The Meager and Unimaginative Character of Modern City Plans and Artistic Limitations of Modern

City Planning
From City Planning According to Artistic Principles ( 1898) by Camillo Sitte

The Author Critic

Sweta Labh, 3rd Sem
M.Arch. BMSCE
The thoughts by theorist Camillo Sitte in this paper laments the lack of art in modern city planning.
The city planning in modern era has become unidimensional where utility has taken complete
precedence over artistic look and appeal. Modern life has become more comfortable inside the
building structure and importance of open places markets, plazas etc. has diminished. City planning
has been reduced to a technical problem which is solved with mathematical precision using regular
and similar looking structures. Irregularities has been limited only to the spaces around walls such as
spiral staircases.
I agree with theorist that the focus of city planning has been substantially on solving urban needs of
modern life. The mandate that a city planner gets today to solve are the best use of limited urban
space, better transport (wider roads) etc. to support ever increasing population and needs of modern
urban life. City planners need to draw inspirations from previous book of knowledge and should treat
art as an important parameter of city planning. Though solving problems of modern urban life is
important and there is no denying the fact, however, at the same time, focus only on one aspect and
ignoring other completely would lead to different set of problems. Human are social animals and city
should be designed to encourage more social interactions which can only take place when the
surroundings around us, the open spaces, are beautiful which draws people out to be more human.
Modern life is comfortable but is more stressful than ever before and the places we live makes a large
difference in the way we think about our lives. Hence, its important that life does not feel
monotonous, boring and unimaginative, which means the surroundings around us should also not be
monotonous, boring and unimaginative. To keep future cities comfortable but at the same time, an
interesting and beautiful place to live, city planners will have to multi-dimensional in their thinking
and approach towards the city planning. The buildings, alleys, parks, monuments needs to be much
more beautiful and artistic than what it has been so far. This is not to say that, there has been
absolutely no thought given to art in city planning by planners but the focus has been less than what
it truly deserves to make our cities a much more better and beautiful place to live in.