History of City Planning
Authors Note: History repeats itself and its very likely you are not the first to think of something. I belive we can make rapid progress based on what is already been tried and tested and learn from the experiments which failed. Although this may be apparent it still feels developing countries are making the same mistakes over again. I hope this passage brings to light certain pitfalls and learnings of experimental architects over a period of time. The following is a hypothetical conversation with said architects.
A conversation with Le Corbusier
Past projects, Future predictions
As someone who stands as a pivotal figure in city planning. What do you attribute your success to?
I appreciate the recognition. My journey began with designing villas, but my true passion was always urban planning. It was my vision for the Voisin Plan in Paris that truly defined my path. Paris, burdened by its historical layout tailored for horse-drawn carriages, was struggling with the demands of modernity. The city’s narrow streets were inadequate for the burgeoning needs. Amid debates over relocating the capital or rebuilding Paris, my proposal for the Voisin Plan — envisioning the redevelopment of a section of Paris — garnered significant attention and propelled me into the spotlight.
Although the Voisin Plan was never realized, it set the stage for a series of influential urban projects, including the planning for Algiers, the left bank of the Schelde in Antwerp, the revitalization of Nemours, the Radiant City, Plan de Paris 37, the CIAM grid, and many others.
What made the Voisin Plan so influential?
To help you understand its significance, let me outline the core principles:
- Design apartment buildings that offer flexibility in terms of family size, space allocation, sunlight, views, and communal amenities.
- Locate them in favourable areas
- Allocate distinct zones for commercial and industrial activities.
- Ensure efficient access to major traffic routes, a concept inspired by Rio de Janeiro’s block arrangements that optimize municipal resources.
Based on your experience in urban planning, what are the essential considerations for a developing city?
Cities should function as seamlessly as a well-oiled machine, yet current configurations often fall short. To address this, it’s crucial to alleviate congestion in city centres.
Instead of expanding cities outward and encroaching upon natural landscapes, we must focus on increasing urban density. This involves enhancing circulation systems to improve overall efficiency.
Additionally, expanding green spaces is vital to maintain a balanced and healthy urban environment.
Can you talk to us a little about the evolution of how your view of a city changed?
Certainly. Over time, my perspective on urban planning evolved significantly. Initially, I focused on efficiency and order, designing cities with grids and clear hierarchies. This approach aimed to optimize functionality but often resulted in impersonal and alienating spaces.
As I gained more experience, I realized that cities are not just collections of buildings and streets but dynamic entities shaped by human complexity. The rigid separation of functions created sterile environments, so I began to embrace a more integrated approach.
A key moment in this shift was the Unité d’Habitation. This project reflects my new vision: blending various functions within a single structure to foster community and enhance quality of life. My later work emphasizes creating spaces that accommodate human complexity and encourage interaction, moving away from rigid efficiency towards a more holistic urban experience.
A conversation with Ludwig Hilbersseimer
High-rise city, Decentralized City
Tell us a little about yourself?
I am a faculty member at the Bauhaus and a proponent of Fordist principles. My work focuses on rethinking urban design through the lens of circulation and decentralization, aiming to create cities that function efficiently and harmoniously.
How do you see art and architecture?
I view art and architecture through various lenses:
- Symbolic: Form conveys deeper meanings and significance.
- Structural: Form emerges from structural necessities.
- Refinement: Form is shaped by optical and aesthetic sensitivity.
- Decorative: Form is purely formalistic, lacking conceptual depth.
What was your approach to densification?
My approach to densification is centered on optimizing land use to maximize efficiency. In simple terms, it involves increasing the number of people per square kilometer. For instance, in the High-Rise City model, we envisioned a density of 80,000 people per square kilometer.
Your proposal appears to be influenced by Le Corbusier’s Radical City for 3 million. Do you find similarities between the two?
Indeed, there are similarities due to our shared commitment to Fordist ideals of mass production. However, while Corbusier’s plan segregated functions into distinct zones, my approach involved stacking functions vertically. In my High-Rise City, residential spaces are situated above commercial areas, integrating functions within a single vertical structure.
What was your primary focus while designing this typology?
In response to the transportation challenges observed in the US, my design emphasizes circulation. It features a layered approach: public transportation below ground, vehicular traffic at ground level, and pedestrian pathways on the sixth floor. I advocate for prefabricated, homogeneous buildings where each unit follows a standardized design to ensure efficiency and uniformity.
Why free-standing buildings?
