A BRIEF HISTORY

OF URBAN DESIGN
& COMMUNITY
ARCHITECTURE

A lecture in APLANN02 – Introduction to

Urban Design and Community Architecture
 ANCIENT TIMES
• People lived in groups
• for protection against the elements
• For security against rival tribes
• For ease in gathering food
• Human’s natural need for companionship

• Natural factors that affect the development and growth

of urban centers
• Potential for natural calamities (fire, flood, volcanic
eruptions)
• Presence of fertile soil, bodies of water, and other natural
resources
• Slope and terrain and other forms of natural defenses
• Climate
 Ancient Times
◼ Innovations that influenced
the development of early
cities

◼ The plow
◼ Rectilinear town
planning
◼ Circular and radio-
centric plans
 Ancient Times

• SETTLEMENT DESIGN
Agricultural Societies
Rectilinear Plotting

• LAYOUT
Grid (or Rectilinear) – product of the farmer
Circular (Fencing) – product of the herdsman
-- defensive role
Radiocentric – when circular settlements
enlarge
-- fortress cities (i.e. Paris)
 Ancient Times
◼ 3000 – 4000 B.C.
◼ During this era, cities in the Fertile Crescent were
formed by the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys of
Mesopotamia
◼ The City of Eridu – the oldest city
◼ The City of Damascus – oldest continually inhabited city
◼ Babylon – the largest city with 80,000 population
Mesopotamia
Eridu Ur Babylon
Thebes
Nile Valley
Memphis Harappa
Indus Valley Mohenjo-Daro
Ugarit Greek cities
Mediterranean
Europe Byblos Roman cities
Anyang
Huang-Ho Valley Zhengzhou (Chengchou)

Mesoamerica

3000 2000 1000 B.C. A.D.

Ancient Times
◼ 3000 B.C.
◼ Thebes and Memphis along the Nile Valley – these
Egyptian cities were characterized by monumental
architecture popularly symbolized by the pyramids
◼ 2500 B.C.
◼ Indus Valley (now Pakistan)
◼ Mohenjo-Daro – administrative and religious centers
with 40,000 population
◼ 1900 B.C.
◼ Yellow River Valley of China – ‘land within the
passes’. Precursor of the Linear City
◼ Anyang – largest city of the Yellow River Valley
◼ Cities also evolved in Mesoamerica, built by Aztecs,
Mextecs and Zapotecs
Ancient Times
◼ 700 B.C.
◼ Greek cities spread through the Aegean Region –
westward to France and Spain
◼ ‘polis’ – defined as ‘city – state’. Most famous is the
Acropolis – a religious and defensive structure up on
the hills, with no definite geometrical plan
◼ Finite measurement of the Greeks – built to human
scale
◼ Sparta and Athens were the largest cities
◼ Neopolis and Paleopolis – ‘new’ and ‘old’ cities. A
Neopolis became a Paleopolis once another new city
was built
 GREEK CLASSICAL CITIES
❑ THE ACROPOLIS
❑ THE AGORA
• LANDSCAPE – powerfully assertive ❑ GREEK TOWNS

• HIGH PLACES – fortified hilltop

-- sacred precinct
• TOWN DESIGN = SENSE OF THE FINITE
-- Aristotle’s ideal size of city = 10,000 – 20,000 people
-- never attempted to overwhelm nature
-- buildings give a sense of human measure to
landscape
• THE STREET – not a principal element but as a leftover
space for circulation
• PLACE OF ASSEMBLY – market (agora)
GREEK CLASSICAL CITIES

The Acropolis
 GREEK CLASSICAL CITIES
◼ 450 – 400 B.C.
◼ The city of Miletus –
said to be the first
planned city
◼ 3 sections of Miletus
– for artisans,
farmers, and the
military
◼ Hippodamus – the
first noted urban
planner and referred
to as the Father of
Town Planning.
Introduced the grid
system and the
Agora (public
marketplace)
 ROMAN CLASSICAL CITIES
• Roman Cities adopted Greek forms but with different scale –
monumental and had a social hierarchy
• Roman Forums – focal points of Roman city planning.
• Romans as conquerors built forum after forum
• Romans as engineers built aqueducts, public baths, utility
systems, fountains, etc.
• Romans as physical and social planners developed
housing variations and other spaces:
• Basilica – covered markets with law courts
• Curia – local meeting hall; the capitol
• Domus – traditional Roman house with a central atrium
• Insulae – 3 to 6 storey apartments with storefronts

