GROUP 2 REPORT

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF URBAN PLANNING

(Outline)

URBAN PLANNING HISTORY

Is urban planning about physical design, or about making things easier for the people
who live in our urban spaces?
Urban planning is a marriage between people and their surroundings. It is how the
built environment influences human behavior and interactions. The first marriage
recorded appears in the City of Uruk.
The history of urban planning runs parallel to the history of the city, as planning is in
evidence at some of the earliest known urban sites. The pre-classical and classical
period saw a number of cities laid out according to fixed plans, though many tended
to develop originally.
Designed cities were characteristic of the Minoan, Missopotamian, Harrapan, and
Egyptians civilisations of the 3rd millennium B.C. Distinct characteristics of urban
planning from remains of the cities in the Indus Valley Civilization lead archaeologists
to interpret them as the earliest known examples of deliberately planned and
managed cities.
Archaeological evidence suggests that many houses were laid out to protect from
noise and to enhance residential privacy; many also had their own water wells,
probably both for sanitary and ritual purposes.
The history of urbanization focuses on the processes of by which existing populations
concentrate themselves in urban localities over time, and on the social, political,
cultural and economic contexts of cities.
CITY OF URUK, MESOPOTAMIA
The first recorded
description of urban
planning appears in
the City of Uruk.
For thousands of years,
southern Mesopotamia
(ancient Iraq) was
home to hunters,
fishers, and farmers,
exploiting fertile soil,
rivers, and abundant
animals.
By around 3200 B.C., the largest settlement in southern Mesopotamia, if not the world,
was Uruk: a true city dominated by monumental mud-brick buildings.
Around 3200 B.C., the city of Uruk was the largest settlement in southern
Mesopotamia, and probably in the world. Uruk was one of the most significant cities,
and at one point was the center of attention in ancient Mesopotamia. Uruk was
thought to be founded by King Enmerkar somewhere around 4500 B.C. The
organization of Uruk set the blueprint for cities ever since.

Secure life in this difficult region depended on a highly developed system of control.
Such a system demands agreements first with neighbouring and then with more
distant settlements; and as more villages and fields become involved, these
agreements call for specialized negotiators. Archaeological evidence shows Uruk
had become a large urban centre, with an efficient administration, organized
religion and impressive public architecture – all hallmarks of a true city. There were
farmers to ensure the food supply, artisans organized in the mass production of
clothes, pottery and tools, as well as artists to create beautiful works of art for the
city’s adornment.

The urban core continued to be inhabited until the 4th century AD, and as both a
city and a religious centre, Uruk retained a certain importance, but it never
recovered its former political power. Its ruins now lie isolated in the deserts of Iraq.

MINOAN CIVILIZATION
Minoan civilization, Bronze Age civilization of Crete that flourished from about 3000
BC to about 1100 BC. Its name derives from Minos, either a dynastic title or the name
of a particular ruler of Crete who has a place in Greek legend.
• Bronze Age, third phase in the development of material culture among the
ancient peoples of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East following the Old Stone
Age and New Stone Age. The term also denotes the firrst period in which metal
was used.
• Crete became the foremost site of Bronze Age culture in the Aegean Sea, and
in fact it was the rst centre of high civilization in that area.

City of Knossos:
The settlement was established well before 2000 BCE and was destroyed, most likely
by fire (though some claim a tsunami) c. 1700 BCE. Knossos was destroyed and re-
built at least twice.
• The magnificient Minoan palace of Knossos, the center of Minoan Civilisation.
Knossos is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and is
considered Europe's oldest city.
• The palace of Knossos was undoubtedly the ceremonial and political centre
of the Minoan Civilization and culture. It appears as a maze of workrooms,
 living spaces, and storerooms close to a central square. An approximate of
graphic view of some aspects of Cretan life in the Bronze Age is provided by
restorations of the palace's indoor and outdoor murals, as it is also by the
decorative motifs of the pottery and the igsignia on the seals and sealings.

