edwin Lutyens”.
• He also designed Rashtrapati Bhavan.
• The industrial buildings were separated from the residential sector. • Lutyen
also contributed for making “Canaught place” which is the common area
having circular plan.
• Eight main attributes of colonial urban planningwere established:

Deliberate urbanisation as a locus for civil behaviour and to establish control.

1. Towns were pre-planned and imposed on localities without much attention

being given to existing constraints.

2. Grid iron layouts with streets, up to 150ft. (50m) wide were a special
feature

3. Public squares were provided for symbolic purposes, to emphasise the

status of the Empire.

4. Towns were divided into 100ft. (30m) wide rectangular plots to minimise

5. fire and health risks.

6. About one tenth -public and sporting purposes, again with the emphasis
on cricket.

7. Green Belt

8. Creation of town, suburban and country building lots.

(Write it own with example of Chennai city)

POST-INDEPENDENCE PERIOD: (AFTER 1947)

• After independence, Jawaharlal Nehru was appointed as the first prime minister of
India.
He invited Le Corbusier to visit India and develop cities. Hence, Chandigarh was
planned by him.
• “Rourkela” & ”Jamshedpur” were also planned by him.
Steel towns-
• Durgapur- West Bengal
• Bhilai- Madhya Pradesh
• Rourkela- Orissa
Industrial towns-
• Jamshedpur- Bihar
• Bhadravati- Karnataka
• Chittaranjan- West Bengal
Capitals-
• Gandhinagar- Gujarat
• Chandigarh- Punjab

CHANDIGARH

CHANDIGARH – THE CITY BEAUTIFUL

o Some 8000 years ago Chandigarh was a home to the HARAPPANS – it

happened due to the river INDUS.
o The site was a sub mountainous area of the Ambala district about 150
miles north of New Delhi.
o The area was a flat, gentle sloping plain of agriculture land dotted with
grooves of mango trees, consisting of 59 villages.
o Reasons for planed development
 Mountainous region
 Central location
 Sufficient water supply
 Natural drainage
 Moderate climate
  Shivalk hills.
o The site covers 114 sqmarea approximately.
o The general ground level range between 1000 – 2000 feet
o 1% grade giving a general adequate drainage.

LE CORBUSIER PLANNING STRATEGIES:

 Planned with focus on Urban design, architectural aesthetics,

preservation of natural environment, conservation of buildings and open
spaces, hierarchical road network.
 Divided the HUMAN FUNCTIONS into work, living and leisure with strict
zoning.
 City planning was against the traditional Indian cities.
 Replaces the native Indian town plan into “super blocks”
 Post war – “GARDEN CITY”
 Le modular system
 Analogous to Human body

HEAD - Capitol – Place of Power

HEART - The City Centre

STOMACH - The Commercial area

ARMS - The University and Industrial zone

LUNGS - Leisure valley & Open spaces

ARTERIES - Network of roads

 The primary module of a city’s design is a sector, a neighbourhood
unit of size 800m X 1200m.
 Each sector is a self sufficient unit having shops, schools, health
centers and places of recreation.
 The population of a sector varies between 3000 and 2000 depending
upon the size of the plots and the topography of the area.

PRINCIPLES OF URBAN PLANNING:

 Convenient walking distance for social services like schools and

shopping centers.

 FACILITIES:
o Orderly arrangement of facilities which would be shared
common by the residents.
 o A unit having shops, schools, health centers and places of
recreations and worships.
o Blocks are divided in sectors.
o Each sector is self sufficient unit having all facilities.
o These sectors varies depending upon the size and the
topography of the area.

 ROAD SYSTEMS:
o Major roads should not pass through residential
neighbourhood.
o An integrated system of seven road types.
o Pathways for cyclists
o Roads intersect at right angles forming a grid.
o Hierarchy of movement.
o Internal road pattern should encourage quite, safe, low
volume traffic movement.

 V1 – Fast roads connecting Chandigarh to other towns / BUS

 V2 – Arterial roads / BUS
 V3 – Fast Vehicular roads / BUS
 V4 – Meandering shopping street / BUS
 V5 – Sector circulation roads
 V6 – Access roads to houses
 V7 – Footpaths and cycle tracks.

 LEISURE VALLEY:
 A green sprawling space extending north-east to south-west
along a seasonal rivulet gradient and was conceived by Le
Corbusier as the “LUNGS” of the city.
 This valley houses the series of fitness trails, amphitheatre and
spaces for open-air exhibition.
 Rock garden designed by NekChand in 1957.
 SECTORS:
 The basic planning of the city is a sector.
 To accommodate 3,000 to 25,000 persons.
 30 sectors are in Chandigarh, of which 24 are residential.
 The sectors are surrounded by “High speed roads”, Bus stops
every 400m.
 The main principle of the sector is that never a door will open on
the surrounding of fast vehicular road.
 The size of a sector is based on the concept of No pedestrian
need to walk for more than 10mins.

 BUILDING TYPOLOGY:
 The basic typology is extremely rectilinear with similar
proportions,
 The residential units are arranged around central common green
spaces with different shape.
SERIES OF DEVELOPMENT:
 BUVHANESHWAR
History:
 Bhuvaneshwar replaced Cuttack as the capital of Odisha (formerly known as
Orissa) in 1948.
 The government wanted a new city to cater to the capital to house
government officials and bureaucrats.
 They decided to create a modern, planned city.
 Like Chandigarh, Bhubaneshwar is one of modern India’s first planned cities.
 Otto Königsberger,the german architect was chosen as the chief architect for
the new city of Bhubaneshwar as he had been involved in the development of
Jamshedpur and was among the handful of western planners in India at that
time

Planning:
 Otto Königsberger realized that India’s rapid population growth was a major
challenge and came up with the idea of a linear city plan,

 to provide for the indefinite growth of a city in such a way that it functions
efficiently at each stage.

 The first such conflict was between him and the government chief architect
Julius Vaz.

 Who wanted to establish a relationship between the old city and new for
sharing of facilities and favoured a radial method of planning.

 The govt wanted the temple architecture of the old city to be taken as an
inspiration for the new city.

