egypt greece & mesopotamian town planning
TRANSCRIPT
town-planning town-planning
historical and analytical account of cities in historyhistorical and analytical account of cities in history
Egyptian, Mesopotamia,Egyptian, Mesopotamia, GreekGreek
What is town?
The town is an involved organism under constant change. In its living mesh, public structures are bonded to the places where people live.The town presents us with the new set of environmental ideas, such as street, the public square, the defensive wall and its gates.It leads to the building inventions-for example, the canal and the granary, the palace and the bath, the market, the bakery, shops, restaurants, hospitals, libraries, etc.
Study of town planning starts from history for example Indus valley civilization, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, Medieval, etc.
TOWN-PLANNINGTOWN-PLANNING
“THE ART OF LAYING OUT TOWNS WITH DUE CARE FOR THE HEALTH AND COMFORT OF INHABITANTS, FOR INDUSTRIAL ANDCOMMERCIAL EFFICIENCY, AND FOR REASONABLE BEAUTY OF BUILDINGS”
•AN ART OF INTERMITTENT ACTIVITY.
•IT BELONGS TO SPECIAL AGES AND CIRCUMSTANCES.
•ATTENTION IS DRAWN TO METHODS OF ARRANGING AND LAYING OUT SUCH TOWNS.
•IN GENERAL, ANCIENT TOWN-PLANNING USED NOT MERELY THE STRAIGHT LINE AND THE RIGHT ANGLE BUT THE TWO TOGETHER.
Historical and Analytical account of cities in Mesopotamia:
Mesopotamia means “land between rivers”.Four broad segments of chronology will suffice to govern our discussion.The first is the so-called
Protoliterate Period, from ca.3500 to 3000 B.C.Early Dynastic Period, from 3000 to 2350 B.C.Sumerian Period, from 2350 to 1600 B.C.Assyrian Period, from 1350 to 612 B.C.
1-Protoliterate Period: During this time , the towns, which had probably evolved from agricultural villages, acquired their battlements of ring walls; and the temple and the ziggurat began to gain architectural definition. Political authority resided in an assembly of male citizens that selected short-term war leaders.
2-Early Dynastic Period:
When the role of these leaders was retained in times of peace as well, kingship, first elective and then hereditary, became established. With it raised the monumental palace, an administrative center which employed a large retinue of bureaucrats and entertainers & occupied itself with raising and supplying an army and maintaining the defensive system of the city.
3-Sumerian Period: This period saw the rise of empire, the collective rule of several city-states through the might of a sovereign king. The first part of the period is dominated by the Third Dynasty of Ur whose prodigious building activity includes the Ziggurate of Ur-Nammu, the high point of that building type.
4-Assyrian Period:The northern region of the two rivers now flourishes at the expense of lower Mesopotamia. The Assyrian by their imposing state reliefs and their palaces, like the one at Khorsabad.
The layout of cities:There is not enough at the lower levels of explored mounds to give us a total image of the Mesopotamian city before the Early Dynastic Period. By then a dozen or so cities containing from 10,000 to 50,000 people prospered, both in lower Mesopotamia or Sumer and further north in Babylonia.
UR
The first cityCities began to emerge in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) around 4500 years ago. Ur, the capital of ancient Sumeria, was the world’s first city. It supported a complex and sophisticated society. Ur(Iraq):
The cities were closed by a wall and surrounded by suburban villages and hamlets.The two monumental centers were the Ziggurat complex with its own defensive wall, overseen by a powerful priesthood, and Palace of the king.Lesser temples were sprinkled here and there within the rest of the urban fabric, which was a promiscuous blend of residential and commercial architecture.Small shops were at times incorporated into the houses.In the later Sumerian period at Ur, an example of a bazaar was found.
1.Temenos Precinct2.Nimin-Tabba Temple 3.Royal Cementery 4.Royal Mausolea
5.Residential Area 6.City Wall 7.Fortification Tower 8.North Harbor9.West Harbor
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Traffic along the twisted network of unpaved streets was mostly pedestrian. At Ur, one sees on occasion a low flight of steps against a building from which riders could mount, and the street corners were regularly rounded to facilitate passage.
