ARCH 6151

Shriram Lele Theories of Urban Design Tuesday, 18th Oct 2016

QUESTIONS:
1. Is this really the ‘modern living’ we want in our cities now? What good does it do to us if it is simply
ruining the character of our city just to regulate traffic conditions and other materialistic issues for which, I
think, our own lifestyle is somehow responsible? Why always think of changing cities to suit our modernity,
instead, looking back into history, why not change our lifestyles a little?
2. Is it a reality that these old planning systems/ concepts now have a permanent thinking pattern
imprinted upon us? Do these need to be the reference points for improvements which in a way restrict our
thinking and impact our so called ‘modern living’ ideals?
SUMMARY
The scope of this week’s readings covered multiple pieces from Sitte and Rowe and several interesting thesis
projects from Cornell which literally walk us through the changes that took place over the years, in practice
as well as in academia. Starting from Sitte’s ‘Limitations of Modern City Planning’ where he strongly criticize
modern architecture and planning practices which are solely based on methodical approach focusing on
street patterns and traffic issues, completely neglecting artistic considerations that are crucial for any city
to maintain its original character. He urges that traffic experts and artists/ designers should work together
to achieve balance between city’s artistic and materialistic needs. He also explains that a city needs to wear
different costumes at different places according to local functions and surroundings and this can be achieved
only if designers get into the field. He also attacks the ancient Grid Iron system which leaves no space for
imaginations and leaves a city like a locked box where there is no escape from the grid. Sadly, I would say
this is today’s reality as we are more focused on regulating traffic but have completely forgotten the reasons
behind these issues like traffic that is our own lifestyle. We created sprawl, we created functional zoning
separating houses and workplaces far away and thus comes the traffic. It’s like a dog chasing its own tail,
running in circles for years! While criticizing the grid, he gives very real examples to which anyone can
relate like ‘crossing a street is now a young man’s game’ and ‘there is no more pleasant strolling in the
cities as we are constantly looking for crossing vehicles which is completely true. This takes me back to some
places in India, like Mumbai and Delhi where even I would be scared to cross a street without missing a
heartbeat, but that has different reasons like population burst and so on but what amuses me is it is the
same situation here as well despite of lower population and bigger and wider streets. We consider different
traffic situations and combinations at an intersection while planning but fail to consider the poor pedestrian!
My most favorite critique from him is that ‘safety island with a light pole is the only magnificent and original
invention of modern planning’ which is true and sadly hilarious. He also targets the modern plaza creation
process, which completely misinterprets the concept of plaza by focusing on street traffic and ultimately
creating ‘ugly and impractical’ plazas. He asserts that plazas and beautiful vistas go hand in hand and thus
should be planned with all considerations of a picturesque vista. This is so true that it took me back to our
small trip to savannah where plazas were beautifully planned in such way that one would hardly see any
traffic and could get a see a great vista by standing there. Savannah also relates to one of his other critiques
in this piece about gardens, where he talks about public vs private gardens. In savannah the garden squares
are uniformly and perfectly placed and are still being maintained that way which provide a great buffer from
pollution and noise from city streets as well as providing refreshingly cool public interactive places all across
the city. I agree with his final statement that it will take a good amount of time to achieve balance between
picturesque and practical needs of a city, just like the old cities which developed over centuries, but only if
we try to learn from it! Further, going to the Cornell studio projects, we can see the focus in academic
planning gradually moving towards building blocks, street patterns and grids over the years. The hierarchy of
scale, use, density and classes in community comes into picture, first in school projects and now, sadly we
have it in practice! One of the exceptions to this was the ‘Zurich Center’ project which has amazing
graphical presentations and almost tries to balance all the aspects of public and private realm with an
effective use of superblocks, without imposing any rigid grid! Looking at further projects, one can notice the
trend of complete urban fabrication on an open site with grid patterns where an attempt is made to create
connections between this satellite city and main city center to minimize separations. Lastly but most
importantly was the Figure/ Grounds project which takes us through the concept of ‘interdependency of
buildings and spaces and ‘perception of a city as an urbanistic whole’. Through all these projects I could
notice many concepts being used in academic projects of which some go hand in hand and some are exactly
opposite to what we are learning today.
Further, moving on to Rowe’s piece ‘Present Urban Predicament’ which was a tough one to understand fully,
where he talks about the current mess that we have created for our own cities. He criticizes modern
architecture and urbanism and calls it a ‘subtle joy’, which is nothing but modern experimentation that we
are doing with our cities and that too without learning anything from previous mistakes. He starts with the
death of modern architecture and explains it through an example of marriage of modern architecture and
society, where modern architecture focused on towers and other objects and failed to realize actual needs
of society. He argues that old certainties are vanishing and the ethical posture of modern architecture was
in question for this. He strongly argues that gardens were the first victims of modern architecture as it
aggressively intensified houses and towers as objects and completely failed to understand the correlation
between the two. Further he moves to ‘object vs context’ describing how there has been more focus on
buildings as an isolated objects for last 200 years in academia and thus in practice. There is also a mention
of a quote from modern movement which describes buildings as harmonious soap bubbles where everything
is evenly distributed and it is perfect, and this interior ultimately creates the exterior; but this brings
several questions to my mind like what type of exterior is being created/ what are its impacts in the interior
and people? Should there be any connections and transparency between the two? To me, this seemed like a
very vague definition of a perfect city and I would surely say that interiors and exteriors are created
simultaneously in a process and require transparency and connection. This proves how objects were/are
being treated as very specific, self- centric and away from any surrounding context. He fears that ‘rational
equality, light, air, movement, aspect, prospect, hygiene, recreation and human well-being’ are difficult to
fit happily with each other in a box/ city and sadly it may never be possible for us. He also explains lack of
space creation in 20th century and calls it ‘space shyness’ and asks us all a very interesting question that
why do we need to talk so much about spaces nowadays? Which is something to ponder upon. He asserts that
there should be flexibility between elements of cities so that they can expand and contract, dissolve and
congeal as necessary which is very true but sadly not seen anywhere. Lastly, moving to Sitte’s piece
‘Relation between Buildings, Monuments and Plazas’ where he compares current scenario of plazas, building
facades and monuments with ancient ones. Here too, he highlights the importance of plazas and their
relation to vistas and ties to draw a textual sequence for plazas, monuments and vistas being the background
and foreground and discusses the ideal situations. He also discusses how plazas are important for monuments
as they provide a great background with their facades. He gives many examples from Europe to explain the
types of plazas/ public squares (enclosed and open), like Cathedral Square and Parma and also compares it
with the ‘modernized plazas’ of today’s age. He strongly asserts that plazas should have a clear linear visual
connections for greater vistas.
In conclusion, one can notice that Sitte and Rowe were both strongly against modernization of cities and grid
pattern systems where Sitte tries to explain it through various European examples of plazas and their
importance in public realm which is completely neglected by modernism and Rowe explains his views
through simple day to day ‘street’ examples which are very relevant to everyone. About the limitations of
Rowe’s Contextualism, which brings us to this question, ‘The concept of ‘human wellbeing’ requirements
can have many contexts at different levels in the society and at different places in a city, making it very
subjective, thus controversial. Who should be the deciding authority on this and on what common grounds to
come up with an actual harmonious place/ city to live in? Also the figure ground studies wee crucial as it
proved that celebration of object belongs ‘up top’ and has nothing to do with ground or whatever is
happening around and probably that is why there are not as many actual [rojects as there on paper as
modernization’ objectification destroyed public life as there are no considerations for people on streets and
ground!