 Königsberger’s master plan advocated that each neighbourhood be so

designed that the civic centre could be reached by a walk of not more than 10
minutes without crossing any main traffic artery to provide safety to children
absorbed in play and women on the way to the market Vaz designed a
majority of the government buildings like the Assembly, the Secretariat, the
Governor’s House and more without consulting Königsberger.

 Unlike Chandigarh, these buildings do not carry the absolute stamp of the
master planner
 GANDHINAGAR
 In 1960, Bombay state was split in two different
states, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Ahmedabad became capital of Gujarat, and
a new capital city was to be built on land which was once part of Pethapur
state.

 The new capital city was planned by Chief Architect H.K. Mewada, and his
assistant Prakash M Apte.

 Both Mewada, and Apte had worked as trainees under legendary architect Le
Corbusier in the Chandigarh Project in the 1950s.

The character of a plan for a new city is influenced by various factors, such as:

 the regional setting, site conditions, dominant function etc.

 Functionally, Gandhinagar was to be the capital city of Gujarat.

 In 1965 the city was planned for a population of 150,000.

 city has been divided into 30 sectors.

 Each sector has its own shopping and community center, primary school,
health center, Government and private housing.

 Apart from which there is a generous provision for wide open green parks,
extensive planting and a large recreational area along the river giving the city
a lush green garden-city atmosphere.

 Gandhinagar's streets are numbered, and have cross streets named for
letters of the Gujarati alphabet (e.g., "k", "kh", "g", "gh", "ch", "chh", "j").

 All streets cross every kilometre, and at every crossing traffic circles decrease
the speed of traffic

 The city has developed in four distinct phases:

 Phase 1: After the city's infrastructure was completed in 1970, and until 1980,
it was known as 'Gandhian City,' since it was based on Gandhi's concepts and
principles.

 Phase 2: Between 1980 and 1990, a time of low pollution, it was known as
'Unpolluted City'.

 Phase 3: After 1990, trees were planted, the city to be 'Green City.'

 Phase 4: In 2002, Gujarat's Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, proposed a new,

triple focus for the city: it should be green, It should use solar energy, and It
should be cosmopolitan.
  These six areas together generates most of the traffic within the city.

 It was therefore necessary to locate each of these in such a way that the total
volume of traffic is well distributed within the city with a balanced pressure on
all traffic routes.

 The government offices have been located to the south-east of the

geographical centre of the city while the industrial area is located to the north.

 The prevailing breeze direction confirmed this location.

 The city centre and the commercial area is situated a little to the north-east of
the geographical centre of the city with the public institutions area in the south

The main work areas in the city are:

 Capital Complex and Government Offices.

 Light Industries Areas.

 City Centre.

 Public Institutions Area.

 Shopping, Commercial and Warehousing area.

 IT Parks

Residential areas:

 The regular pattern of main roads divides the city into rectangular sectors
measuring one kilometre by three-fourths kilometre.

 Each of these sectors will accommodate a residential community of about

7000 persons with the necessary facilities like schools, shopping,
playgrounds, and parks.

 To achieve economy in development costs and facilitate maximum benefit

from social integration the residential units are planned in a compact form

 These residential groups in Gandhinagar have a basic and fundamental

resemblance with the community structure presented by 'Poles' as obtained in
almost all cities of Gujarat.

 Just as is found in the case of these houses in the 'Poles', residential houses
are grouped along a street, which opens out at places for social interaction
between people of all ages as also for a play space for children.
 The street pattern in the residential groups are as informal as is found in
'Poles', free of fast traffic and serving only the local traffic generated by the
residential groups

 The system consists of a grid (1 km. x 0.75 km.) of motor roads and another
grid (1 km. x 0.75 km.) of cycle pedestrian ways superimposed on each other
so that each residential community is served by motor roads on the periphery
and cycle ways within it.

 Grade separation by an underpass with an easy gradient (1 in 50) at the

intersection of cycle pedestrian ways and motor roads will enable the two
systems to work almost independent of each other
 WESTERN CONTEXT

Morphology of early cities

Greek agora
Roman forum
Medivel towns Renaissance place making
Ideal Cities
Industrialization and city growth
Garnier’s industrial city
The American grid planning
Anti urbanism and the picturesque
Cite industrielle
Citte nuovo
Radian city
GREEK AGORA:
 The Agora - An ancient marketplace. The agora in Athens had private
housing, until it was reorganized by Peisistratus in the 6th century BC.
 It was originally an area inhabited by various families in small houses, will in
the course of the 5th century, be progressively built up, articulated with grand
public buildings around its perimeter, in order to frame and give a point of
reference to the life of the democratic polis, or city-state.
 Agora, in ancient Greek cities, an open space that served as a meeting ground for
various activities of the citizens.
 The name, first found in the works of Homer, connotes both the assembly of the
people as well as the physical setting; it was applied by the classical Greeks of the
5th centuryBC to what they regarded as a typical feature of their life: their daily
religious, political, judicial, social, and commercial activity.
 The agora was located either in the middle of the city or near the harbour, which was
surrounded by public buildings and by temples.
 Colonnades, sometimes containing shops, or stoae, often enclosed the space, and
statues, altars, trees, and fountains adorned it.
 The general trend at this time was to isolate the agora from the rest of the town.
Earlier stages in the evolution of the agora have been sought in the East and, with
better results, in MinoanCrete (for instance, at Ayiá Triádha) and in Mycenaean
Greece (for instance, at Tiryns).
 In the 5th and 4th centuries BC two kinds of agora existed.
 Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century AD, calls one type archaic and the other Ionic.
 He mentions the agora of Elis (built after 470 BC) as an example of the archaic type,
in which colonnades and other buildings were not coordinated; the general
impression created was one of disorder.
 The agora of Athens was rebuilt to this type of design after the Persian Wars (490–
449 BC). The Ionic type was more symmetrical, often combining colonnades to form
either three sides of a rectangle or a regular square; Miletus, Priene, and Magnesia
ad Maeandrum, cities in Asia Minor, provide early examples.
 This type prevailed and was further developed in Hellenistic and Roman times. In this
later period the agora influenced the development of the Romanforum and was, in
turn, influenced by it.
 The forum, however, was conceived in a more rigid manner than the agora and
became a specific, regular, open area surrounded by planned architecture.
 The use of the agora varied at different periods. Even in classical times the space did
not always remain the place for popular assemblies.
 In Athens the ecclesia, or assembly, was moved to the Pnyx (a hill to the west of the
Acropolis), though the meetings devoted to ostracism were still held in the agora,
where the main tribunal remained.
 A distinction was maintained between commercial and ceremonial agoras in
Thessaly and elsewhere (Aristotle, Politics, vii, II, 2). In the highly developed agora,
like that of Athens, each trade or profession had its own quarter. Many cities had
officials called agoranomoi to control the area.
 The agora also served for theatrical and gymnastic performances until special
buildings and spaces were reserved for these purposes.
  In Athens respectable women were seldom seen in the agora. Men accused of
murder and other crimes were forbidden to enter it before their trials. Free men went
there not only to transact business and to act as jurors but also to talk and idle—a
habit often mentioned by comic poets. In exceptional circumstances a tomb in the
agora was granted as the highest honour for a citizen.

