URBAN

PLANNING
ASSIGNMENT
GREECE AND ROME

ALEN TONY ( 11305 )

ALINA MARY KOSHY ( 11306 )
AMAL T ( 11307 )
GREEK TOWN PLANNING
MINOAN PHASE (2800-1100 BC)
EARLY GREEK
MYCENAEAN PHASE (1600-1100 BC)

HELLENIC PHASE (800-323 BC)

ANCIENT GREEK
HELLENISTIC PHASE (323-30 BC)

MINOAN
● Society benefited from trade
● No defensive installations.
● Temples planned along with palace.
● Ground water conduits and basement storages. GREEK URBAN FORM & COMPONENTS
● Elaborate and richly decorated palaces.
● Domestic architecture centered on open spaces and Greeks had a clearly defined territorial organization Cities emerged as
courtyard surrounded by colonnade. separate city states, rather than a unified nation

MYCENAEAN MAJOR CITY FORMS

● Developed in mainland of Greece
● Reflects waring society
● Built citadels, tombs and fortifications rather than palaces.
● Ashlar masonry
● Triangular opening or apparent arches.
● Dome shaped Roofs.
● Palaces acted as the administrative and industrial centers.

DETERMINANTS OF ANCIENT CITY DEVELOPMENT

REGIONAL CLIMATE BUILDING

TOPOGRAPHY MATERIALS
MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS OF
GREEK TOWN PLANNING
1. The temples were built upon Acropolis.

2. Wandering and unpaved lanes.

3. No drainage and sanitation.

4. Water was got from the local wells.

5. The wastes were disposed off on the streets.

6. There were no palaces.

7. Even public buildings were less apart from temples.

8. A common assembly place PNYX was there.

9. An irregularly shaped marketplace Agora .

10. There were no class distinction in the society.

11. Rooms surrounding courtyards have windowless facades

THE ANCIENT GREEK TOWNS THREE CLASSES OF THE TOWN HAD TO JUSTIFY THE
WERE DIVIDED INTO THREE PARTS. PEOPLE REQUIREMENTS OF

● PLACES OF GODS ● CRAFTSMEN ● HYGIENE

● ADMINISTRATION ● SOLDIERS ● DEFENSE
● DWELLING HOUSES ● WORKERS ● CIRCULATION
 COMPONENTS:
ATHENS 1. Acropolis 2. Harbors and ports 3. Agora

4. Residential Districts 5.Leisure and cultural area

6. City Wall 7. .Industrial District 8. Place for god

THE ACROPOLIS

The Acropolis Is The General Term For The

Original Defensive Hilltop Nucleus Of The
Older Greek Cities And The Fortified Citadel
Of Many Of The Colonial Foundation.
Possibly The Religious Sanctuary Of The
City Like Athens Or Left Deserted And Left
Outside The City Limit, As The Miletus. If
The Acropolis Is At The Centre Then, There
Were No Need Of City Wall

The Sacred Precinct Of The City Of Athens.

The Building Of The Acropolis Did Not Have
A Geometric Or Axial Relationship With
One Another But Had A Definite Visual
Relationship With One Another As Well As
The Natural Setting Of The Surrounding To
Be Experienced By The Human Eye And
People On Foot. The Natural Panorama Was
THE AGORA Dramatically Accented By The Foreground
Of Man Made Temple-Adding Man's World
The Agora was the most important gathering place in the city. With time To Nature
buildings were constructed to define and enclose the space-focal point of
planned city. It also transformed into place for combined social, commercial THE CITY WALL
and political activities. It was placed to be easily accessible from all directions.
It started as an open area where the council of the city met to take decisions. In Athens, Priene And Miletus, The Walls
It emerged as the heart of Greek intellectual life and discourse. It was usually Are Loosely Spread Around Both
located on a flat ground for ease of communication. In many cities, it is also Unplanned And Planned Urban Areas,
located close to Acropolis. Inorder To Take Maximum Advantage Of
The Terrain.
 TIMELINE MILETUS
● 11th BC: Miletus inhabited by the Greeks

● 8th BC: a major polis and sea trade route

● 494 BC Rebellion against Persian Rule.

● 493 BC: Hippodamus restored Miletus.

THE CITY AND ITS PLANNING

● Fortified polis - GRID PLAN

● 4 ports- major Ports of Lions

● Port of Lions- strategically placed -

important for defence.

● Reconstruction in regular blocks.

