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Town-planning—the art of laying 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.
In many lands and centuries—in ages where civilization has been tinged by an
under-current of barbarism—one or both of these conditions have been absent. In
Asia during much of its history, in early Greece, in Europe during the first half of the
Middle Ages, towns have consisted of one or two dominant buildings, temple or
church or castle, of one or two processional avenues for worshippers at sacred
festivals, and a little adjacent chaos of tortuous lanes and squalid houses.
• In the old world, urban life increased rapidly at certain periods through the
establishment of towns almost full-grown. The earliest towns of Greece and
Italy were, through sheer necessity, small. They could not grow beyond the
steep hill-tops which kept them safe, or house more inhabitants than their
scanty fields could feed.
• But the world was then large; new lands lay open to those who had no room at
home, and bodies of willing exiles, keeping still their custom of civil life, planted
new towns throughout the Mediterranean lands.
• In general, ancient town-planning used not merely the straight line and the
right angle but the two together. It tried very few experiments involving other
angles
LAYOUT OF HARAPPAN CITY
• Sometimes the outline of the ancient town was square or almost square, the
house-blocks were of the same shape, and the plan of the town was
indistinguishable from a chess-board. Or, instead of squares, oblong house-
blocks formed a pattern not strictly that of a chess-board but geometrical and
rectangular.
• Often the outline of the town was irregular and merely convenient, but the
streets still kept, so far as they could, to a rectangular plan. Sometimes, lastly,
the rectangular planning was limited to a few broad thoroughfares, while the
smaller side-streets, were utterly irregular. Other variations may be seen in
the prominence granted or refused to public and especially to sacred
buildings.
• The towns of the earlier Greeks revealed a half-barbaric spirit in their side
streets and unlovely dwellings. In the middle of the fifth century ,they began to
recognize private houses and to attempt an adequate grouping of their cities
as units capable of a single plan.
• A change came with the new philosophy and the new politics of the Macedonian
era.
• The older Greek City-states had been large, wealthy, and independent; magnificent
buildings and sumptuous festivals were as natural to them as to the greater
autonomous municipalities in all ages. But in the Macedonian period the individual
cities sank to be parts of a larger whole, items in a dominant state, subjects of
military monarchies. The use of public buildings, the splendor of public festivals in
individual cities, declined.
• A more definite, more symmetrical, often more rigidly 'chessboard' pattern was
introduced for the towns which now began to be founded in many countries.
LAYOUT OF MOHANJODARO
EGYPTIAN TOWN PLANNING
• Early civilization spread along the fertile valleys of the Nile , Tigris-
Euphrates and Indus river , where food , water and transportation
facilities where easily available.
• In this period the approach roads , where commonly on grid iron pattern.
The dwellings were compactly built about the interior court. The height of
the building was determined in proportion to the width of the street to get
proper light and ventilation .the building were one and two storied .
Sanitation was off a relatively higher order. There was underground
sewer line connected to the dwellings.
• The straight line canals were there for the irrigation and landscape
purpose which added more beauty to the township.
• The cities that did emerge were wither the result of the need for effective
administration, or the clustering of facilities around an important religious
center.
IMPORTANT CITIES
Amarna (Akhetaten)
Maadi,
MEMPHIS
Thebes
• The reasons for the foundation of a new
settlement could be varied: security, often
combined with economics, as in the case of the
southern fortress towns (Buhen); cultic and
administrative needs (Kahun); political motives
seem to have led Akhenaten to found Akhetaten.
•The Egyptians rarely planned much further than keeping a few spaces free for the
important roads of access, setting temple districts apart and erecting an adobe wall around
it all. Even 'planned' cities like much of Akhetaten were at times a jumble of houses, alleys
and courtyards in what looks like a case of build-as-build-can;[4] and where originally there
had been a street grid the rebuilding of the houses changed the regular layout over the
centuries.
•But plot owners were not free to do as they liked. They had to take into account their
neighbours' rights and wishes and reach an understanding with them
•Temple districts on the other hand were better planned. The outlay of individual temples
was basically 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 through the city to the temple district were wide, suitable for
processions. During recent excavations near the great pyramids a paved street five metres
wide was discovered. Pavement of streets was rare, generally restricted to the temple
complexes themselves.
• Originally most temples were surrounded by an empty space, but over time houses were
built right up to the outer temple walls. These houses decayed and were rebuilt many times
over the millennia, with the result that the ground level of the residential area rose and the
temples which, being built of stone, were not periodically rebuilt, seemingly sank into the
ground.
•The temenos [2] wall, the temple enclosure, could also have strategic value. At el-Kab the
temple was built at the centre of the town, and its ramparts could furnish a last shelter for
the garrison in case the town itself were taken by an enemy. At other places (Ombos, Edfu
etc) the whole population lived inside the temple enclosure.
•Bigger towns like Memphis or Thebes had a number of temples which at first were
separate, but were interconnected by sphinx avenues from the 18th dynasty onwards.
PALACES
Royal palaces housed apart from the pharaoh's main family, his secondary
wives, concubines, and their offspring, also a small army of servants. 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
City of Amarna
Site planning
In general the ancient Egyptians sited their cities , villages and great temples
on the banks of the river Nile.