Street width at the very most , would be 3 meters (9 feet) or so, and that only for the few principal thoroughfares that led to the public buildings. These would be bordered with the houses of the rich.
Poorer folk lived at the back ,along narrow lanes and alleys. It is hard to imagine much wheeled traffic in this maze, though both service carts (with solid wheels) and chariots had been in use from an early date.
Once walled the land became precious, and the high value of private property kept public space to a minimum. Ample squares or public gardens were very rare.The houses were grouped into congested blocks, where party walls were common.
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B. Bazar
C. Chapel
Ur, residential area southeast of the royal mausolea in the twentieth century B.C.;Plan
Architects designed perfect house plan, rectangles divided neatly into orthogonal rooms around a central living space. But the reality of living town played havoc with the conceptual order of the architect. The building lots were not of uniform size. Each house was compelled to fit into a predetermined space.
1. Courtyard2. Entry Vestibule3. Reception Room (Liwan)4. Private Chapel5. Kitchen6. Lavatory7. Stair case8. Drain 9.Shop
Ur, Residential quarter between the Ziggurat precinct and the West Harbor , Plan
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The houses were , for the most part, one-storey structures of mud-brick, with several rooms wrapped around a central court. There were usually no outside windows, no attempt to contribute to a street architecture.The wealthier classes of Ur lived in ample hoses of dozen or so rooms, arranged on two storeys, and whitewashed inside and out.
Temple and Ziggurats:
•The temple constituted the heart of the Mesopotamian city.•For the townspeople the fields and their produce belong to the deity. The seeds, draught animals, and implements of tiling were supplied by the temple, and the harvest was stored on its grounds for distribution to the community. Craftsmen, organized in guilds, offered part of their output to the temple, and so did fishermen with their catch and builders with their labor.•The temple complex was the hub of an economic system that has been described as “theocratic socialism”. With its own wall around it , it formed the last bulwark against the city’s enemies
There were two ways in which this temple differed from others in the city. It stood on a tremendous platform called the ziggurat, and being free of the pressures of density in its ample precinct, its form could afford to be both regular and open.
Khorsabad:
The city was a royal Assyrian foundation, begun in 706 B.C., and abandoned, unfinished, shortly afterward. It covered 2.5 Sq.Km. (almost 1 Sq.mile).There were two arched gates on each side of the square, guarded by stone demons in the form of human-headed bulls.On the North-West side one of the gates had been replaced by a bastion that served as a platform for the royal place.
The Royal place:The administrative court of honor is at the top of the plan, with the great Throne Room on the left.
The entrance court is associated with a number of temples grouped along the west side. They were all served by single ziggurat that was no other example of this Mesopotamian building type.
1. Citadel wall
2. Entrance court3. Court of honor4. Unexcavated
Khorsabad (the ancient Dur Sharrukin, Iraq), Assyrian city founded by SargonII (721-705 B.C.), Plan
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Entrance Court
Court Of Honor
Temple
Un-excavated
Citadel Wall
Khorsabad, citadel with royal palace
EGYPTIAN TOWN PLANNINGEGYPTIAN TOWN PLANNING REASONS FOR THE FOUNDATION OF A NEW SETTLEMENT:-REASONS FOR THE FOUNDATION OF A NEW SETTLEMENT:-
SECURITYSECURITY
ECONOMICS ECONOMICS
CULTIC AND ADMINISTRATIVE NEEDS.CULTIC AND ADMINISTRATIVE NEEDS.
POLITICAL MOTIVES SEEM TO HAVE LED AKHENATEN TO FOUND POLITICAL MOTIVES SEEM TO HAVE LED AKHENATEN TO FOUND AKHETATEN AKHETATEN
THE MAIN CONSIDERATION WHERE TO BUILD WAS THE MAIN CONSIDERATION WHERE TO BUILD WAS GENERALLYPROXIMITY TO A WATERWAY HEIGHT ABOVE THE GENERALLYPROXIMITY TO A WATERWAY HEIGHT ABOVE THE FLOODPLAINS. FLOODPLAINS.