● City centre was divided into three cores

corresponding to the three areas of public
life: religious, administrative, and
commercial. HIPPODAMUS AND NEW GREEK CITIES

● Spatial form form based on symmetry and
balance
● The building around the central port
include:
● Port Colonnade
● The small Agora
● The Prytaneion
● Hippodamus of Miletus (498 BC-408 BC) was an ancient Greek architect,
urban planner,physician, mathematician, meteorologist and philosopher
● Considered to be the "father" of urban planning, Hippodamian plan of city
layouts -grid plan.
● His plans of Greek cities were characterised by order and regularity
● He is seen as the originator of the idea that a town plan might formally
embody and clarify a rational social order
PLAN OF AGORA IN ATHENS PLAN OF AGORA IN MILETUS

Old cities such as Athens had irregular street plans reflecting their gradual organic development.
New cities, especially colonial cities established during the Hellenistic period, had a grid-iron street plan
Certain things were common among cities: The overall division of spaces in 3 parts: acropolis, agora and the town fortification etc.
ROMAN TOWN PLANNING
EARLY TOWN PLANNING

Many of the italian towns and cities including rome itself were unplanned and grew without restriction. especially when the ground were uneven, their
streets had no clear pattern and were often very narrow, lined by long tall buildings, with flights of steps on the slopes.

● The defensive circuit of the fortress marked the edge of the new town.
● The foundation ceremony of new roman towns originated in etruscan
● The town baths were placed at sloping grounds.
times.
● A new forum was laid out to one side of the central axis and its basilica
● Greek and Etruscan town planning were the influencers of Roman town
was constructed on top of the bath house.
planning.
● By late 2nd century, the town had grown beyond the area of old fortress.
● The used similar grid pattern of streets, but had two major streets
● Stone buildings replaced timber buildings.
intersecting at right angles to provide crossroads as a focal point in the
● A regular grid of streets covered the entire walled area.
town centre.
CHARACTERIC FEATURES OF ROMAN TOWN

Roman colonial or camp plans were especially

developed for the military engineers.
such plans had necessarily to be simple to set out &
the building blocks easy to measure.
in this case the grid iron plan proved to be
successful.
the roman displayed crude symmetry & artistic
rigidity in practise of levelling a hill to make the site
confirm to the plan.
roman planning was like the chessboard system
having the principal stree tsrounding across the
length

THE BASILICA THE FORUM

A roofed hall with a wide

the focal point of the city
central area-the
was its forum.$an open
nave-flanked by side aisles,
area bordered by
and it often had two or
colonnades with shops.
more storeys.
An open area bordered
in roman times business
by colonnades with
transactions and legal
shops
proceedings took place in
functioned as the chief
the basilica, but the
meeting place of the
building type was adapted
town.
in christian times as the
usually situated in the
standard form of western
centre of the city at the
church.
intersection of the
the first basilicas were
cardo
erected in the early 2nd
and the cardo and
century bc in rome's own
decumanus
forum.
the public bath occupied an important
place in social life of romans.
some of the houses were equipped with
bathing facilities.
construction was of stone, brick, wood &
window glass.
baths of caracalla, rome
romans developed water supply &
distribution, drainage system & method of
heating which are directly related to men's
health.
they constructed great aqueducts for
transportation through water &
underground severs.

if the area is going to be unmanageable

then a new forum is developed for a new
stalite town.
an augur marked out the axes of the town,
the
cardo maximus and the decumanus
maximus based on astronomical sightings
the cardo on a north south axis and the
decumanus on the east west axis-and a
grid of smaller streets dividing the town
into blocks, and was surrounded by a wall
with gates.
streets parallel to these axes formed a grid
pattern that divided the area into blocks of
land (insulae) for building.
the shape of the insulae (sing.insula) was
usually square rectangular and of equal
size.
planned towns usually had a unified
complex of
forum and basilica,and eventually acquired
public buildings such as a theater,
amphitheater, baths and various temples.
many of the public buildings and the
forum were often sited in the town center,
although amphitheaters and theatre were
more usually situated near the perimeter
ROMAN COLONIES

Coloniae: settlements or colonies established by the state to form

a self administering community, often with a strategic defensive
function.
the creation of coloniae allowed rome to extend its people, culture
and control over the hostile, foreign or desired territories.
essentially, a colony came into being when a group
of roman citizens, be they veterans or civilians, received from the
state a grant of land in a province (or in italy).
the amount allotted to each colonist followed the regular plotting
used as the standard throughout the empire (centuriation).
once measured, all the colonists land received the priedstatus o
fius italicum, in which no tribute was demanded because they
were all citizens.
the advantages were obvious, and in an empire where commercial,
social and administrative competition was fierce, it helped to have
every conceivable edge

TOWN fORTIFICATION

The founding of colonies reached a peak in the reign of augustus.

most newly founded colonies were provided with defenses, usually
consisting of a wall with defendablegateways.
one purpose of these colonies was to dominate their surrounding
areas and implant the roman way of life, but not all areas were
hostile and so town walls may not always have been needed for
defenses.
however, impressive masonry walls provided the colony with
enhanced status, representing the power of rome.
walls varied in plan and construction from town to town but were
usually built as free standing masonry walls with carefully finished
facing of small blockwork.
gateways were kept to a minimum (usually one per side if the town
was planned as a rectangle), and were usually flanked by towers
rising higher than the walls.
there might also be interval towers on the perimeter wall itself.
gateways usually had single or double passageways for vehicles,
flanked by narrower passageways for pedestrians