later approaches to urban design

8/12/2019 Later Approaches to Urban Design

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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 atheoretical understanding of urban design

appropriately began. More important for urban

design however, are the works of the

Renaissance scholars, Leone Battista Alberti,Antonio Averlino Filarete, Serlio and Andrea

Palladio.



• Alberti presented a great work called De Re Aedificatoria to PopeNicholas V in 1452 in which he established architecture as a learneddiscipline based upon principles articulated and structured byreason. 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 treatiseon architecture in a modern language for the first time, a capital city,Sforzinda and a port city Plousiapolis is described in terms ofplanning, design and construction of the city as well as itsinstitutional organisation.

• It was, however with Palladio, who wrote the most influentialarchitectural treatise of the 16th century. His book covers thegeneral principles of architectural design, the Classical orders, thedesign of palaces, villas, etc. Like Alberti, he also dealt with thedesign of streets and piazzas.



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 realizedthat 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 influencedthe „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 tomass production in factories - a new building typelocated in rapidly growing cities.

• New urban settlements started to develop around thesefactories and this led to overcrowding in cities.

• So the important terms specializing the period areINDUSTRIALISATION, OVERCROWDING andURBANISATION.



• Garnier – La Cite Industrille 1901



• French architect Tony Garnier‟s industrial city plan wasbased on rigorous zoning. By sitting housing area awayfrom the industrial area and city center, it removed much of

the richness of traditional city life along with some of itssqualor. Personal transport is still a necessity.



• Public Health Acts mainly aimed at improving sanitationand living conditions in general, for the poor urbanmasses and they prescribed minimum standards for urbanhousing with respect to the,

- level, width and construction of new streets andprovision for the sewerage thereof;

- structure of walls, foundations, roofs and chimneys forsecuring stability and the prevention of fires and for thepurpose of health;

- sufficiency of space about buildings, to secure a freecirculation of air, with respect of ventilation of buildings;

- drainage of buildings.

These regulations affected the form and the design of urbanhousing 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 butled to different results.

• In England the concern was with health and good livingconditions; in France and especially in Paris the concernwas with preventing another revolution. Thus, after theRevolution in 1848 in France, Napoleon wanted Paris tobe redeveloped in such a way that no barricades wouldbe able to be built in the streets.

• Baron Haussmann brought a straight, pragmaticsolution to a highly practical problem by destroyingmany existing buildings and building up wide

boulevards with the intention of focusing visuallyand functionally on the great monuments of Paris which were connected to one another by theseboulevards.



• The new railway stations of Paris were also

connected to assure more efficient transportbetween them and the city centers. Theseboulevards were by no means designed for anykind of intrinsic beauty. They gave longperspective views towards the major

monuments, and also afforded the longestfeasible sight lines for Napoleon’s troops.Besides, with their round-points in front of oraround corners they also speeded up the flow

of traffic. The trees, which seemed tohumanize the boulevards, together with thegreat width of the boulevards themselves,made barricade-building difficult too.



• Haussmann’s Boulevard planning becamevery influential in many cities in the worldlike Vienna, Barcelona, Ankara, etc.; itbecame the norm towards which most great

European cities were developed orredeveloped in 1870s.



• In his book Der Stadbau published in 1889 andtranslated into English in 1965 under the name of CityPlanning According to Artistic Principles, heexamines the public and aesthetic nature of oldEuropean cities that have lived from the pre-industrialage without being damaged. He was concerned with cityplanning which he considered „an art‟ rather than „ascientific object‟. He restricted his attention and concern

to public squares wherein, he believed, lies the characterof a city.

• He appreciated the informal irregularity of the oldsquares, their being natural and having picturesquequality. He mentioned the harmonious effect and the

balance they produce within the overall composition withthe impression of rhythm and peace they have.

• The informal freedom of design in classical andmedieval towns was considered by Sitte to be theleading idea of old city planning (Onal, 1994, p 35).



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 onHaussmann‟s Boulevard Planning and first

seen at Chicago World Fair (World‟s

Colombian Exposition) in 1893.



• Chicago had been developing through the 19thcentury as a great commercial center; and afterthe disastrous fire of 1871, the architects were

concerned with the development of fire-resistingstructures for the office and warehouses, suchas steel-framed high buildings, skyscrapers withelevators, etc. (1883 by Le Baron Jenney).

• However, steel-frame and elevators solved thetechnical problems but not the architecturalones: the whole city was designed for theExposition by a group of architects yet the

design looked like reproduction of Baroque. Yetthe exposition was supported by some businessmen who, having demonstrated their commercialskills, 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, theywanted 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 orany 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.



Lookin g South across th e Grand Plaza towards the Machinery Hal l at the

Wor ld 's Colum bian Expos i t ion in Chicago.



• The influences of

the City Beautiful

Movement can beobserved in

England, especially

in the City Hall and

Law Courts atCardiff, the Civic

Center in

Southampton, and

the Civic Offices in

Portsmouth.



• Howard‟s notional plans, which were firstpublished in Tomorrow: A Peaceful Pathto Real Reform (1898), and were

republished as Garden Cities ofTomorrow, are based very firmly on theidea of a central park/garden of somefive acres about which all of the city’s

main functions are groupedconcentrically. Indeed, majorcomponents would all be segregated.



• The first ring around the central garden consisted of publicbuildings: 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 CrystalPalace - a wide glass arcade which, in wet weather, is one of thefavorite resorts of the people.

• The next ring was a broad ring of houses each standing in its owngarden. The houses were greatly varied in character, some havingcommon gardens.



• The main ring of housing was surrounded by a Grand Avenueforming a belt of green, an annual park dividing the main part of thetown 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 circularrailway lines which surrounding the town enabling goods to beloaded 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 - includinggardening and community participation - about living ina Long Island suburb named Forest Hills Gardens.

