Urban Form Evolution and Determinants

ARCHITECTURE DEPARTMENT Course Name: Livable Cities Course Code: ARCH4304 / Section: 1 Semester: Spring 19-20

Lecture: Urban Form Evolution and Determinants

What are the determinants of City Form?

Urban Form Evolution and Determinants 1. Early settlements: natural and man made determinants 2. Medieval cities: the wall, the marketplace, the church 3. Renaissance and baroque: aesthetic determinant, urban scenery and aggrandizement 4. Nineteenth century: grand urban renewals and extension plans 5. Garden cities: first failure of urban design as a social tool

6. 1920-1950: modernism, rationalism and standardization 7. 1950-1970:structuralism, brutalism and pop 8. 1970-nowadays: revisionism and pragmatism

Urban Form Evolution and Determinants 1.Early settlements natural and man made determinants

natural world determinants: topographical/geographical

natural world determinants: topography

natural world determinants: materials and technology (vernacular)

man-made determinants: trade

man-made determinants: political / religious plus defence, mobility, ethnical issues...

urban growth structures

gridiron plan: roman castrum first gridirons as the result of the pre-existing land cadastre organic growth, through unplaned agregation of buildings

EARLY SETTLEMENTS RECAP •

natural determinants –

Geography (location)

–

Topography Climate

–

Natural resources

–

Building materials and technology

•

man-made determinants – trade – political power – religion – defense – mobility – ethnical issues etc

•

urban growth structures – organic, as the natural result of an informal and unplanned gathering of people – gridiron, as the result of the urban implementation over pre-existing cadastral land subdivisions

Urban Form Evolution and Determinants 2.Medieval cities the wall, the marketplace, the church

medieval town: early evolution

agriculture surplus leads to an increase on nonagricultural specialists which leads to goods to be secured and defended

medieval town origins: castrum, burg or village

the wall as a defensive element, but also as a toll the importance of staying within the wall lead to a massive densification of the cities

the marketplace the whole city as a marketplace, trade as a raison d-ĂŞtre the need to trade of every citizen increases the value of the facade lenght

MIDDLE AGES RECAP • Origin – Village, agricultural surplus

• Elements – Wall: defense, toll and constriction – Marketplace: the city as a market – The church and the castle, representation of the power

Urban Form Evolution and Determinants 3. Renaissance and baroque

aesthetic determinant, urban scenery and aggrandizement revisionism and pragmatism

aesthetic determinant as the representation of the new humanism ideas

aggrandizement and enclosement growing and centralization of autocratic political and economical powers economical capacity to promote complex urban opperations as a process for their aggrandizement urban scenery for statues

unifying individual buildings through the repetion of a basic facade or elevation enclosed space for civic, religious, commercial or residential pur- poses

Rome, urban scale scenery for pilgrimage implementation of the “main street�, or street hierarchy ease the reception of pilgrims.

climax of urban scenery inside and outside working together as a tool for poignancy

renaissance star forts, or trace italienne consequences of the Fall of Constantinople

cannon-proof geometries Avoid perpendicular impact of the bullets on the wall, both in cross section and floor plan avoid proper cannon orientation through cross fire extend the distance between the enemy and the city, the thickened wall.

renaissance ideal cities

increasing size of the diverse elements according to scale of intercation

Amsterdam

RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE RECAP • transformation of the medieval structure – aesthetic determinant enclosement – aggrandizement

• urban scenery: – main streets and perspectives – renaissance ideal cities

• humanism + military technology evolution • urban expansion through legislation and cooperation zoning

Urban Form Evolution and Determinants 4.Nineteenth century grand urban renewals and extension plans

paris, complete urban renewal autocracy, legislation, speculation

objectives: -hygienization -mobility -aggrandizement -speculation -riot control

renaissance and baroque ideas of scenery, enclosement, homogeneus facades, main streets, perspectives... applied to a whole city, in a whole new scale and dimension... as a smokescreen of speculation and population control, “speculative philanthropy�

Barcelona, the scientific method for urban planning the grid as the possibility of growth ad infinitum

scientific coherence in any scale Conceived as a worldwide system, but very specific in the local implementation every detail was designed, from the surface of the extension plan to the positioning of every bench or tree or clock ventilation, sun radiation and mobility planned from a entire city

approach rather visionary blocks’ depth and height regulated due to hygienic reasons.

early dissociation between street and inter-street

in the original regulations purposed by Cerdรก, for the first time ever built facades would partially dissociate from the streets. Due to explitation circumstances, a higher edificability and density were required.

variations within the grid the grid as an structural framework for the individual decissions and the histori- cal development

NINETEENTH CENTURY RECAP • Renovation • speculative philanthropy increasing added value population control social hygienization

• Extension • scientific approach universal design (worldwide useful) • all-scale approach to the city • freedom through homogenization dissociation building-street

Urban Form Evolution and Determinants 5.garden cities first failure of urban design as a social tool

Howard’s life frame disconnected from ruling classes Working class approach Lack of public support

designed as a set of selfsuficient rather dense autonomous cities of 30.000 in- habitants included social venues, housing, factories and green recreational spaces

Dependance on the private fundings Ideas got blured in favour of private, higher class interests Economical elites soon discovered the speculative potential of the concept: GARDEN SUBURBS - low density - monofunctional housing - dependant on mobility infrastructure - endless spread - lack of any sort of social or productive amenities - romantic-style urban trace, or the idea of living in the nature The perverse use of the bourgeoisification on the proletariat, as a self accepted community reduction to the harmless family core Destruction of the city as a social catalyst

GARDEN CITIES RECAP • Corruption of social ideas by the economical elites mono-functional sprawls • Low density • Nonsocial cities • Arise of the sprawl-highway-mall structure

Urban Form Evolution and Determinants 6. 1920-1950 Modernism, Rationalism and Standardization

• Traditionalist – baroque visual lines – enclosed public spaces – urban aggrandizement – classical composition tools: axis and symmetry variations on scale and composition according to the urban function (designing hierarchies)

modernism, a whole new city confidence on the human being to give a brand new solution to the action of inhabiting, applying tabula rasa on the past as a restricting and unjustified heritage.

mechanization of the city • • • •

hygienization: sun, ventilation, space full dissociation between pedestrians, streets and buildings the city IN the nature industrialization, technification scientific management (taylorism) zoning

Social equality through homogenization every citizen deserves the same house, the same public space, the same facilities optimization of urban functions through dissociated and individual design of them, sepparately

Post WWII, European reconstruction • huge demand of housing meets modernist urban standarized, industrialized and technified ideas • the huge plot division of the modern movement makes the sale / lease of the land more efficient, since only huge economical powers have access to them • modern movement ideas become massive destruction weapons when used by the private sector

1920-1950 RECAP • Modernism – tabula rasa (start from scratch) – deconstruction of traditional city – repetition, standardization and homogenization of both public and domestic spaces – optimization of urban functions in separate “zoning”

• Post WWII developments – Mediocrization and repetition of modernist ideas

Urban Form Evolution and Determinants 7. 1950-1970 Structuralism, brutalism and pop

TEAM X

• the subversive sieblings of the modernism • as a response to the modernism cultural • elitism and disregard for the urban heritage • the habitational unit as the constitutive cell of the city, not as the functionalist existenzminum • association, identity, flexibility • instead of improving citizens’ lifes through providing them all an isotropic context, they provide a NUMBER OF CHOICES AND VARIETY

revisiting modernism

new approach, same old problems If the streets have dissapeared let’s reincorporate them in our blocks THE BUILDING BECOMES THE CITY - Connectivity meaning conected buildings - Choice meaning eclectic organic-like layout - Identity meaning only choosing post war scenarios for the proposals - Relationship meaning standing ON TOP of the preexisting city.

The heterogeneity of the traditional city cannot longer be produced within contemporary population scales and developing times the architecture tries to become the a vertical city

Urban Form Evolution and Determinants 8. 1970-nowadays revisionism and pragmatism

Jeddah

End