• In the first palace period around 2000BC the urban area reached a size of up
to 18000 people. In its peak the Palace and the surrounding city boasted a
population of 100,000 people shortly 1700BC.

Other ancient cities

• Distinct characteristics of urban
planning from remains of the cities
of Harappa, Lothal, Dholavira,
and Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley Civilisation (in modern-day
northwestern India and Pakistan) lead archeologists to interpret them as the
earliest known examples of deliberately planned and managed cities.
• The streets of many of these early cities were paved and laid out at right angles
in a grid pattern, with a hierarchy of streets from major boulevards to residential
alleys.
• These ancient cities were unique in that they often had drainage systems,
seemingly tied to a well-developed ideal of urban sanitation.
GRECO-ROMAN
refers to those geographical regions and countries that culturally were directly,
long term and intimately influenced by the language, culture, government and
religion of the ancient Greek and Romans. Italian Peninsula, Greece, Cyprus,
Iberian Peninsula, Anatolian Peninsula (Turkey), Gaul (France), Syrian Region, Egypt
and Roman Africa.

GRECO ROMAN ARCHITECTURE

⬗ Followed the principles and style establish in ancient Greece.
⬗ The most representative building of that era was the temple

THREE (3) PRIMARY STYLES OF COLUMN DESIGN USED IN TEMPLES IN CLASSICAL

GREECE.
1 DORIC IONIC CORINTHIAN

HIPPODAMUS the Greek philosopher Hippodamus (5th century BC) is regarded as the
first town planner and ‘inventor’ of the orthogonal urban layout.

⬗ Architect, Urban Planner, Physician, Mathematician,

Meteorologist and Philosopher.
⬗ Father of European Urban Planning
⬗ He is referred to in the works of Aristotle, Stobaeus, Strabo,
Hesychius, Photius and Theano.
⬗ Pioneer of Urban Planning according to Aristotle.
⬗ He devised an ideal city to be inhabited by 10,000 men
(free male citizen) while over-all population (including woman, children and
slaves) would reach 50,000.
⬗ He divided citizens into 3 classes (SOLDIERS, ARTISANS, HUSBAND MEN)
⬗ He divided land into 3 classes (SACRED, PUBLIC, PRIVATE)
ALEXANDRIA
the second largest city and a major economic
center in Egypt, extending about 32 km (20 mi)
along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in
the north central part of the country. Its low
elevation on the Nile delta makes it highly
vulnerable to rising sea levels.

ALEXANDRIA (331 BC)

-Alexander the Great
-Best known for the light
house of Alexandria
(Pharos), one of the Seven
Wonders of the
Ancient World.
-Center of Hellenism.
Alexander commissioned the architect Dinocrates to lay out his new city of Alexandria,
the grandest example of idealized urban planning of the ancient Hellenistic world,
where the city's regularity was facilitated by its level site near a mouth of the Nile.
DINOCRATES
⬗ Greek architectural and technical adviser for
alexander the great.
⬗ He is known for his plan for the city of Alexandria, The
monumental funeral pyre for Hephaestion and
reconstruction of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus.

CITY OF MILETUS, EGYPT

An ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia, near the modern village of
Balat in Aydin province, Turkey. Inhabited by Neolithic population in 3500-3000 BC.

PIRAEUS
⬗ Roughly means “The place over the passage”
⬗ Is a port city in the region of Attica, Greece.
⬗ Founded in early 5th century BC.
⬗ Is the chief port in Greece, the largest passenger port in Europe and the
second largest in the world, serving about 20 million passengers annually.
⬗ In 471 BC, Themistoclean walls were completed and Piraeus turn into a great
military and commercial harbor.
⬗ In the long run, Piraeus flourished and became a port of high security and great
commercial activity and a city bustling with life.
 Ancient Piraeus, Greece (451 BC)

HELLENISTIC PERIOD
⬗ “one who uses the Greek language”
⬗ Often considered as a Period of Transition
⬗ Covers the period of Mediterranean history between the death of Alexander
the great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire as signified by
the Battle of Actium in 31 BC.
⬗ Define the period when Greek culture spread in the non-Greek world after
Alexanders conquest.

