Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
OF
URBAN DESIGN
Dr.R.K.Pandit
Professor, Deptt of Architecture
Madhav Institute of Technology & Sc., Gwalior
THE BEGINNINGS
• SETTLEMENT DESIGN
Agricultural Societies
Rectilinear Plotting
• LAYOUT
Grid (or Rectilinear) – product of the farmer
Circular (Fencing) – product of the herdsman
-- defensive role
• 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
• RENAISSANCE PLAZA
– one of the elements of urban design par excellence
-- but did not tie whole city together
-- Rossetti’s Ferrara (street system); Fontana’s 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
• OTHER VISIONARIES
– Edgar Chambless, American vehicles running on rooftops
-- “Motopia” – proposed in England
-- Eugene Henard, French, published “Les Villes de l’Avenir” (1910)
may have influenced Le Corbusier
MODERN CONCEPTS
URBAN DESIGN
• 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)
• McMILLAN COMMISSION
-- AIA nat’l 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 L’Enfant plan
• CIVIC CENTERS
– city hall, county court house, library, museum, opera house,
and a plaza
•
CITY BEAUTIFUL MOVEMENT
•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 men’s blood”
-- last use of French Renaissance principles applied 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
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
Howard’s belief
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
• OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
– London’s 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
•LEWIS MUMFORD
-- Authored some twenty books and innumerable articles
-- “The City in History” – published in 1961, summary of
Mumford’s thought
• 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 Doxiadis’s total view
-- Magazine “Ekistics” – shows Dixiadis’s 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
-- “Man’s Struggle for Shelter in an Urbanizing World” (1964)
• BUCKMINSTER FULLER
-- “Inventory of World Resources – Human Trends and Needs”
(1963)
•