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LATER APPROACHES TO URBAN DESIGN. LATER URBAN PLANNING THEORIES AND PRACTICES.
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LATER APPROACHES TO URBAN DESIGN LATER URBAN PLANNING THEORIES AND PRACTICES
The theoretical literature of western architecture starts with Vitruvious, the Augustan architect, and his treatise De Architectura. It was with Vitruvious that this present search for a theoretical understanding of urban design appropriately began. More important for urban design however, are the works of the Renaissance scholars, Leone Battista Alberti, Antonio AverlinoFilarete, Serlio and Andrea Palladio.
Alberti presented a great work called De Re Aedificatoria to Pope Nicholas V in 1452 in which he established architecture as a learned discipline based upon principles articulated and structured by reason. In his text Alberti dealt also with elements of city design, streets, roads, and piazza. • Filarete’s book Libro Architettonico, in which he wrote a treatise on architecture in a modern language for the first time, a capital city, Sforzinda and a port city Plousiapolis is described in terms of planning, design and construction of the city as well as its institutional organisation. • It was, however with Palladio, who wrote the most influential architectural treatise of the 16th century. His book covers the general principles of architectural design, the Classical orders, the design of palaces, villas, etc. Like Alberti, he also dealt with the design of streets and piazzas.
These names are of urban designer’s interest for the development urban form and the origins of urban design until the 19th century. • In the development of the urban form from early times to the 19th century, the urban structure had in common the fact that the shape of towns and cities was very much determined by people who had the social, political and economic power to put their theories into practice. • Also, topography, climate, construction materials and need for defense were the other urban form and planning determinants. • However, modern urban structures - and so modern urban design - are different than the previous examples because the organization of the society is fundamentally different. • In rest of the lecture, the most popular urban design theories (together with the basic principles and ideas behind) of the 19th and 20th centuries will be introduced in a chronological order.
Age of Reason - Public Health Acts In the 18th century Europe, there were two significant developments in the society: (i) expansion of trade leading to growth of a new middle-class, (ii) development of science. The new working middle class could not afford to live in the grand houses and palaces of the old aristocracy and this led to the development of ‘town houses’ and grand terraces (e.g. Regents Park, by John Nash, London). More significantly, the middle class realized that the old regimes were obstacles to the new capitalist economic system. This led to revolution in America and in France.
The development of science and rationalism influenced the ‘taste’ in architecture. • The architectural forms became more simple, refined and rational. This was so called neo-classic planning. • This also provided basis for industrial revolution beginning in England and changed from handcrafts to mass production in factories - a new building type located in rapidly growing cities. • New urban settlements started to develop around these factories and this led to overcrowding in cities. • So the important terms specializing the period are INDUSTRIALISATION, OVERCROWDING and URBANISATION.
French architect Tony Garnier’s industrial city plan was based on rigorous zoning. By sitting housing area away from the industrial area and city center, it removed much of the richness of traditional city life along with some of its squalor. Personal transport is still a necessity.
Existing towns were transformed very quickly. Industry required ‘new building types - factories, offices, railways and transportation systems, housing, government administrative buildings, prisons, museums, theatres, etc.’ to serve the new society. There was also a big gap between Capital and Labor and new social problems. Overcrowding in urban housing led to disease and death. Urgent action had to be taken to prevent revolt and the loss of the workforce. In order to improve the living conditions for the poor urban masses, PUBLIC HEALTH ACTS were culminated in 1875 in England.
Public Health Acts mainly aimed at improving sanitation and living conditions in general, for the poor urban masses and they prescribed minimum standards for urban housing with respect to the, - level, width and construction of new streets and provision for the sewerage thereof; - structure of walls, foundations, roofs and chimneys for securing stability and the prevention of fires and for the purpose of health; - sufficiency of space about buildings, to secure a free circulation of air, with respect of ventilation of buildings; - drainage of buildings. These regulations affected the form and the design of urban housing and so urban planning in England. Similar cases and process of industrialization and urbanization can be seen in many parts of the world.
Boulevard Planning • Industrial revolution had a similar process in France but led to different results. • In England the concern was with health and good living conditions; in France and especially in Paris the concern was with preventing another revolution. Thus, after the Revolution in 1848 in France, Napoleon wanted Paris to be redeveloped in such a way that no barricades would be able to be built in the streets. • Baron Haussmann brought a straight, pragmatic solution to a highly practical problem by destroying many existing buildings and building up wide boulevards with the intention of focusing visually and functionally on the great monuments of Paris which were connected to one another by these boulevards.