ROMAN FORUM:
 The Roman Forum is a rectangular forum (plaza) surrounded by the ruins of several
important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of
the ancient city referred to this space, originally a marketplace, as the Forum
Magnum, or simply the Forum.
 It was for centuries the center of Roman public life: the site of triumphal processions
and elections; the venue for public speeches, criminal trials, and gladiatorial
matches; and the nucleus of commercial affairs.
 Here statues and monuments commemorated the city's great men.
 The teeming heart of ancient Rome, it has been called the most celebrated meeting
place in the world, and in all history.
 Located in the small valley between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, the Forum
today is a sprawling ruin of architectural fragments and intermittent archaeological
excavations attracting 4.5 million sightseers yearly.
 Many of the oldest and most important structures of the ancient city were located on
or near the Forum.
 Eventually much economic and judicial business would transfer away from the Forum
Romanum to the larger and more extravagant structures (Trajan's Forum and the
Basilica Ulpia) to the north.
 The reign of Constantine the Great, during which the Empire was divided into its
Eastern and Western halves, saw the construction of the last major expansion of the
Forum complex—the Basilica of Maxentius (312 AD). This returned the political
center to the Forum until the fall of the Western Roman Empire almost two centuries
later.

STRUCTURES:
Temple of Saturn,
Temple of Vespasian and Titus,
Arch of Septimius Severus,
Curia Julia,Rostra,
Basilica Aemilia,
Forum Main Square,
Basilica Iulia,
Temple of Caesar,
Regia,
Temple of Castor and Pollux,
Temple of Vesta
 An impressive – if rather confusing – sprawl of ruins, the Roman Forum was ancient
Rome's showpiece centre, a grandiose district of temples, basilicas and vibrant
public spaces.
 The site, which was originally an Etruscan burial ground, was first developed in the
7th century BC, growing over time to become the social, political and commercial hub
of the Roman empire. Landmark sights include the Arco di Settimio Severo , the
Curia , and the Casa delle Vestali .
 Like many of Rome's great urban developments, the Forum fell into disrepair after
the fall of the Roman Empire until eventually it was used as pasture land. In the
Middle Ages it was known as the Campo Vaccino ('Cow Field') and extensively
plundered for its stone and marble.
 The area was systematically excavated in the 18th and 19th centuries, and
excavations continue to this day.
 Entering from Largo della Salara Vecchia – you can also enter directly from the
Palatino or via an entrance near the Arco di Tito – you'll see the Tempio di Antonino
e Faustina ahead to your left. Erected in AD 141, this was transformed into a church
in the 8th century, the Chiesa di San Lorenzo in Miranda . To your right the 179 BC
 Basilica Fulvia Aemilia was a 100m-long public hall with a two-storey porticoed
facade.
 At the end of the path, you'll come to Via Sacra , the Forum’s main thoroughfare, and
the Tempio di Giulio Cesare (also known as the Tempio del Divo Giulio). Built by
Augustus in 29 BC, this marks the spot where Julius Caesar was cremated.
 Heading right up Via Sacra brings you to the Curia , the original seat of the Roman
Senate. This barn-like construction was rebuilt on various occasions before being
converted into a church in the Middle Ages. What you see today is a 1937
reconstruction of how it looked in the reign of Diocletian
 In front of the Curia, and hidden by scaffolding, is the Lapis Niger , a large piece of
black marble that's said to cover the tomb of Romulus.
 At the end of Via Sacra, the 23m-high Arco di Settimio Severo is dedicated to the
eponymous emperor and his two sons, Caracalla and Geta. It was built in AD 203 to
commemorate the Roman victory over the Parthians.
 In front of the arch are the remains of the Rostrum , an elaborate podium where
Shakespeare had Mark Antony make his famous 'Friends, Romans, countrymen…'
speech. Facing this, the Colonna di Foca (Column of Phocus) rises above what was
once the Forum's main square.

 The eight granite columns that rise behind the Colonna are all that remain of the
Tempio di Saturno , an important temple that doubled as the state treasury. Behind it
are (from north to south): the ruins of the Tempio della Concordia , the Tempio di
Vespasiano , and the Portico degli Dei Consenti .
 From the path that runs parallel to Via Sacra, you'll pass the stubby ruins of the
Basilica Giulia , which was begun by Julius Caesar and finished by Augustus. At the
end of the basilica, three columns remain from the 5th-century BC Tempio di Castore
e Polluce . Nearby, the 6th-century Chiesa di Santa Maria Antiqua , is the oldest
Christian church in the Forum.
 Back towards Via Sacra is the Casa delle Vestali (currently off-limits), home of the
virgins who tended the sacred flame in the adjoining Tempio di Vesta . The six virgin
priestesses were selected from patrician families when aged between six and 10 to
serve in the temple for 30 years. If the flame in the temple went out the priestess
responsible would be flogged, and if she lost her virginity she would be buried alive.
The offending man would be flogged to death.
 Continuing up Via Sacra, past the Tempio di Romolo , you'll come to the Basilica di
Massenzio , the largest building on the forum. Started by the Emperor Maxentius and
finished by Constantine in 315, it originally measured approximately 100m by 65m.
Its currently out of bounds due to construction work on a new metro line.
MEDIEVAL TOWNS:

Life in Medieval Towns and Cities:

 In urban areas there was essentially freedom within the walls. When cities and towns
received their charters, a certain amount of freedom was gained, but it was by no
means a democratic society.

