Greek and Roman City and Town Planning

Gr eek and Roman Greek city and town planning SUBMITTED BY

D.E.K.SAGAR VARMA (10633) GNANA SELV SELVAM AM (10645) (106 45)

Greek

Greek

Greek civilization occurred in the area around the Greek mainland, on a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea It started in cities on the Greek mainland and on islands in the  Aegean Sea Towards the later or Hellenistic period, Greek civilization spread to other far away places including Asia Minor and Northern Africa Africa

LOCATION

HISTORICAL BACKGROUN

Most of the Greek mainland was rocky and barren and therefore bad for agriculture Most Greeks therefore lived along the coastline or on islands where the soil was good for farming The Aegean Aegean and Mediterranean Seas provided a means of communication communication and trade with other places

LOCATION

HISTORICAL BACKGROUN

GREEK CITY PLANNING

DESIGN

 Ancient Greeks not only develop ideals of architectural aesthetics, but they also developed principles for the design and planning of cities as location for architecture The ancient Greek city states developed a standard plan of the city The city consisted of three defined elements; the town, acropolis and Agora Principles were developed for organizing each element of the city based on activities and its symbolism The town was a place to retire for the day It was composed of simple courtyard houses separated by streets It could either be organic or grid-iron 

PRINCIPLES OF CITY PLANNING & DESIGN

The Acropolis was the city of the gods



This is where buildings reflecting the highest ideals of beauty were placed to be seen rather than used 

The principle of its design is that of isolated objects arranged in open space 

The objects are arranged to be seen in threedimension 

The Agora was a mundane place for social, commercial and political activities 

PRINCIPLES OF CITY PLANNING & DESIGN

The

principle of its design centers on creating boundaries to contain space for activities In

practice, stoas and other civic buildings are used to loosely define the space These

are usually treated with continuous colonnades or porticoes along the side of the court with occasional penetrations by footpaths

PRINCIPLES OF CITY PLANNING & DESIGN

•

It has an organic plan.

 ATHENS

DARK AGES (1.150BC/1.100BC-900BC) Invasion of polonnesse which came as a blow & the athenians took time to stand up again. The attack resulted in the reduction of population.

 ATHENS

 Agora was the center of athenian life. Laid out in 6th centuary bc., northwet of the Acropolis, it was a square lined by public buildings, which served Athens need for commerce & politics.

 ATHENS

1791 bocage map or plan of athens, Ancient Greece

 ATHENS

 A plan of Athens, designed by the French consul Louis François Sébastien Fauvel, a little before 1800. A plan of Athens, designed by the French consul Louis François Sébastien Fauvel, a little before 1800.

The acropolis in Athens was a religious precinct located on one of the hills of the city. 

The Earliest versions of the Buildings in the Acropolis existed until 480 BC 

In 480 BC, the Persians under Xerxes burnt Athens and the  Acropolis to the ground 

Not long after that the Greeks defeated the Persians 

The Acropolis in

The Acropolis in Athens was rebuilt in about 450 BC The rebuilding of the Acropolis was begun by Pericles, the wise statesman who ruled from 460 BC to 429 BC Pericles commissioned artist and architects to build a new city of temples to glorify the gods The acropolis combined Doric orders and ionic orders in a perfect composition in four buildings; the Propylea, the Parthenon, the Erechtheumn, and the temple of Nike.

The Acropolis in

The best example of Greek emphasis on visualization in design and site planning is seen at the Acropolis at Athens  All the buildings on the  Acropolis are designed to be seen than use  All the temples on the Acropolis are place at an angle that enables them to be seen on two sides If a building cannot see be from two sides, it is completely hidden

The Acropolis in

From the entry at the Propylae, a visitor has a view of all the prominent buildings in the Acropolis Buildings are also position at a distance that ensures the appreciation of their details The central axis of view from the propylae is left free of building for a view into the country side

The Acropolis in

The Agora in Athens was a space used for social, commercial and political activities The Agora at Athens was located at the base of the hill of the Acropolis Civic and religious buildings were progressively erected around the perimeter of the  Agora space

The Agora

Greek

town-planning began in the great age of Greece, the fifth century B.C They included streets running parallel or at right angles to one another and rectangular blocks of houses; the longer and presumably the more important streets ran parallel to the shore, while shorter streets ran at right angles to them down to the quays.  Here is a rectangular scheme of streets, though the outline of the whole town is necessarily not rectangular

GREEK TOWN-PLANNING: FIRST EFFORTS

The

Macedonian age brought with it, if not a new, at least a more systematic, method of town-planning. Instead, a broad sloping terrace, or more exactly a series of terraces, nearer the foot of the hill, was laid out with public buildings— Agora, Theatre, Stoa, Gymnasium, Temples, and so forth—and with private houses

GREEK TOWN-PLANNING: THE MACEDONIAN AGE, 330-130 B.C.