The new railway stations of Paris were also connected to assure more efficient transport between them and the city centers. These boulevards were by no means designed for any kind of intrinsic beauty. They gave long perspective views towards the major monuments, and also afforded the longest feasible sight lines for Napoleon’s troops. Besides, with their round-points in front of or around corners they also speeded up the flow of traffic. The trees, which seemed to humanize the boulevards, together with the great width of the boulevards themselves, made barricade-building difficult too.
Haussmann’s Boulevard planning became very influential in many cities in the world like Vienna, Barcelona, Ankara, etc.; it became the norm towards which most great European cities were developed or redeveloped in 1870s.
Sitte’s Artistic Planning • Camillo Sitte, a Viennese architect and the originator of modern city planning, reacted against Haussmann’s formal and monumental planning, just as some others. Therefore he attempted to abstract principles for the design of plazas, streets and public squares from the analysis of historic examples, with particular reference to the medieval Italian city. In general, he disliked intensely the boulevard approach which had been so fundamental to Haussmann-like planning.
In his book Der Stadbau published in 1889 and translated into English in 1965 under the name of City Planning According to Artistic Principles, he examines the public and aesthetic nature of old European cities that have lived from the pre-industrial age without being damaged. He was concerned with city planning which he considered ‘an art’ rather than ‘a scientific object’. He restricted his attention and concern to public squares wherein, he believed, lies the character of a city. • He appreciated the informal irregularity of the old squares, their being natural and having picturesque quality. He mentioned the harmonious effect and the balance they produce within the overall composition with the impression of rhythm and peace they have. • The informal freedom of design in classical and medieval towns was considered by Sitte to be the leading idea of old city planning (Onal, 1994, p 35).
Many urban theorists since the 1950s have focused their attention on the general value of Sitte’s study and have used his ideas as a basis for their own urban design concepts, although Sitte’s study of urban space refers specifically to the European city at the turn of the 19th century. Sitte’s ideas were also supported by Julien Gaudet, the Director of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.
The City Beautiful • The next distinguishable movement in city planning - the American City Beautiful was opposite in principle to Sitte’s artistic planning. It was rather based on Haussmann’s Boulevard Planning and first seen at Chicago World Fair (World’s Colombian Exposition) in 1893.
Chicago had been developing through the 19th century as a great commercial center; and after the disastrous fire of 1871, the architects were concerned with the development of fire-resisting structures for the office and warehouses, such as steel-framed high buildings, skyscrapers with elevators, etc. (1883 by Le Baron Jenney). • However, steel-frame and elevators solved the technical problems but not the architectural ones: the whole city was designed for the Exposition by a group of architects yet the design looked like reproduction of Baroque. Yet the exposition was supported by some business men who, having demonstrated their commercial skills, now wanted to buy cultural respectability.
They wanted Chicago to be known, not only as the commercial center of America, but also as its cultural capital. To achieve this aim, they wanted to create a uniform and ceremonious style - a style evolved from the highest civilization in history - i.e. the Classical examples, rather than the current medieval or any other form of romantic or picturesque art. • Designed thus as it was in the Classical manner, the Exposition, and so the city of Chicago, naturally encouraged all those who had been looking for a revival of that grand approach to city planning.
Looking South across the Grand Plaza towards the Machinery Hall at theWorld's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
The influences of the City Beautiful Movement can be observed in England, especially in the City Hall and Law Courts at Cardiff, the Civic Center in Southampton, and the Civic Offices in Portsmouth.
The Garden City • The next great set of planning conventions, those of the Garden City movement were intended to free the pressures on such cities by decanting population to new and much smaller towns, built well outside the city in virgin countryside. • The chief exponent of this approach was Ebenezer Howard whose main concern was to stem the drift of population-limited to 32.000 people-from rural to urban areas presenting the alternatives as town and country magnets, each of which has its attractions and corresponding disadvantages – inegration of town and country.
He characterizes the town as closing out nature and catalogues many disadvantages such as the isolation of crowds, distances from work, high rents and prices, excessive hours of work, etc. • He then balances these with some advantages, such as social opportunity, places of amusement, high wages, fresh air, low rents, etc.
Howard’s notional plans, which were first published in Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to RealReform (1898), and were republished as Garden Cities of Tomorrow, are based very firmly on the idea of a central park/garden of some five acres about which all of the city’s main functions are grouped concentrically. Indeed, major components would all be segregated.