ADOBE BUILDINGS ARE VERY VULNERABLE WHEN BROUGHT IN ADOBE BUILDINGS ARE VERY VULNERABLE WHEN BROUGHT IN PROLONGED CONTACT WITH WATER, BE IT SEEPING PROLONGED CONTACT WITH WATER, BE IT SEEPING GROUNDWATER OR THE RISING NILEGROUNDWATER OR THE RISING NILE
EGYPTIAN TOWN PLANNINGEGYPTIAN TOWN PLANNING• ELEVATIONS, KEPT ABOVE THE SLOWLY RISING PLAINS.
• WHEN OLD HOUSES CRUMBLED, NEW ONES WERE BUILT ON TOP OF THE DEBRIS.
•THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON UNTIL RECENT TIMES, WHEN THE YEARLY INUNDATIONS WERE STOPPED BY THE ASWAN DAM.
•FOUNDED BY SENUSRET II IN THE FAYUM
•INHABITED FOR ABOUT A CENTURY. THE OUTLAY OF THE CITY WAS RECTANGULAR
• AREA 350 X 400 sq m.. •SURROUNDED BY BRICK WALL •DIVIDED INTO TWO PARTS BY ANOTHER WALL. •DIFFERENT SOCIAL CLASSES DID NOT LIVE IN SEPARATE CITY QUARTERS.
•RICH RESIDENTIAL AREA, WHERE PALATIAL 60 ROOM RESIDENCES WERE FIFTY TIMES AS BIG AS THE DWELLINGS IN THE POORER HALF OF THE CITY.
PLANNED CITY :- HOTEPSENUSRETPLANNED CITY :- HOTEPSENUSRET
PLANNED CITY :- HOTEPSENUSRET
•THIS PART HAD ALSO A WIDE STREET LEADING TO THE PALACE.
•THE STREETS ALL OVER THE CITY WERE STRAIGHT LINES.
•THE MAIN STREET WAS NINE METRES .
•STREETS IN RESIDENTIAL DISTRICTS AS NARROW AS 1½ METRES.
•STREETS HAD SHALLOW STONE CHANNELS RUNNING DOWN THE MIDDLE FOR DRAINAGE .
PLANNED CITY :- HOTEPSENUSRET
•DESPITE THE LOVE EGYPTIANS HAD, THERE WAS NO SPACE LEFT FOR FOR GARDENS.
•THE WHOLE AREA WAS COVERED WITH STREETS AND ONE-STOREYED MUD-BRICK BUILDINGS.
•HOTEPSENUSRET WAS VERY DIFFERENT FROM AKHENATEN'S
PLANNED CITY :- HOTEPSENUSRET
PLANNED CITY :- PLANNED CITY :- AKHETATENAKHETATEN
•PUBLIC OPEN SPACES HAD TREES • INHABITANTS OFTEN HAD THEIR OWN PRIVATE GARDEN PLOTS.
•BOUNDARIES HAD EMPTY SPACE.
•WAS ABANDONED AFTER GOVERNMENT EDIFICES HAD BEEN ERECTED.
• THESE FORMED THE TOWN CENTRE
•THE RESIDENTIAL AREAS WERE NORTH-EAST AND SOUTH-WEST OF THEM. •WORKMEN HAD TO LIVE IN CROWDED FLATS OF 60 M², OR 100 M²
PLANNED CITY :- AKHETATENPLANNED CITY :- AKHETATEN
•WHOLE SPACE INSIDE THE WALLS WAS OCCUPIED BY HOUSES.
•THE PARALLEL STREETS WERE ABOUT TWO METRES WIDE
•WHOLE SPACE INSIDE THE WALLS WAS OCCUPIED BY HOUSES.