The

whole covered an area of about 750 yds. in length and 500 yds. in width. Priene was, therefore, about half the size of Pompeii.  It

had, as its excavators calculate, about 400 individual dwelling-houses and a population possibly to be reckoned at 4,000. In

the centre was the Agora or market-place, with a temple and other large buildings facing on to it  round

them were other public buildings and some eighty blocks of private houses, each block measuring on an average 40 x 50 yds. and containing four or five houses.

GREEK TOWN-PLANNING: THE MACEDONIAN AGE, 330-130 B.C

The

broader streets, rarely more than 23 ft. wide, ran level along the terraces and parallel to one another. Other

narrower streets, generally about 10 ft. wide, ran at right angles up the slopes, with steps like those of the older Scarborough or of Assisi. Despite

this reasoned and systematic arrangement, no striking artistic effects appear to have been attempted. No streets give vistas of stately buildings GREEK TOWN-PLANNING: THE MACEDONIAN AGE, 330-130 B.C.

Roman

The typical Roman city of the later Republic and empire had a rectangular plan and resembled a Roman military camp with two main streets — the cardo (north-south) and the decumanus (east-west)—a grid of smaller streets dividing the town into blocks, and a wall circuit with gates. Older cities, such as Rome itself, founded before the adoption of regularized city planning, could, however, consist of a maze of crooked streets. The focal point of the city was its forum, usually situated at the center of the city at the intersection of the cardo and the decumanus.

ROMAN CITIES

FLORENCE

In

Roman times Florence was a 'colonia‘. This 'colonia', like others, was laid out in chess-board fashion, and vestiges of its streets survive in the Centro which forms the heart of the present town. The Centro of Florence, as we see it to-day, is very modern.

FLORENCE

The plan of Florence in 1427 shows a group of twenty unmistakable 'insulae', each of them about 1-1/8 acre in area, that is, very similar in size to the 'insulae' of Turin. This group is bounded by the modern streets Tornabuoni on the west, Porta Rossa on the south, Calzaioli on the east, Teatina on the north; it covers a rectangle of some 305 x 327 yds., not quite 21 acres.

FLORENCE

There are, or were, traces of Roman baths in the Via delle Terme, and it has been thought that the town stretched riverwards as far as the old gate Por S. Maria and thePiazza S. Trinità. The gate, however, is ill-placed and the line of wall implied by this theory is irregular. The mediaeval streets point rather to a south wall near the Via Porta Rossa. There were also theatres, a shrine of Isis, and, outside the Roman limit, an amphitheatre still discernible in the curves of certain streets .However small Florentia was, it possessed the true elements of the Roman town.

FLORENCE

The Por S. Maria may even be due to one of the reconstructions of Florence in the Middle  Ages. At the end we must admit that without further evidence the limits of Roman Florence cannot be fixed for certain. But the limits indicated above give the not unsuitable dimensions of 46 acres (380 x 590 yds.), while the history of the twenty indubitable insulae of the Centro remains full of interest. We see here, as clearly as anywhere in the Roman world, how the regular Roman plan has gradually been distorted by encroachments and how, even in its irregularity, it has had power to drive modern builders towards its ancient fashion.

FLORENCE

PRESENT FLORENCE

 

ROME

1800 ROME

 

ROME

PRESENT  

ROME

  OTHER EXAMPLES

  OTHER EXAMPLES

Inferences

•

Greeks built small towns appropriate for human scale

•

Natural borders for the town

•

Parts of the town were planned according to geometrical patterns and others according to defensive measures

•

Democracy, Buildings of poor and rich are a side, public baths.

•

Agora in the center and includes :  –

 Assembly hall

 –

Council hall

 –

Chamber hall

GREEK TOWNS

•

plenty of towns in invaded areas - medium towns for about 50000. to keep agriculture around

•

Division of agricultural land into rectangular parcels.

•

Grid pattern for most of Roman cities

•

The city was divided into neighborhoods and quarters with their own centers

•

Two major and central intersected roads :  –

 Cardo : North South

 –

Decomanus : East West

* The Forum at the intersection of the two major roads : the central public space

Torino - Italy

ROMAN CITIES