HILBERSEIMER : THE NEW CITY
The New City
PRINCIPLES OF PLANNING
by L. HILBERSEIMER
With an Introduction by Mies van der Rohe
PAUL THEOBALD • CHICAGO • 1944
COPYRIGHT 1944 BY PAUL THEOBALD, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, U.S.A.
FIRST EDITION
PRINTED AND BOUND AT THE WISCONSIN CUNEO PRESS, INC.
TYPOGRAPHY BY 0. M. FORKERT
CONTENTS
WHERE THE GREAT CITY STANDS xiii
INTRODUCTION xv
PART ONE
SOCIETY AND CITIES
City Planning, a Social Task 17
Origin, Growth and Decline of Cities 18
Predomination of Natural Science 18
Peasants and Nomads 19
"Organic" and "Geometric" Settlements 20
Autocratic Cities 22
Free Cities 23
Colonial Cities 28
Political and Economical Means of Existence 28
Early Despotic States 30
Influence of Magic Ideology 31
Place of Refuge 31
Geographical and Topographical Conditions 33
Locations: Insular, Cape and Plain 34
Cities and Defence 40
Rise and Decline of Cities 40
Stages of Economy 41
Cities of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 45
Growth of Population 46
City and Country 46
Economic Disorder 46
New Types of Cities 47
Three Deficiencies 48
Concentration and Decentralization 49
New Possibilities 51
Integration of Industry and Agriculture ... 51
Cities and Regional Planning 53
Decentralization Unavoidable 54
A New Spirit 54
PART TWO
ELEMENTS OF CITY PLANNING
Natural and Technical Means 55
The City and Its Different Parts 56
The Individual and Society 56
Location, Layout and Size of a Settlement 56
Traffic Difficulties: a Symptom of Disorder • ' 58
New Suggestion: The Centric and the Ribbon System 59
Ebenezar Howard and Raymond Unwin: The Satelite Town 60
Eric Gloeden: The Coordinated City 61
Martin Maechler: Functional Organization of Berlin 64
Le Corbusier: Une Ville Contemporainc 64
Circular and Street Village 66
Soria y Mata: La Ciudad Lineal 68
Frank Lloyd Wright: Broadacre City 68
N. A. Milyutin: Stalingrad 70
L. Hilberseimer's Planning System 71
Comparison of the Centric and the Ribbon System 72
Conclusion 73
City Planning and Housing 74
Types of Dwellings 75
Minimum Requirements 75
Sunlight and Housing 76
Socrates Perception 76
B. C- Faust's Theory 77
An Experience of the Pueblo Dwellers 77
Confusion of Today 77
Effects of Different Orientations 78
Room Insolation 78
Types of Sunrays and their Influence 80
Results of our Investigation 81
Protection against Sun 85
Population Density 86
What does Population Density Mean? 88
Latitude 88
Topography 89
Orientation 89
Duration of Insolation 89
Fallacy of Multi-storied Building 91
Relation of Depth to Length 91
Storey Height 91
Differences between the One-Family House and the Multi-storey Building . 91
How to achieve Privacy in high Density 92
Influence of Density on the Plan of a Dwelling 93
Mixed Type of Settlement 95
Average Population Density 96
Building and Zoning Laws 96
Minimum Demands 96
Insufficiency of the Present Block and Street System 100
Combination of Blocks 100
The Super Block: Residential Area 100
The Super Block: Commercial Area 104
Advantages and Disadvantages 104
The Need of a New Settlement Unit 104
Structure, Shape and Size of the New Unit 107
Street System 107
Straight or Curved Streets? Ill
The Width of Streets Ill
Advantageous Features of the New Unit 113
Flexibility of the Use of the New Unit 113
Simple Industrial Settlements 113
Smoke-pollution and its ill Effects 113
How to Abolish Smoke — by Techno-Chemical Means or by Planning? . . 115
Influence of Prevailing Winds on Industrial Settlements 115
Four Wind Diagrams 118
Integrated Industries 122
The Commercial Area 122
Adaptability of the Unit to any kind of Terrain 125
Increase of the Number of Units by decreasing Density 125
The City in the Landscape 125
Theory and Reality 128
PART THREE
REPLANNING OF CITIES
Obstacle of Replanning Cities 129
Old Methods 129
VI
The Ever Changing City 130
The City's Environment 130
Application of our Planning Principles 132
A European Industrial City .... 132
The Cities chaotic Structure 132
Three Schemes 133
The Replanned City 133
The actual Reconstruction 136
An Industrial City in the Middle West 136
The Replanned City: Wind Conditions result in a fan-like Arrangement • • 137
Future Expansion 140
Procedure of Reconstruction 140
Chicago: Its planless and rapid Growth 140
Daniel H. Burnham's Opinion 141
Reorganization of the City 144
Heavy Industry 144
Manufacturing Industries with Smoke, and without 145
The Commercial Area 145
Diagrams of the Reorganized City .... 147
Urbs in Horta 149
Is Reconstruction possible? 149
The Slum Problems 150
How Reconstruction can be achieved 151
"Master Plan for London" 151
Analysis 152
Traffic 152
Industry 153
Railroads 154
Housing 154
Our Diagrammatic Sketch for London 155
Administrative and Commercial Districts 155
The Industrial Area 156
Possibilities of Expansion 156
New York: Manhattan 156
Two Schools of Thought in City Planning 158
Procedure in Rebuilding a City 158
The Purpose of our City Diagrams 160
Administration and Legislation 160
Finance Problems 161
Economy of Planning 161
The Prefabricated House 161
Charles Breese's Proposal 164
Pooling of Ownership 164
Mortgages and their Amortization 164
Rebuilding without Loss in National Wealth 164
Passive Observation or Creative Action? 164
National Planning 165
Planless Decentralization and its Consequences • • 165
The Region and a Balanced Economy 166
Harmony between the Parts and the Whole 166
Man — the Object of all Planning 166
PART FOUR
THE ART OF CITY PLANNING
The Object in the Art of City Planning and its Means 167
Principles of the "Organic" and the "Geometric" 168
Two Examples ... 168
Structure and Art 170
VII
Material and Artistic Means 171
Proportion 171
Relative and Absolute Proportion 173
Contrast 173
Cities and Hills and in Plains 175
Perspective 175
Saint Mark's Square 177
Spacial Feeling and Spacial Concepts: Gothic 179
The Static Concept of the Renaissance 179
Circular Buildings 179
Circular Cities 179
The Dynamic Concept of the Baroque 182
Free Space: A New City Element 182
Union of the City with the Landscape 186
Classic Revival 188
Beauty at the Expense of Truth 188
The Imitative Spirit of the Nineteenth Century 188
The Esthetic and the Scientific Approach 190
Science and Art 190
Adequacy of the Spatial Concept and of the New City Structure .... 190
Rational Elements: the Base of Artistic Freedom 191
A Note by the Author 192
VJJJ
ILLUSTRATIONS
PART ONE
SOCIETY AND CITIES
1. Priene, Asia Minor 17
2. Stone-age Settlement at Glastonbury 20
3. Stone-age Settlement at Castellazo di Fontanellato 21
4- Roman Camp 24
5- Timgad 24
6- Versailles 25
7. Peking 25
8. Thera 26
9 Luebeck 27
10. Noerdlingen 27
11. Selinus 29
12. Montpazier 29
13 Philadelphia 29
14. The Acropolis 32
15- Place of Refuge 32
16- Early Settlement of Paris 34
17- Early Settlement of London 35
18- Norma, Italy 36
19- Jerusalem 36
20- Corcula, Dalmatia 37
21- Berne, Switzerland 37
22. Carthage 39
23- Cnidos, Asia Minor 39
24- Ual-Ual, Abyssinia 42
25. Ragusa, Dalmatia 42
26- Carcassonne, France 43
27. Narden, Holland 43
28 and 29. Urban and Rural Sky 48
30. Do Slums Make Criminals? 50
31. A Traffic Jam 52
32. Disorder and Chaos 53
PART TWO
ELEMENTS OF CITY PLANNING
33- The City in the Landscape 55
34. Plan of Priene 57
35- Plan of Noerdlingen 57
36- Traffic Diagram of London 59
37. Raymond Unwin, Diagram of Greater London 60
38- Raymond Unwin, City With Suburbs and Satelite Towns 61
39. Eric Gloeden, Coordinated System of Different Settlements .... 62
40. Detail of the Above Plan 62
41. Martin Maechler, Diagram of Berlin 63
42. Le Corbusier, "Une Ville Contemporaine" 65
43- Le Corbusier, Replanning of the Center of Paris 65
44. Circular Village 67
45. Street Village 67
46- Soria y Mata, "La Ciudad Lineral" 68
47. Frank Lloyd Wright, Broadacre City 69
48- N. A. Milyutin, Proposed Plan for Stalingrad 70
IX
49. L- Hilberseimer, Planning System 71
50- Ludwig Sierks, Centralized Traffic System 73
51- Peter Friedrich, Traffic System in Ribbon Development 73
52- Plan of Apartment Houses • • 79
53. Sun Charts by Howard T. Fisher 80
54, 55 and 56. Diagrams of Sun Penetration on December 21 .... 82
57, 58 and 59. Diagrams of Sun Penetration on June 21 83
60, 61 and 62. Diagrams of Maximum and Minimum Sun Penetration
at Different Seasons 84
63. Diagram Showing Influence of Roof on Density 87
64. Diagram Showing Relation Between Latitude and Population Density . 87
65- Population Density at Latitude 51° 30' 88
66. Apartment Houses With Different Densities and Plans 90
67. L-Shaped Houses at a Density of 120 People on One Acre .... 92
68. Effect of Different Densities on the Plan of Houses 94
69- View of L-Shaped Houses 95
70. Mixed Type of Settlement 97
71. Aerial View of Paris 98
72. Aerial View of London 98
73 and 74- City Streets 99
75- Combination of Eight City Blocks . .' 101
76- Super Block: Residential Area 102
77. Super Block: Commercial Area 103
78. Henry Wright and Clarence Stein, Radburn 105
79- Raymond Unwin, System of Closed End-Streets 105
80. A New Settlement Unit 106
81- Theoretical Shape of a Settlement Unit 108
82. A New Settlement Unit and the Orientation of Houses 109
83- Details of a New Settlement Unit . 110
84. Settlement With Smokeless Industry 112
85- Corcula, Dalmatia 114
86, 87, 88 and 89. Wind Diagrams 116 and 117
90- Integrated Smoke— Producing Industries 119
91. Commercial Area With Residential Sections 120
92- View of a Commercial Area 121
93. Plan of an Industrial City 123
94. Part of a Replanned City on Hilly Grounds 124
95. Diagram of Increased Units 126
96- View of a Settlement Unit 127
PART THREE
REPLANNING OF CITIES
97. American Industrial City Replanned 129
98- New York's Broadway 131
99. European Industrial City 134
100. European Industrial City Replanned 135
101- American Industrial City: Present State 138
102. American Industrial City: Replanned 139
103. City of Chicago: Present State 142
104. City of Chicago: Proposed Replanning 143
105- Aerial View of the Replanned City of Chicago . 146
106. City of Chicago: Three Diagrammatical Sketches 148
107. The M. A. R. S- Plan for London . 152
108. A Diagrammatic Sketch for London 153
109. Manhattan: A Diagrammatic Sketch of Its Replanning 159
110. 111, 112 and 113- Four Diagrams Showing Procedure
of Rebuilding a City .162 and 163
X
PART FOUR
THE ART OF CITY PLANNING
114- Greek Temple in the Landscape 167
115- Plan of Jueterbog 170
116. Plan of Karlsruhe 171
117. Mansion 172
118- Frauenkirche, Dresden 172
119- St. Peter's, Rome 174
120- St Peter's Square, Rome 174
121. Sebenico, Dalmatia 176
122. Prague, The Hradschin 176
123- Melk on the Danube 176
124. Stralsund on the Baltic Sea 178
125. Chartres, Cathedral 178
126- Olympia, Temple of Zeus 180
