city_shaped_book_presentation_Kenneth

KENNETH NØRBAK IS PRESENTING

THE CITY SHAPEDWRITTEN BY SPIRO KOSTOF

AGENDA Spiro Kostof Introduction Organic Patterns The Grid The City as a Diagram The Grand Manner The Urban Skyline

SPIRO KOSTOF Leading architectural historian(!) and teacher 7 May 1936 - 7 December 1991 Greek born in Turkey USA from 1957

Published books:

America by Design Caves of God The Architect The City Assembled The City Shaped A History of Architecture

INTRODCUTION Kostof’s interest likes in real cities– designers are interested in ideal cities or cities that were never build. Urban process: Physical change through time. ”A city is never never complete, never at rest.” E.g. Rome: from 1M people to 50k– where did it go?

The cosmic city: a spatical diagram of social hierachy (e.g. The city of Oblivion, the head of state lives in the middle of the city). The practical city: A functional contruct. The organic city: A living organism.

INTRODCUTION Surplus production= creation of cities? People came to the area for goods and services.

Military and political stability, more so than trade, created the need for cities?

WHAT IS A CITY? (P. 37-39) A city is...: ”a relativiely large, dense, and peranent settlement of socially heterogenous inpiduals”– L. Wirth, 1938. ”a point of maximum concentration for the power and culture of the community”, Mumford, 1938.

WHAT IS A CITY? (P. 37-39) Kostof: A) Energized crowding B) Urban clusters C) Physical circumscription D) Differentiation of uses E) Urban resources F) Written records G) Cityand countryside H) Monumental framework I) Buildings and people

ORGANIC PATTERNS The designed city A geometric diagram, grid, circle, polygon etc. - A planned city.

The spontaneous city: No designers, an irregular city, organic.

City as an organism: The parks and open squares (lungs), city center (heart), the streets (arteries). (Nice way of thinking when doing level design).

ORGANIC PATTERNS No city, however arbitrary its form, is unplanned. Power design cities. The state is the owner and can create a pattern of their choosing. Still possible today?

THE GRID Rectilinear planning. Commonest pattern for planned cities. Several issues with grid planning, e.g.: When and how does the grid terminate at the outer edges? Open spaces and their distribution. Size and shape of blocks– internal organization.

THE GRID ”The most persistent belief that urban grids represent an egalitarian system of land distribution is expressed in the context of modern democracies, principally the United States:‘Simplicity in land surveying, recording, and subsequent ownership transfer.’”– piding land equally.

THE GRID The grid served two purposes: To facilitate orderly settlement, c

olonization in its broader sense. Instrument of modernization.

Also, it served military arrangements, religious covenants, mercantile capitalism and industrial planning.

THE GRID The grid became standard for new sections in old towns in America. Open/Closed grid. ”Where there is the chance of making money from urban land, the claims of the public good will be set aside”– New York commissioners justified their decision not to provide public space in their 1811 plan.

THE GRID Gridded extensions Where two type of grids meet– or a grid and a origanic core.

E.g. Amsterdam used the best from gridded and organic planning. Block organization Notable features are the size and the density of the blocks. Neither remains fixed at all times. The larger block, the more likely to create new breakthroughs (again, a city is never at rest).

THE CITY AS A DIAGRAM The ideal city... Palmanova (ideal city?) Perfectly shaped polygonal city (Italy)– and still is.

Ideal city often short-lived in their pure state. Reality kicks in– the city evolves.

THE CITY AS A DIAGRAM Centralized systems Concentric organization Radial organization

The functional diagram (- the logic of defense) Circle inefficient– no straight curtains between two bastions. Square– cheapest, but least flexible. Regular polygon– best solution.