Population and Urban Environment:

 Medieval cities were extremely small by our standards. London had only 10,000-
100,000 residents during the medieval period.
 Cities were geographically small with the average about 1 square mile with 300,000
inhabitants.
 The streets were exceedingly narrow and unpaved; mud was common. Sometimes
the main street and market square were cobblestoned.
 Cities and larger towns were usually surrounded by a wall, which enhanced the
separation between urban and rural, but the fields frequently came up to the wall.
 City dwellers would help rural people who came to the city for market.

Buildings:
 The guild hall was a large building and was often the building that housed city
protection until the late middle ages when cannons were introduced.
 Churches were the largest buildings especially in cathedral cities. Cathedrals were
the seat of the bishops of a diocese.
 Generally there were several parish churches and castles that straddled the city walls
with the main gate to the city. Space was at a premium.
 Houses were tiny and clustered closely together. When a story was added to a house
the second story projected out over the first, and so on.
 The results were that houses facing each other on opposite sides of the street nearly
met in the middle and the houses formed a tunnel-like passage way over the street.
 The first floor generally housed the artisans shop with living quarters on the upper
floors. These houses were made of wood; therefore, they burned frequently.
 Fire was a constant threat in medieval cities and towns.

Sanitation and Health:

 Contents of chamber pots were emptied into the streets. With mud streets this
presented a messy problem.
 With a heavy rain one could hope for a flushing action to wash the excrement to the
river. A light rain only added to the problem. This was a health problem; polluted
springs and wells were common.
 The most commonly consumed beverages were not water but wine and beer.
Beggars, who were seen as social victims, abounded. Disease was viewed as
punishment. Smallpox was endemic, leprosy was common and the victim was
segregated.
 Those who operated the cities and large towns were those who had money. These
were guild masters--masters of the guilds of merchants and craft guild masters.
RENAISSANCE PLACE MAKING:
 Place making is a people-centred approach to the planning, design and management
of public spaces. It involves looking at, listening to, and asking questions of the
people who live, work and play in a particular space, to discover needs and
aspirations. This information is then used to create a common vision for that place.
The vision can evolve quickly into an implementation strategy, beginning with small-
scale, do-able improvements that can immediately bring benefits to public spaces
and the people who use them.

 Place making is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management

of public spaces. Place making capitalizes on a local community’s assets, inspiration,
and potential, ultimately creating 1good public spaces that promote people’s health,
happiness, and wellbeing. Place making is both a process and a philosophy.

 The concepts behind Place making originated in the 1960s, when writers like Jane
Jacobs and William H. Whyte offered ground-breaking ideas about designing cities
that catered to people, not just to cars and shopping centers. Their work focused on
the importance of lively neighbourhoods and inviting public spaces. Jane Jacobs
advocated citizen ownership of streets through the now-famous idea of “eyes on the
street.” William H. Whyte emphasized essential elements for creating social life in
public spaces.

 Place making is a term that began to be used in the 1970s by architects and
planners to describe the process of creating squares, plazas, parks, streets and
waterfronts that will attract people because they are pleasurable or interesting.
Landscape often plays an important role in the design process.
 Place making can be used to improve all of the spaces that comprise the gathering
places within a community—its streets, sidewalks, parks, buildings, and other public
spaces
 Place making is not just the act of building or fixing up a space; it is a process that
fosters the creation of vital public destinations. It refers to the kind of places where
people feel a strong stake in their communities and commitment to making things
better.
 Place making capitalizes on a local community’s assets, inspiration and potential,
creating good public spaces that pro mote people’s health, happiness, and economic
well-being.

IDEAL CITY:
An ideal city is the concept of a plan for a city that has been conceived in accordance with
the dictates of some "rational" or "moral" objective.

Concept
 The "ideal" nature of such a city may encompass the moral, spiritual and juridical
qualities of citizenship as well as the ways in which these are realised through urban
structures including buildings, street layout, etc.
 The ground plans of ideal cities are often based on grids (in imitation of Roman town
planning) or other geometrical patterns.
 The ideal city is often an attempt to deploy Utopian ideals at the local level of urban
configuration and living space and amenity rather than at the culture- or civilisation-
wide level of the classical Utopias such as St Thomas More’s

History
 Several attempts to develop ideal city plans are known from the Renaissance, and
appear from the second half of the fifteenth century.
 The concept dates at least from the period of Plato, whose Republicis a philosophical
exploration of the notion of the 'ideal city'.
 The nobility of the Renaissance, seeking to imitate the qualities of Classical
civilisation, sometimes sought to construct such ideal cities either in reality or
notionally through a reformation of manners and culture.

Examples
 Examples of the ideal cities include Filarete's "Sforzinda", a description of which was
included in his Trattato di Architettura (c. 1465). The city of Sforzinda was laid out
within an eight-pointed star inscribed within a circular moat.
 Further examples may have been intended to have been read into the so-called
"Urbino" and "Baltimore" panels (second half of the fifteenth century), which show
Classicallyinfluenced architecture disposed in logically planned piazzas.
 The cities of Nicosia and Valletta, whose fortifications were built in the 1560s by the
Republic of Venice and Order of St. John respectively, are considered to be practical
examples of the concept of the ideal city.
 James Oglethorpe synthesized Classical and Renaissance concepts of the ideal city
with new Enlightenment ideals of scientific planning, harmony in design, and social
equality in his plan for the Province of Carolina. The physical design component of
the famous Oglethorpe Plan remains preserved in the Savannah Historic District.
 Late nineteenth-century examples of the ideal city include the Garden city movement
of Sir Ebenezer Howard, realised at Letchworth Garden City and Welwyn Garden
City in England. Poundbury, Prince Charles' architectural vision established in
Dorset, is among the most recent examples of ideal city planning.
 Plan of Sforzinda, Filarete, c. 1465

