Greek and Roman

city and town

planning
D.E.K.SAGAR VARMA (10633)
GNANA SELVAM (10645)
SUBMITTED BY
Greek
Greek civilization occurred in
the area around the Greek
mainland, on a peninsula that
extends into the
Mediterranean Sea

It started in cities on the Greek
mainland and on islands in the
Aegean Sea

Towards the later or Hellenistic
period, Greek civilization
spread to other far away
places including Asia Minor
and Northern Africa
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

LOCATION
Most of the Greek mainland
was rocky and barren and
therefore bad for agriculture

Most Greeks therefore lived
along the coastline or on
islands where the soil was
good for farming

The Aegean and
Mediterranean Seas provided
a means of communication
and trade with other places
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

LOCATION
GREEK CITY PLANNING AND
DESIGN
Ancient Greeks not only develop ideals of architectural
aesthetics, but they also developed principles for the design
and planning of cities as location for architecture
The ancient Greek city states developed a standard plan of
the city
The city consisted of three defined elements; the town,
acropolis and Agora
Principles were developed for organizing each element of the
city based on activities and its symbolism
The town was a place to retire for the day
It was composed of simple courtyard houses separated by
streets
It could either be organic or grid-iron

PRINCIPLES OF CITY PLANNING &
DESIGN

PRINCIPLES OF CITY PLANNING &
DESIGN
The Acropolis was the city of the gods

This is where buildings reflecting the highest
ideals of beauty were placed to be seen rather
than used

The principle of its design is that of isolated
objects arranged in open space

The objects are arranged to be seen in three-
dimension

The Agora was a mundane place for social,
commercial and political activities
The principle of its design centers on creating boundaries
to contain space for activities


In practice, stoas and other civic buildings are used to
loosely define the space


These are usually treated with continuous colonnades or
porticoes along the side of the court with occasional
penetrations by footpaths

PRINCIPLES OF CITY PLANNING &
DESIGN

ATHENS
It has an organic plan.
DARK AGES (1.150BC/1.100BC-900BC)
Invasion of polonnesse which came as a blow & the athenians took time to
stand up again. The attack resulted in the reduction of population.

ATHENS
Agora was the center of athenian life. Laid out in 6
th
centuary bc.,
northwet of the Acropolis, it was a square lined by public buildings,
which served Athens need for commerce & politics.

ATHENS
1791 bocage map or plan of athens, Ancient Greece

ATHENS
A plan of Athens, designed by the French consul Louis Franois Sbastien Fauvel, a
little before 1800. A plan of Athens, designed by the French consul Louis Franois
Sbastien Fauvel, a little before 1800.
The Acropolis in
Athens
The acropolis in Athens was a
religious precinct located on one
of the hills of the city.
The Earliest versions of the
Buildings in the Acropolis existed
until 480 BC
In 480 BC, the Persians under
Xerxes burnt Athens and the
Acropolis to the ground
Not long after that the Greeks
defeated the Persians
The Acropolis in Athens was rebuilt
in about 450 BC
The rebuilding of the Acropolis was
begun by Pericles, the wise
statesman who ruled from 460 BC
to 429 BC
Pericles commissioned artist and
architects to build a new city of
temples to glorify the gods
The acropolis combined Doric
orders and ionic orders in a perfect
composition in four buildings; the
Propylea, the Parthenon, the
Erechtheumn, and the temple of
Nike.
The Acropolis in
Athens
The best example of Greek
emphasis on visualization in
design and site planning is seen
at the Acropolis at Athens
All the buildings on the
Acropolis are designed to be
seen than use
All the temples on the Acropolis
are place at an angle that
enables them to be seen on two
sides
If a building cannot see be from
two sides, it is completely
hidden
The Acropolis in
Athens
From the entry at the
Propylae, a visitor has a
view of all the prominent
buildings in the Acropolis
Buildings are also position at
a distance that ensures the
appreciation of their details
The central axis of view from
the propylae is left free of
building for a view into the
country side
The Acropolis in
Athens
The Agora
The Agora in Athens was a
space used for social,
commercial and political
activities
The Agora at Athens was
located at the base of the hill
of the Acropolis
Civic and religious buildings
were progressively erected
around the perimeter of the
Agora space
GREEK TOWN-PLANNING: FIRST EFFORTS
Greek town-planning began
in the great age of Greece, the
fifth century B.C
They included streets
running parallel or at right
angles to one another and
rectangular blocks of houses;
the longer and presumably
the more important streets ran
parallel to the shore, while
shorter streets ran at right
angles to them
down to the quays.
Here is a rectangular
scheme of streets, though the
outline of the whole town is
necessarily not rectangular
GREEK TOWN-PLANNING: THE
MACEDONIAN AGE, 330-130 B.C.
The Macedonian age brought with it, if not a new, at least a more
systematic, method of town-planning.
Instead, a broad sloping terrace, or more exactly a series of terraces,
nearer the foot of the hill, was laid out with public
buildingsAgora, Theatre, Stoa, Gymnasium, Temples, and so forthand
with private houses

The whole covered an area of
about 750 yds. in length and 500
yds. in width. Priene was,
therefore, about half the size of
Pompeii.

