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132 views130 pagesBabylon To Brasilia Challenge City Planning - Carl Hiller
Babylon to Brasilia Challenge City Planning - Carl Hiller
Uploaded by
marcomilazzoCopyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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/ 130
BABYLON TO BRASILIA
The Challenge of City Planning
Carl E. Hiller $5.95
BABYLON
TO BRASILIA
by Carl E. Hiller
Ever since man first started to live in cities
nned their organization It 1s only
recently, however, that a formal body of
theory and knowledge known as city plan
ning has come into general use. This book 1s
about the challenge city planning bas always
presented in the past and the vital place 1t
should have in our concerns today
With the aid of over fifty photograp
drawings, Carl Hiller, author of From Ti
to Towers, presents the reader with a short
history of cities. how they grew, the basic
forms they took, and what 1s w
them today. Next, he discusses
such gifted city planners as L’Enfant, Le
c
sier, and Wright, and then moves on
onsider the New Town Movement, urban
renewal, and ideas for the future shape
mplete with an illustrated glossary, bi
hy, index, and appendix containing
es in city planning, this book 1
both a delight to the eye and an important
how man can attempt to successfully shape
cone element of his environment BOSTON
PUBLIC
LIBRARY ,
GL Bs Books by Carl E. Hiller
From Tepes to Towers: A Photographic History
of American Architecture
Banyton 10 Brasitia: The Challenge of City Planning Babylon to Brasilia
The Challenge of City Planning The city of Vienna as it appeared in the seventeenth century, sur-
rounded by walls and a moat, A strect called the Ringstrasse now
circles the inner city in place of the wall shown here. Babylon
to Brasilia
The Challenge of City Planning
by Carl E. Hiller
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY
Boston Toronto
!
y |
(clB
¥ i
ROSLINDALE BRANCH SEP
copynicHt © 1972 BY CARL B. MILLER
EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER WHO MAY QUOTE BHIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW.
LIBRARY OF CONGHESS CATALOG CARD NO. 78-154964
Tosi
1972
Published simultaneously in Canada
by Linle, Brown & Company (Canada) Limited
PRINTED IN THEE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
1
LIBRARY
MmBOSTON PUBLIC To the memory of
James Edward Tobin Acknowledgments
For Tuer apvice, help, and encouragement in the prepara-
tion of this book the author wishes to thank Alden Aust,
Edmund N. Bacon, C. Gates Beckwith, Arthur Boodaghian,
Henry Chafetz, William Duprey, Herbert Emmerich,
Edwin Friedman, Lawrence C. Goldsmith, William
Hennelly, Hinman Kealy, Rose Lehrer, Anand Mohan, Gerd
Muchsam, Martha Munzer, Sylvia Noroff, Nettie Osofsky,
Neal Richmond, John Riess, Clarence S. Stein, Florence
Weintraub, Marjean McConnell Willett, and Zeke Ziner. Contents
4
Adenowledgments
Introduction
‘What's Wrong with Our Cities?
A Short History of Cities
Why Do People Live in Cities?
Where and How Did Cities Grow?
The Form of Cities
What Has Happened to Cities?
What Can Be Done to Cure the City’s Ills?
Plans and Planners
L'Enfant and the City of Washington
Haussmann and the Rebuilding of Paris
Ebenezer Howard and His Garden Cities
Broadacre City: An Idea of Frank Lloyd Wright
Le Corbusier: Two Dreams and a Reality
Chandigarh: Le Corbusier's Chance
Islamabad: A New Capital for a New State
Brasilia: The Story of a Vision
‘The New Town Movement around the World
New Towns in the United States
Reston and Columbia: Cities in Parks
Cumbernauld: One of Britain's New Towns
Tapiola: Garden City of Finland
Nuns’ Island: Montreal’s New City
Putting New Life into Old Cities
Rotterdam
25
27
29
37
37
40
43
46
48
50
52
54
$8
59.
62
66
68
7 Urban Renewal: U.S.A.
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh's Golden Triangle
Omaha
New York’s Battery Park City
Ideas for the Future
Seward’s Success: Climate Control in Alaska
‘The Domed City: Fuller's Dream
Stratasystem: A Plan for Tomorrow
Glossary
Sources of Ilustrations
Bibliography
List of Institutions Offering Programs in City Planning
Index Babylon to Brasilia
The Challenge of City Planning Part of the city of Bath in. western England. Most of the houses in
this picture were built in the Ge
ian style of the eighteenth century. |
At left is the Royal Crescent with its spacious lawn. It is connected
by Brock Street to the Circus at the right. Introduction
AIMOst As LONG as cities have existed, they have been laid
cout in some plan so as to provide areas for living, moving
about, and working. It is only in fairly recent times that city
planning as a term that connotes a formalized body of theory
and knowledge has come into general use. What exactly
city planning is depends on who is trying to define the phrase.