The first ring around the central garden consisted of public buildings: the town hall, concert and lecture halls, library, museum, art gallery and hospital. • These were surrounded by a ring of parkland, cut through radically by the six principal boulevards and surrounded by the Crystal Palace - a wide glass arcade which, in wet weather, is one of the favorite resorts of the people. • The next ring was a broad ring of houses each standing in its own garden. The houses were greatly varied in character, some having common gardens.
The main ring of housing was surrounded by a Grand Avenue forming a belt of green, an annual park dividing the main part of the town into two concentric belts. • The Avenue itself is divided into six radial boulevards occupied by public schools, their surrounding play-grounds and gardens. • The outer regions of the town would be occupied by factories, warehouses, markets, coal yards, etc. all with access to circular railway lines which surrounding the town enabling goods to be loaded at various points. • Beyond this there would be a full range of uses for agricultural purposes.
Howard’s Garden City can be seen as the beginning of regional planning and decentralization.
Neighborhood Planning • Clarence Perry developed the idea of the neighborhood unit by analyzing the things he found good - including gardening and community participation - about living in a Long Island suburb named Forest Hills Gardens. • The neighborhood unit was focused on a community centre, a place for debate and discussion. • Crucial to Perry’s concept was the idea of day-to-day facilities: shops, schools, playgrounds, etc. should be within walking distance of every house. This in itself the overall size of a neighborhood, while heavy traffic was kept out, confined to arterial roads which skirted around the neighborhood. • Perry estimated the optimum size for a neighborhood to be around 5000 people; large enough to provide for most people’s day-to-day needs, yet small enough for a sense of community to develop.
The general characteristics of the neighborhood unit were based on the idea of: - the super block - instead of the narrow, rectangular block - the specialized roads planned and built - each for one use instead of for all uses - complete separation of pedestrians and vehicles - houses turned around; living and sleeping rooms facing towards gardens and parks, service rooms towards access road - park as backbone of the neighborhood. • In addition to the points above, cul-de-sacs/ dead-end streets were used for vehicular access to the fronts of the houses
The Modern Movement • The modern movement in architecture during the early part of this century has had a strong influence on contemporary architects, planners and urban designers. • The urban design proposals of Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright represent the polar attitudes toward urbanization and urban design.
Le Corbusier: Ville Radieuse • Le Corbusier, being very critical of traditional cities, attempted to convert the city into park within which the actual buildings would occupy only some %5 of the land. He developed a contemporary city – Ville Radieuse(Radiant City) – for 3 million inhabitants; this city was to be a city in a garden instead of being a city with gardens. The fundamental principles he put forward were: - freeing the city from traffic congestion, - enhancing the overall densities, - enhancing the means of circulation, - augmenting the area of planting.
The second work, Plan Voisin for rebuilding Paris designed in the 1920s but never constructed, illustrates the contrast between traditional urban density and the urban design of Modernism.
Although his ideas seem to be opposing to Howard’s notion of the small-town Garden City, Le Corbusier’s vision, in fact, had grown out of Howard’s: he points out in his study that, nature melts under the invasion of roads and houses and the promised seclusion becomes a crowded settlement, and the solution will be found in the vertical garden city. • His design for a city is linear and nodal on a large scale grid, proposing two kinds of housing immediately around the city centre: terraces and apartment blocks. He also considered the traffic in the design of a city. According to him, new forms of street must be designed so that the traffic can flow freely at optimum speed.
There were 3 important principles behind Corbusier’s influence on modern urban space: • The linear and nodal building as a large scale urban element – a principle applied physically to define districts or social units • The vertical seperation of movement systems – an outcome of Le Corbusier’s fascination with highways and the city of the future • The opening up of urban space to allow for freeing landscape, sun and light.
Le Corbusier’s plans and perspectives captured the imagination of architects, urban designers and planners worldwide. • In the 1960s particularly, a remarkable number of them were enabled to make their own cities look remarkably like Le Corbusier’s perspectives with their motorways slashing between their skyscrapers.
Frank Lloyd Wright: Broadacre City • As its name emphasizes the proposal of Wright was for a low-density development of detached buildings. He envisioned a city of small farms or garden home-steads. His scheme eliminated roads as much as possible and attempted to bring the country into the city rather than create parks.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City plan gave an acre of land to every household, but the inhabitants still depended for communications on a motorway grid and a helicopter for every family.
Both of these architects have had a great influence on the architectural profession and the general public. In a sense, the both expected and influenced two major kinds of urban form existing today –especially in American cities: the high-density urban core and the low density suburb.