I have great admiration for bath urban expansion during the eighteenth century. Here free free-standing buildings were looked upon as objects, developing according to their own law, into the organic landscape not determined by traffic roads.
The streets provide a way to the buildings but do not determine their location. Each building and streets have its unique function which may not need to coincide.
Are there variations in housing typologies?
Yes, I have explored various housing typologies, including low-rise units for families and apartment blocks for individuals and couples. Despite these variations, I advocate for mass-prefabricated, standardized housing to maintain cost-effectiveness without making them stereotypical.
Why did you feel the need to design the decentralized city in comparison to the high-rise city?
The two cities share visual disparity, yet are based on similar principles. Within the high-rise city, the disposition of housing and working into units makes it non-hierarchical, even if there is a centre. The cities were independent and could grow endlessly without depending on the centre.
Both the cities were based on the disposition of a closed system, with units organised independently and linked to an external circulatory system. The high-rise city solved this vertically while the decentralized city was horizontally.
With independent structures within the decentralized city, there was an opportunity for growth, unlike he high-rise city which was designed to have strict control.
Quite a few urban master plans tend to prefer using grids as it organised, cheap and supposedly efficient. Did you follow any frames to design if so how do they work?
Doing my part in the Chicago project I noticed an erosion of a grid whenever used and by decentralizing, allowing buildings to stand independently with varied functions and the possibility of growth, I adopted a fish spine structure.
The spine is a combination of closed structures and highways. The inner city is flush with office buildings, atriums, shopping malls with suburbia and housing communities along the outer spokes.
Other programs, such as schools and educational facilities, are located within large green zones.
What could be taken away?
The thought behind the segregation of circulation within levels could prove effective.
There is also a repetitive theme of using prefabrication and I believe that is to speed the building process and make it more economical.
Disdain for monotony and the need for variety with repetition.
Conversation with Dogma
Contemporary urban planning
Tell us a little about yourselves.
Well, we had the privilege to attend Manfredo Tafuri’s las two classes, and working through the same college we created a bond.
We were introduced to OMA by Elia which had a great impact on how we worked and helped build one of Dogma’s earlier projects.
We have always considered architecture to be an assertive fact, something that inevitable creates order and yet this order is constantly challenged.
Our architecture is based on very limited grammar of forms and we constantly repeat and refine through each project. We believe in looking at form as a frame, to see architects enabling social relationships. We believe architecture has the capacity to be appropriated and used in different unexpected ways without imposing excessively rigid predefined use.
What are your thoughts on informal spaces within newly developed cities?
The first time we visited Sharjah, we were impressed by the lack of public ground and sidewalks, the essential tissue dividing the private space of the house from the asphalt. Despite this situation, we noticed people would gather when the sun was less strong, on improvised stools. This made us question the fundamentals of architecture that have been imposed upon us. Although we believe in an attempt to support these activities, we should reclaim a small porting of the ground and detach it from the undefined condition of the city.
What is your thought process while designing for a city?
We often design based on our experience or what we feel is needed. It is important to consider everybody and try to understand their needs and design accordingly. But Steve Jobs once said, people don’t know what they want, What they think they want is often based on their exposure. Maybe you can offer them something even better beyond their wildest dreams.
Then it comes to the question of change. Are people willing to adapt, but can they be forced to adapt for their own good because they haven’t seen the larger picture and don’t have all the data?
You had mentioned in the earlier question of looking at form as a frame. Can you elaborate?
Form as a frame — This can be looked upon as a device that could give rhythm to different elements that are deployed.
Looking at the trees and pedestrian paths do not form a pedagogical standpoint rather as tookits as this form as a frame to build and use.
Using this method small urban elements (light poles, stone insertions, benches, platforms and everyday banal objects) placement becomes crucial and work as urban confetti.
How do you implement these radical ideas within existing cities?
I believe these planning strategies should be made such that they are implemented over time. Small conscious insertions have the potential to create large repercussions. Giving the city a state of what could be could lead to a domino effect by the residents leading more to aspire to such change.
How has the evolution of private gardens from horticultural spaces to status-driven landscapes influenced the design and perception of public parks and urban residential spaces?
Gardens are susceptible to change by the user whereas parks are not so much. This is due to the shift from horticulture to intensive farming. Gardens are now used as a status symbol.
Rooms can be looked upon similarly to gardens and homes as parks.
Sources
[1] Le Corusier 1910–65 — Le Corbusier
[2]Hilbersheimer, Radical Urbanism — Marisol Rivas Velazquez, Diego Barajas
[3] El Croquis 208 — Dogma 2002–2021