It had, as its excavators
calculate, about 400 individual
dwelling-houses and a population
possibly to be reckoned at 4,000.

In the centre was the Agora or
market-place, with a temple and
other large buildings facing on to
it

round them were other
public buildings and some eighty
blocks of private houses, each
block measuring on an average
40 x 50 yds. and containing
four or five houses.
GREEK TOWN-PLANNING: THE
MACEDONIAN AGE, 330-130 B.C.
The broader streets,
rarely more than 23 ft.
wide, ran level along the
terraces and parallel to
one another.

Other narrower streets,
generally about 10 ft.
wide, ran at right angles
up the slopes, with steps
like those of the older
Scarborough or of Assisi.

Despite this reasoned
and systematic
arrangement, no striking
artistic effects appear to
have been attempted.
No streets give
vistas of stately buildings
GREEK TOWN-PLANNING: THE
MACEDONIAN AGE, 330-130 B.C.
Roman
The typical Roman city of the later Republic and
empire had a rectangular plan and resembled a
Roman military camp with two main streets
the cardo (north-south) and the decumanus
(east-west)a grid of smaller streets dividing
the town into blocks, and a wall circuit with
gates.

Older cities, such as Rome itself, founded
before the adoption of regularized city planning,
could, however, consist of a maze of crooked
streets. The focal point of the city was its forum,
usually situated at the center of the city at the
intersection of the cardo and the decumanus.
ROMAN CITIES

FLORENCE
In Roman
times Florence was a
'colonia.
This 'colonia',
like others, was laid out
in chess-board fashion,
and vestiges of its
streets survive in the
Centro which forms the
heart of the
present town. The
Centro of Florence, as
we see it to-day, is very
modern.

FLORENCE
The plan of Florence in 1427
shows a group of twenty
unmistakable 'insulae', each
of them about 1-1/8 acre in
area, that is, very similar in
size to the 'insulae' of Turin.
This group is
bounded by the modern
streets Tornabuoni on the
west, Porta Rossa on the
south, Calzaioli on the east,
Teatina on the north; it
covers a rectangle of some
305 x 327 yds., not quite 21
acres.

FLORENCE
There are, or were, traces of Roman baths in
the Via delle Terme, and it has been thought that
the town stretched riverwards as far as the old gate
Por S. Maria and thePiazza S. Trinit. The gate,
however, is ill-placed and the line of wall implied by
this theory is irregular. The mediaeval streets
point rather to a south wall near the Via Porta
Rossa.
There were also theatres, a shrine of Isis, and,
outside the Roman limit, an amphitheatre still
discernible in the curves of certain streets
.However small Florentia was, it possessed the true
elements of the Roman town.

FLORENCE
The Por S. Maria may even be due
to one of the reconstructions of
Florence in the Middle
Ages. At the end we must admit that
without further evidence the limits of
Roman Florence cannot be fixed for
certain. But
the limits indicated above give the
not unsuitable dimensions of 46
acres (380 x 590 yds.), while the
history of the twenty
indubitable insulae of the Centro
remains full of interest. We see here,
as clearly as anywhere in the Roman
world, how the
regular Roman plan has gradually
been distorted by encroachments
and how, even in its irregularity, it
has had power to drive
modern builders towards its ancient
fashion.

FLORENCE

FLORENCE
PRESENT
ROME
1800
ROME
ROME
ROME
PRESENT
OTHER
EXAMPLES
OTHER
EXAMPLES
Inferences
GREEK TOWNS
Greeks built small towns appropriate
for human scale

Natural borders for the town

Parts of the town were planned
according to geometrical patterns and
others according to defensive
measures

Democracy, Buildings of poor and rich
are a side, public baths.

Agora in the center and includes :
Assembly hall
Council hall
Chamber hall
ROMAN CITIES
plenty of towns in invaded
areas - medium towns for
about 50000. to keep
agriculture around
Division of agricultural land
into rectangular parcels.
Grid pattern for most of
Roman cities
The city was divided into
neighborhoods and quarters
with their own centers
Two major and central
intersected roads :
Cardo : North South
Decomanus : East West
* The Forum at the
intersection of the two
major roads : the central
public space
Torino - Italy
THANK YOU