127- Magnesia, Temple of Zeus 180
128. Priene, Temple of Aesculapius 180
129 and 130. Piazza St. Mark, Venice 181
131. Interior of a Gothic Cathedral 183
132. Mediaeval Street 183
133- Michelangelo and San Gallo, Palazzo Farnese, Rome 184
134. Donato Bramante, Plan of St. Peter's Church and Square .... 184
135- Donato Bramante, Santa Maria Delia Consolazione at Todi • • • • 184
136- Fra Gioconda, Design for an Ideal City 185
137. Plan of Palmanova 185
138. Perugino, Christ Delivers the Keys to St. Peter 187
139. Michelangelo, Plan of the Capitol Square 187
140- Michelangelo, View of the Capitol Square 187
141. Bath, Panoramic View 189
142. Bath, View from Hedgemead Park 189
XI
WHERE THE GREAT CITY STANDS ....
The place where a great city stands is not the place of stretch'd
wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits or produce merely,
Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new-comers or the
anchor-lifters of the departing,
Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings or shops
selling goods from the rest of the earth,
Nor the place of the best libraries and schools, nor the place
where money is plentiest,
Nor the place of the most numerous population.
Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and
bards,
Where the city stands that is belov'd by these, and loves them
in return and understands them,
Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words
and deeds,
Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place,
Where the men and women think lightly of the laws,
Where the slave ceases, and the master of slaves ceases,
Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending au
dacity of elected persons,
Where fierce men and women pour forth as the sea to the
whistle of death pours its sweeping and unript waves,
Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of
inside authority,
Where the citizen is always the head and ideal, and President,
Mayor, Governor and what not, are agents for pay,
Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to
depend on themselves,
Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs,
Where speculations on the soul are encouraged,
Where women walk in public processions in the streets the
same as the men,
Where they enter the public assembly and take places the
same as the men;
Where the city of the faithfullest friends stands,
Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands,
Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands,
Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,
There the great city stands.
Walt Whitman
Reprinted by permission of Random House Inc. from their Modern Library edition
of Walt Whitman's LEAVES OF GRASS.
XIII
INTRODUCTION
"Reason is the first principle of all human work." Consciously or
unconsciously L. Hilberseimer follows this principle and makes
it the basis of his work in the complicated field of city planning.
He examines the city with unwavering objectivity, investigates each
part of it and determines for each part its rightful place in the whole.
Thus he brings all the elements of the city into clear, logical order.
He avoids imposing upon them arbitrary ideas of any character
whatsoever.
He knows that cities must serve life, that their validity is to be
measured in terms of life, and that they must be planned for living.
He understands that the forms of cities are the expression of existing
modes of living, that they are inextricably bound up with these, and
that they, with these, are subject to change. He realizes that the
material and spiritual conditions of the problem are given, that he
can exercise no influence on these factors in themselves, that they
are rooted in the past and will be determined by objective tendencies
for the future.
He also knows that the existence of many and diverse factors pre
supposes the existence of some order which gives meaning to these
and which acts as a medium in which they can grow and unfold. City
planning means for the author, therefore, the ordering of things in
themselves and in their relationships with each other. One should
not confuse the principles with their application. City planning is,
in essence, a work of order; and order means — according to St.
Augustine— "The disposition of equal and unequal things, attribut
ing to each its place."
Mies van der Rohe
XV
1. PRIENE, ASIA MINOR. After a reconstruction by A. Zippelius. See also illustration 34.
PART ONE
SOCIETY AND CITIES
City planning is a social task. It must solve problems of technics,
science, space, and architecture. As these problems change with
the social pattern of their time, the means of realizing the aims of
city planning also change. For those means depend, in any era, on
the concurrent status of science and technology. The present problem
of city planning cannot be solved by the patterns of the past. To
attempt to solve them thus would lead to decorative, not structural,
formations. New social demands present new technical problems;
new technics entail new problems for society. Society, as a rule, comes
gradually to cope with the new problems which technology creates.
But there is always a lag. The implications of a new alignment of
forces are usually not generally appreciated until after the negative
effects of the workings of those forces have become apparent.
City planning a
social task
17
Origin, growth
and decline of
cities
Predomination
of natural
science
This is especially true in our own time. We have undergone a trans
formation in our technical process. We have not yet learned to attain
positive values from that transformation. The nineteenth century
was a century of free economy. It brought into our world two factors
which have profoundly altered society; the machine, and the indus
trialization of production the machine made possible. Machines and
industry destroyed the essential structure of rural and urban settle
ments. The disorder in which we live follows as inevitable conse
quence of a changing world. Order will come again and will proceed
from the nature of things. It will express itself in city planning as in
all other phases of human activity.
If we are to help direct the forces which will bring order out of
disorder, it is profoundly important that we understand the forces
which, in the past and in the present, influence the origins and devel
opments of human settlements.
All human settlements depend, in their growth and in their decline,
on social, spiritual, political, and economic forces. These forces are
influenced by the status of technics, by the forms of production and
consumption, and by the means of transportation available to the
settlement builders. This interdependence of social and technological
forces is expressed in all kinds of culture and varies only with the
variations of the predominant elements.
We can see that this is true as we study cities of the past. They are
unlike cities of today, but they show that, as each new order comes
into existence, changes in urban development become both possible
and necessary. This process is clear wherever we find settlements
of men. Students have tended to limit research to large settlements,
regarding them as the best examples of the process of change. In
reality, however, it makes little difference how large or how small
the settlement may be. The thing which does matter is the function
and significance of that settlement within a particular economic and
cultural sphere.
The rationalism of the eighteenth century paved the way for the
predomination of natural science in the nineteenth century. The
conception of evolution and development, which was characteristic
of natural science, became the standard of all research. Culture
tended to be confused with civilization, and the progress of civilization
was fallaciously identified with cultural unfolding. It became accepted
theory to view the different phases of the history of mankind as suc
cessive developments. The culture of Egypt, or the Near East, for
example, was considered a primitive precursor of Greek culture;
18
Greek culture was viewed as the culmination of the cultural develop
ment of antiquity. The primitive communities of prehistoric times
were thus regarded, not as groups of men and women, whose mode of
livelihood was conditioned by their environment, but rather as stages
in an evolutionary succession.
We are correcting some of these misconceptions now. We are coming
to realize that the history of primitive ages can be adequately read,
not through research alone, but through research accompanied by
an ideological conception, a philosophy of life. We can, therefore,
begin to trace and understand, through all history, the operation of
the same interwoven social spiritual, political and economic forces
which operate in our world today.
From earliest times, environment, and the activities conditioned by Peasants and
it, have influenced the creative spirit of man and moulded the intrinsic nomads
character of the communities he builds. Modern ethnology recognizes
two basic existant types, the peasant and the nomad, each with his
own cultural development. In the communities they created, the earli
est human dwellings known to us, these opposite types created oppo
site forms.
The peasant, bound to the soil, is the carrier of a mystic culture in
which matter and spirit form an inseparable unity. Plants, the peas
ant's means of livelihood, are the determining elements in this culture.
Whether the peasant sows or reaps, the life process of plants suggests
to him a synopsis of all life, symbolizes to him the close connection of
all things. He draws no distinction between matter and spirit, for
to him all things, are animate. His sense of space, is centrifugal, for
all life emanates from a central source. The settlements he built in
the center of his fields — his living space — were naturally rooted in
the soil, like trees.
The nomad, whether hunter or herdsman, is the carrier of a culture
of magic, in which everything immaterial is alien. The animals, the
basic means of existence for the nomad, are the determining elements
here. To the nomad the life process of those animals suggests a
synopsis of all life which endows their existence with significance
and purpose. In this magic culture all is earthly, material, and physi
cal; only that which is apparent is accepted. The nomad perceives
only reality and is opposed to all that is irrational. His feeling for
space is centripetal, all life incoming from a domain within a border
line. His settlements are, therefore, essentially tent settlements, mov
ing from time to time, according to natural necessities.1
lLeo Frobenius and Douglas C. Fox, African Genesis. New York 1937.