• The Romans were fond of public works and arts

 ROMAN CLASSICAL CITIES
❑ THE REPUBLICAN FORUM
❑ THE IMPERIAL FORUM

• URBAN DESIGN – Greek: sense of the finite

– Romans: political power and organization
• USE OF SCALE – Greek use of scale is based on human
measurements
-- Romans used proportions that would relate parts of
building instead of human measure
• MODULE – Greek use of house as module for town planning
-- Roman use of street pattern as module
-- to achieve a sense of overpowering grandeur
-- made for military government
• THE STREET – Greeks: as a leftover space for circulation
-- Romans: street are built first; buildings came later
• PLACE OF ASSEMBLY – Greeks: market (agora)
-- Romans: market, theater, and arena
ROMAN CLASSICAL CITIES
 MEDIEVAL ❑ERA
PIAZZA DEL CAMPO, SIENA

• DECLINE OF ROME – “Dark Ages”, but not for urban design

• URBAN SETTINGS – Military strongholds, castles, monasteries,
towns
• MILITARY STRONGHOLDS – Acropolis and Capitoline Hill
• CASTLES – built atop hills, enclosed by circular walls;
radiocentric growth
• MONASTERIES – citadels of learning, laid out in rectilinear pattern
• MEDIEVAL TOWNS
-- like Greek towns, small and finite in size
-- lacks geometry
-- became parts of larger territorial states
-- growth and population created the need for marketplaces
 MEDIEVAL ERA TOWN DESIGN
• VISIBLE EXTERIORS suit the viewing conditions of small spaces
• VISTA considerations and HUMAN SCALE – fine accents in
landscape
• STREET LAYOUT is functional, although with no logical form
• MEDIEVAL ERA sets the stage for RENAISSANCE
-- skill of builders
-- wealth of bourgeoisie and nobility
-- organization of the military and new force in gunpowder
-- development of political powers and expertise
-- new organizations
-- scholarly knowledge of the church
• 3 MAJOR EVENTS MARKING TRANSITION FROM MEDIEVAL TIMES
-- Dawn of science
-- Fall of Constantinople
-- Discovery of the New World
 FROM MEDIEVAL ERA TO
RENAISSANCE ERA
• MEDIEVAL URBAN DESIGN were to be discarded
-- sense of scale
-- intimate relation between house and street
• MEDIEVAL SYSTEM OF TOWN DESIGN
-- truly livable; humanist basis
• RENAISSANCE SYSTEM OF TOWN DESIGN
-- the role of the individual as builder of his town was lost
 RENAISSANCE – EARLY
DEVELOPMENTS
• IDEAL CITIES
-- 1440 (beginning of Renaissance)
-- Leon Battista Alberti – foremost theoretician
-- Alberti’s De Architectura – treats architecture and town
design as single theme (just like Vitruvius)
• ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF EARLY RENAISSANCE
-- Public Works
-- Civic improvement projects
• REBUILDING FERRARA
-- Palazzo Diamenti – most famous structure
-- Biaggio Rossetti – architect and town planner regarded as
one of the world’s earliest modern urban designers
-- Rossetti’s plan:
1. Street widening, new buildings, wall improvement
2. Enlarge the town
3. Carry on with the plan
Leon Battista Alberti
 RENAISSANCE – EARLY
DEVELOPMENTS
• LESSONS FROM ROSSETTI’S EFFORT
-- Repair an existing city
-- Plan for enlargement
-- Decide which to concentrate effort
-- Lay down a plan that is logical and realizable
-- Provide framework for others to build upon

“Ferrara is the first MODERN city in Europe”