Ask a sociologist, and he will give one answer; ask an
economist, he will give another. A philosopher will discuss
city planning in terms of his field while an architect will do
so in different terms.
The fantastic growth of cities and the problems their
growth has raised are so complex that few people seem to
agree on solutions. Should we try to cure the cities’ ills, or
should we let them die while we build new ones? Some
thinkers on the subject feel that the population explosion
demands new cities, while others contend that new cities
will cause the further decay of older cities by draining away
their middle-class inhabitants.
Ie is not the purpose of this book to espouse any special
view of city planning ot to take a critical position on what
has been done, is being done, or what is proposed in the field
for the future. It is hoped that the mere raising of issues and
a presentation of facts and ideas might serve as inspiration
for positive action on the part of readers, Air pollution. What's Wrong with Our Cities? cading into New York during
le traffic jams a main arter
jorning rush hour. Overerov Boys playing in littered backyard Cn
15 A Short History of Cities
Why Do People Live in Cities?
To petve into the history of human settlements is to find not
one but several answers to the questions of why people live
in cities, and where and how cities grew. According to
anthropologists, man is a social animal, instinctively living in
groups, as do ants, bees, clephants, wolves, and many other
members of the animal world, In Paleolithic times, one family
or perhaps several groups moved from place to place, con-
stantly seeking new sources for food — hunting, fishing, or
berry-picking sites. The Neolithic period saw the refinement
of man’s implements, permitting him to plow and to cut
trees. Sometime later he also learned to domesticate animals,
He no longer needed to roam the forests and plains of the
river valleys in search of food, but could raise what he needed
by settling in one place,
In fact he found he could produce more than enough to
feed himself and his family, and the surplus thus created
formed the basis for trade. Division of labor within groups
was a result of trade, and groups of craftsmen developed who
could transform raw products into commodities that could
be bartered for food and other necessities. Spinners, weavers,
and dyers of wool, for example, could live together in com-
munities with potters, and tanners of leather.
Division of labor, beneficial to man in many ways, also
brought with ita curse that provided us with one of the most
serious ills of the city, and plagues us to this day — class
structure. At the bottom of the social ladder were slaves or
free servants, with craftsmen and tradesmen on a higher
oy 18
rung, and landowners, priests, and rulers placed above them
in ascending order. Variations on this pattern existed in
different parts of the world, of course, depending on local
conditions. In the Western world, the structure became
increasingly complex, and finally reached its worst state in
the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century.
Since farming has always been the source of life's neces-
sities, it was natural that the earliest settlements known grew
up in fertile river valleys such as that of the Nile in Egypt,
the Tigris-Euphrates in Mesopotamia, the Ganges in India
and several valleys in China.
In these settlements, in addition to the groups of craftsmen
and tradesmen already mentioned, were added scribes who
could keep records of transactions, carpenters, masons,
soldiers, and a myriad of others. Villages grew into towns,
towns into cities.
Farmers and villagers from the countryside made periodic
trips to the city to trade their produce for the articles of the
craftsmen, Storchouses for surplus food were built. A rhythm,
of trade developed, with a certain day of the week devoted
to the trading of wool, and another to the trading of camels.
‘Towns that are primarily centers of such trading — market
towns — are still common all over Europe, parts of Asia and
Africa, and North and South America. Today, such towns
traditionally keep a specific day of the week as general market
day. Wednesday is market day in Marrakesh, Morocco;
Thursday in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Friday in Verona,
Iraly.
People living together in large numbers and in close
proximity had to provide for themselves a code of behavior,
The types of governmental systems differed
from region to region depending on how each society had
a system of laws
developed. Religion played a chief role in some instances,
the need for protection in others. In Egypt, where religion developed very early, the head man of a settlement was also
its religious leader, a priest-king. Eventually a number of
towns came under the domination of one such man, a
Pharaoh. In the Tigris~Euphrates Valley — called the Fertile
Crescent — the story was somewhat different. The city of
Babylon grew great, not only because of the fertility of the
soil, but because of its strategic site ata point where the Tigris
and Euphrates Rivers were so close that a canal had been dug
connecting them, thus providing water transportation in
several directions. Since it was also situated at the crossing
of the main land routes to Damascus and the cities of Egypt,
Babylon was the envy and the target of tribes from the other
sides of the mountains. Protection against them was of prime
importance, and was provided by means of high, thick walls.
There government developed along military lines, with a
king who was also a warlord.