 The yearning for better community in the material, social and spiritual sense is older
than recorded history. This yearning is expressed in the literature of faith, ranging
from Biblical to Vedic scripture, and of secular social reform from Plato to Le
Corbusier.
 The search for an Ideal City recurs in all cultures and at every level of expression
from Thomas Moore’s Utopia to web-based learning tools like Quest or the video
game Sim City, both developed mainly in Vancouver.
 This search is almost always associated with the criticism of existing conditions and
the search for new solutions. The vision of creating real improvements through
imaginative planning resonates in just two of the names given to such schemes: the
actual settlement of New Harmony in Indiana and the imaginary Broadacre City.
 The attempt to provide for all human needs and aspirations in an uplifting
environment is highly organized in Le Corbusier's Radiant City project as against the
less formal pattern of Ebenezer Howard's Garden City.
 Each shared extensive landscaping and each have set examples for much modern
urban development - including cities and company towns in Canada. For example,
Kitimat in northern British Columbia was planned by Alcan as a model of urban
settlement and echoed in Tumbler Ridge which was even planned to survive the
termination of the resource development that had instigated its construction.
 At Kitimat, however, the town development suffered what might be called the tragedy
of planning: the slippage from the ideal during the implementation of the plan,
including the abandonment of the social values and community facilities in its original
form. That idealism had helped change Canadian housing policy and especially the
provision of affordable housing, spearheaded by the Canada Mortgage and Housing
Corporation.
 The Ideal City has always helped to illustrate how human habitation and society can
be improved and to inspire effective action.
 The story of the Ideal City can establish criteria and strategies for dealing with the
huge and ongoing increases in urban populations and the new type and scale of
problems they pose for town planning.

 The city is the place where the pulse of new political thought, economic system,
cultural, expression and technological has played out with greatest intensity.

 The power of ideas on society - and its major creation the city - is obvious in the
continuing impact of Aristotle, Buddha, Christ or Marx. The idea of sustainability itself
owes a good deal to early 20th-century thinkers such as R.H. Francé who promoted
biocentrism: the relation of science, technology and society to organic processes.

 The story is summarized in this position paper and accompanying knowledge

resource, each of which is designed to enable people to contribute to thinking out the
city of the twenty-first century.
INDUSTRIALIZATION AND CITY GROWTH:

The era of industrialization

 In both Europe and the United States, the surge of industry during the mid- and late
19th century was accompanied by rapid population growth, unfettered business
enterprise, great speculative profits, and public failures in managing the unwanted
physical consequences of development.
 Giant sprawling cities developed during this era, exhibiting the luxuries of wealth and
the meanness of poverty in sharp juxtaposition.
 Eventually the corruption and exploitation of the era gave rise to the Progressive
movement, of which city planning formed a part.
 The slums, congestion, disorder, ugliness, and threat of disease provoked a reaction
in which sanitation improvement was the first demand.
 Significant betterment of public health resulted from engineering improvements in
water supply and sewerage, which were essential to the further growth of urban
populations.
 Later in the century the first housing reform measures were enacted. The early
regulatory laws (such as Great Britain’s Public Health Act of 1848 and the New York
State Tenement House Act of 1879) set minimal standards for housing construction.
 Implementation, however, occurred only slowly, as governments did not provide
funding for upgrading existing dwellings, nor did the minimal rent-paying ability of
slum dwellers offer incentives for landlords to improve their buildings.
 Nevertheless, housing improvement occurred as new structures were erected, and
new legislation continued to raise standards, often in response to the exposés of
investigators and activists such as Jacob Riis in the United States and Charles Booth
in England.
 Also during the Progressive era, which extended through the early 20th century,
efforts to improve the urban environment emerged from recognition of the need for
recreation.
 Parks were developed to provide visual relief and places for healthful play or
relaxation. Later, playgrounds were carved out in congested areas, and facilities for
games and sports were established not only for children but also for adults, whose
workdays gradually shortened.
 Supporters of the parks movement believed that the opportunity for outdoor
recreation would have a civilizing effect on the working classes, who were otherwise
consigned to overcrowded housing and unhealthful workplaces.
 New York’s Central Park, envisioned in the 1850s and designed by architects Calvert
Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, became a widely imitated model.
 Among its contributions were the separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, the
creation of a romantic landscape within the heart of the city, and a demonstration that
the creation of parks could greatly enhance real-estate values in their surroundings.
 Concern for the appearance of the city had long been manifest in Europe, in the
imperial tradition of court and palace and in the central plazas and great buildings of
church and state.

 In Paris during the Second Empire (1852–70), Georges-Eugène, Baron Haussmann,

became the greatest of the planners on a grand scale, advocating straight arterial
boulevards, advantageous vistas, and a symmetry of squares and radiating roads.

 The resulting urban form was widely emulated throughout the rest of continental
Europe. Haussmann’s efforts went well beyond beautification, however; essentially
they broke down the barriers to commerce presented by medieval Paris, modernizing
the city so as to enable the efficient transportation of goods as well as the rapid
mobilization of military troops.

 His designs involved the demolition of antiquated tenement structures and their
replacement by new apartment houses intended for a wealthier clientele, the
construction of transportation corridors and commercial space that broke up
residential neighbourhoods, and the displacement of poor people from centrally
located areas.

 Haussmann’s methods provided a template by which urban redevelopment programs

would operate in Europe and the United States until nearly the end of the 20th
century, and they would extend their influence in much of the developing world after
that.

 Population changes also transformed the city. Urban growth reflected the geographic
mobility of the industrial age; people moved from city to city as well as within them.
The new transience led to diverse populations. Migrants from rural areas and
newcomers from abroad mingled with wealthy long-time residents and the middle
class. Immigrants constituted the fastest growing populations in big cities, where
industry offered work. Urban political machines helped immigrant communities by
providing services in exchange for votes. For immigrants, boss politics eased the way
to jobs and citizenship. Most, but not all, city machines were Democratic.

 Just as industrialization and immigration transformed the city, new technology

reshaped it. Taller buildings became possible with the introduction of elevators and
construction using cast-iron supports and, later, steel girders. The first steel-frame
skyscraper, ten stories high, arose in Chicago in 1885. In 1913 New York's
Woolworth Building soared to a height of 60 stories. Taller buildings caused land
values in city centers to increase.

 New forms of transportation stretched cities out. First, trolleys veered over bumpy
rails, and steam-powered cable cars lugged passengers around. Then cities had
electric streetcars, powered by overhead wires. Electric streetcars and elevated
railroads enabled cities to expand, absorbing nearby towns and linking central cities
with once-distant suburbs. For intercity transport, huge railroad terminals—built like
palaces, with columns, arches, and towers—arose near crowded business hubs.
AMERICAN GRID PLAN:

HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN GRID

 The grid has been used continuously throughout the world as a development pattern
since Hippodamus first used it at Piraeus, Greece in the 5th century BC.

