1. a brief history of urban form
2. 2. index 1. urban form determinants for early settlements natural and man made
determinants 2. medieval cities the wall, the marketplace, the church 3. renaissance and
barroque aesthetic determinent, urban scenery and aggrandizement 4. ninetheenth 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 standarizantion 7. 1950-1970
structuralism, brutalism and pop 8. 1970-nowadays revisionism and pragmatism
3. 3. urban form determinants for early settlements natural and man made determinants
4. 4. natural world determinants: topography
5. 5. natural world determinants: climate
6. 6. natural world determinants: materials and technology (vernacular)
7. 7. man-made determinants: trade
8. 8. man-made determinants: political / religious plus defence, mobility, ethnical issues...
9. 9. urban growth structures organic growth, through unplaned agregation of buildings
gridiron plan: roman castrum first gridirons as the result of the pre-existing land cadastre
10. 10. EARLY SETTLEMENTS RECAP natural determinants topography (location) 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
11. 11. medieval towns the wall, the marketplace, the church
12. 12. medieval town origins: castrum, burg or village
13. 13. medieval town: early evolution agriculture surplus leads to an increase on nonagricultural specialists which leads to goods to be secured and defended
14. 14. 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 (not UK)
15. 15. the marketplace the whole city as a marketplace, trade as a raison d-être the need to
trade of every citizen increases the value of the facade lenght
16. 16. “it would have a cellar, a ground floor where he and his family lived and slept, and an
upstairs apartment which was probably his workroom but possibly includ- ed a bedroom,
and above that an attic which was his private warehouse - goods went up and down by
pulley. The street was an extension of his house. In fact it was like a large room belonging to
all the inhabitants: they sat out in it, worked in it, and played in it” LIVE WORK WAREHOUSE
17. 17. medieval development of amsterdam
18. 18. MIDDLE AGES RECAP origin village, castrum or burg agricultural surplus elements wall:
defense, toll and constriction marketplace, the city as a market the church and the castle,
representation of the power amsterdam specific settlement’s challenges in the Netherlands,
the public works or the “water factor”
19. 19. renaissance and barroque aesthetic determinent, aggrandizement and urban scenery
20. 20. aesthetic determinant as the representation of the new humanism ideas
21. 21. aggrandizement and enclosement growing and centralization of au- tocratic political and
economical powers economical capacity to promote complex urban opperations as a process
for their aggrandizement urban scenery for statues
22. 22. unifying individual buildings through the repetion of a basic facade or elevation enclosed
space for civic, religious, commercial or residential pur- poses
23. 23. Rome, urban scale scenery for pilgrimage implementation of the “main street”, or street
hierarchy ease the reception of pilgrims. PERSPECTIVES
24. 24. climax of urban scenery inside and outside working together as a tool for poignancy
25. 25. renaissance star forts, or trace italienne consequences of the Fall of Constantinople
26. 26. 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 cannon-proof geometries
27. 27. renaissance ideal cities increasing size of the diverse elements according to scale of
intercation
28. 28. grachtengordel, amsterdam amsterdam understood as a flourishing corporation in which
each citizen had shares communal action in the con- struction of the grachten compulsory
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land purchase powers jordaan, zoned for industrial purposes big development in terms of
ordenances and rules
29. “ The planned growth of seventeenth century Am- sterdam is a clear example of the rule
that societies get the kind of cities they deserve. It is proof, if any is still required, that
theoretical planning expertise is of little significance in the absence of community resolution.
Without political direction, expressed in viable legislation, plans are just so much paper”
30. RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE RECAP transformation of the medieval structure aesthetic
determinant enclosement aggrandizement urban scenery: main streets and perspectives
renaissance ideal cities humanism + militar technology evolution grachtengordel urban
expansion through legislation and cooperation zoning
31. nineteenth century grand urban renewals and extension plans
32. paris, complete urban renewal autocracy, legislation, speculation
33. objectives: - hygienization - mobility - aggrandizement - speculation - riot control
34. 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”
35. “a more successful enterprise, also under private auspices, was the Vondelpark, a project
planned and realized by a consortium of wealthy citizens. The purpose was two-pronged: to
create an impressive park without any intervention of the municipality, and to generate
income from the upgrading of the land. With this last mind they bought up more land than
was needed for the park itself, so that the neighbouring plots could be sold for expensive
homes in a stately setting. The villas around the Koningslaan are particularly magnificent.
The building of factories and block of flats for workers was naturally banned, and special
provisions in the sales contracts guaranteed against any such possibility.”
36. barcelona, the scientific method for urban planning the grid as the possibility of growth
ad infinitum
37. 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
38. in the original regulations purposed by Cerdá, for the first time ever built facades would
partially dissociate from the streets. Due to explitation circumstances, a higher edificability
and density were required. early dissociation between street and inter-street
39. feasible variations within the grid the grid as an structural framework for the individual
decissions and the histori- cal development
40. 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
41. garden cities first failure of urban design as a social tool
42. howard’s lifeframe disconected from ruling classes working class approach lack of public
support
43. designed as a set of self-suficient rather dense autonomous cities of 30.000 in- habitants
included social venues, housing, factories and green recreational spaces
44. 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 - romanticstyle urban trace, or the idea of living in the nature The perverse use of the
bourgeoisification on the proletariat, as a self accepted community reduc- tion to the
harmless family core Destruction of the city as a social catalyst
45. GARDEN CITIES RECAP corruption of social ideas by the economical elites
monofunctional sprawls low density nonsocial cities arise of the sprawl-highway-mall
structure
46. 1920-1950 modernism, rationalism and standarization
47. 47. plan Zuid: a conservative approach
48. 48. 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)
49. 49. 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.
50. 50. hygienization: sun, ventilation, space full dissociation between pedestrians, streets and
buildings the city IN the nature industrialization, technification scientific management
(taylorism) zoning mechanization of the city
51. 51. 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 social equality through homogenization
52. 52. after WWII, 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 post
WWII, european reconstruction
53. 53. social and heritage sensitivity algemeen uitbreidingsplan (AUP)
54. 54. first phase: - the extension as a whole - only the structuring city scale elements get
designed - THE CITY AS A COMPOSITION, NOT AS AN ARTIFACT - design within a multidisciplinar team, in- cluding public insitu- tions, urban planners, lawyers, statisticians...
55. 55. second phase: - detail design of spe- cific neighbourhoods, with specific needs - a two
phases design enables time as a de- sign factor, allowing the interference of new developments and ideas scientifically driven, but without rejecting the arbitrariness or intuition as a human factor
56. 56. 1920-1950 RECAP modernism tabula rasa deconstruction of traditional city repetition,
standardization and homogenization of both public and domestic spaces optimisation of
urban functions sepparately zoning post WWII developments mediocrization and repetition
of modernist ideas
57. 57. 1950-1970 structuralism, brutalism and pop
58. 58. the subversive sieblings of the modernism TEAM X 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 aldo van eyck: “the modern urbanism was an hygienic
and organised nothingness”
59. 59. new approach, same old problems revisiting modernism if the streets have dissapeared
let’s re-incorporate them to in our blocks THE BUILDING BECOMES THE CITY conectivity
meaning conected buildings choice meaning ecclectic organic-like layout identity meaning
only choosing post war scenarios for the proposals relationship meaning standing ON TOP of
the pre-existing city
60. 60. the heterogenity of the traditional city cannot longer be produced within contemporary
population scales and developing times the architecture tries to become the a vertical city
61. 61. 1970-nowadays revisionism, ecclecticism and pragmatism