History of

Urban Planning

History of Urban
Planning
History of Urban Planning, a
technical and political process
concerned with the use of land
and design of the urban
environment, including air,
water, and the infrastructure
passing into and out of urban
areas such as transportation and
distribution networks.

Pre-Classical
Classical and Medieval Europe
Renaissance Europe (1300
1600)
Enlightenment Europe
Modern Urban Planning
o Garden City Movement
o Modernism
o New Towns
New Urbanism

PRE-CLASSICAL
PERIOD

 Designed cities were characteristic of the Minoan,

Mesopotamian, Harrapan, and Egyptian civilizations of
the third millennium BC.

The first recorded description of urban planning is

described in the Epic of Gilgamesh:
"Go up on to the wall of Uruk and walk around. Inspect
the foundation platform and scrutinize the brickwork.
Testify that its bricks are baked bricks, And that the
Seven Counsellors must have laid its foundations. One
square mile is city, one square mile is orchards, one
square mile is claypits, as well as the open ground of
Ishtar's temple. Three square miles and the open
ground comprise Uruk. Look for the copper tablet-box,

Indus Valley Civilization

(in modern-day Northwestern India and Pakistan)
Cities of Harappa, Lothal, and
Mohenjo-daro
The streets were paved and laid
out at right angles in a grid
pattern, with a hierarchy of streets
from major boulevards to
residential alleys.
They often had drainage systems.
The sewerage and drainage
system of Harappan civilization
wasmore advanced than that of
most western cities before the
twentieth centuryandeven that

View of the Mohenjo-DarosGreat Bath,

showing the surrounding urban layout.

(Harrapan)
Town Planning
Features:
1. Citadel and
Lower Town
2. Streets
3. Great Bath
4. Town Hall
5. Drainage
System
6. Houses
7. Granaries

MESOPOTAMIA
Hammurabi(17th century BC)
o King of thebabylonian empirewho
madebabylonone of the greatest cities
inantiquity
o Rebuilt babylon, building and restoring
temples, city walls and public
buildings, and building canals for
irrigation
o The streets of babylon were wide and
straight, intersected approximately at
right angles, and were paved with
bricks andbitumen.
o Babylon was the largest city in the
world from c. 1770 to 1670B.C.E

CLASSICAL and
MEDIEVAL PERIOD

Graeco-Roman Period
Hippodamus of Miletus
the first town planner and inventor of the
orthogonal urban layout

the father of city planning

Hippodamian plan - orthogonal urban layout with
more or less square street blocks
Neatly arranged, ordered, organized city, of lined up
wide streets

Public space was to be clustered together in the center

of the city. Shrines, theaters, government buildings,
market space, and the agora (a central space where
athletic, political, artistic, and spiritual activity took
place) were all to be close together in the center of the
city, enclosed by the grid of city streets

Hippodamus of
Miletus

Map ofPiraeus, the port of Athens, showing the grid

plan of the city

Turin
- Preserve the remains of these schemes,
which show the very logical way the
Romans designed their cities
- Streets were laid out at right angles, in
the form of a square grid.
- All roads were equal in width and length,
except for two, which were slightly wider
than the others. (One ran eastwest, the
other, northsouth, and 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.
- Each insula was 80 yards (73m) square,
with the land within it divided

Turin in the 17th Century

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 ideal of wide streets and

orderly cities was not lost

Todi

inItalyhas been
world's most livable city."
where man and nature,
tradition come together to

called "the
It is a place
history and
create a site

Todi: the ideal city in the heart of

Italy
InUmbria, rises the medieval town ofTodi,
known by many asthe most liveable city in
the worldfor its perfect balance of natural and
historical beauty and high quality services.
It is located on a hill top overlooking the
surrounding countryside and the Tiber valley.

Elburg
in
Netherlands

the

It clearly appears that it is

impossible to maintain that
the straight street and the
symmetrical,
orthogonal
town
plan
were
new
inventions
from
the
Renaissance,'
and,
therefore, typical of modern
times.'

Plan of Elburg in The Netherlands, based on the

cadastral plan of 1830

RENAISSANCE
EUROPE
(1300 1600)

 The star-shaped fortification had a formative influence

on the patterning of theRenaissanceideal city.