Jacob Burckhardt, 1860
 RENAISSANCE – LEONARDO DA VINCI
• SKETCHED A CITY STRADDLING
A RIVER
• RIVER STREAMS – supply water
and carry away waste
• MULTILEVELS – for multiple
functions
• PROPOSED MOVABLE HOUSES
– anticipated the “greenbelt”
concept
• SATELLITE TOWNS – for
workers
• LESSONS: Growth or functional
improvement is not
necessarily an advantage
• POPES IN ROME – the “real say”
in urban design at that time
 RENAISSANCE – REBUILDING ROME

• PROBLEMS: Circulation, defense, water supply, sanitation

• SOLUTION: Popes have to undertake civic improvement projects
• PILGRIMAGE – St. Peter’s Cathedral improved
– Campidoglio (Rome’s city hall) improved
• DOMENICO FONTANA – architect commissioned by Pope
Sixtus V
• FONTANA’S PLAN – streets were visually accented using
OBELISKS
• OBELISKS - as “stakes”, as GUIDEPOSTS for the whole city
- as SCALE REFERENCE POINTS for successive designers
• DESIGN PRINCIPLE – architecture of ancient Rome
-- new design of early Renaissance
 RENAISSANCE – BUILDING GROUPS
• ST. PETER’S CATHEDRAL – Bramante
• TEMPIETTO – miniature version of St. Peter’s Cathedral
• CARLO FONTANA – basilica inside the Colosseum
• BORROWED DESIGN – Renaissance from Medieval, Romans
from Greeks
• ANDREA PALLADIO – developed precise theories of
proportion and module
• PALLADIO’S PROTOTYPES - Roman country villa (rural)
- Roman Forum (urban)
• PALLADIAN INFLUENCES – George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson
• “FOUR BOOKS OF ARCHITECTURE”
– examples of plazas (the modern forum)
• “COLOSSAL” or “GIGANTIC” ORDER – Palladio’s San
Giorgio Maggiore
 RENAISSANCE – THE CAMPIDOGLIO
• One of MICHELANGELO’s finest
works
• Seen at a distance as a whole
composition
• EQUESTRIAN STATUE of
Marcus Aurelius
-- Serves as Centerpiece or
Guidepost
• ENTRANCE RAMPS – widen
toward the top
-- perspective effect and stairs
appear shorter
-- similarly, SIDE BUILDINGS
are not parallel
• Significance of a REMODELLING JOB
 RENAISSANCE – URBAN PLAZAS:
FRANCE & ENGLAND
• JACQUES ANDROUET DU CERCEAU
-- French architect who visited Rome
-- Brought plaza idea to Paris, France
• INIGO JONES – English architect, brought the Renaissance
plaza to London
-- Bedford Square – started in 1631
-- Covent Garden – modeled after Livorno
• OTHER PLAZAS IN LONDON
-- Leicester Square – started in 1635
-- Bloomsbury Square – 1665
-- Six more plazas were built before 1700
• RENAISSANCE PLAZA
– one of the elements of urban design par excellence
-- but did not tie whole city together
-- Rossetti’s Ferrara (street system); Fontana’s Rome
(guidepost system)
 RENAISSANCE – LANDSCAPE
ARCHITECTURE
• PARKS and GARDENS – tie the city together
-- connecting the palace and the town
• VILLA & GARDEN
– rural counterpart of PALACE & PLAZA
• ITALY – gardens are never too large
-- built as TERRACES because of hilly land
• FRANCE – elaborate system of landscape design
-- roots from large HUNTING FORESTS
-- ROND POINTS – high ground intersections
• RICHELIEU – application of “rond points” idea
-- 1630, landscape design of palace started
-- Jacques Lemercier – architect
• ANDRE LENOTRE -- landscape architect of Richelieu
-- Western world’s master of landscape architecture
 RENAISSANCE – FRENCH, ENGLISH &
ITALIAN LANDSCAPE