19
2. STONE-AGE SETTLEMENT AT GLASTONBURY. Plan by A. Bulleid and G. Gray.
We meet these two types again and again in the course of history,
regardless of political, economic, spiritual, and cultural circumstances.
The elementary reactions of man are unchanging ; it is only the expres
sions of these reactions which changes.
'Organic" and The coexistence of peasants and nomads, of mystic and magic culture,
geometric explains also the great contrast between two types of structural form:
•/ J.
the "organic" and the "geometric". Historians have too often treated
these types as successive rather than coexistent. Yet both are original
forms, creating and expressing different concepts of life, no matter
how much their elements may have penetrated one another later, and
no matter how much they may have been modified by social changes.
settlements
20
3. STONE-AGE SETTLEMENT AT CASTELLAZZO DI FONTANELLATO.
Both represent particular communal structures, expressing their char
acter symbolically. This contrast between the organic and the geomet
ric is expressed in architectural formations, both in individual build
ings and in communal settlements.
The prehistoric towns of Glastonbury (ill. 2) and Castellazzo di
Fontanellato (ill. 3) illustrate these two contrasting types. Glaston
bury with its organic layout is a typical expression of a people with a
mystic culture, whereas Castellazzo di Fontanellato shows, in its
geometrical layout, the characteristics of a people with a magic cul
ture. It is very apparent that the structural differences between these
two settlements express contrasting social and spiritual forms of
organization.
21
These formative types are rarely presented in pure form in the rem
nants of habitation accessible to us at present. This is partly because
the completed structure is not always analogous with the idea which
created it. It is due, in part, also to the fact that continual contact
and mixture of different peoples may blur originally pure forms of
expression. Social and political influences cause further deviations.
Nevertheless, a tendency to organic or geometric formation can always
be clearly recognized. Organic settlements are peculiar to free com
munities. They correspond to natural local conditions. Their growth
is expressed in their entirety and in all their individual parts. Geomet
ric settlements, on the other hand, are the typical form of autocratic
communities. Here building is subordinated to an abstract planning
principle.
One may generalize from ample evidence that all mystic peoples, in
accordance with their principle of growth, arrive at organic city for
mations; and that all magic peoples, because of their rational spirit,
arrive at geometric city formations.
Autocratic The tent camp of the nomad antedates and shows in simplest terms
cities the coordinating principle of the geometric city. A firmly established
tent order was one of the disciplining forces in the life of the nomad.
Everybody and everything had a place. No one changed his place
without command or urgent reason. Because of this fixed order,
encampment and decampment could be effected with swiftness and
order; the tent and all its contents could be packed and loaded in an
hour's time.
The Roman camp (ill. 4), with its well established order, is the fore
runner of the Roman Colonial City. Timgad (ill. 5) in North Africa
shows how short a step it was from camp to city. It was founded as
a military colony by Trajan. It became an autocratic city. The square
with the official buildings in its center, the colonnaded main streets
which end in arched gateways are typical of a Roman imperial city.
Peking (ill. 7 ) also was originally a camp city. The tent of the
commander-in-chief was its center. Around this center were the tents
of the generals, then those of the subjects, in geometric order. The
north-south orientation, based on religious conceptions, was carried
out so completely in the tent camp that later its layout was adopted
for the imperial city. But that imperial city was intended to be more
than a fortified camp. It symbolized the hub of the universe. On
important festivals, the emperor sat on his throne facing south.
Before him knelt the worshipping nobles, while the people, all facing
north, honored him at the altars and in the remotest hut.
22
Versailles (ill. 6), residence of the French kings, became the proto
type of the small capitals of the territorial princes. Here the concep
tion of absolute monarchy, represented in its purest form by Louis
XVI, found an equivalent expression in the city dominated by the
monarch. The king was glorified as the representative of the mon
archic system. His palace was removed from the city. The monarch
was the head of the people. Therefore, his residence headed the city;
and the city itself became subordinate to the soverign palace by a
symmetric axial street system.
Characteristic of autocratic states is their location on plains. In such
location artificial boundaries, established by a conqueror's claim for
domination, replace natural borders. Autocratic cities were the crea
tion of a ruler, and they rose suddenly.
Organic cities express slow but planned growth. They are typically Free cities
free cities, based on voluntary coalition of citizens. Such common
wealths arose for the most part in regions where geographic conditions
favored the rise of small integrated states. In Greece and Italy, the
tribes originally lived in villages. When they concentrated in the
polis — that is, the city state — they did so chiefly for reasons of safety.
The origin of the medieval cities is attributed to the development of
craftsmanship and the subsequent rise of markets. Here, for the
first time, free labor became an influencing factor in city growth as
well as in political power. Annual and bi-annual fairs were replaced by
the weekly market and concentrated settlements were a prerequisite.
These cities were so spaced that the rural population from the sur
rounding countryside could reach them in one day's travel. A regional
structure was thus developed, characterized by an even distribution
of different kinds of settlements. A well proportioned pattern of vil
lages, towns, and cities arose, each settlement limited in size and situ
ated with due regard for traffic distances, and well balanced produc
tion and consumption relations between rural and urban communities.
Everything was not only related organically within the different settle
ments, but was also built with reference to the surroundings of those
settlements. Topographical influences had much to do with determin
ing their shape.
Thera (ill. 8), on an island in the Aegean Sea, was originally a Phoe
nician settlement, later developed by Greek settlers. To protect it
against pirates and invaders, and to afford a free view over the sea,
its builders chose a site on the ridge of a mountain. That choice deter
mined the long-stretched, and narrow shape of the town, with its one
main street leading through its entire length.
23
4. ROMAN CAMP.
5. TIMGAD.
Plan by
A. von Gerkan.
H
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24
6. VERSAILLES.
7. PEKING.
25
8. THERA. Plan by F. Killer von Gaertringen.
Luebeck (ill. 9) , on the Baltic Sea, was built on a flat hill of oblong
shape, surrounded by two branches of a river. It was an important
city, one of the largest of the middle ages and the founder of the
Hansiatic League. Its street system is very clear. Three streets lead
through it and are intersected by side-streets, which lead across the
city and down to the river.
Noerdlingen (ills. 10 and 35), originally located on a hill, was
rebuilt on the plains at the foot of that hill at the beginning of the
13th century. In its new location the city could develop with free
dom. During the 16th century it was extended in the shape of a ring
around its nucleus. Its shape was almost circular, the circle being the
most economical and, at that time, the most efficient form for a fortified
city. The street system of Noerdlingen is quite different from that of
26
9. LUEBECK.
10. NOERDLINGEN. See also illustration 35.
27
Thera and Luebeck. The nucleus is surrounded by a ring-street from
which other streets radiate.
Colonial cities Geometrical settlements are sometimes found in civilizations with
originally organic city formation. This is not difficult to explain. Such
settlements — found in Greece, during the middle ages and later in
America — were colonial cities, and such cities were always founded
and built according to a simple geometric plan.
Selinus (ill. 11), on the southwest coast of Sicily, was founded by
Dorians in the middle of the seventh century B.C. After its destruc
tion by the Carthaginians it was rebuilt under the influence of the
Hippodamic planning system. The city on the acropolis was divided
by a main street and crossed at right angles by side streets. The size
of the blocks depended on the plan of the houses which, in their
similarity and simplicity, formed a vivid contrast to the splendor of
the community buildings and temples.
Montpazier (ill. 12), in the southwest of France, was presumably
built according to a design by English planners during the English
conquest of the 13th century. The city consists of rectangular blocks
with alleys, and two squares — one for the city hall surrounded by
arcades, and another for the cathedral — both in the center of the city.
Philadelphia (ill. 13) was built after a plan of William Penn. In its
rectangular layout it not only expressed the spirit of colonial cities,
but symbolized also in the homogeneity of its structure, the democratic
character of the new community.
There are two ways in which man may win his livelihood. One is
economic : man may satisfy his needs by the exchange of the products
of his labor with others by barter. The other is political: man may
sustain his own life by plunder and the exchange of his loot with that
of others.1 The entire course of historical and sociological events is
determined by the uses made of these economic political means.
When the peasant, whose occupation binds him to the soil, and who
lives by barter, is attacked by the nomad, he fights a losing battle.
Economic means are overwhelmed by political.
In very primitive times, the conquering nomads annihilated the van
quished tribes. Gradually they came to realize their potential use-
fullness.2 The vanquished tribe was forced to produce goods, at first
1Franz Oppenheimer: The State. New York. 1926.
2In some parts of the Sahara desert, as an African traveler records, the Arabs and Tibbus, prob
ably, consider certain oases and their inhabitants to be still their property. They appear there at
harvest time to claim their tribute, that is, to plunder and to sack. They leave the subdued people
to their fate and to their duty of continuing to plant for them.
Political and
economical
means of exist
ence
28
11. SELINUS.
Plan by M. Hulot.
12. MONTPAZIER.
Plan by Parker.
13. PLAN OF
PHILADELPHIA
by William Penn.
tn
I
H .,..«.. B
PHILADELPHIA
A.D. 1682.
3BBB
DDDDDD
HDD
DDDDDDODOD
DDL
GDDDDDG
Gnnnnnn
29
for the victor's consumption, and later for the trade which the
victor carried on. The victor was soon forced to settle in the con
quered territory so as to assure his tribute. The settlements he built,
if situated on a vital trading trail, or on a strategically important site,
became the centers of later city developments. The first cities known
to us, in the river valleys of the Nile, Euphrates, and Tigris, were
cities resulting from victory and domination. The Romans in their
conquests of Gaul, Brittania, and Germania, also used established
places of refuge as their permanent camps if they were situated favor
ably for their purposes. These camps frequently gave birth to city
developments.
