THE FIRST CITIES

In seeking explanation for the origin of cities, we

find a relationship between:
• Areas of early agriculture
• Permanent village settlement
• The development of new social forms
• Urban life
• Early people were nomadic hunters and
gatherers who constantly move

• As they became increasingly efficient in gathering resources, their campsites became semi-
permanent
• As quantities of domesticated plants and animals increased settlement became more
permanent
• The first cities appeared in the Middle East
1. Developed about ten thousand years ago
2. Farming villages modest in size, rarely with more than 200 people
3. Probably organized on a kinship basis

LECTURE -4 NORMATIVE THEORIES

 What's a city?
• Homo sapiens has existed for about 250,000 years, yet oldest cities are just 5,000
years old.
• Cities share permanence; specialization of skills among inhabitants; reliance on
countryside; communal buildings; accumulation of resources.
• People have created three kinds of cities in history and their built form reflects their
values:
COSMIC CITY,
MACHINE CITY AND
ORGANIC CITY

LECTURE -4 NORMATIVE THEORIES

Existing Theories and Practice
Theories that have motivated and still inform the
construction of cities are both normative and
functional.
Normative theories attempt to specify
"goodness“….what is good city form?... and discuss in
detail the aspects that create good
cities…..Prescriptive…..What cities ought to be!
Functional theories attempt to explain how cities
perform by concentrating on city form processes,
spatial and social structure, and form models……
Descriptive……What cities are!

LECTURE -4 NORMATIVE THEORIES

 Normative Theories (selected examples)

1. The Cosmic Model

• It assertions that the form of a permanent settlement should be a magical model of the universe
and its gods.
• Such a crystalline city has all of its parts fused into a perfectly ordered whole and change is
allowed to happen only in a rhythmically controlled manner specific phenomena included: such as
returning, natural items, celestial measurement, fixing location, centeredness, boundary
definition, earth images, land geometry, directionality, place consciousness, and numerology

The Cosmic City

• The most ancient cities were designed to

express religious beliefs; this unity of
purpose may give the Cosmic City great
harmony and remarkable beauty.
• Cosmic Cities adapted to a low-energy
environment and natural topography and
were created with great effort.

LECTURE -4 NORMATIVE THEORIES

 COSMIC FORM:
• Important activities, such as administration
and worship, typically at center.
• Streets and buildings arranged to express
spiritual beliefs, walls and gate enforced
hierarchy.
• Layout obeyed topography and used local
materials, producing a striking sense of
identity

COSMIC VALUES:
• Projection of authority, enforcement of
social
• Hierarchy.
• Authoritarian administration; economic
• development and quality of life were not
high priorities.
• Build elaborate structures to display power,
obey gods.

LECTURE -4 NORMATIVE THEORIES

 COSMIC TRANSPORTATION
• Limited to animals, human feet, carts and
boats.
• Slow transportation. required everything
close together.
• Energy was scarce, coming only from
humans, animals, gravity, passive solar and
burning things

COSMIC EXAMPLES
• In Old Beijing, designers arranged streets and
buildings to improve the flow of chi, applying feng
shui city-wide
• The Mayans sited buildings in Chichen Itza to
represent cosmic forces.
• After 4,000 years, Cosmic Cities ceased being the
dominant urban form but their influence persists in
other ways.

LECTURE -4 NORMATIVE THEORIES

 THE MACHINE CITY

• Starting around the Middle Ages, people began

applying more advanced building and energy
technology.
• The city was viewed as a kind machine to power
and fabricate industrial civilization.
• Classic Machine Cities were at their apex until
around 1950

MACHINE FORM

Plentiful steel & power allowed people to subdue

topography and serve efficiency and commerce.
Large public works skyscrapers and bridges.
The rail station, port and commercial district
became the new centers of importance - not the
Temple.

LECTURE -4 NORMATIVE THEORIES