• FRENCH – Regarded natural landscape as barbaric

-- Man-made, preferably geometric creations
-- PHILOSOPHY – absolute command of nature
• ENGLISH -- Characterized by an attitude of sympathy with nature
-- PHILOSOPHY – practice of taming nature
• ITALIAN – Terraced garden is best model of gardening in limited
space
 RENAISSANCE – LENOTRE &
VERSAILLES
• LENOTRE’S MAJOR CLIENT – Louis XIV, the “Sun King” of
France
• VERSAILLES – Lenotre’s greatest work, Started in 1670,
completed by 1710
-- “Goose Foot”/ patte d’oie -- three roads in a single view
• PIAZZA DEL POPOLO – patte d’oie entrance to Rome
-- appeared accidentally as result of Fontana’s plan
-- not formally finished until early 19th century, by a French
architect, incidentally
 RENAISSANCE – REBUILDING LONDON
• GREAT PLAGUE – 1666 GREAT FIRE OF LONDON – 1667
• SEVERAL DESIGNERS PROPOSED PLANS
-- Christopher Wren -- Robert Hooke -- John Evelyn
-- Valentine Knight
• 1707-1709– laws banning use of combustible mat’ls, led to extensive
use of bricks
• JOHN GWYNN– produced plan for London 1766 “London &
Westminster Improved”
-- heralded the “Golden Age” of building
• GOLDEN AGE – encompassed a 30-year period
-- ADELPHI TERRACE-- work of the Adam brothers; built along
the River Thames
-- BATH – created by architects John Wood, Sr. and Jr.
-- 1702, discovered by the aristocracy -- 1727, rectangular plaza
(Queens Square)
-- 1754, great circle (King’s Circus) -- 1767, Royal Crescent
-- EDINBURGH – 1767, Scottish architect James Craig
• END OF LONDON PLAZA ERA – coming of industrial era
 RENAISSANCE – DEVELOPMENTS IN
PARIS
• REBUILDING OF THE LOUVRE – 1667, Lorenzo Bernini’s designs
rejected
-- Claude Perrault – a court physician
-- Viewing conditions same as Palladio’s San Giorgio Maggiore
and Michelangelo’s Campidoglio
• BEAULEVARD–city is enlarged, old walls torn, creating broad, long
streets
-- term derived from Dutch word “bulwark”
• 1748 – proposals for new plazas
-- Place de la Concorde – 1757, finished by 1770
• 1789 – French Revolution
• 1793 – new plan for Paris called Plan des Artistes
-- 1748, emphasis on plaza 1793, emphasis on street
• NAPOLEON I – Champs Elysees improvement -- Arch of Triumph
• NAPOLEON III – assigned Baron Georges Eugene Haussmann
-- Jean Charles Adolphe Alphand, landscape architect
 MODERN CONCEPTS – IDEAL TOWNS
& WORKER TOWNS
• CLAUDE NICOLAS LEDOUX – French architect
-- late 18th and early 19th century, a new era in urban design
-- CHAUX, France (1776) – principal work
• LEDOUX’S DESIGN – an ideal plan where “everything is
motivated by necessity”
“Architecture” – Ledoux’s book published in 1804
• ROBERT OWEN – English social reformer
-- NEW LANARK, Scotland (1799)
• OWENITE COMMUNITIES – England and United States
– “New Harmony” in Indiana, by Owen’s son
– “Brook Farm” in Massachusetts by New England
transcendentalists
– “Icarus” in Red River, Texas, by Frenchman named Cabet
“Icarus” failed, Cabet joined the Mormons in search for the
promised land and helped lay out Salt Lake City
•
 MODERN CONCEPTS – IDEAL TOWNS
& WORKER TOWNS
• FRANCOIS FOURIER – French social reformer
-- “Phalanstery”
-- “The New World of Industry and Society” – published in
1829
• JAMES SILK BUCKINGHAM – “Victoria”
-- “ National Evils and Practical Remedies” – published in
1849
• ROBERT PEMBERTON – “Happy Colony” in New Zealand
• DR. BENJAMIN RICHARDSON – “Hygeia” in United States
• THOMAS JEFFERSON – “Jeffersonville”
 MODERN CONCEPTS – PLANNED
INDUSTRIAL TOWNS
• FRANCIS CABOT LOWELL – Georgiaville, RA (1812)
-- Waltham, Massachusetts -- Harrisville, NH (1816) -- Lowell,
Massachusetts (1822)
• OLIVE – French architect, anticipated the 20th c. Garden City
– Vesinet, France (1859)
• OTHER INDUSTRIAL TOWNS
– Essen, Germany (1863), Krupp factories called Siedlungen
(worker colonies)
