Urban Design: Brief History
URBAN DESIGN IN RENAISSANCE
URBAN FORM
• Sixtus V's strategy for organizing street systems of
Rome (c. 1585-1590).
a. Connected "points in space"--obelisks in front of
churches and cathedrals.
b. Formalized religious processionals.
c. Perspective vistas and movement sequence; Example:
Piazza del Popolo, principal gateway into Rome.
Urban Design: Brief History
REBUILDING ROME
URBAN FORM
• Sixtus V's strategy for organizing
street systems of Rome
(c. 1585-1590).
Fontana’s plan for rome.
• His intent was to connect the
shrines of christianity and other
monuments by a network of
streets. In doing so he
established a frame work for the
citys growth
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Urban Design: Brief History
REBUILDING ROME
URBAN FORM
Bordino – Sketch
plan showing the
connection
between the holy
places of rome.
Urban Design: Brief History
REBUILDING ROME
URBAN FORM
Before the reign of pope Sixtus V. The new San Pietro church is under
construction. The square in front of the church is an undefined place, no
more that a field where festivities can take place.
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Urban Design: Brief History
REBUILDING ROME
URBAN FORM
• Sixtus V erected an obelisk in front of
the San Pietro.
• The obelisk defines the space in front of
church and is also the expression of the
will to improve the square.
• It is the first ordering of the square
• The church would originally be a
renaissance design, its plan resembling
a perfect double symmetric Greek cross.
• The original design was by Bramante
and Michelangelo.
• But the church is finished as a baroque
church with a front by Carlo Maderna.
Urban Design: Brief History
REBUILDING ROME
URBAN FORM
• Bernini is later employed again by the
pope as a designer.
• In 1650 he recieves the commission to
design a new square in front of the San
Pietro Church.
• The design is executed between 1650
and 1667.
Piazza San Pietro and surroundings end
of the 19th century
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Urban Design: Brief History
St.PETER’S PLAZA
Urban Design: Brief History
St.PETER’S PLAZA
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Urban Design: Brief History
St.PETER’S PLAZA
Urban Design: Brief History
St.PETER’S PLAZA
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Urban Design: Brief History
REBUILDING ROME
URBAN FORM
• The Piazza del Popolo formed the
one of most important entrances to
Rome.
• This is where most pilgrims
entered the city. It therefore had a
special meaning.
• The street running centrally via
• the city gate over the square into
the city is the ancient Via Flaminia
that in Roman times already had
an important meaning.
• The two churches on the south
side were built between 1662 and Piazza del popolo - valladier
1667
Urban Design: Brief History
REBUILDING ROME
URBAN FORM
In 1772 a competition is held for the
redesign of the square.
The submission by Berthault shows
the present form.
But as is often the case with design
competitions his design is not
executed and still his idea is used.
The final design of 1813 is by
Valadier.
It is executed between 1816 and
1820.
The illustration shows the central axle
in red and the Patte 'd Oie in yellow. Piazza del popolo - valladier
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Urban Design: Brief History
REBUILDING ROME
URBAN FORM
Piazza del popolo - valladier
From the obelisk two arcs are projected that fit the spatial situation to define the square's surface.
The width of the square (dimension north-south) is determined by the distance between the
side axis and the side of the church of Santa Maria del Popolo (right upper side).
This determines the radius of the circles that form the oval.
The length of the square along the side axis is determined by the distance of the focal point of the arc
on the right side to the steep slope of the Pincio, leaving just enough room for a projected road. With
the fixation of the right arch via the symmetry of the square the position of the left arc is also fixed.