BULLETS:
• Strict methodical approach with no artistic interest, being purely technical
• Based on arrangements of street patterns and traffic scenarios
• Possibilities to achieve artistic effects even through an ancient system like ‘Grid Iron’, if designers
and traffic experts work together
• Balance between a city’s material needs vs artistic needs
• City needs to change costumes at different places according to functions and surroundings- being
formal in grid in business areas and casual in public spaces
• Different places appeal to communities and have impacts on them, also attracting tourists.
• Grid iron system- no place for imagination
• Demands of art vs demands of modern living?
• Crossing a street is now a young man’s game!
• Safety island with light pole is the only original invention of modern city planning
• Plazas created but completely misinterpreted
• Plazas are entirely different in plans vs in reality
• Geometric patterns and building blocks dominant over art
• Placing landscapes with a balance between hygiene and artistic view is difficult but crucial
• Small private gardens vs public gardens?
• Has ‘modern living changed our perception about values, need and meaning of an artistic public
space? Which takes over what?
• Cornell studio projects-
• Focus gradually moving to building blocks, streets and grids
• Hierarchy of scale, use and density comes into picture
• Some exceptions like ‘Zurich Center’ project which balances almost all aspects despite use of
superblocks
• Attention to connections, minimizing separations from city center to the edges
• The figure/ Grounds- interdependency of buildings and spaces
• Understanding of a city as an urbanistic whole
• Present Urban Predicament-
• ‘Subtle joy’- modern experimentation? Are we really enjoying it or suffering from it?
• Old certainties vanishing
• Death of modern architecture- failed marriage to the society- due to the blind eye towards it
• Producing objects rather than spaces
• Being selfish? Ethical posture was questionable
• Gardens being the first victims
• Failed to recognize the ancient co relation between house and garden
• Object vs context
• 20th century- no significant urban spaces produced due to extreme prevalence of ‘objects’
• Lack of space creation- ‘20th century space shyness’
• Comparing to previous centuries, why do we need to talk so much about spaces nowadays? When,
where and what did we mess up? What are we missing?
• ‘victory of boogie- woogie’- allowing flexibility between elements of a city- essential for our long
dreamt imaginary city but hard to implement

Additional instructor's comments about your submission

Very good - might have gone a bit further into Rowe's remedies.