-- Pullman, Illinois (1879)
-- Port Sunlight near Liverpool (1887) – W.H. Lever Soap
Company
-- Bournville near Birmingham (1889) – Cadbury Chocolate
Company
-- Gary, Indiana (1906), laid out by a steel corporation, a “made
to order” city
 MODERN CONCEPTS – PLANNED
INDUSTRIAL TOWNS
• TONY GARNIER – French architect, anticipated modern day
zoning
-- “Une Cite Industrielle” (1901-04)
-- Plan is incredibly detailed
-- imaginary site (high plateau and level valley along a river)
-- residential on plateau factories on valley
-- dam for hydroelectric power
-- hospital on high hill
-- smelting factories and mines at respectful distances
-- locations for sewage plant, abattoir, bakery, and civic center
-- testing grounds for cars and even airplanes!
 MODERN CONCEPTS – URBAN DESIGN
& MACHINES
• DON ARTURO SORIA Y MATA – Spanish businessman and
engineer
-- created Madrid’s 1st streetcar and telephone system
-- “La Ciudad Lineal” – Linear City
-- Stalingrad – planned linear city
• INVENTIONS INFLUENCING URBAN FORM
– Electricity – Peter Kropotkin (1899)
-- Railroad
• OTHER VISIONARIES
– Edgar Chambless, American vehicles running on rooftops
-- “Motopia” – proposed in England
-- Eugene Henard, French, published “Les Villes de l’Avenir”
(1910) may have influenced Le Corbusier
 MODERN CONCEPTS – URBAN DESIGN
& MACHINES
• ANTONIO SANT’ELIA – Italian futurist
-- “La Citta Nuova” – enormous metropolis
-- inspired by the complex plans for the New York Grand
Central area
• METABOLISM GROUP– Japanese architects
-- underwater cities, biological cities, cities changing their
own forms, cities built as pyramids
• OTHER VISIONARIES
– Edward Bellamy, published in 1887 “Looking Backward,
2000-1887”
-- H.G. Wells (1902-1911)
 MODERN CONCEPTS – RENEWED
ATTITUDE TOWARD NATURE
• TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES
– not necessarily a sign of progress
• CHIEF SPOKESMEN
- Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (French)
- John Ruskin (English)
- Henry David Thoreau (American)
• ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT
- Led by William Morris, return to simpler
Christian virtues of the Gothic period
- Norman Shaw, created Bedford Park (1875-81)
• GOTHIC REVIVAL IN 19TH CENTURY
“Gothic period was the last original architectural era”
- Frank Lloyd Wright
 THE CONSERVATIONALISTS AND THE
PARK MOVEMENT
• GEORGE PERKINS MARSH – American conservationist
-- the founder of modern conservation
-- “Man and Nature” – published in 1862, an introduction to
ecology
• FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED – pioneer of the American park
system
-- also a social reformer, concerned w/ moral disintegration in
large formless cities
-- also a farmer, landscape design as solution to social ills (i.e.
urban park)
-- Central Park of New York City won in 1859
-- San Francisco, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, Montreal, Boston
-- “Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns” published in 1870
-- Cities – planned for two generations ahead
-- maintain sufficient breathing space
-- design embraces the whole city
 THE CONSERVATIONALISTS AND THE
PARK MOVEMENT
• CHARLES ELIOT– completed Olmsted’s Boston park system
• GEORGE KESSLER -- layout of Kansas City park system
• JENS JENSEN -- designed Chicago’s original park system
• ALPHAND -- Haussmann’s landscape architect
-- “the French Olmsted”
• DANIEL SCHREBER -- a physician and educator
-- “Schrebergarten” – small gardens for children; later,
used by elderly
-- popularized the idea of the urban playground in Europe
• EXPLORATIONS INTO THE PAST
– ARCHAEOLOGY became a science in 19th century
– CAMILLO SITTE, Viennese architect
-- “An Architect’s Notes and Reflections upon Artistic City
Planning” published in 1889
 THE GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT

• EBENEZER HOWARD – An English stenographer

-- “Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Social Reform” published
in 1898
-- Proponent of the “Garden City” concept
• LETCHWORTH – the first garden city (1902), located 35 miles
from London
-- architects Barry Parker and Raymund Unwin
-- became a satellite of London because factories did not
materialize
• WELWYN -- the second garden city (1920), more successful than
Letchworth
-- architect Louis de Soissons
 THE SCIENTIFIC APPROACH

• HOWARD’S ANALYTICAL APPROACH– city so large &

operations so complex
-- Proper understanding can only be gained by full application
of precise analysis
• PATRICK GEDDES – Scottish city planner. established tool
for analytical approach
-- “Cities in Evolution” published in 1915 -- coined the term
“conurbation”
-- laid out some 50 cities in India and Palestine
• MARSH -- interrelationship between MAN and NATURE
• GEDDES -- interrelationship between PEOPLE and CITIES
• CONNURBATION - “the waves of population inflow to large
cities, followed by overcrowding and slum formation, and
then the wave of backflow”
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL MOVEMENT
• GOLDEN AGE OF URBAN DESIGN
– From 1890 to the Great Depression (1930s), termed the “City
Beautiful Era”
• WORLD’S FAIRS
– as works of civic art -- application of latest technologies;
façade architecture; promise of America come to life
-- as urban renewal operations-- Jackson Park – Chicago
World’s Fair, San Francisco Marina, Treasure Island, SF
• McMILLAN COMMISSION
-- AIA nat’l conference in Washington D.C. (1901)
-- Daniel Burnham, Augustus St. Gaudens, and Frederick Law
Olmsted among present
-- plan for improvement of central Washington -- reviving the
original L’Enfant plan
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL MOVEMENT
• CIVIC CENTERS
– city hall, county court house, library, museum, opera
house, and a plaza
• PUBLIC WORKS – BRIDGES, designed as pieces of
sculpture
-- RIVERS, made into classical garden terraces
-- COLLEGES and UNIVERSITIES, as visions of classical
world
-- RAILROADS, built Roman basilicas and baths
• CITY AS A WHOLE -- Daniel Burnham – father of American
city planning
-- plans for Chicago, San Francisco, Manila, etc.
-- “Make no little plans… they have no power to stir
men’s blood”
-- last use of French Renaissance principles applied at the
largest scale possible
 THE CITY BEAUTIFUL MOVEMENT
• PLANNED RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITIES
– Roland Park, Baltimore (1892): start of commuter suburb
-- Country Club, Kansas City
-- Forest Hills Garden, L.I., New York: commuter suburb for
Manhattan (1911)
• MANY DEVELOPMENTS
– American city planning profession -- Zoning introduced in
1916
-- Many lessons from abroad -- England and garden city
movement
-- English architect-planners lectured in US-- English books in
city planning
• SUMMARY: CITY BEAUTIFUL ERA--CIVIC CENTER and
COMMUTER SUBURB
 NEW COMMUNITIES MOVEMENT
• PROPONENTS – Henry Wright “Rehousing Urban America”
(1934)
-- Clarence Stein “Towards New Towns for America” (1951)
• “SUPERBLOCK” CONCEPT – Answer to problem of through
traffic
-- Island of green, bordered by houses and skirted by peripheral
automobile roads
-- Best examples -- Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles; Chatham Village,
Pittsburgh
-- Community-level development
• RADBURN, NJ– Series of superblocks, not completed due to
Depression
-- One of the most important designs conceived for the modern
residential community
 NEW COMMUNITIES MOVEMENT
• “RADBURN” IDEA – Organization of town into cohesive
neighborhoods
-- Clarence A. Perry -“The Neighborhood Unit” published in
1929; Community planning
• “TOWN COLONIZATION” CONCEPT -- G. R. Taylor
-- Metropolitan growth through colonization, Reinforces
Ebenezer Howard’s belief
-- “Satellite Cities, A Study of Industrial Suburbs” (1915)
-- “The Building of Satellite Towns” (1925)
 REGIONAL PLANNING

• ROOTS OF REGIONAL OUTLOOK– Howard & Taylor:

satellite colonization
-- Radburn – demonstrated satellite colonization
-- Marsh and Geddes – laid the groundwork
-- Henry Wright and Benton MacKaye: championed the regional
outlook
 REGIONAL PLANNING