The rise of coastal cities has a like source. Pirates progressed from
intermittent raids to the founding of trading posts. These trading
posts arose as free harbors and, with their coastal fortifications, be
came the nuclei of later seaports. The pre-Grecian settlements of the
Aegeans on the islands and shores of Greece and Asia Minor may
have originated in this manner and so also the harbor cities of the
Phoenicians along the entire coast of the Mediterranean.
A mutual agreement was reached, in time, between victor and van
quished, which gave to the vanquished certain important advantages.
He enjoyed the protection of the victor, not only against invading
robber tribes, but also against members of his own tribe. He enjoyed
trade protection, though he had to pay additional tribute for this.
Trading centers and cities, governed by overlords and feudal princes,
developed from this new cooperative relationship.
Early despotic The large despotic states arising from victory coordinated, politically
states anj economically, an increased territory which came to comprise a
coastal region and, finally, an entire river valley. The pre-requisites
for a homogeneous and permanent economy of large river domains
were thus established in the regions of the Nile, the Euphrates and
Tigris, the Ganges and Indus, the Hoang-Ho and Yangtze-Kiang, and
other great rivers. Only an autocratic system could accomplish this
task. Huge irrigational systems had to be planned and built. Dams,
canals, locks, and reservoirs had to be constructed, if secure and
permanent living conditions were to be attained.
Such tremendous technical problems required the services of many
workers, and these workers were employed without regard for their
personal fates. The caste system, serfdom and enslavement, were a
necessity for those early states. They were all built upon a wide
stratum of the original population, and ruled by the conquerors.
30
But the conqueror — king, priest, or warrior — was also a slave to his
calling;. The life of the ruler, as well as that of all members of the
c
state, depended upon a complicated machinery which had to be main
tained even if it meant sacrificing all natural values of life. The prob
lematic nature of civilization is thus shown in its early beginnings.
From the predominance of the magic ideology originates the deifica- Influence of
tion of the king. To rule was a magic calling. The priest-kingdom magic ideology
was probably the first stage of political development. The interplay of
social and economic and spiritual forces in the determining of human
settlements is interestingly shown in this connection. For it is believed
that the use of ploughs and draught animals is also based on cult.
The chariot of the gods, riding along the Milky Way, was the proto
type of the plough. Images of such chariots were placed, as holy
vessels, on altars. And when the deified kings rode through the streets
in triumph, the chariots in which they rode were also modeled upon
and made to symbolize the chariots of the gods.
As the culture of the hoe gave way to that of the plough, the magic
ideology carried into the fields the idea of holiness. The plough being
originally a priestly vessel, could obviously be properly handled only
by a man, whereas the hoe had been the woman's tool. And therefore,
the new tool, which made it possible to grow grain on a large scale
to feed the masses concentrated in the growing cities, also profoundly
altered the status of women in the social structure. It was, in all
probability, one of the factors in the social change from the matriar-
chate to the patriarchate.
For all men in all times, a principal reason for drawing together in Place of refuge
settlements has been the need for protection. And that seeking for
safety has been one of the most important elements in the rise of
cities.
In simplest form the protection for the group was provided by the
place of refuge (ill. 15) . This was simply a secure place which could
be fortified and rendered impervious to attack. People continued to
live scattered through the countryside but they could congregate in
this stronghold for mutual safety in time of danger.1 Generally only
one warden lived in the stronghold. He kept record of all who be
longed to it, collected taxes from them, and summoned them to arms.
Because the altar was also protected by being located within the walls
of the place of refuge, the stronghold became not only the military,
but also the administrative and religious center of the region. When
1The rural population of Lower and Central Italy retreated to such "Castellos," strongholds, similar
to such places of refuge, for protection at night and in times of peril, until the nineteenth century.
31
14. THE ACROPOLIS, ATHENS.
15. PLACE OF REFUGE.
32
favorably located it might develop into a trading post, and then into a
city, and thus add economic prominence to its military and religious
roles.
Sometimes gradual change of political pattern and power brought
an individual to the head of a community. The purpose of the strong
hold then changed. It might continue to serve as a retreat for the com
munity in time of peril, but it might also become a fortress from which
the absolute rulers governed the adjacent territory.
The Acropolis (ill. 14) in Athens was originally the place of refuge
for its domain. It became also the stronghold of rulers : first under the
domination of Mycenae and under the Pisistratides, then under the
Franconian, Catalonian, and Florentine dukes, and finally under the
Turks. According to the conditions of the times, the Acropolis was
now a place of refuge for the people, now the stronghold of rulers,
now the site of a temple.
In the Near East have been found ancient cities of autocratic kings
fortified from the beginning. The existence of such cities does not
necessarily indicate, however, that they were the original settlements
on their sites. They should be considered rather as the end of a devel
opment whose beginnings are still unexplored and obscure. It may
be assumed that such cities originated from the same causes which
gave rise to those we know from their beginnings. Wherever a tyran
nous state, or a despotic ruler arose, the place of refuge of the
people became the stronghold of the ruler, dominating the city and
its territory.
Geographical location and topographical conditions have always been Geographical
decisive factors in the choice of the site and in the development of ? n(| t°pogyaph
settlements. The earliest men probably looked only for the presence
of a spring and arrable soil. Later settlers looked for a certain type
of soil, for evidences of the presence of certain raw materials. They
considered whether the location was favorable for trade.
The earliest settlements arose, therefore, in valleys, watercourses,
and seacoasts — along the natural communication lanes of unsettled
regions. According to geographic conditions, certain regions became
sparsely settled, others densely populated. The French districts of
Arras and Aries, for example, are of approximately equal size. But
Arras is fertile and has a large population evenly distributed, whereas
Aries is a glacial unproductive country at the mouth of the Rhone —
partly swampy, partly rocky — and its population is small and un-
evenlv distributed.
33
16. EARLY SETTLEMENT OF PARIS.
A settlement favorably located, producing goods peculiar to its region,
could grow in power, achieve hegemony. Carthage dominated the
Mediterranean, commercially and militarily, for centuries because
of its advantageous location in the center of the Mediterranean, its
naturally protected position, and the spirit of its population. Con
stantinople, the communication link between Orient and Occident;
London, between England and the European continent; New York,
between America and Europe: all these cities have attained their
prominence because their geographical location is advantageous.
Topographical conditions have always been especially important in
relation to defense. Despite all changes of conditions, the city had
to be made as secure as possible at all times. A wise choice of location
could make that defense easier.
Locations: In- Two principal types of location which have reappeared through all
sular, cape and history — the insular position and the cape position — have always
plain been chosen for their defense value.
Advantage was taken of insular formations in rivers, lakes, and
seas. Such insular location, naturally isolated, was a primary form
of protection. Arne rose on a rocky island of Lake Copias. Paris
(ill. 16) grew from its nucleus, the fortified fishing island of Lutetia
34
; ROMAN REMAINS*
17. EARLY SETTLEMENT OF LONDON.
Parisiorum (the "Isle de la Cite" of today) dominating the valleys
of the Seine, Marne, and Oise. As late as the Thirty Years War, the
city of Stralsund (ill. 124) resisted Wallenstein's siege, not only
because of its fortifications, but even more because of its naturally
protected insular location. Inhabitants of the Adriatic coastal regions,
fleeing the Huns, sought refuge on the islands of a lagoon and built
there several island settlements which later became Venice. Because
of its singularly protected location, the city escaped the battles be
tween emperor and papacy during the Middle Ages and developed
into a trading center between East and West. Insular countries, like
insular cities, could also develop undisturbed by continental strife:
England and Japan achieved hegemony largely for this reason.
Single elevations, rocky plateaus, sometimes mountains, offered simi
lar insular protection in plains and hilly landscapes. The Greeks and
Romans chose such elevations for their first settlements: Athens
(ill. 14) rose on the Acropolis; Rome on the Palatine. Both settle
ments were in the immediate vicinity of the sea and yet at a sufficient
distance from it so that protection against attacks from pirates could
be secured. London's (ill. 17) location was, in a sense, also insular.
It was built on a swampy site where the river Thames empties into
the ocean and at floodtide makes a lake. Two opposite flat hills, rising
35
18. NORMA, ITALY.
19. JERUSALEM.
36
20. CORCULA, DALMATIA. See also illustration 85.
21. BERNE, SWITZERLAND.
37
from the banks of the river, converged there, forming a ford, where
London Bridge is today.
The cape location, like the insular, provided protection which in
creased with the narrowness of the connection between cape and main
land. Such a site could be made invulnerable by special measures of
defense. Cape locations vary according to topographical conditions.
Norma (ill. 18), in Italy, situated on a steep promontory, shows
clearly the advantage of a sheltered cape location. The Greek city
of Thera (ill. 8) , safely situated on the top of a mountain, which is
connected with another mountain only by a narrow approach, could
be easily defended. Jerusalem (ill. 19) lies on a plateau, between
the deep valleys of Ben Hinnom and Kidron which form natural
boundaries.
Peninsulas, formed by river bends, offer similar protection, as can
be clearly seen in the city of Berne (ill. 21 ) which rises at a U-bend
of the river Aare. Berne's growth necessitated renewing its fortifica
tions three times, until the city finally occupied the entire peninsula.
Cape formations are also caused by the junctions of two rivers. Such
a location is particularly advantageous when, as in Belgrade, at the
junction of the Save and Danube, the cape rises high above the flat-
land. This exceptionally well sheltered location made Belgrade a
fortress from the first. A cape location is well suited also for the
foundation of seaports. Their protection can be relatively complete,
as was the case in Corcula (ills. 20 and 85) on the Adriatic Sea. In
rocky coastal regions promontories offer protection and also form
natural harbors. Carthage (ill. 22) was situated on a promontory
which formed two harbors, one on each side, thus allowing sailing
vessels to enter whatever the direction of the wind. Many harbor
cities rose in Greece and Asia Minor on such naturally protected sites.