 A lot happened over the next 2,000 years after that, but in 1682 William Penn used
the grid as the physical foundation for Philadelphia. With that, the grid began its new
life in the new America.

 Penn’s instructions for laying out his orthogonal plan were simple:

Be sure to settle the figure of the town so as that the streets hereafter may be uniform
down to the water from the country bounds…This may be ordered when I come, only
let the houses built be in a line, or upon a line, as much as may be…

Penn’s use of the grid may have been influenced by Richard Newcourt’s plan for London
following the fire of 1666. However, Penn may have utilized the grid for its indexical qualities.
The grid by its very nature has no built-in hierarchy. Philadelphia was the first city to use the
indexical system of numbers for north-south streets and tree names for east-west streets.
Because of this coordinate system, the intersection at 12th/Walnut has no more or less
social or political meaning than that at 18th/Cherry. Every plot of land is essentially equal to
every other.

Over 100 years after Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson executed the purchase of the
Louisiana Territory. Following the acquisition of such a vast territory came the challenges of
subdividing, selling, and occupying it. It was impossible to survey the entire area ahead of
time so Jefferson devised a system that would make platting and selling achievable from a
distance. Jefferson answered with the grid in the Land Ordinance of 1785. The Ordinance
divided the entire western territory into townships, sections, quarter-sections, and so on. A
system of Euclidean geometry made this possible. Having never stepped foot on their
property, someone could point to a map, make a purchase, and start their wagon westward
knowing precisely where they were going. Today, a cross-country flight will easily show the
physical ramifications of Jefferson’s decision to subdivide our territory upon the grid. The
vast majority of America’s western land is so arranged in logical lattice-work.
Following the precedent of Philadelphia, the grid has been used extensively in a number of
American cities in every one of our now 50 states. Each of these cities, with their own
purposes and reasonings, adopted the grid as their foundation with varying outcomes. In
Chicago, the grid was used as a vehicle to maximize both the speed of development and
financial speculation. In San Francisco, the grid flatly ignored topography and created a city
of dramatic hills and valleys. In Paragonah, Utah, the grid was executed to promote the
doctrine of Mormonism. But perhaps most famous of all American grids is that found in
Manhattan. In 1811, the Commissioners adopted a master street plan that would come to
define the city of New York centuries later.

As known now Manhattan did grow and it grew well beyond all expectations within only a
single century. The grid was there to accommodate that growth

In the 1920s, the roles of both the federal government and the States in the development of
towns and cities were refined and codified. Amongst all of the legal changes, two documents
stand out: the Standard City Planning Enabling Act (SCPEA) and the Standard State Zoning
Enabling Act (SSZEA). The SSZEA specifies the creation, adoption, and use of a zoning
map. The SCPEA, on the other hand, specifies the components of a municipal master plan
which is made up of a zoning map and a master street plan. Unfortunately, over the last 80
years judicial interpretation over what constitutes a “master plan” has allowed the zoning
map to replace the master street plan. Without a master street plan the grid is essentially
impossible to execute. Thus, our American grid’s recent history has been a stagnant one.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AMERICAN GRID

1. Walkable

With the proper block size, the grid is inherently walkable. Proper block size is the key term
here. Blocks with sides less than about 600 feet and perimeters less than 1,800 feet
agglomerate together to form a connected network that behooves everyone whether
traveling by foot, car, segway, or stroller. By its very geometry, the grid provides the
connectivity necessary for good urbanism.
2. Navigable

Never ask for directions again. The grid gives you an immediate sense of where you are in
the world: left-right, east-west, uptown-downtown. As a bonus, it also gives you a sense of
distance. As long as you know the unit of measure between intersections, the grid behaves
like a giant yard stick.

3. Adaptable

Land uses change constantly. With rectilinear lots and blocks, old land uses can move out
and new land uses can simply plug in.

Take Manhattan, for example. The block at 71st Street and Madison Avenue once
accommodated Lenox farm. Fast forward almost 200 years and that exact same block today
accommodates high-rise apartments, office buildings, and art galleries.

4. Orthogonal

The Commissioners of New York in 1811 recognized this when they chose the grid for
Manhattan:the right sided and right-angled houses are the most cheap to build and most
convenient to live in.The same holds true for skyscrapers as well.

Orthogonal blocks allow objects and land uses to trade places with ease and efficiency.
These geometric efficiencies compound upon each other as you move up in scale:
rectangular desks beget rectangular rooms beget rectangular buildings beget rectangular
blocks. This leads to the next point…

5. Economical

A rectangular block allows you to do the most with the least. The exact same block in
Manhattan has accommodated everything from a farmhouse to a skyscraper.

6. Sustainable

A rectangular block allows you to do the most with the least. The exact same block in
Manhattan has accommodated everything from a farmhouse to a skyscraper.

7. Appendable

With the grid, the method for expansion is obvious; new developments know exactly what
form to take. Since the block is the fundamental unit of the grid, new blocks can append to
old in a logical sequence that can theoretically guide development forever.

8. Historical

The grid is a fundamental part of our American heritage. While the grid has been utilized
around the world for thousands of years, William Penn introduced it to America in 1682 via
Philadelphia. Since then, the grid has made its way across our vast country thanks
predominantly to Thomas Jefferson’s 1785 Land Ordinance. Countless others, from greedy
developers to Mormon settlers, have followed suit. By utilizing the grid, today’s city planners
and urban designers can continue this long lineage of linearity.
CITTE NUOVO- THE NEW CITY:

The Città Nuova apartment building with external elevators, galleries, covered walkways, on
three street levels (tramlines, automobile lanes, and pedestrian walkway), lamps and
wireless telegraph’