• WORKERS' SETTLEMENT WAS WALLED IN.
•THE TEMPLES, THE PALACE AND THE ROYAL RESIDENCES, THE BARRACKS, THE OFFICES OF THE ADMINISTRATION, ETC WERE NOT SURROUNDED BY ANY WALL
PLANNED CITY :- AKHETATENPLANNED CITY :- AKHETATEN
•THE EGYPTIANS RARELY PLANNED FEW SPACES FREE FOR THE IMPORTANT ROADS OF ACCESS,
•SETTING TEMPLE DISTRICTS APART AND ERECTING AN ADOBE WALL AROUND IT ALL.
•AKHETATEN WERE AT TIMES A JUMBLE OF HOUSES,
• PLOT OWNERS WERE NOT FREE TO DO AS THEY LIKED.
•THEY HAD TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THEIR NEIGHBOURS' RIGHTS AND WISHES
CITY QUARTERSCITY QUARTERS
EGYPTIAN CITY DWELLERS HAD LITTLE CHOICE ABOUT ADDING FURTHER STOREYS.
LAND SUITABLE FOR BUILDING
•HAD TO BE ABOVE THE FLOODLEVEL OF THE NILE
•REASONABLY CLOSE TO THE RIVER• •MANY EGYPTIANS WERE FORCED TO LIVE IN THESE CROWDED CONDITIONS.
•AT AKHETATEN WHERE THERE WAS NO LACK OF SUITABLE LAND, SOME PRIVATE HOMES WERE STILL BUILT IN THE SAME WARREN-LIKE FASHION.
TEMPLE DISTRICTSTEMPLE DISTRICTS
•TEMPLE DISTRICTS WERE BETTER PLANNED.
• THE OUTLAY OF INDIVIDUAL TEMPLES WAS BASICALLY SYMMETRICAL.
•WALLS SURROUNDED THEM.
•AT HOTEP-SENUSRET :- A) THE BRICK WALL WAS ON THREE SIDES OF THE TEMPLE WAS 12 METRES THICK AND LINED WITH LIMESTONE. AVENUES LEADING THROUGH THE CITY TO THE TEMPLE DISTRICT WERE WIDE, SUITABLE FOR PROCESSIONS.
TEMPLE DISTRICTSTEMPLE DISTRICTS THE TEMPLE COMPLEXES HAD EXTENSIVE
STORAGE SPACE
THE THICKNESS OF THE BRICK WALL LINED WITH LIMESTONE HOTEP SENUSRET (KAHUN) WAS ABOUT 12 METRES .
ITS HEIGHT MUST HAVE BEEN CORRESPONDINGLY GREAT.
WHEN WALLS WERE BUILT COMPLETELY OF STONE, THEIR THICKNESS COULD BE REDUCED, BUT THEY WERE STILL QUITE MASSIVE.
TEMPLE DISTRICTSTEMPLE DISTRICTS
•TEMPLE DISTRICTS WERE BETTER PLANNED.
•THE OUTLAY OF INDIVIDUAL TEMPLES WAS SYMMETRICAL.
•WALLS SURROUNDED THEM.
•AT HOTEP-SENUSRET THE BRICK WALL ON THREE SIDES OF THE TEMPLE WAS 12 METRES THICK AND LINED WITH LIMESTONE.
•AVENUES LEADING TO THE TEMPLE DISTRICT WERE WIDE.
TEMPLE DISTRICTSTEMPLE DISTRICTS
• PAVED STREET FIVE METRES WIDE WAS DISCOVERED.
PAVEMENT OF STREETS WAS RESTRICTED TO THE TEMPLE COMPLEXES
TEMPLES WERE SURROUNDED BY AN EMPTY SPACE,
OVER TIME HOUSES WERE BUILT RIGHT UP TO THE OUTER TEMPLE WALLS. HOUSES DECAYED AND WERE REBUILT MANY TIMES , RESULT THAT THE GROUND LEVEL OF THE RESIDENTIAL AREA ROSE
THE TEMPLES WHICH, BEING BUILT OF STONE, WERE NOT PERIODICALLY REBUILT, SEEMINGLY SANK INTO THE GROUND.