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Urban Design: Brief History
Louis XIV– Versailles 1670 -1710
Renaissance landscape architecture palace
town
garden
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Urban Design: Brief History
Louis XIV– Versailles 1670 -1710
Renaissance landscape architecture
• Well integrated plan of a town, a palace, gardens and a huge park
• Palace is the center of gravity of the whole composition
• Three main roads converge at the palace entrance at an angle of about 20 to
25º
• Principal means of bringing vista-roads together at one point
Urban Design: Brief History
Louis XIV– Versailles 1670 -1710
• It related unlimited variety of buildings and places
• The park contains zoo, a children’s playground, adult playgrounds, several
small palaces, classical temples, mock diary village, gardens, lakes,
innumerable woods and other features
• tying the landscape together by making it completely comprehensible to the
human eye and mind
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Urban Design: Brief History
Louis XIV– Versailles 1670 -1710
• Accelerated Perspective
• A combination of tapering an urban space
and at the same time making the buildings
along side it smaller results in an effect
called 'accelerated perspective'.
• This creates an illusion of great depth.
• For it to work the walls of the buildings must
be parallel to the main axis of the space and
the stepped down widths and heights of the
buildings lining the axis has to be
determined carefully.
• As the visualization above shows in this way
the illusion can be created that the lines of
the tops of the walls converge in the same
vanishing point.
Urban Design: Brief History
Louis XIV– Versailles 1670 -1710
• Accelerated Perspective was used in the
forecourt of the Versailles palace.
• This also shows that to be really perfect
ideally the architectural articulation of the
walls should also be varied according to their
position along the central axis
Plan of the forecourt of Versailles
Showing the succession of spaces of
decreasing size creating the accelerated
perspective.
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Urban Design: Brief History
Louis XIV– Versailles 1670 -1710
On the other side in the garden the same
accelerated perspective was used.
The palace is the focal point of to conical spaces
that focus their visual energy on the building.
Looking out of the palace the effect is a retarded
perspective.
This can only be countered by making gigantic
spaces.
Urban Design: Brief History
1. The Royal Crescent and Circus at Bath, England.
a. Bath--a resort town named for a Roman Bath dating to the 1st Century AD.
b. Designers used row houses as organizers.
c. Royal Circus
(1) Designed by John Wood, the Elder (c. 1727).
(2) Used Roman classical orders: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian.
(3) "Circus" composed of 33 row houses in a circle surrounding a public
space and broken by three intersecting streets.
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Urban Design: Brief History
d. Royal Crescent
(1) Designed by John Wood, the Younger.
(2) Also utilized classical imagery influenced by Alberti.
(3) Row houses provided a spectacular view:
Urban Design: Brief History
Restructuring of Paris by Haussman (c. 1850s).
Baron Eugene Haussman to carry out design and work.
(1) Design based on a concept of connections of principal destinations
(esp. new railroad stations).
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Urban Design: Brief History
Restructuring of Paris by Haussman (c. 1850s).
(2) Objectives:
Riot Control
Slum Clearance
Traffic Improvements
Redevelopment took 17 years and included- new boulevards, water supply,
sewers/parks.
Urban Design: Brief History
Restructuring of Paris by Haussman (c. 1850s).
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Urban Design: Brief History
Restructuring of Paris by Haussman (c. 1850s).
Urban Design: Brief History
Restructuring of Paris by Haussman (c. 1850s).
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Urban Design: Brief History
Restructuring of Paris by Haussman (c. 1850s).
• streets and boulevards,
• regulations imposed on facades of buildings,
• public parks,
• sewers and water works,
• city facilities, and public monuments.
Urban Design: Brief History
Restructuring of Paris by
Haussman (c. 1850s).
Aesthetics of Street Wall
• ground floor and basement with thick, load-
bearing walls, fronts usually parallel to the street;
• mezzanine or entresol intermediate level, with
low ceilings;
• second, piano nobile floor with a balcony;
• third and fourth floors in the same style but with
less elaborate stonework around the windows,
sometimes lacking balconies;
• fifth floor with a single, continuous, undecorated
balcony;
• mansard roof, angled at 45°, with garret rooms
and dormer windows.
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Urban Design: Brief History
Restructuring of Paris by Haussman (c. 1850s).
Urban Design: Brief History
Restructuring of Paris by Haussman (c. 1850s).
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Urban Design: Brief History
Industrial Revolution and the City Beautiful Movement
WORKER TOWNS
Informal groupings of houses as part of overall design
concept / Ideal plan for worker towns /Self sufficiency
• central square courtyard where the factory would keep
its firewood.