 In spring 1914 Antonio Sant’Elia exhibited a series of drawings relating to his utopian
vision of a completely industrialized and technologically advanced Città Nuova (New
City).
 These were shown at an exhibition of Lombard architects and, two months later, at
the exhibition Nuove Tendenze: Milano l’ano due mille (New Tendencies: Milan the
Year Two Thousand).
 His Messagio, a polemical statement, printed in the catalogue, did not mention the
words Futurist or Futurism, but emphasized the need to respond to the new industrial
age and to celebrate the conditions and focal points of contemporary urban life –
grand hotels, railway stations and ports.
 Sant’Elia stressed that it was necessary to reinvent the city as a dynamic entity and
to construct buildings like gigantic machines.
 The drawings can be linked with the Futurists’ celebration of speed and the
dynamism of modern life.
 They convey a total vision of a future metropolis in which streets are no longer
confined to ground level and in which buildings, as tall as American skyscrapers, do
not stand alone (as in New York), but are part of an integrated urban complex.
 Sant’Elia’s drawing style owed much to the conventions of Viennese architecture of
about 1900, especially the widely published designs of Otto Wagner and his
students.
 Sant’Elia’s precise and elaborately detailed ink drawings were the result of a process
of preparatory sketches and studies related to their function as exhibition drawings.
 The apartment building has external elevator shafts linked to the building by a series
of bridges and covered walkways.
 This arrangement accentuates the mechanistic components of the housing block,
making them a dominant aspect of the building’s facade. It is articulated with both flat
and stepped-back walls and is pierced by transportation lines and bridges, which link
it directly to other elements in the city.
  In this way Sant’Elia abolished the notion of the monolithic, free-standing building
and integrated it fully into the complete urban machine. Similarly, he fused different
modes of transport (rail and air) into a single multi-levelled structure with cable cars
and elevators, again emphasizing the mechanistic purpose of the building and its
dynamic role within the life of the city.
 With its symmetrical towers and colossal scale, however, it resembles a cathedral of
the future, a monument to the vision of a future way of living.

RADIANT CITY:

 Le Corbusier’s Radiant City

 Le Corbusier was trying to find a fix for the same problems of urban pollution and
overcrowding, but unlike Howard, he envisioned building up, not out. His plan, also
known as “Towers in the Park,” proposed exactly that: numerous high-rise buildings
each surrounded by green space.
 Each building was set on what planners today would derisively refer to as
“superblocks,” and space was clearly delineated between different uses (in the above
diagram, this includes “housing,” the “business center,” “factories” and
“warehouses”). Le Corbusier’s ideas later reappeared in the design of massive public
housing projects in the U.S. in the era of “urban renewal.”
 The Ville Radieuse was a linear city based upon the abstract shape of the human
body with head, spine, arms and legs.

 The design maintained the idea of high-rise housing blocks, free circulation and
abundant green spaces proposed in his earlier work.
 The blocks of housing were laid out in long lines stepping in and out. Like the Swiss
Pavilion they were glazed on their south side and were raised up on pilotis.
 They had roof terraces and running tracks on their roofs. The ingenious layout is
intended to make maximum use of minimal space. 337 apartments are arranged over
twelve storeys, interlocking, jigsaw-like.
 Those on one side of the central corridors are entered at a single-aspect lower floor
before ascending up to a double-aspect upper one (as in the plan below).
 Those leading off from the other side open into single-aspect upper floors before
descending to double-aspect lower ones.
 Every flat has a double-height reception room with mezzanine and a deep balcony,
and stretches from one side of the building to the other, looking east towards the hills
on one side and west towards the sea on the other.
 23 different layouts provide living space for between one and ten people.
Built between 1947 and 1952, Marseille's Radiant City is a different beast altogether.
 Classily designed to a high standard, today it's a fashionable middle-class Mecca
and a vertical township in its own right.
CITE INDUSTRIELLE:
TONY GARNIER:CITY INDUSTRIALLE:

 Tony Garnier designs the plans of an ideal city, called “An industrial city” during his
stay at “Villa Médicis” (1899-1904). Published in 1917, it is a milestone in the 20th
century history of architecture and urban planning.

 Tony Garnier will be rebuked many times by the French Academy for not dedicating
his full energy to his research project, “Tusculum” which concerned the reconstitution
of a Roman city.

 He dedicated himself instead to avant-garde ideas, by working on his modern city

project, designed for about 35.000 inhabitants.

 The “Industrial City” of Tony Garnier, which can be compared to a city of labor,
illustrates the ideas of Fourier.

 Tony Garnier located it in a place that can be identified as being in Saint-Etienne

area (near by Saint-Chamont / Rive-de-Gier), which was heavily industrialized at the
beginning of the 20th century.

 Going against urban conceptions of his time, the architect developed the zoning
concept, dividing the city into four main functions: work, housing, health, leisure.

 The city is located on a rocky headland, the industrial area being clearly separated
from it and located down the headland, at the confluence of a river.

 Four main principles emerge: functionnalism, space, greenery, and high sunshine
exposure.

Tony Garnier'An industrial city'

 Tony Garnier (1869- 1948) was the son of Pierre Garnier the architect of the famous
Paris Opera house that formed one of the focus points of the 19th century
transformation of Paris.

 Garnier studied at the Ecole des Beaux arts that was so much associated with 19th
century eclectic architecture.

 His interest in town planning was sparked of during his stay in Rome after winning
the prestigious Prix de Rome where he met other prize winners that had a lot of
interest in town planning and design.

 Garniers development coincides with the revision of ideas at the Ecole des Beaux
arts under the influence of growing criticism. Working in Rome and living from the
stipendium Garnier developed his plan for an ideal industrial city.

 He got negative comments by the academy because he had deviated completely

from the commission given to him under the Prix de Rome conditions.
 Despite this his work was exhibited in Paris in 1904.Although there were some
negative reactions, the written press and the professional press did not react either in
a positive nor in a negative sense.

 It looked as if his very unconventional work had sparked interest but no one could
catagorize it. Also Garnier was modest, not a strong debater and he did not
propagate strong opinions or make strong statements.

 This in contrast with the arrogance and out loud preaching of opinions by the
modernist. So in history his work fell somewhere in between. It was only first
publicized in 1917.

 Only later he was regarded as the fore runner of modernism, but this is only partly
true.

 He shared the concern about social questions and the idea that the design of cities
as a whole should be approached rational and that industry had te be seperated from
living quarters.

 On the other hand he showed great sensibility to the symbolic meaning of buildings
and the quality of urban space, something the modernists lacked.