PalacesPalaces
THE WHOLE COMPOUND WAS ENCLOSED AND SEPARATE FROM THE REST OF THE CAPITAL, ALBEIT CLOSE TO SUPPLIERS OF SERVICES, TEMPLES AND THE SEAT OF THE ADMINISTRATION
Workers' dwellings
THE HOUSES OF THE WORKMEN HAD TWO TO FOUR ROOMS ON THE GROUND FLOOR (44 AND 60 M²)
• ACCESS TO THE FLAT ROOF, WHICH WAS USED AS LIVING AND STORING SPACE.• THE HOUSES ABUTTING THE INNER WALL ON THE EASTERN SIDE WERE BIGGER, HAVING UP TO SEVEN ROOMS. •SOME OF THE DWELLINGS HAD CONICAL GRANARIES ON THE GROUND FLOOR. THE DOORWAYS WERE ARCHED
•TRACES OF BRICK BARREL-VAULTING HAVE BEEN FOUND ON SUPPORTING WALLS.
•ROOFS WERE MADE OF WOODEN PLANKS SUPPORTED BY BEAMS AND PLASTERED OVER WITH MUD.
Workers' dwellings
The Great Houses
The Great Houses covered about 2700 m² each and served as offices and living quarters for the high officials in charge of the construction work and their families. There were four almost identical houses and one differently built one north of the street and another three with a completely different ground plan south of it.
After the pyramid had been built and the officials had left, people began to take over their houses, adapting them to their own needs by walling up entrances and creating new walls and passages.
The Great Houses
The layout of one of the northern Great Houses 1 Main entrance2 Doorkeeper's lodge3 Offices, guest rooms4 Pillared hall5 Private quarters6 The mandara, i.e. reception room for strangers7 Open courtyard8 Best hall, with columns and tank9 Private rooms10 Visitors' passage to the mandara11 Women's hall12 Women's quarters13 Store rooms
GREEK TOWN PLANNING
Introduction
Town-planning--the art of lying out towns with due care for the Health and comfort of inhabitants, for industrial and commercial efficiency, and for reasonable beauty of buildings--is an art of intermittent activity.
The peoples of ancient Greece shared a common language, religion, and culture, yet they were separated into numerous independent political units.
These city-states, called poleis*, were political entities consisting of a city and its surrounding territory.
Geographically,
Greece is surrounded on three sides by sea, which is the natural setting for transportation, and trade.
Travel and communication between settlement areas were not easy. Greece had many mountain ranges, and travel by land was difficult.
Only about one-fifth of the land is suitable for habitation and farming,
Thereby, pushing the inhabitants to form and live in groups, which developed a deep sense of mutual responsibility, and the people’s deities of worship were the natural phenomenon.
Much of Greece is peninsular.
Large irregular areas of land, including many islands, are surrounded and separated by the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas. Communications and the sharing of ideas improved as the land became more settled.
However, many self-governing communities were already firmly rooted, and as their populations grew, so did competition between them. Some grew larger and more powerful at the expense of others; these came to dominate greater areas of land and the smaller communities within them.
The more powerful centers developed into independent poleis. As a political unit, the polis comprised not just the city itself but the surrounding territory as well, including small towns and villages.
The countryside was dotted with farms, which provided goods primarily for the rural and city dwellers of its own polis, but also for trade with other poleis. The Greeks made no legal distinction between the country-dweller and the urbanite. All belonged to the polis.
A Brief Visit to an Ancient Greek Town
In Classical* times, a visitor approaching a Greek town, probably by mule, might first recognize the town's acropolis* from afar.