Cnidos (ill. 23) in Asia Minor, perhaps the best example of rational
city planning by the Greeks, was one of them.
The exceptional location of Constantinople on the Sea of Marmara,
where an inlet extends into the interior and forms a cape, is paral
leled by New York's location at the mouth of the Hudson. The com
parison between these two cities, one so old, the other so new, shows
that geographic locations and topographical formations are important
factors in the growth of great cities, no matter in what period these
cities develop.
When the populations increased, natural protected sites of cities
often became inadequate. Then the city descended from its eleva-
38
22. CARTHAGE. A reconstruction by M. Aucler.
23. CNIDOS, ASIA MINOR. Plan by A. von Gerkan.
39
Cities
and de
fense
Rise and
decline of cities
tion into the plains and man-made defense had to replace the defense
provided by nature. The oldest settlement of the Phrygian city of
Apamea, Kelaenae, was situated on a high hill, but the later city,
built by Antiochus Soter, spread over a plain crossed by rivers. The
hill was then used as a stronghold and artificial defenses were erected
around the city.
The type of man-made defenses has varied with the changes of offen
sive and defensive weapons, and these changes have, in turn, influ
enced the structure of the city as demonstrated in our illustrations
24, 25, 26 and 27. When firearms were invented, protection of the
city confined within its walls became difficult. As firearms were
perfected, those walls had to be replaced by forts outside the city. The
city area was thereby increased. Modern aerial warfare has made all
city concentrations dangerous. Protection in the future must be accom
plished by disurbanization and dispersal.
The factors which led to the rise of a city may have already borne
in them the seeds of its later retrogression and even decay. For their
change also brought about changes in the conditions essential to the
city's life. The shift of power and of sovereignty caused the growth
of cities; it also caused their ultimate decline, as the many ruined
cities of the Near East give abundant evidence. New religions gave
rise to new temples, around which new cities grew while the older
cities of extinct cults dropped into oblivion.
When a new king ascended the throne in Egypt, for example, he
erected a new palace and built a new city for his court and his admin
istration. This new city had, of course, no relation to the city which
developed from a place of refuge. The reasons for its founding prob
ably rooted in the magic ideology, the ancient rituals, based on anim
ism, which caused primitive man to shun all the belongings of the
dead. When a deified ruler died, it was only natural and fitting that
his entire city be abandoned and left to decay.1
The change of trade routes and communication lines, the increase of
the size of ships, the formations of sandbanks in harbors — these also
were circumstances which, creating at one time the conditions under
which cities could grow, created at other times the conditions which
made those cities decline. Old trading centers and their cities and
markets have lost their importance, even in our own day, because the
railroad and the automobile have so widened the transportation radius.
New centers and new markets have arisen, and with them new cities
1A Japanese custom, which prevailed into the nineteenth century, is equally interesting. In Japan,
the house of a deceased person was abandoned and no longer lived in.
40
have come into commercial importance. Soon we shall see new shifts
conditioned by the airplane. Many a seaport will decline, while those
cities at junction points of airlines will gain importance as they be
come traffic centers for passengers and freight.
A city which owes its origin and development to its natural resources,
or to a particular type of production, may sink to unimportance if
its resources become exhausted, or its peculiar production processes
are suspended. It may be abandoned and left to ruin while new
resources and new methods of production give rise to new cities.
We can distinguish four distinct economic stages in human develop- Stages of econ-
ment: the comprehensive household economy; the city economy; the omY
national economy ; and finally the world economy.
The original basis of the household economy was production within
the family, which later was extended to kinfolk and finally replaced
by a highly developed slave economy. All goods were consumers'
goods, used in the community where they were produced. Everything
was made in the home, whether that home was the most primitive
household or a gigantic establishment manned by slaves as it came to
be among the Romans or under the socage tenure of the Middle Ages.
Something new came into the picture when hired labor began to be
used. An augmented form of the comprehensive household economy
was created. The workmen came to the house merely to work. Some
times they did not even do this ; the material necessary for their labor
was sent to their homes. This form of paid home production was
usually based on the condition that the worker possessed tools — such
as mills, looms, ovens.
Home production for wages was the beginning of skilled trades and
of the city economy, with its division of labor. The householder no
longer conducted the entire productive process within his family, or
on the manor, or with the help of slaves and serfs. One man produced
the raw material, others made the product. That product, however,
passed through all stages of its manufacture in the same workshop.
City economy was based on the cooperation of the city and its vicinity.
Most of the city's products were consumers' goods, used either in the
city itself or in the surrounding countryside. Only a small portion of
the product was used for barter with other cities, and a still smaller
portion — and this only much later — with other countries.
Under the national economy, a fundamental change was effected.
Most consumers' goods became trading goods. They were no longer
41
24. UAL-UAL, ABYSSINIA.
25. RAGUSA, DALMATIA.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FORTIFIED CITY.
Ual-Ual (ill. 24) shows the primitive ditch and earthen wall. Ragusa (ill. 25) stone walls crowned with
parapets for the defenders. Carcassonne (ill. 26) stone walls connected with towers to enable the de-
42
26. CARCASSONNE, FRANCE.
27. NARDEN, HOLLAND.
fenders to fight the attackers from two sides. Narden (ill. 27) shows how earthen walls again appear as
it was discovered that they were a better protection against cannon balls.
43
made by an artisan for a definite customer, but were produced for
unknown customers in a very expanded market. The price, once com
posed only of the cost of the raw material and labor, was increased by
the return to the middleman, who neither produced nor consumed the
product himself, but only sold it. At first, this method of distribution
caused little change in the original process of production, but it was
the precursor of present-day industry. As the factory system devel
oped, the decentralized industries gave way to centralized production
units, concentrated into huge industrial areas with an increased divi
sion of labor. This centralization and expansion changed the worker's
position. The increasing division of the labor process and the greater
mechanization lessened the importance of skilled labor. Unskilled
labor or women and even children could now take its place. The
necessity for disposing of the rising tide of goods and capital created
the conditions for a world economy.
These individual phases of economy find expression in the pattern
of their cities. The changes in production patterns had been brought
about by the expansion of the economic sphere, from the household
to the city, to the nation, to the world. The change was accelerated as
needs became more diverse, and technology and transportation made
rapid advances. The movement must, therefore, be regarded, not as
an evolutionary succession of events, but as the characteristic expres
sion of a certain stage of civilization, in every cultural sphere. With
the increase of population and rising standards of living, the domestic
agricultural produce and raw materials flowed out to trading centers
and overseas markets. Exchange of domestic products of industry
for raw materials and agricultural products from overseas ensued.
The rising trade served not only to procure the necessities of life
for the native population, but also to satisfy demands for luxury which
domestic raw materials could not meet. The trade relations of the
city of Assur on the Tigris, later the capital of the Kingdom of Assyria,
with its colonies in Asia Minor, explain the development in the
exchange of industrial produce for raw materials during the third
millenium B.C. Trade was conducted over rivers and canals as well
as over land routes. The so-called "Cappadocian" clay plates tell of
an extensive money and credit system. The merchants were organized
into a guild and regular postal communications existed.
Closely related to these trade relations and trade settlements was the
expansion of living space. New settlements, new cities, grew up. New
land was seized for colonies. The process is as characteristic of the
past as of the present.
44
The city-economy ultimately expanded its economic sphere of Cities of the
influence. New forms of production required a larger economic field, nineteenth and
The territorial state was developed in response to this economic need.
The production in this territorial state continued to expand until the
borders of the territory once more impeded full economic develop
ment. Territorial economy engendered national economy and a corre
sponding national state.
Freedom of trade and a spirit of liberalism broke the restraints left
over from feudalism. Individual economic enterprise developed freely.
All countries partook of this development, though the conditions in
which it operated were, of course, varied. Centralized national states
were established all over the world. And because the impulse bring
ing them into being was the same the world around, the cities which
originated from the national economy, or which were transformed
by it, all presented the same characteristics. To understand these
characteristics one must understand the nature of the processes which
created them.
The division of labor, begun in the medieval city and continued in the
territorial economy, reached its highest degree of development in the
rising national economy, and ultimately in the world economy. The
new forms of production, based on the machine and its specialized
division of labor, divided the process of production to an extent hith
erto undreamed of. At the same time, it concentrated producers at
the place of production. This concentration of labor implied the
development of a labor market to meet the demands of industry. It
inevitably led to the formation of the large settlements which we think
of as the modern city.
Meanwhile the railroad came into existence and the development of
even the remotest parts of the country became possible. With the
new steam propelled ships, these railroads became part of a system
whereby goods could be transported to and from all parts of the earth.
The masses concentrated in the large cities, where domestic agricul
ture was non-existent or inadequate, could be supplied with food at
comparative ease.
The world in which we live today is divided into large areas, some
furnishing raw materials and food products in exchange for manu
factured goods ; some, as large industrial nations, trading the products
of their factories for foods and raw materials. A world-wide finance
economy provides credits for the development of manufacture and
thus creates the pre-requisite for the growth of vast private enterprises.
The result is the disappearance of the obligations which once bound
45
Growth of pop
ulation
City and coun
try
Economic dis
order
society together. The workman becomes part of the labor process.
He is directed by the industrialist, who is the only remaining link of
communal relationship. And as the development of industry moves
forward even that link becomes weakened. Ultimately even the indus
trialist is no longer an individual. He is replaced by the large corpo
ration financed by banks or capital stock. A freedom from responsi
bility and obligation, unknown in other economies, develops under
the protection of such anonymity.
The industrial development which we have just outlined was possible
only because population, during the nineteenth century, increased
tremendously. During the twelve preceding centuries, Europe's popu
lation had remained relatively constant. It stood at about 180,000,000.
In the nineteenth century that population increased almost threefold.
Improved hygienic conditions and the discoveries of natural science,
especially medicine, were largely responsible for that increase. Infant
mortality dropped; the life span increased. With the conquest of the
world market, industry created the basis of existence for the masses
of people it needed for large-scale production.