The site of pyramid was chosen on the western bank , far from the river , on
highland to protect the mummified body from the overflowing of Nile , as
they believe in the future life.
Moreover the ancient Egyptians chose high place on which to build their
defensive citadels.
City of kahun
• Built in 3000 bc for the slaves and artisans assisted for the work on the pyramid ,
was hardly more than an assembly of cells arranged in rectangular blocks to which
narrow alleys give access.
• The apparent difference in the size of the cells indicates a distinction in class
among the inhabitants , the more spacious dwellings occupying the upper right
quarter of the town.
• But here there was a rich residential area, where a
handful of palatial residences were fifty times as big as
the dwellings in the poorer half of the city.
• In this Kahun was very different from Akhetaton's specially created capital
Akhetaten - or at least some parts of it. There the planners included public open
spaces where trees were planted and inhabitants often had their own private
garden plots.
• The simplest dwelling was single cell of sun dried bricks and plaster covered with a
roof of reeds.
• City dwellings such as the humble house in kahun , was probably is group of small
rooms surrounding a diminutive courtyard in which the cooking and other domestic
activities were performed.
• The courtyard may having used as a work area for the craftsmen.
• In the finer houses of noble men , the roof area were apparently developed with
gardens. They probably constructed dwellings with stone and plaster.
• A ventilating device known as “mulguf” , was installed on the roof to provide some
degree of cooling for the interior rooms.
GREEK PERIOD
Greek towns
•Planning of Greek towns by Hippodamus.
•He developed grid iron layout
•Town reached its maximum size, growth was terminated and new town was
started at another site.
•The new town was called neo-polis
• Towns were zoned into 3 :
GREEK PLANNING Religious area, administration and dwelling houses.
• Town had infrastructure facilities to satisfy the
requirements :
Hygiene, defense and circulation.
• City plan was conceived to serve 3 classes:
Craftsmen, soldiers and workers.
• The meeting places were mostly near the temples which
formed the heart of the town. It occupied 5% of the city
The Temple
The Assembly hall
The Council Chamber
The agora or the market place
The agora square- central open space which accommodate
all gatherings on public functions and ceremonies
• The markets located periphery for the transportation of
goods
• Roads where laid out in grid iron pattern to make the
house in the direction of prevailing wind and son
• The arrangement of street gave access to houses and lead
to important community area however they had no
interferences with the central areas.
• Dwelling: houses where of same size
• Industrial and agricultural activities were conducted outside
the settlements.
• Privacy was prominent in the dwellings or
THE DWELLING houses and the social contacts and all the
business were done out side the home , mostly
in Agora.
• Sometimes small merchants had their shops
adjacent to their houses. Later on the housing
conditions improved. House were enclosed
about a central hearth ,a hole in the roof
allowed the smoke to escape and it also
permitted the collection of rain water in cistern.
• The sanitation improved on the pavement and
on the streets. And in the installation of under
ground drains from dwellings.
• Town did maintain reservoirs but there was no
distribution system. After the improvement of
darinage, the people started to have private
baths .There was no disposal of sewage and
people had portable latrines.
• Due to climate , care was taken in orientation
of the building so that the maximum amount of
sun shine could enter the dwelling in winter
and the sun rays could be cut out in the
summer to get a cooling effect.
• The principal rooms were faced south ,
opening upon courtyards. A colonnade
projected from the rooms to shelter them from
high sun.
PUBLIC SPACE
The factors that affected the city size and population are:
•Food and water supply
•Tools used for cultivation
•Means of transporting products
•Source and methods for distributing water supply
1. City of Pompeii:
•A colonial city –extent 4/5 miles length -2/5 mile width( maximum).
•The city had 25000 people or inhabitants
•Walled city with 8 gates.
•The Forum lies at the center of an irregular street system where the width of the
streets was 32 feet.
•Amphitheatres located near the center-elliptical within a central area used for
conducting naval exhibitions and other exhibitions .
•The coliseum-circus maxima at the southern corner for the chariot races.
2. City of Rome:
•The area of the city was 3465 acres.
•The city was bounded by 2 walls 1- Republican wall (B.C 378-352) and the
Aurelian wall to protect the city from the Barbarian attacks from the North with
protective towers at 100 Roman feet interval .There is a saying that “all streets
leads to Rome”- mainly for infantry purposes.
•There were-1.Colloseum ,2-Enormous forums ,3-Circus maxima.
•It is to be noted that all the constructions merged well with the general
landscape. The building was proportionate ,geometrical and well balanced with
nature.
•Roman Castras formed the settlement for the military camps known as the
temporary cities to lodge the soldiers.
3. Timgad (Algiers, Africa) 1 and 2 century A.D.:
•Typically rigid chessboard plan
•355 x 325m area 30 acres.
•Designed for residential colony.
•Abundant water supply.
•Rigid formality of the plan.
•Eleven parallel cross-streets in either direction with surface terracing on the
undulating ground.
•This gives an unparalleled completeness in its architectural footing.
•The forum s (160 feet x 145 feet).The market ,the temple site and the other non-
residential buildings were artificially raised above the street level.
•The public buildings had porticoes colonnades and other features giving variety
to the architectural style.
•Some houses were as big as 200 feet x 200 feet.
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