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; "the Renaissance was
hypnotized by one city type which for a century and a
half from Filarete to Scamozzi 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

17th century map

of the city
ofPalmanova,Italy,
an example of
aVenetianstar fort

 Filarete's ideal city, building on hints inLeone Battista

Alberti'sDe re aedificatoria, was named "Sforzinda" in
compliment to his patron; its 12-pointed shape,
circumscribable by a "perfect"Pythagorean figure, the
famous Piazza
Ducale, with the
circle, takes no heedVigevano's
of its undulating
terrain.
The design of Cathedral faade.
cities
following
theRenaissance
was
generally
more to glorify
the city or its
ruler
than
to
improve
the
lifestyle of its

ENLIGHTENMENT
EUROPE

 During this period,

TheGreat Fire of Londonwas a

majorconflagrationthat swept through the central parts
of the English city of London from Sunday, 2 September
to Wednesday, 5 September 1666

rulers often embarked

on ambitious attempts at
redesigning their capital
cities as a showpiece
for the grandeur of
the nation.
Disasters were often a
major catalyst for
reconstruction.
planned
An exception
to this was in London after the Great Fire of 1666
when, despite many radical rebuilding schemes from architects
such as John Evelyn and Christopher Wren, no large-scale
redesigning was achieved due the complexities of rival
ownership claims. However, improvements were made in
hygiene and fire safety with wider streets, stone construction
and access to the river.

Baron Georges-Eugne
Haussmanns reconstruction in
Paris, 1852.

was commissioned to remodel

the Medieval street plan of the
city by demolishing swathes of
the old quarters and laying out
wide boulevards, extending
outwards beyond the old city
limits.

Haussmann's project
encompassed all aspects of urban
planning, both in the centre of
Paris and in the surrounding
districts, with regulations
imposed on building faades,
public parks, sewers and water
works, city facilities, and public
monuments.

Beyond aesthetic and sanitary

considerations, the wide

TheAvenue de l'Opra, one of the new boulevards created by Napoleon III

andHaussmann.Thenewbuildingsontheboulevardswererequiredtobeall
of the same heightand same basic faade design, and all faced with cream
colouredstone,givingthecitycenteritsdistinctiveharmony.

Ildefons Cerds concurrent plan to extend

Barcelona
- It was drawn up to fill the space

beyond the city walls after they were

demolished from 1854.

- He is credited with inventing the

term urbanization and his
approach was codified in his General
Theory of Urbanization (1867).

- Cerd's Eixample (Catalan for

'extension') consisted of 550 regular
blocks with chamfered corners to
facilitate the movement of trams,
crossed by three wider avenues.

- His objectives were to improve the

health of the inhabitants, towards
which the blocks were built around
central gardens and orientated NWSE to maximize the sunlight they

Aerial view of the Eixample

Asia: Forbidden City

- The Chinese imperial palace from
theMing Dynastyto the end of
theQing Dynasty.
- Located in the middle ofBeijing,
China, and now houses the Palace
Museum.

- Served as the home of the Emperor

and his household, as well as the
ceremonial and political center of
Chinese government for almost five
centuries.
- The palace complex exemplifies
traditionalChinese palatial
architecture, and influenced cultural
and architectural developments in
East Asia and elsewhere.

Location of the Forbidden City in the

historic centre of Beijing

 Designed to be the center of the ancient, walled city of Beijing.

It is enclosed in a larger, walled area called the Imperial City.
The Imperial City is, in turn, enclosed by the Inner City; to its
south lies the Outer City.
The Forbidden City remains important in the civic scheme of
Beijing. The central north-south axis remains the central axis of
Beijing. This axis extends to the south through Tiananmen gate
to Tiananmen Square, the ceremonial center of the People's
Republic of China. To the north, it extends through the Bell and
Drum Towers to Yongdingmen. This axis is not exactly aligned
north-south, but is tilted by slightly more than two degrees.
Researchers now believe that the axis was designed in
theYuan Dynastyto be aligned with Xanadu, the other capital
of their empire.

Central and South America

- Also engineered urban planning in their cities

including sewage systems and running water.
MACHU PICCHU

- A pre-ColumbianIncasite located 8,000 feet above

sea on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley
inPeru.
- "The Lost City of the Incas," one of the most familiar
symbols of the Inca Empire.
- Composed of 140 structures or features,
includingtemples, sanctuaries, parks, and residences
that include houses with thatched roofs.

According
toarchaeologi
sts, the urban
sector
of
Machu Picchu
was
divided
into
three
great districts:
the
Sacred
District,
the
Popular
District to the
south, and the
District
of
the
Priests
and
the
Nobility

Influences of
Urban Planning

Influences of urban planning

Urban design can significantly influence the economic,
environmental, social and cultural outcomes of a place:
Urban design can influence the economic success and
socio-economic composition of a locality.
Urban design determines the physical scale, space
and establishes the built and natural forms within
which individual buildings and infrastructure are
sited.
Urban design can influence health, social and cultural
impacts of a locality.