Migration to the city was one of the demands which this newly devel
oped industry laid upon the people. It was necessary to draw into
urban concentrations increasing numbers of the rural inhabitants.
During the nineteenth century this was accomplished without draining
away the population of rural areas. The number of people engaged
in agriculture remained comparatively stable. Into the growing cities
was drawn the surplus of the country population. For some time it
seemed that this capacity of the city to absorb surplus population was
unlimited. The absorption process was simplified by the fact that the
new industry required only a small number of skilled workmen. It
could use great numbers of the unskilled and semi-skilled, and the
need for skill constantly decreased as specialization and mechanization
moved forward. The city, which had been merely a trade market,
had become a vast labor market as well. And its establishment as a
labor market tended to draw into it more and more people.
Under responsible and far-seeing leadership, such a huge development
could have established a true national economy which, bv raising
living standards, could have created security for everyone. The means
to accomplish this end were at hand. But those who guided the devel
opment of this individualistic economy had, unfortunately, no aims
beyond the advantages of the individual, or the leading groups. Their
fundamental creed was that the welfare of the entire community
could be best served by the self-interested pursuit of individual
ambitions.
46
This free economy also attempted to create a world economy, an expan
sion of the market based on private initiative. But because this interna
tional economy, like the free national economy, was not founded on
actual human needs and their satisfaction, it was also doomed to fail
ure. Expansion of production was achieved by wasteful exploitation
of natural resources. The forms of finance economy, being closely
linked with this development, settled more and more into the policy
of self-interest. The machine, and the steadily advancing specializa
tion it made possible, created an almost unlimited capacity for pro
duction. This capacity has been wrongly used and wastefully used
and never fully used at all. This is the source of our economic dis
order. That disorder is aggravated by the fact that most of the countries
which were buyers and bases of raw material have themselves become
industrialized and are now competitors seeking markets for their own
surplus production. And here are the roots of the economic catas
trophe which is shaking the social structure of our time.
This inorganic economy has, inevitably, brought about the equally New types of
inorganic development of the city. Cities which rose with this indus- cities
trial development show the planlessness of their epoch.
Two forms of industrial production can be distinguished, and each
type influences the settlement forms to which it gives rise. Prime
production is the first of these. It rises where natural resources exist
and it is relatively stable. Manufacture is the second. Because it is
largely dependent on transportation facilities, it rises at favorably
located transportation centers. Both forms require large aggregations
of workers. Prime production, because of its greater stability, is not
necessarily confined to large cities. But manufacturing, being subject
to considerable fluctuations of production, depends on the labor mar
ket and must, therefore, seek the large city where that labor market
exists. Thus two new types of cities have arisen which have little in
common with earlier urban settlements: the purely industrial citv,
located at the source of raw materials, inhabited almost exclusively by
workers; and the manufacturing city, which harbors not only large
aggregations of workmen but also a great army of office workers. Varia
tions occur in the latter type according to the importance of a given
settlement in either industry or trade.
Drawn by the call of developing industry, moving easily over the new
transportation routes, more and more people crowded into the cities.
Populations grew to hundreds of thousands — to millions. This huge
massing of population presented problems with which the city was
completely unable to cope. No plan for their orderly assimilation has
47
28 and 29. URBAN AND RURAL SKY.
A survey of the possibilities of war-time gardening within the area of Chicago shows the wide-spread con
tamination by excessive sulphur dioxide. Of this sulphur dioxide the report states : "It may burn the leaves
of plants and limit the success of gardening." But what of the people living within these areas?
Three deficien
cies
been even attempted. The great cities of our time are the product
of empirical growth rather than of planning principle.
The inadequacy of these cities can be traced to three principal deficien
cies brought about by the rapid and random growth of urban settle
ments (ill. 32).
In the first place, no effort was made'to locate industry in proper rela
tion to residences. No thought was given to prevailing winds. There
fore, the smoke, soot, and fumes of our industrial cities constitute an
evil with grave consequences to the health of the people who live
there (ills. 28 and 29).
In the second place, houses in the residential districts were built with
out the slightest thought to the need for sunlight on the part of the
people who would live in those houses. The population density is
highest in the worst and unhealthiest parts of the city. Recreational
areas in those sections are direly needed. As they exist at present
such residential districts are a danger, not only to the people who live
there, but to the whole community. Crime and health statistics are
witness to this fact (ill. 30).
In the third place, the disorder within the city area, the indiscrimi
nate conglomeration of industrial, commercial, and residential dis
tricts, gives rise to almost insoluble traffic problems. Far more traffic
conveyances than should be needed must be used. And even then
traffic facilities continue to be inadequate. The antiquated street
system, faithfully followed, adds danger for pedestrians and motorists
alike and this danger mounts as traffic increases. Accidents occur and
no way is found to prevent them or to relieve the inconveniences
and confusions of transportation (ill. 31).
Recent technical achievements — electricity and the automobile — are
tending to decentralize urban settlements just as the railroad and
steam power formerly tended to centralize and concentrate them.
Population which had been moving steadily into the city had some
what reversed its course even before the advent of electricity. Subur
ban railroads began to carry people outside the city limits. New
settlements arose along these lines, ever more distant from the city
center. When the automobile came this exodus from the city in
creased in tempo.
Just as the technical means of our time tend to grow beyond the city
and tend to disperse it, industry itself tends toward the same decen
tralization. Henry Ford has long recognized this trend. In My
Life And W/ork, written in 1923, he says: "The belief that an
industrial country must concentrate its industry is, in my opinion,
unfounded. That is only an intermediate phase in the development.
Industry will decentralize itself. If the city were to decline, no one
would rebuild it according to its present plan. That alone discloses
our own judgment on our cities. We have learned much through
the concentration of the population. But therefrom stem all the
Concentration
and decentral
ization
49
SUB COMMUNITIES
BASED ON
CENSUS TRACTS
OP
CHICAGO
SHOWING
JUVENILE DELINQUENCY RATES
TOTAL MALE JUVENILE COURT
DELINQUENCY PETITIONS 1927
-1933 PER 100 MALES
10 - 16 YEARS OF AGE. 1930
RATE
ISO & OVER
I2.O - I4.»
».O - 11.9
.6.0 - »«
UHOCK THE MKCCTION Of
LOUfS W1KTH
ANO
NATHAN BODIN
HATIS FUHNISHtO
curro*o R. SHA
HINKT D MC HAY
30. DO SLUMS MAKE CRIMINALS ?
University of Chicago.
50
This map, prepared by the Social Science Research Committee of the University of Chicago, answers the
question in the affirmative.
nuisances from which we suffer in the metropolis. Working conditions
and one's attitude toward life in the city are so unnatural that the
instincts advise rebellion. Finally the general expenses in private
life, as well as in business, grow so heavy in the metropolis that one
can hardly meet them. The maintenance of this investment, the
expense of maintaining order, and providing transportation in these
over populated districts are much greater than the communal advan
tages achieved through them."
Resettlement in the country as the exodus from the city gathers
momentum has obvious and far-reaching benefits for human beings.
Gardens and small farms may give the security and the health which
are lacking within the city walls. Fresh air and sunshine come once
more within reach. In the future, large cities with high population
density will no longer be needed. As production methods advance, it
will be increasingly possible for production plants to divide into small
units and be dispersed over a wide area, perhaps the entire country.
Production would then become not only less expensive but also more
efficient, for manufacture in the large city has come to be increasingly
uneconomical and wasteful of energy and time.
Today even the smallest settlement can be supplied with water,
electricity, and heat, light, and power at rates lower than those of
metropolitan utilities. Large settlements, with vast undeveloped
areas, require extensive and expensive supply and drainage lines
and unnecessarily extended transportation systems.
The tendency is toward the reestablishment of industry in rural areas
with the accompanying development of self-sustaining communities
which balance industrial and agricultural production.
It should be remembered that advancing technics result in the same
large-scale production and displacement of labor in agriculture as
they do in manufacturing and industry. New problems arise. The
country can no longer absorb the unemployed from the cities; the
cities cannot absorb the unemployed from the farms. An integration
of industry and agriculture is feasible; but it must be as flexible as
possible to meet our every requirement. It could then become the
basis of real economic security.
Another force profoundly affecting city-planning today and tending
also to accelerate decentralization is military necessity. The need
for protection against attacks from the air is leading to the dispersal
of residential settlements and industrial plants. Urban settlements
are being spread out into the country so that city and countryside
are merged.
New possibili
ties
Integration of
industry and
agriculture
51
, 31. A TRAFFIC JAM.
The nation's loss from motor vehicle ac
cidents in 1943 was 23,300 persons
killed, and 800,000 injured. Sixty thou
sand of the injured were left some per
manent impairment.
The death toll, though impressive, is 18
per cent less than the 1942 loss of 28,-
309; and 42 per cent below the 1941
all-time high of 39,969.
The direct economic losses resulting
from 1943 traffic accidents are estimated
at $1,200,000,000. This includes wage
losses, medical expenses, overhead costs
of insurance and motor vehicle property
damage.
The 1943 traffic toll is the lowest since
1925, when it was 21,900. But, despite
the sharp curtailment of motor vehicle
use in 1943, the year's mileage was 84
per cent above 1925 levels, indicating a
reduction in mileage- rate of 42 per cent.
Compared to 1942, and making the same
allowances for travel change, the 1943
death toll is actually 5 per cent higher.
— From the preliminary 1944 edition of
"Accident Facts" issued by the National
Safety Council.
These decentralizing factors, which are changing the structure of the
settlement, will influence all cities and all metropolitan centers, They
will not eliminate metropolitan centers altogether. Such centers,
evidence of the achievement of a nation, will continue to remain as
economic, cultural and administrative focal points. Concentration
and decentralization are not mutually exclusive. They can be com
bined so that each fulfills a useful function. The metropolis can
well be made an economic and a cultural center without crowding
into it vast numbers of people.