Greece and Rome, which succeeded Egypt and Babylonia
as probably the two most important centers of Western
civilization, developed still differently.
‘The Greck city-state was an independent political unit
which included both the chief town and surrounding villages
and farms. Two unique features of the Greck city were the
agora and the acropolis, The agora began as an open space
where political meetings were held, and gradually developed
into a market area. The acropolis was the religious center,
usually consisting of a number of temples, outdoor altars,
and statues of deities.
In Roman cities, the forum usually combined the religious
and commercial functions of the Greek agora and acropolis
The great Forum Romanum in Rome, however, was solely
sacred in character, and smaller forums served as market-
places.
Colonies of the Roman Empire, in what is now Italy,
France, Germany, Spain, and England, formed the bases of
19 some of the carliest European cities, many of which have
survived to the present time, Examples are London, Paris,
Naples, Florence, and Cologne.
An artist reconstructed this version of the city of Babylon as it probably
looked in the sixth century 3.
descriptions by Herodotus and o
discoveries of archaeologists. The bridge in the foreground connected
a two parts of the city separated by the Euphrates River.
having based his conception on
Greek historians as well as actual Where and How Did Cities Grow?
Cities that grew up during the Middle Ages in Europe, like
their predecessors in Asia, differed from cach other in
character depending on their origins and their purposes.
Again, the most important factors were economic, social, and
religious. Port towns developed where harbors were good
or rivers deep enough to permit ships to navigate; market
towns where cither river or road transportation coincided
with centers of agricultural production. The social and
economic structure — feudalism — of medieval Europe pro-
vided another factor in the form and development of towns.
With the emergence of the lord of the manor — the baron —
as the one responsible for the protection of his servants, serfs,
and usually the free craftsmen and tradesmen too, the castle
town arose. Its dominant feature was the heavily walled
astle-fortress towering above the huts of the people, which
were cither huddled at its foot or within its walls.
Another type of medieval settlement was the cathedral
town, the seat of the bishop. Hence, much of the life centered
about an imposing Romanesque ot Gothic edifice which
dominated the town and gave it its unique character.
In the Western Hemisphere — in what is now Mexico and
Guatemala — although only ruins of great monuments have
been found, archaeologists have recently concluded that the
Mayan, Aztec, and other peoples of that region had developed
sizable cities in prehistoric times. Archacological exploration
will no doubt some day give ws clues as to the nature of these
cities.
If we look at North American cities and why they grew
where they did, we find the same pattern as in the Old
World. Baltimore, Boston, Vancouver, and San Francisco
grew because of their good harbors; Pittsburgh and St. Louis
because of their sites at the confluence of navigable rivers;
ar Duluth was a natural inland port for the shipping of nearby
iron deposits; Charlotte, North Carolina, boasted natural
waterpower for the running of mills; while Scranton,
Pennsylvania, could use the coal mined nearby in processing
the local iron ore.
Other cities have grown, not because of their sites, but
because of their purposes. Salt Lake City was founded by a
religious sect in an unpromising, desertlike spot, which was
literally made to blossom by the Mormons. Brigham Young,
had the foresight
one hundred years
the Mormon leader and founder of the city
to plan such wide streets that today, ov
later, Salt Lake City has few of the traffic problems that
plague most American cities
Some towns and cities have grown because they were
designated as seats of state government: Lincoln, Nebraska,
and Boise, Idaho. Still other cities developed as centers of
higher education: Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Champaign,
Illinois, French Gothic cathedral at C
architectural feature and as
Dover Castle, built in a.p. 1180 on the southeast coast of En
Such a castle, protected by walls and a moat, co
the townspeople living in its shadow in times o
tres dominates the city both as its
center of its religious life. San Francisco with the Golden Gate Bridge in the foreground. An
example of a city sited because of a good natural harbor. The Form of Cities
Some towns and cities have been laid out according to a
definite plan, while others have achieved their form as a
result of their natural sites —on a hilltop, or along roads,
waterways, or harbors. The layouts of towns and cities fall
into four chief types, all of which have countless variations.
The earliest known —and still the most common and
most popular — is the gridiron plan. Adapted from Babylo-
eaten aria Creche ini popelancy probably eracs irom
the fact that it’s the simplest and the easiest to lay out. The
gridiron plan consists of a pattern of streets crossing each
other at right angles, creating square or rectangular plots of
land.
When a town has grown up along a road which serves as
a main strect with cross strects feeding into it, the result is
erie Wetyare eee lines: plan) Hundreds/of| towns ini the
southern, midwestern, and western United States have
developed this way. Accidental in most cases, it has been
proposed by some contemporary planners as a means of
i \
|
gridiron ~ >