• Each corner of the square, and at the midpoints of each
side stood two-story, square buildings that would house
the various parts of the operation.
• In front the quarters for the guards, a chapel, and a
bakery.
• On the sides were workshops for the coopers and other
workmen.
• At the base was the factory itself.
• Gardens were to surround the site to provide the
workers with a supplement to their income.
• a wall would surround the entire complex to protect it
from theft.
LEDOUX’S FIRST PLAN FOR CHAUX
Urban Design: Brief History
Industrial Revolution and the City Beautiful Movement
WORKER TOWNS
• Entrance building sits at the midpoint of the
semicircle and contains on one side
guardrooms and on the other a prison and a
forge.
• Other buildings include on the left, as one
faces the entrance, quarters for carpenters
and laborers, and on the right, marshals and
coopers.
• At the center of the circle is the house of the
Director
• On either side of the Director's house are
the saltworks themselves. They contain the
drying ovens, the heating pots.
• At each intersection of the diameter and the
semicircle sit buildings that housed the
works' clerks.
• Behind the Director's house there is an
elegant, small stables for the Director's
LEDOUX’S SECOND PLAN FOR CHAUX horses.
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Urban Design: Brief History
Industrial Revolution and the City Beautiful Movement
LEDOUX’S SECOND PLAN FOR CHAUX
Urban Design: Brief History
Industrial Revolution and the City Beautiful Movement
URBAN FORM
1. Industrialism resulted in unprecedented urbanization-
2. Ideology of capitalism endorsed by all societal institutions, including
government--hence, business given unprecedented freedom for
development.
3. The "Industrial City" can be characterized by the factory, the railroad, and the
slum.
a. The Factory
(1) Factory production subordinated every other detail of life; art, religion and
government became mere embellishments.
(2) Early factory towns made no provisions for police, fire protection, water
and food inspection, hospitals or education.
(3) Factories claimed the best sites:
Valley Land ,Rivers (for dumping and transport) ,Waterfronts
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Urban Design: Brief History
Industrial Revolution and the City Beautiful Movement
URBAN FORM
b. The Railroad
(1) Allowed to penetrate to the heart of cities.
(2) Large tracts of land for yards.
(3) Became barriers--separated neighborhoods--"across the tracks."
c. The Slum
(1) Worker housing.
(2) Tenements
(3) No provision for refuse disposal.
(4) Lack of sunlight , Bred bacteria ,Psychological depression
(5) Overcrowding
(6) Pestilence--rats, infectious insects.
Urban Design: Brief History
Industrial Revolution and the City Beautiful Movement
1893 COLUMBIA WORLD'S EXPOSITION--THE "WHITE CITY"
1. Daniel Burnham "Make no little plans."
2. Launched "classic revival" in architecture.
Sanitary Reform
a. Systematic sewer development.
b. Urban park development.
c. Building codes established to regulate light, air, and fire protection in buildings.
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Urban Design: Brief History
Industrial Revolution and the City Beautiful Movement
REINTERPRETATIONS OF URBAN DESIGN
Plans created for "civic centers": patterned after Baroque planning--influenced
axes, great plazas, broad avenues, etc.
Influenced San Francisco, Chicago and Manila; and many State capitols,
Great buildings or monuments were sited so as to become the terminal vistas of
long, converging, diagonal axes.
Urban Design: Brief History
Industrial Revolution and the City Beautiful Movement
INFLUENCES
Positive
a. Renewed public awareness in civic design.
b. Encouraged other movements, i.e., urban parks, civic beautification,
etc.
Negative
a. Falsely assumed planning and style could be transferred from
another age (ignored culture, materials, technology).
b. Emphasized "classic monumentality"--ultimately hollow and unnatural.
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Urban Design: Brief History
UD THEORIES AND MOVEMENTS
CONSERVATIONISTS AND THE PARK MOVEMENT
GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT
CITY PLANNING ACCORDING TO ARTISTIC PRINCIPLES
CITE INDUSTRIELLE
LINEAR CITY
RADIANT CITY
BROADACRE CITY
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