52
32. DISORDER AND CHAOS.
The problems of city planning in our day are so complex and so
all-comprehensive that individual cities can no longer hope to solve
them alone. This is coming to be realized here and there. In 1921,
for instance, the Garden-City Society in England proposed to establish
settlements in the coal regions of South Wales and Kent. The Society
tackled its problem on a wide and systematic scale. It undertook
exhaustive researches concerning natural resources and auxiliary
resources, available and possible communication lines, and the com
position, movement, and expansion of the population. Upon such
researches was to be built a regional plan for the economic develop
ment, not of a single settlement or group of settlements, but of a
wide regional unit. That process is suggestive of the trend of future
planning. City planning must become more and more the regional
planning of interdependent economic units.
With the decentralization of the city and of industry, the exodus of
large groups of population sets in. To find expedient measures for
Cities and re
gional planning
53
Decentraliza
tion unavoid
able
this movement is the real task of planning in our time. Administra
tive measures in city and regional planning can be successful only
when they have a comprehensive national basis. The whole nation
must be considered as one economic unit in which each section fulfills
its respective function in relation to the whole. Within the large
unit, city and country — industry and agriculture — must perform
productive tasks in the interest of all people. When we understand
that city and country are parts of one organism, the economic dis
ruption between city and country will disappear. The present destruc
tive division, with its very unfavorable results, will be replaced by
constructive partnership.
The process of decentralization is still going on. It is beyond our
power to stem or to reverse it. It will affect the life of the city as
profoundly as the railroad and the steam engine once affected it. But
we can, if we understand the implications of this process and realize
the possibilities of the new development, direct it into proper chan
nels. It is of vital importance that we do so.
A new spirit Now as always, the conditions essential to the life of a city are depend
ent on social, spiritual, political and economic forces. Each change of
these forces effects change in the structure of the city. We are at
present in the midst of a process of profound and far-reaching change,
which will inevitably exert its influence upon our cities.
But city planning is not merely the expression of changing social
patterns; it is also a positive force in the development of those pat
terns. It is a social and an economic task. It may thus function
creatively to build the structure of the future in which the economic
philosophy is based not on arbitrariness but on the necessities of life
for men — a structure in which people and nations and regions may
find complete development within a world-wide federation.
Gradually modern technics will achieve their true importance and be
recognized as the indispensable tool of man rather than his master.
Technical and economic problems may seem to occupy the center of
the stage today. It nevertheless remains true that their adequate
solution depends upon the resolving of momentous social problems.
The solutions we seek for our cities must be based upon economic
realities. They must also be infiltrated with a new spirit.
54
33. THE CITY IN THE LANDSCAPE.
PART TWO
ELEMENTS OF CITY PLANNING
The rapid and planless growth of our cities, during the last hundred
years, was, as we have seen, responsible for their malformations. We
have customarily assumed that control of such growth is impossible.
Social and constitutional progress lags far behind the achievements
of technology, and in our cities this lag is evidenced by discrepancies
between the means available and actually retained — a discrepancy
which causes many difficulties of our cities. Everywhere natural
means have passed into disuse; technical facilities have been substi
tuted for them. And our cities have become increasingly complicated
in their structure because we have allowed technic to become a sup
porting rather than a creative factor in their planning.1
1By systematically neglecting the simplest elements of city planning, we have provided a large
and profitable field to all the palliative devices of engineering: where we eliminate sunlight we
introduce electric light; where we congest business we build skyscrapers; where we overcrowd
the thoroughfares with traffic we burrow subways; where we permit the city to become congested
with a population whose density would not be tolerated in a well designed community, we conduct
water hundreds of miles by aqueducts to bathe them and slake their thirst; where we rob them
of the faintest trace of vegetation or fresh air, we build metalled roads which will take a small
portion of them, once a week, out into the countryside. It is all a very profitable business for the
companies that supply light and rapid transit and motor cars, and the rest of it; but the underly
ing population pays for its improvements both ways — that is, it stands the gratuitous loss, and
it pays "through the nose" for the remedy.
These mechanical improvements, these labyrinths of subways, these audacious towers, these endless
miles of asphalted streets, do not represent a triumph of human effort, they stand for its compre
hensive misapplication. Where an intentive age follows methods which have no relation to an
intelligent and human existence, an imaginative one would not be caught by the necessity. By
turning our environment over to the machine we have robbed the machine of the one promise it
held out — that of enabling us to humanize more thoroughly the details of our existence.
Lewis Mumford : Sticks and Stones, New York, 1924.
Natural and
technical
means
55
To solve so complex a problem we must go back to fundamentals. We
must learn to see the intricate simply, even naively. We must disen
tangle the chaos in our conceptions. We must define our purposes.
Only then can we plan and build our cities to our satisfaction. Only
when our aims are clear in our own minds can we proceed to find
ways and means to fulfill those aims.
The city and its A first step in this clarifying process is recognition of the fact that
different parts tne city should be organized into industrial, commercial, residential
and recreational areas, and that all these areas must be connected
with each other by transportation facilities. The essential task of city
planning is the proper placing and the organic order of the various
elements of the city.
The individual
and society
Location, lay
out and size of
a settlement
The second step in our approach to city planning is the acknowledge
ment that, inasmuch as society is composed of individuals, city plan
ning should meet the requirements of the individual as well as of
society as a whole. City planning must take account of both individual
and collective needs and their inter-relations. Sometimes the require
ments of the individual are identical with those of society; but more
often the two kinds of need are divergent. Any permanent solution
in city planning must, therefore, balance individual needs with the
needs of society, resolving insofar as possible the inherent conflict
between individualism and communalism.1
The task of planning a settlement is more than the determination
of its site, its size, and its lay-out. Whatever plan is proposed must
be modified by geographic location. Topographical conditions, exist
ing natural resources, production possibilities, must be taken into
account, as must also the relation of the site to transportation facilities.
Sometimes military or political considerations are important. Eco
nomic considerations are always of great weight, for the settlement
planned will be dependent upon the means of existence available to
its people. They may make their living by industry alone, or by indus
try combined with agriculture or horticulture, and their mode of live
lihood must be reflected in their community's plan. The size and
layout of a settlement is also influenced by the particular kind of
industry established there. Any settlement, to be effective, should be
large enough to make possible the maintenance of communal hygienic,
ll'If I might pursue the figure of speech, I might say that the whole collectivist error consists
in saying that because two men can share an umbrella therefore two men can share a walking
stick. Umbrellas might possibly be replaced by some kind of common awnings, covering certain
streets from particular showers. But there is nothing but nonsense in the notion of swinging a
communal stick; it is as if one spoke of twirling a communal moustache." — G. K. Chesterton,
What Is Wrong With The World. New York. 1910.
56
34. PLAN OF PRIENE, ASIA MINOR. See also illustration 1.
'.'*W," i>^<»% -/.••! '•;
', ,%*•/«»•*<?.,".*•<.•*'
35. PLAN OF NOERDLINGEN. See also illustration 10.
57
Traffic
difficulties; a
symptom of
disorder
technical, and cultural institutions within it. To industrial settlements
will be added economic and cultural centers. Eventually the planning
of metropolitan centers may be required to relate and connect the
small settlements, by means of transportation facilities, into one
homogeneous formation.
The lay-out of an industrial city will differ from that of an adminis
trative or commercial city. Harbor cities will be structurally unlike
university towns, state or national capitals. But no matter how much
these various urban structures may differ, the same principles of city
planning will determine their lay-out and structure.
All existing cities have their orientation toward a center. This orien
tation was sound as long as the population and the area of a city did
not exceed certain limits. In communities where people traveled on
foot, the marketplace was logically the center around which the city
expanded concentrically. This was true whether the cities were of the
so-called organic type like Noerdlingen (ills. 10 and 35) , or of the
geometric type like Priene (ills. 1 and 34) .
In the sprawling modern city of mechanized transportation, however,
the structure of the centric pedestrian city is no longer adequate or
logical. As all means of transportation converge toward an arbitrary
center, their zones of influence overlap and traffic hazards steadily
increase. At the city's periphery, meanwhile, a notable shortage of
transportation facilities prevails. The traffic diagram of London
(ill. 36) shows both the typical congestion in the center and the lack
of transportation facilities at outlying points.
Study of the ratios between increasing population and increasing
traffic give interesting results. In 1871 a certain metropolis, with a
population of one million, had ten million passengers annually on
its public carriers. In other words, the people of that city made each
year ten trips per capita. In 1924 the population of that metropolis
had increased to four million and the number of passengers to
1,372,000,000. The people now made 343 trips per capita. While
the population had increased four-fold, the number of passengers had
increased nearly forty-fold. This tremendous increase in traffic is
accounted for only partly by the increase in population and the conse
quent expansion of the city area. The city's disorganization was an
even more important factor in the over-burdening of inter-urban
traffic. No attempt was made in the growing city to establish con
venient relations between residential and industrial districts. Indus
trial districts were scattered at random. As the city of free economy
became a labor market, workers had to make frequent changes in their
58
36. TRAFFIC DIAGRAM OF LONDON.
The figures indicate the number of busses passing through the central arteries in one hour.
places of employment. Paradoxical conditions arise as a consequence.
Hundreds of thousands of workers who live at one end of the city
work at the opposite end.1 Over-burdening of inter-urban traffic lines
naturally results, and existing mal-conditions and disturbances are
aggravated. Some students of the situation believe that permanent
improvement can be achieved by reorganizing the traffic system.
But that alone would not remove the cardinal structural defects which
are the outcome of social and economic conditions. Such a solution
would be like treating the symptoms of a disease instead of the disease
itself.
During the last half century certain principles have been suggested
and general solutions sought for the problems involved in city plan
ning, which aim not at the mere treatment of symptoms but rather
at the reorganization of the city and its structural formation. They
presuppose a fundamental replanning. Two distinct groups of propo
sitions have been advanced. One is based on the old centric system.