ANCIENT ROMANS
⬗ The Romans used a
consolidated scheme for
city planning, developed
for civil convenience.
⬗ The basic plan consisted
of a central forum with city
services, surrounded by a
compact, rectilinear grid
of streets.
⬗ All roads were equal in
width and length, except for two, which were slightly wider than the others.
The decumanus, running east–west, and the cardo, running north–south,
intersected in the middle to form the centre of the grid.
⬗ Each square marked by four roads was called an insula, the Roman equivalent
of a modern city block.
MIDDLE AGES

⬗ Urban development in the early Middle Ages, characteristically focused on a

fortress, a fortified abbey, or a (sometimes abandoned) Roman nucleus,
occurred "like the annular rings of a tree", whether in an extended village or
the centre of a larger city.
⬗ The new centre was often on high, defensible ground, the city plan took on an
organic character, following the irregularities of elevation contours like the
shapes that result from agricultural terracing.
⬗ 9th-14th centuries new towns are built and others were enlarged
with newly planned extensions.
⬗ End of 13th century- considers the peak period
⬗ 14th Century marked the end of the period of great urban
expansion.

STAR SHAPED CITIES

❖ Florence was an early model of the new urban planning, which took on a star-
shaped layout adapted from the new star fort, designed to resist cannon fire.
❖ This model was widely imitated, reflecting the enormous cultural power of
Florence in this age; was impressed upon utopian schemes: this is the star-
shaped city".
❖ Radial streets extend outward from a defined centre of military, communal or
spiritual power.

Sforzinda City
⬗ The plan for Sforzinda, an ideal city named
after Francesco Sforza, then Duke of Milan. Although
Sforzinda was never built, certain aspects of its
design are described in considerable detail. The
basic layout of the city is an eight-point star, created
by overlaying two squares so that all the corners
were equidistant. This shape is then inscribed within a
perfect circular moat.

Palmanova

⬗ Angled and star-shaped bastions had already

been developed in Italy during the 16th century
to counter the effects of increasingly powerful
and accurate artillery, and remove blind-spots in
defensive walls. But Palmanova presented a
 unique opportunity to harmonize the entire urban layout with its defensive
perimeter.
⬗ Thus the heart of the town took the form of a huge nine-sided piazza, with
symmetrical streets radiating out to an exactly measured outer poligon, its nine
sides linked by triangular bastions - creating a perfect star.

AMERICAN CITY PLAN

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• In 1682, William Penn founded Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, planning it as a city to serve
as a port on the Delaware River and as a
place for government. Penn laid out
roads on a grid plan to keep houses and
businesses spread far apart, with areas for
gardens and orchards.
• The District of Columbia and commonly referred to as "Washington", "the District", or
simply "D.C.", is the capital of the United States.

20TH CENTURY URBAN PLANNING

⬗ Planning and architecture went
through a paradigm shift at the turn of
the 20th century.
⬗ The industrialized cities of the 19th
century had grown at a tremendous
rate, with the pace and style of
building largely dictated by private
business concerns.
 ⬗ Around 1900, theorists began developing urban planning models to mitigate
the consequences of the industrial age, by providing citizens, especially factory
workers, with healthier environments.

DANIEL BURNHAM

• Daniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA (September 4, 1846 –

June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban
designer. He was the Director of Works for the World's
Columbian Exposition in Chicago, colloquially referred
to as "The White City".
• Burnham took a leading role in the creation of
master plans for the development of a number of
cities, including Chicago, Manila, Baguio and
downtown Washington, D.C. He also designed
several famous buildings, including the Flatiron
Building of triangular shape in New York City, Union
Station in Washington D.C.,

CITY OF CHICAGO, USA

MANILA CITY PLAN, Daniel Burnham