The Approaches Of Various Architects And Urban Planners Towards The City

Urban history, as a tool, has drastically changed our understanding of cities over the centuries. ‘Urban histories possessed an explanatory power far above the intricate workings of one city; providing larger narratives centered on industrialization or other macro-economic developments’.

An essential need of the city and urban life, for bringing people together and seeing architecture as a social form. (147-148 writing on cities)

Opposed to some commonly held beliefs, European cities were not the paragons of development that they were written out to be. Stannard describes the squalid condition of the cities and the “poor’s holes” on the

“Cities are not approached simply as forums for economic and political confrontations but as places rich with meaning and value for those who live, work, and play in and near them” (Borer 2006). People assign characteristics and personality to cities. These traits are assumed to be as permanent and concrete as the physical city (Borer 2010). However, like the characteristics of a person’s identity may change over time, the identity of places is fluid and dynamic (Borer

Cities are generators of economic life and source of changes in the world. Thereby, Jane Jacobs in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities puts into relief the role of cities on the social and economic levels, while denouncing the disastrous consequences of urban renewal programs. To that extent, in chapters 2 and 3, she discusses "The Uses of Sidewalks”, arguing that over all people need safety and trust in their city. Therefore, first she claims the necessity of keeping streets and sidewalks safe because they are the “vital organs” of cities (29). Secondly, she argues that the functioning of cities should be organized in order to foster human interaction in which “casual public

Throughout history, the evolution of communities and societies has been influenced by the local and global economy. Large cities emerged from vibrant business activity and flow of products and services. For the most part

However our cities have developed clear divisions of spatial separation significantly attributable to individual wealth (Baum, Haynes and van Gellecum 1557; Beer and Forster 9). Smets and Salman recognise this as a global phenomenon and propose a causal link to globalisation “deepening… the clefts between urban populations and the urban districts they inhabit” (1307). They go on to note that these rifts are “often connected to social cleavages” (Smets and Salman

The developments in planning and design of urban cities inform the argument surrounding the unsuitability of grids to carfree cities, whose medieval patterns provided efficient radial routes for centrally located goods, services, and transport. The emergence of city planning as a profession borrows significantly from the long and complex history of planning, whereby all cities display variations in forethought and conscious designs that define their layout and functioning. The paper uses Rome as a case study to analyse and critique the concepts and principles in the history of urban planning and design, and their

To follow the guise of English Philosopher Thomas Hobbes, the intention of a city could be understood as the preservation of life, and further “a more contented life thereby”. To follow his contemporary John Locke the role of the city could be understood in terms of the preservation of “life, liberty, and property”. Whilst these empirical notions arguably stood true during their inception in the 17th Centaury, also holding significance in the discussion of the contemporary city, the growth and support of the post industrial urban situation cannot be critically addressed in such a modest and simplistic manor. The complexity of the urban conglomeration has outstretched the simplistic and ideal definitions

The Urban Revolution, written by V. Gordon Childe, is an intricate article that attempts to figure out when, where, and why the phenomenon of cities began. The article also gives a slight description of what a creates a city, mostly from a historical setting. “Throughout the Pleistocene period, all known human societies were savage in the foregoing sense, and a few savage tribes have survived out of the way parts to the present day.”(Childe 1950). Before the development of cities, the domination of farm lands existed. The largest villages in prehistoric Europe, comprised of about “...52 small one-roomed dwellings, but 16 to 30 houses was a more normal figure.” (Childe 1950). Something I find interesting in the article is that due to the small demographic, everyone in the prehistoric cities or villages had to contribute to the hunting. This was because the social surplus was not big enough to feed idle mouths. Childe went on to say that a city has a hierarchy. He stated that a city makes investments in the sciences and written system. One thing that stood out to me is when

New Urbanism, a burgeoning genre of architecture and city planning, is a movement that has come about only in the past decade. This movement is a response to the proliferation of conventional suburban development (CSD), the most popular form of suburban expansion that has taken place since World War II. Wrote Robert Steuteville, "Lacking a town center or pedestrian scale, CSD spreads out to consume large areas of countryside even as population grows relatively slowly. Automobile use per capita has soared, because a motor vehicle is required for nearly all human transportation"1. New Urbanism, therefore, represents the converse of this planning ideology. It stresses traditional planning, including multi-purpose zoning,

His first comprehensive city plan was La Ville Contemporaine (the Contemporary City) a project to house three million inhabitants designed in 1922. This was Le Corbusier’s first attempt to reconcile man, nature and machine (Fishman, 189). The city starts at the center with a transportation hub for busses, trains, cars and planes. Surrounding this hub there will be an organized cluster of 24 60-story skyscrapers. These glass and steel skyscrapers are cross-shaped. Each individual skyscraper is to be set within a large rectangular green space. The skyscrapers house the “brain” of the city. The city is beautifully geometric and symmetrical. Placing the skyscrapers in the city center reinforces the emphasis on capital as a means of creating a successful city. Because of the shape and mass of each skyscraper, they have more usable space than an entire neighborhood but also relieves density and congestion because of the organization (Frampton, 46).

Designing a city from scratch is a remarkable thought experiment but ultimately fails at implementation because we always approach it from the perspective of “how can we create a new city that solves problems of existing cities.” It’s less a process driven by design and more by critique. Urban living has paved its way into modern society, yet the vision for a city has changed over time. Large settlements need planning to grow; yet differences in minds is what leads to the modifications of a city, in return makes a city so unique. Alterations in opinions are what thrives urban life, still these differences are what skews the view of how others see a city compared to myself. They say the eye of the beholder deems beauty; this could explain

What is the one thing you can do to make a design of a city a place rich in architectural conditions? To answer this shortly, it is not just one thing, but a combination of architectural elements that make a design successful. To make a city rich in urban conditions, various elements have to be shown throughout the city. In my opinion, a well organized city, is a city well structured with a successful design. To form such successful design elements such as urban pattern and hierarchy need to be taken into considerations, in that way every single aspect of architecture included in the design of a city brings will bring it closer to a spatially rich urban condition. Following, I have listed the main key elements, including Hierarchy of objects, Urban Pattern, and Public Space, and the reasons why they are necessary for an urban conditions to accomplish it’s purpose of enriching a designed city.

Cities are places which have huge amount of gathering of people, collection of economic activities and complex infrastructure for people which all together are supported by transport systems.