 He also considered the city to be a 'rhizome' where citizens could circulate freely,
whereas the modernists advocated strickt hierarchical road networks and separation
of types of traffic.
 In hind sight Garnier was a 'stand alone' case in urban design. It is amazing to see
the enormous number of drawings Garnier produced, describing the city in detail and
designing every important building as well as numerous housing types. It is by far the
most comprehensive ideal town ever designed.
 The general design of Garniers city shows a seperation between living quarters and
industry and also a separate health centre outside the city.
 This is understandable as 'industry' in his case equals heavy industry with its
associated pollution.
 The main patterns are grids. However the part with living quarters is kept narrow to
minimize distances to nature.This is also the reason why there is no explicit park
within the city. In the centre of the town is a large civiccentre.
 9 The grid patterns are not 'stamped' all over the city. The design of the civic centre
is based on adispositon of buildings around a central axle.
 This shows elements of classic design. On the other hand all buildings are free
standing and the open spaces are enormous. In the whole of the plan there are few
squares, let alone enclosed squares.
 The living quarters show an innovative new type of building block with free standing
houses and 'urban villas' (although using this word in this respect is an anachronism)
on an 'island' between streets. This type of building block had been taken up in
recent urban design in the Netherlands.
 The result is that there are no enclosed streets.
  Trees form very much part of the design. Indicating the more important streets and
losely planted within the blocks.
 Garnier has a lot of drawings showing public space in living quarters, indicating that
he cared about everyday living conditions. For the civic centre he only shows the
buildings.
 This suggests that he did not consider the design of public space around public
buildings to be a very important matter.

ANTI URBANISM AND THE PICTURESQUE

Antiurbanism :

 Anti-urbanism is a discourse of fear of the city, produced and reproduced via a

variety of negative representations of urban places, and drawing its power from
deeply entrenched pro urban and pro-rural sentiment.

 Industrialisation was the force which triggered anti-urban representations, as the

rampant, unchecked urbanization that characterised the industrial city was widely
perceived to be a profound moral upheaval, an unwelcome disruption to traditional
values, and the intensification of urban malaise.

 Whilst anti-urbanism is a widespread discourse, it is particularly advanced in the

United States, partly because of the influence of major intellectual figures who all
treated the city with suspicion. This article uses the art of Edward.

 Hopper to explain the power of the anti-urbanism discourse, and its implications. It
concludes by offering some comments on recent accusations that writers such as
Mike Davis are reproducing anti-urban discourse in their popular work on
contemporary urbanization.

 Anti-urbanism is best defined as a discourse of fear of the city, and something fuelled
by the impact of images of urban dystopia we see in a variety of media, cinematic,
literary, artistic, photographic – and in the case of the Qashqai, corporate –
representations of urban places.
 It is a discourse that has been around for a long time, in conjunction with the
emergence of the industrial city, and often constructed in relation to the ‘good city’ of
the ancient Greeks, and especially the perceived virtues of rural life. Anti-urbanism is
particularly advanced in the United States in a variety of guises, from the celebration
of rural small-town kinship and community to the fact that Los Angeles has been
completely destroyed 138 times in various motion pictures from 1909 to 1999! Critical
analyses of anti-urbanism are vital if the material consequences of widespread urban
fears are to be exposed and challenged.
 As cultural geographers have argued for a long time now, if we leave powerful
representations unquestioned, then supposedly fixed ‘evidence’ about how a society
is organized can very easily become treated as overwhelming evidence of how it
‘should’, or ‘must’ be organized.
PICTURESQUE:
 The idea of the picturesque in urban design is the idea of looking at the environment
as a 'picture' or a collection of 'pictures'.
 Analysis is aimed at discovering and categorizing these 'pictures' and design is
aimed at making 'pictures': spatial compositions of buildings and objects. This means
this activity is aimed at the perception of the environment. The idea being that a
pleasant composition can evoke a feeling of well being and thus contribute to a good
environment.

Sequentional analysis:
 In the visual arts, architecture and urban design a sequence is a series of images
expressing a thought or feeling.space-time experience In architecture and urban
design the idea behind sequences is that the represent a certain space-time
experience.
 This space-time experience is an unavoidable part of any architecture and urban
design. As the size and scale of design increases it plays a more important role. On e
could say that a very large building complex or city can only be experienced as a
sequence cinematographic view Characteristic for the idea of sequences is the
cinematographic view.
 The environment is interpreted as a dynamic succession of scenes. Together they
constitute a story. In essence sequences are about manipulating experiences and
feelings.
 The most extreme form of this are theme park rides that manipulate visual
impressions but above all impressions of the human system of equilibrium. This
leads to what in psychological terns is called a 'Kinesthetic experience' (the word is a
combination of 'kinetic' and 'esthetic').
 The Picturesque tradition found its original impulse in a popular reaction to the
changing face of English cities in the seventeenth century as commercial expansion,
social upheaval, and industrial technology began to transform the medieval royal
center into a crowded, dehumanizing urban catastrophe.
 The shocking spectacle of urban deterioration prompted many observers to comment
on the unseemly state of affairs, particularly in London, where filth and high density
appeared hand-in-hand with crime, licentiousness, and
 social chaos. John Evelyn complained in 1661 that “Catharrs, Phthisicks, Coughs
and Consumptions rage more in this one City than in the whole Earth besides.”
 He suggested that the problem could be ameliorated by planting a greenbelt around
the city which would be “diligently kept and supply’d, with such Shrubs, as yield the
most fragrant and odoriferous Flowers, and are aptest to tinge the Aer upon every
gentle emission at a great distance.”
 4 In addition to this early proposal for a natural remedy for pollution, Evelyn
collaborated with Christopher Wren on a plan for rebuilding London after the Great
Fire. Their plan relied on a “spider web pattern” which subordinated the grid to a
network of boulevards and plazas.

Timeline of Urban Design Development

Here’s the requested information presented as a simple timeline:

 1956: A conference on urban design was held at Harvard University under the
leadership of José Luis Sert.
 Late 1950s: The first education programs in urban design were initiated at Harvard
University and the University of Pennsylvania.
 1961: Jane Jacobs' criticism inspired architects to maintain interest in social concerns
and four-dimensional physical design.
 1976: Brent Brolin reflected on urban design and architecture.
 1977: Peter Blake reflected on urban design and architecture.