PLANNED AND BUILT CITIES

TEL AVIV (ISRAEL)

PATRICK GEDDES

Submitted by,
ABRAR KADHER-4SN16AT003
AMRUTHA K - 4SN16AT006
HISTORY
• Tel Aviv was founded on April 11, 1909 when 66 families gathered on sand dunes on
the beach outside Jaffa to allocate plots of land for a new neighbourhood.
• They held a lottery by writing the names of the participants on white shells and the
plot numbers on the grey shell.

1909 1917
• The Geddes Plan for Tel Aviv was the first master city plan for Tel
Aviv.
• It was designed in 1925-1929 by the Scottish city planner Sir
Patrick Geddes.
• This program designed the center of Tel Aviv and the area now
known as "Old North".
• In 1925 Patrick Geddes was commissioned to design a master
plan for the city of Tel Aviv.
• The plan he produced was accepted in 1929.
• Tel Aviv turned out to be the only example of one of Geddes’
plans being built largely as he envisaged and is a good example
of an early planned city.
• The area of Tel Aviv originally planned by Geddes makes up
approximately 7.5% of the current day municipality of Tel Aviv
and is now known as Tel Aviv’s “Old North”.
• It was designed to be an extension of the neighboring Arabic
port town Jaffa to the south and a home for the increasing
population of Jews.
Features and principles of Geddes Plan
The principles he employed for the city were strikingly similar to
what we now know as New Urbanism ideas of planning :
• An emphasis was placed on pedestrians as opposed to motor car
traffic
• A sense of community and civic life was encouraged through the
use of town squares and abundant planting of greenery provided
significant focus on a minimal environmental footprint.
• Private automobile traffic was minimised and the city was
envisaged on a pedestrian-scale.
• Another important aspect of Geddes plan was the use of the
“super block,” which was popular in the early to mid 20th
century with its origins in the modernist movement.
• The main principles was to create extra large blocks bounded by
major rather than minor roads, and have them threaded with
narrow one way streets designed in such a way to discourage
through traffic.
SUPER BLOCK
• The aim of these superblocks was to foster community and a sense of civic life within
them.
• In order to achieve this, it was planned that at the centre of each block was meant to be a
central public space (a garden or public building).
• Geddes’ master plan consisted of a hierarchical grid of main arteries and secondary
streets forming urban ‘blocks’ . Within each block, a sub-system of short and narrow
residential streets- ‘homeways’ encircled a small public park at the centre.
THE ROAD SYSTEM
• Two way grid:
(i) North-South parallel to the shore.
(ii) East- West facing the sea.
• Main roads- 15 to 30 m wide.
• Secondary roads 10 to 12m wide.
INNER STREET
• Public garden within the block.
• Seperation between housing and traffic.
• Front yards as buffer.
• Footpath connects the main street to the inner green roads.
Gardens
• Geddes took part of his inspiration from the Garden City
movement developed by Ebenezer Howard, he was keen to
ensure that greenery was an integral part of the Tel Aviv
landscape.
• Under his plan buildings were restricted to taking up a
maximum of only one third of any given site, these restrictions
aimed to ensure maximum potential for neighborhoods well
endowed with lush greenery.

Architecture
• Geddes did not prescribe a certain architectural style for the
area, traditionally a city planned of along the lines of the
British Garden City Movement would aim for an architectural
style based on the traditional style for the region.
• He encouraged the development of a distinctly ‘Jewish style’.
Interestingly Geddes provide little more that this style
recommendations in his planning report.
CRITICISM
• Critics of Tel Aviv’s layout have suggested it is not a beautiful
city in the classic sense.
• A low standard of construction and of housing units
(apartment buildings) has largely been blamed for this, citing
that the buildings developed were ugly and akin to stacks of
packing cases with shoeboxes for balconies.
• Further criticism has been put that the city has not coped well
with the increasing population and private car traffic not
envisaged by Geddes at the time.
• Poor building construction and lack of proper maintenances
have served as further critiques of the early city planning.
Deterioration and Development
• Over the following decades after Geddes plan was realised the
area began to decay and theer was significant public lament
and dissatisfaction with the decay of the city.
• This deterioration was later used as justification for the rapid
redevelopment of the area in the 1950s.
• Significant effort was made to preserve the historical
neighborhoods planned by Geddes and in 1984 the Council for
the Preservation of buildings and Sites was established to
protect them. An aerial view of the city centre now