• The neighborhood unit was focused on a communitycentre, a place for debate and discussion.

• Crucial to Perry’s concept was the idea of day-to-dayfacilities: shops, schools, playgrounds, etc. should bewithin walking distance of every house. This in itself theoverall size of a neighborhood, while heavy traffic waskept 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 formost people’s day-to-day needs, yet small enough for asense 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 facingtowards 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



Le Corbus ier: Vi l le Rad ieuse

• Le Corbusier, being very critical oftraditional cities, attempted to convertthe city into park within which theactual buildings would occupy onlysome %5 of the land. He developed acontemporary city – Vil le Radieuse

(Radiant City) – for 3 millioninhabitants; this city was to be a city ina garden instead of being a city withgardens. The fundamental principleshe 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 theurban design of Modernism.



• Le Corbusier‟s plans and perspectivescaptured the imagination of architects,urban designers and planners worldwide.

• In the 1960s particularly, a remarkablenumber of them were enabled to maketheir own cities look remarkably like LeCorbusier‟s perspectives with their

motorways slashing between theirskyscrapers.



Frank Lloyd Wrigh t :

B roadacre City

• As its name emphasizes the proposal of Wright was for a low-density development of detached buildings. He envisioned acity of small farms or garden home-steads. His schemeeliminated roads as much as possible and attempted to bring thecountry into the city rather than create parks.



• Frank Lloyd Wright‟s Broadacre City plan gave an acre of land toevery household, but the inhabitants still depended forcommunications on a motorway grid and a helicopter for everyfamily.



• 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 majorkinds of urban form existing today –

especially in American cities: the high-

density urban core and the low density suburb.



• Then the principles by which architectsand planners were to deal with theproblems of the 20th century were codified

by CIAM (Congres Internationauxd ’Architecture Moderne).

• Accordingly the city was divided into fourmain functions: housing, work, recreation,

transport. Radical solutions were proposedfor each area.



RECENT URBAN PLANNING

THEORIES AND PRACTICES

RECENT APPROACHES TO

URBAN DESIGN



• Two major themes were found in the Post-

modern reaction to the hegemony associated with

modern architecture:

• New Rationalism - Neo-Rational ism

• New Empiricism – Neo-Empir ic ism

N R ti li



New Rationalism –

Neo-Rationalism

• TEAM 10 (a young group of second-generationof European Modernists who moved towrad amore contextual approach at least in conceptand attempt to re-define the underlying principles

and formal expression of urban space) ---------REDEFINITION OF PRINCPLES AND FORMALEXPRESSION OF URBAN SPACE in 1950s

NEO-RATIONALISTS:

• ALDO ROSSI (ITALY)

• LEON & ROB KRIER (LUXEMBOURG)

• RICARDO BOFILL (SPAIN)



• Rationalism – promotes a concern for

public open space over a preoccupation

with individual buildings and incorporates

strongly defined geometric spaces asordering devices. It looks at historic

models and classical spatial structures to

derive principles for linking old and new,high and low, and diverse materials,

colors, and textures for inspiration.



L K i ‟ i i t t t th t di l



• Leon Kries‟s mission was to reconstruct the tradionalurban blocks as definers of streets and squares.

• Formal, multidimensional, horizontal pattern of spaces byhighlighting the qualities of public space.



New Empiricism



New Empiricism –

Neo-Empiricism

• HIGHLIGHTING PERCEPTUAL AND

SPATIAL QUALITIES OF THE URBAN

ENVIRONMENT

• REPRESENTATIVES:KEVIN LYNCH

ROBERT VENTURI

GORDON CULLENCOLIN ROWE



KEVIN LYNCH

• URBAN ANALYSER IN EMPRICAL TERMS

• PRESENTED HIS PRINCIPLE RULES FORDESIGNING CITY SPACES AS: – LEGIBILITY: THE MENTAL PICTURE OF THE CITY

HELD BY THE USERS ON THE STREET

– STRUCTURE AND IDENTITY: RECOGNIZABLECOHERENT PATTERN OF URBAN BLOCKS,BUILDINGS AND SPACES

– IMAGEABILITY: USER PERCEPTION IN MOTION AND HOW PEOPLE EXPERIENCE THE SPACESOF THE CITY

• ACCORDING TO LYNCH:



ACCORDING TO LYNCH:

– SUCCESSFUL URBAN SPACE MEET THESE

REQUIREMENTS

– PARTS OF THE CITIES - “ELEMENTS OF URBANFORM” SHOULD BE DESIGNED ACCORDING TO

THESE REQUIREMENTS



ROBERT VENTURI

• MOST OF THE OUTDOOR SPACES

CREATED BY MODERN MOVEMENT

ARE LOST SPACES – ISOLATED FROM

ITS TOTAL SURROUNDINGS.



GORDON CULLEN

• A TOWNSCAPE ARTIST

• EXPLORED THE EXPERIENCE OFSEQUENCE THROUGH URBAN SPACE

• UNIQUE SENSE OF PLACE FROMSTREET LEVEL

• RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE

OBJECT & MOVEMENT• THE EVENT OF ARRIVING AT /

LEAVING CITY SPACES



COLIN ROWE

• A LEADING URBAN DESIGN EDUCATOR• DILEMMA OF TEXTURE – COMPOSITE URBAN

PATTERN OF STREETS, BUILDINGS, AND OPENSPACES – THE FABRIC OF THE CITY

• The problem: Building as a free-standing object and

its disruptive effects on the continuity of these urbanpatterns.

• He put forward a pluralist view of urban form, a collagecity that accomodates a range of ideas and visions.

• His urban design work is based on cubist geometries

and historic models of Rome and Florence etc. wherebuildings as articulated solids are designed to createpositive voids.

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