• HENRY WRIGHT AND PLAN OF NEW YORK

– Worked under commission by Clarence Stein
“Report of the Commission on Housing and
Regional Planning for the State of New York”
-- Development of New York
-- Small trade centers for an agriculture society
-- Decline due to cheaper Midwestern farms
-- Industrialization took hold
-- Hudson and Mohawk valleys became spine
-- New York City became the financial heart
and core for a constellation of communities
-- Wright’s plan – one of finest models of regional planning
-- not officially adopted, but recommendations realized
-- led to formation of RPAA
 REGIONAL PLANNING

• REGIONAL PLANNING ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK

– 22 counties, 500 municipal districts, 10 million people, NY
state, NJ and Conn.
-- Thomas Adams – Scottish planner
2-volume plan produced in 1928 most complete plan study ever
done
• BENTON MACKAYE– Originally, a forester
-- “The New Exploration, A Philosophy of Regional Planning”
published in 1928
-- Envisioned the “townless highway” and “highwayless towns”
-- Showed NY City as the entry and exit portal for the entire US
industrial empire
-- “New Exploration” – the exploration of the wilderness and
conservation had to be expanded to include cities
 ACHIEVEMENTS IN EUROPE
• ENGLISH NEW TOWN MOVEMENT
– Sir Anthony Barlow headed commission
“The Report of Royal Commission of Distribution of
Industrial Population” (1940)
-- Sir Patrick Abercrombie and J.H. Forshaw
“The County of London Plan” (1943)
-- “New Towns” – Plan of Hook; Plan of Cumbernauld
•
 ACHIEVEMENTS IN EUROPE
• OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
– London’s Barbican area
-- Garden cities in France
-- Dourges – 1st garden city in France (1919)
-- Longueau, Tergnier, Lille-le-Deliverance
-- Berlin, Germany – Martin Machler
-- Baku in Russia
-- West Kungsholmen, Stockholm
-- Tapiola, Helsinki in Finland
-- Amsterdam South, Amsterdam in Holland
-- Other countries – Italy, Switzerland, Israel
 ARCHITECTS IN URBAN DESIGN

• LOUIS KAHN – Made important designs for central

Philadelphia
• KENZO TANGE – Plan for Tokyo
-- Circulation as determinant of urban form
-- New Tokyo over Tokyo Bay, hung on bridges
• FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
-- Followed Howard, Geddes and social reformers
-- “The Disappearing City” – published in 1932
-- “Broadacres” – every family on an acre of land
-- Marin County Civic Center north of SF, Calif.
-- Changed scheme – Full Mile High Superskyscraper
•
 ARCHITECTS IN URBAN DESIGN
• CONSTANTINE DOXIADIS
– Addressed the urban problem on a worldwide scale
-- Major designs are made for countries where economy and
productive system can be coordinated by policy and decree
-- Best work is in newly developing nations of Africa and
Middle East
-- “Architecture in Transition” (1963) – explains Doxiadis’s
total view
-- Magazine “Ekistics” – shows Dixiadis’s many plans and
programs
-- “Ekistics grid” – system for recording planning data and
ordering planning process
-- Town planning as a science which includes planning and
design, and contribution
of sociologist, geographer, economist, politician,
anthropologist, ecologist, etc.
-- EKISTICS – the science of human settlements
 ARCHITECTS IN URBAN DESIGN

• CHARLES ABRAMS
– Housing as one prime field of endeavor for solving urban
problems
-- “Man’s Struggle for Shelter in an Urbanizing World” (1964)
• BUCKMINSTER FULLER
-- “Inventory of World Resources – Human Trends and
Needs” (1963)
• LEWIS MUMFORD
-- Authored some twenty books and innumerable articles
-- “The City in History” – published in 1961, summary of
Mumford’s thought
 END OF PRESENTATION

References:
• Urban Design: The American Experience by Jon Lang
• Urban Design: The Architecture of Town & Cities by Paul
Spreiregen
A BRIEF HISTORY
OF URBAN DESIGN
& COMMUNITY
ARCHITECTURE

A lecture in APLANN02 – Introduction to

Urban Design and Community Architecture