Fortified by massive stonewalls; the acropolis of a town may also be home to the most important temples for the town's favorite Olympian deity. (The most famous acropolis is the one in Athens, on which stands the well-known temple of Athena called the Parthenon.) Impressive features in the natural landscape -- hilltops, caves, and freshwater springs-- hold special meaning for the ancient Greeks, and such places are often selected for building sacred precincts.
The town itself may be loosely surrounded by well-built walls that connect to those of the acropolis on the heights above. The visitor will enter the town gate and follow a main road directly to the bustling town center, the agora.
The agora* is the most essential ingredient of an ancient Greek town. "Agora” it is the place where nearly all aspects of public life are carried out -- the supreme meeting place and heart of a polis. Here people came to shop, do business, worship, or simply socialize.
Strolling through the agora, our visitor will certainly spot the bouleterion*, the building where the town council meets.
At least one stoa* will be encountered, and probably more: these long hall-like buildings with open colonnades on one side are the most common type of building in an agora. They offer shelter from rain and sun, and, in addition to being meeting places, house shops, market-stalls, offices, and storerooms.
Religious shrines can be found anywhere and everywhere in a Greek town, and temples, elegant buildings with their porches and surrounding colonnades, are a common sight especially in the agora.
A fountain-house will be sought out on a hot day because shade trees have been planted along the thoroughfares. Everywhere there are statues of heroes, gods, and ordinary (but important) people, to catch the eye and inspire reflection.
Gymnasium* and the stadium*, which are located wherever the terrain is suitable, often at the outskirts of town. There the young men of the town received their education both in intellectual matters and in athletics.
An open theater also will be found where the landscape is suitable. The best spot is a natural hollow for the central “stage,” enclosed by slopes where spectator seating can be arranged. Dramatic performances are seen here for entertainment, but its size may also make the theater the preferred spot for larger town gatherings
CITY PLANNING
Mr.Hippocampus Miletves, the first known town planner who was born about 480 B.C. has introduced the principle of straight and wide streets and made provisions for the proper grouping of dwellings, and also paid special attention to the combination of different parts of a town in a harmonious whole, all of it centered round the market place.
The towns were planned in square form.
In the center the rectangular acropolis (church or temple) of monumental nature was placed.
Two main roads were found the square and secondary intersecting roads at the middle and diagonally.
•This planning may be closely allied to the picturesque grouping of public buildings where the site was encumbered by streets, for once in a group of building the symmetry on either side of a center line is abandoned, the principle of the balance succeeds.
•The individual unit, the temple was completely symmetrical in itself.
Beyond this Greek would appear to have regarded regular as mechanical.
Athenian acropolis is the best example of this studied picturesque ness of grouping, which cannot be explained on religious ground.
DWELLING
Privacy was prominent in the dwellings or houses and the social contacts and all business were done outside the home, mostly in agora (a common space having the provision of open and covered space).
Sometimes small merchants had their shops adjacent to their houses.
Later on the housing conditions improved.
Houses were enclosed about a central hearth; a hole in the roof allowed the smoke to escape and it also permitted the collection of rainwater in cistern.
•The sanitation improved on the pavement and on streets, and in reservoirs but there was no distribution system
Due to climate, care was taken in orientation of the building so that the maximum amount of sunshine could enter the dwelling in winter and the sunrays could be cut out in the summer to get a cooling effect.
The principal rooms were faced south, opening upon private courtyards.
A colonnade projected from the rooms to shelter them from the high summer sun.
PUBLIC SPACE
The agora or the market place was the center of business and political life and about it were lined the shops and market both.
The agora was usually located in the approximate center of the town plan with the major east-west and north-south streets leading to it.
The open space enclosed by the agora occupied about 5 percent of the city area, the dimensions being approximately one fifth of the width and breadth of the town itself.
The plan of the agora was geometrical in form.
Colonnaded porticoes sheltering the buildings about the square surrounded square or rectangular open spaces.
The plan was arranged to avoid interference between the movement of people across the open space and those who assembled for trade and business in the market.
Streets were generally terminated at the agora rather than crossing it, the open space being reserved primarily for pedestrians and circulation