Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CHAPTER 2
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
MUNICH, GERMANY
STAR SHAPED CITIES
• Florence was an early model of the new urban
planning, which took on a star-shaped layout
adapted from the new star fort, designed to resist
cannon fire.
• This model was widely imitated, reflecting the
enormous cultural power of Florence in this age;
was impressed upon utopian schemes: this is the
star-shaped city".
• Radial streets extend outward from a defined
centre of military, communal or spiritual power.
Sforzinda City
• The plan for Sforzinda, an ideal
city named after Francesco
Sforza, then Duke of Milan.
Although Sforzinda was never
built, certain aspects of its
design are described in
considerable detail. The basic
layout of the city is an eight-
point star, created by overlaying
two squares so that all the
corners were equidistant. This
shape is then inscribed within a
perfect circular moat.
Palmanova
• Angled and star-shaped bastions
had already been developed in
Italy during the 16th century to
counter the effects of
increasingly powerful and
accurate artillery, and remove
blind-spots in defensive walls.
But Palmanova presented a
unique opportunity to harmonize
the entire urban layout with its
defensive perimeter. Thus the
heart of the town took the form
of a huge nine-sided piazza, with
symmetrical streets radiating out
to an exactly measured outer
poligon, its nine sides linked by
triangular bastions - creating a
perfect star.
AMERICAN CITY PLAN
• PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
In 1682, William Penn founded Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, planning it as a city to serve as a
port on the Delaware River and as a place for
government.
• Penn laid out roads on a grid plan to keep
houses and businesses spread far apart, with
areas for gardens and orchards.
• WASHINGTON DC
Washington, D.C., formally
the District of Columbia and
commonly referred to as
"Washington", "the District", or
simply "D.C.", is the capital of
the United States.
20TH CENTURY URBAN PLANNING
• Planning and architecture went through a
paradigm shift at the turn of the 20th century.
• The industrialized cities of the 19th century had
grown at a tremendous rate, with the pace and
style of building largely dictated by private
business concerns.
• Around 1900, theorists began developing urban
planning models to mitigate the consequences of
the industrial age, by providing citizens, especially
factory workers, with healthier environments.
MODERNISM
• In the 1920s, the ideas
of modernism began to
surface in urban
planning.
• The influential
modernist architect Le
Corbusier presented
his scheme for a
"Contemporary City"
for three million
inhabitants (Ville
Contemporaine) in
1922.
DANIEL BURNHAM
CITY OF CHICAGO,USA
MANILA CITY PLAN, Daniel Burnham
THE END