*A commuter who spends one hour each way five days a week fifty weeks a year for thirty-six
years winds up having devoted the equivalent of nine full working years to travel in uncom
fortable circumstances through unattractive surroundings with which he has always been roughly
familiar. — Fortune, May 1943. New York.
New sugges
tions: The cen
tric and the
ribbon system
59
NOTE: THIS IS A DIAC3USNTO
ILLUSTlLATt THE. GENULAL
37. RAYMOND UNWIN, Diagram for Greater London.
Howard and
Unwin: The
satelite town
The other suggests the development of a new linear or ribbon system.
It is worth while to study the virtues and the faults of both approaches
to our problem.
In making such a study let us recognize at the outset that both pro
posals seek to clarify and simplify the relationships between areas, to
place a definite limitation on size, and to solve the traffic problem.
The system of satellite towns developed by Raymond Unwin is the
best known example of the solution proposed by the first group.
Unwin's plan is based upon the ideas of Ebenezer Howard, who tried
to bring about an integration between industry and agriculture in his
plans for the development of "Garden Cities."
Unwin (ill. 38) advocates that only those institutions which are indis
pensable for the settlement should remain in the city center. Around
this center and directly connected with it, should be residential dis
tricts for the people who work there. Satellite cities should be located
at a suitable distance from these residential districts. These satellite
cities, relatively independent, should each consist of four parts. One
part would serve industrial purposes, the other three would be resi
dential districts. Each part would accommodate four to six thousand
aEbenezer Howard: "Tomorrow, A Peaceful Path to Real Reform" London, 1898; and "Garden
Cities of Tomorrow" London. 1902.
60
CITY WITH DEFINED JUBURBS
AND SATEUTE TOWNS.
38. RAYMOND UNWIN, City with defined suburbs and satelite towns.
inhabitants, "in order to maintain a local market, adequate for the
supply of daily needs." "Three of such units," Unwin notes, "so
arranged that all can use one shopping center, would be sufficient to
maintain a really adequate number of shops, and besides would allow
the maintenance of a recreational center with institutes, theatres, and
the like." These partially independent satellite cities would not need
local means of transportation. They would be connected with each
other and with the city itself by a transportation system.
Open spaces would be provided between the center of the settlement
and the various satellite cities, and also between the satellites. These
free spaces would serve as recreation areas and would provide space
for future expansion. The possibility of future growth, however, is
imperfectly solved by this plan. Such growth could disturb the equili
brium of the settlement and might thus jeopardize the entire system.
An application of the satellite system, modified by existing conditions,
is Unwin's diagram for Greater London (ill. 37) . The diagram shows
how satellite towns could be arranged around London.
Eric Gloeden (ills. 39 and 40), worked along somewhat similar lines
to those of Unwin, but arrived at a different solution. He no longer
Gloeden: The
coordinated
city
61
39. ERIC GLOEDEN,
Coordinated system of
different settlements.
40. Detail of above plan.
advocates a definite center for his settlement. The center of the city,
instead of being dominant, becomes "first among equals." New settle
ments are grouped around the original settlement, separated from it
and from each other by vacant spaces. Each of these new settlements
is a homogeneous whole, so limited in size as to make local mechanical
traffic unnecessary. The settlement units proposed by Gloeden are
considerably larger and much closer together than those which Unwin
suggests. The number of their inhabitants is determined by the nature
62
41. MARTIN MAECHLER, Diagram of Berlin.
of the activities assigned to them. With such specialization in the city
units, a new city type develops, having clearly marked characteristics
of its own. The physiognomy of one settlement would be very different
from that of its neighbor settlements.
According to this plan, no settlement is to exceed a population of
100,000. Its radius is to be not more than three quarters of a mile.
The proposed area is one and three quarters square miles. About
ten to fifteen minutes' walk, therefore, will bring the remotest resi
dent to the center of his settlement. That center is to serve the
purposes of production, trade, or administration. A belt of woods
and fields between the various units will be at least one-third of a
mile wide. Expansion will be accomplished, not by enlarging the
existing units as it would be under the Unwin plan, but by adding new
units. These new units will be connected with each other by a railroad
system. Any number of them may be added as necessity arises.
63
Maechler:
Functional or
ganization of
Berlin
Le Corbusier:
"Une ville con-
temporaine"
The disadvantage of Gloeden's plan is that it calls for the location of
the industrial area in the center of the settlement. Residential districts
located around this center and the residential districts of nearby units
would inevitably suffer from the noxious gases and fumes of industry
if they were situated in the "shadow" of the prevailing winds.
Martin Maechler (ill. 41 ) based his diagram of the proposed reorgan
ization of Berlin on the centric system. An area of thirty miles radius
is projected, with the city hall as its center. This area is divided on
the basis of the different demands of economic, social, and cultural
life. Efficient arrangement of the areas of industry, commerce, recrea
tion, education, and residence is provided.
Berlin is the seat of administration and industry but its dominant func
tion is commerce. The city's center is, therefore, given to commerce.
That center occupies a circular area with a radius of five miles. This
circular area is encompassed by a ring-like area with a radius of seven
miles. Expansion of the commercial area is thus foreseen and pro
vided for. From the West, a sector of 60 degrees cuts into this area.
In it are located administrative and representative edifices, hotels,
institutes of art, science, research, and education. In a large outer
ring, are the residential, industrial, and recreational areas. Adjacent
to the industrial areas are residential districts for their workers. Be
tween the industrial areas, and along the rivers, in a northeast-south
west direction, lie the residence areas of people employed in the
commercial and administrative area.
Such a city formation obviously requires the comprehensive trans
portation system which is necessarily connected with the centric sys
tem. One of the weaknesses of this plan is evident at this point.
Maechler tries to solve the traffic problem by planning a central sta
tion, a junction for the main railroad lines leading from North to
South and from East to West. He makes this station the focal point
of all suburban lines, and thus affords convenient transportation
facilities for the whole city.
Le Corbusier's "Une Ville Contemporaine" (ill. 42) is likewise based
on the centric system. It illustrates how a metropolis could be devel
oped and arranged architecturally. Le Corbusier's principles are
these: to de-congest the centers of our cities; to augment their den
sity; to increase the transportation facilities; and to have areas for
parks and open spaces. In the center of his city is the hub of traffic,
the central station, which is largely a subterranean building. Its roof
is two storeys above the ground level of the city and it forms an aero
drome for aero-taxis. This aerodrome is connected with the subway
64
i^r^lup'^M1- Wt+IS
I Yin I A'iCn-T II t* \J>*~ --- c^=^-- W--.^^^, c^=^Jjf- -sJ
4 v- i J< ^Mullt.'ftnts^hiii f^i^: a
42. LE CORBUSIER, "Une Ville Contemporaine."
43. LE CORBUSIER, Replanning of the center of Paris.
65
lines, the suburban lines, and the main lines. The platforms for these
lines are located in three storeys under the ground level of the city.
This traffic center is also the crossing point of the two main highways.
It therefore connects all main traffic facilities.
The business area surrounds the traffic center. Here in order to in
crease the open space, Le Corbusier arranges this building vertically.
Twenty-four skyscrapers are provided. Each has a capacity of from
ten to fifty thousand people. The entire area, therefore, can accommo
date from four to six hundred thousand employees. Each skyscraper
is surrounded by parks and has a direct connection with the subway.
Next to the business area is the residential area with its apartment
houses. Eastward from the center is the industrial area, separated
from the residence area by a park. In the open country around the
city are the suburbs, built as garden cities after the scheme of the
satellite system.
Le Corbusier later applied his system of skyscrapers in his proposition
for the reconstruction of the center of Paris (ill. 43), to show how
an existing city might be rebuilt. Le Corbusier's plan may be con
sidered as the most perfect application of the centric system to a
large community. It shows, not only all the advantages, but also all
the disadvantages of the centric system. Above all it shows that
working areas cannot be connected in such a way that means of trans
portation can be eliminated.1 But whatever are the weaknesses of
his plan, Le Corbusier did find a new relationship between city plan
and buildings, a new scale of measurement. He gained open space by
concentration and thus brought openness into the city.1
Circular and During the last few decades, a new plan of urban organization has
street village been evolved which seems better adapted to our present-day demands
than the centric system. As the centric system developed from the
ancient circular village fill 44) which grew out of the need for de
fense, so also has the ribbon development grown out of an ancient
fore-runner — the one-street village (ill. 45) where houses were built
on both sides of a single thoroughfare, where gardens lay behind the
houses, and fields stretched beyond the gardens.
!In La Ville Radieuse, Le Corbusier presents a city diagram based on the linear system but does
not take all the advantages which this system of planning offered. If he had conceived them he
could have established a rational relationship between the various parts of the city; and by
connecting them in walking distance, he could have eliminated entirely local means of passenger
transportation.
66
44. CIRCULAR VILLAGE. The origin of the centric system.
45. STREET VILLAGE. The origin of the ribbon system.
FIX
67
Soria y Mata:
"La Ciudad
Lineal"
Wright's
'Broad Acre
City"
46. SORIA Y MATA, La Ciudad Lineal.
In its present form, the ribbon system of town development traces its
origin to the Spanish writer Soria y Mata1 who suggested, as early as
1882, that cities be built along their main arteries of communication.
He claimed that the city of the future would be so built, and suggested
that such a city might so expand that at its ends might lie Cadiz and
St. Petersburg, or Peking and Brussels. "If you lay railroads and
streetcar lines, gas, water, and electric mains along one principal
channel and place, at fixed intervals, some small buildings., intended
for local administrative offices, all the problems will be solved which
the concentration of population in the centric city brought about. The
expansion of such a city would be simple : at any point along the line
where it is necessary or topographically possible a new town could
be started at an angle to the main line, like the branch of a tree."
The scheme of Soria y Mata was originally intended to connect two
densely populated cities (ill. 46) . A thoroughfare was to be run be
tween them. On both sides of this main channel residential zones were
to be placed in the adjoining countryside. "The character of infinity,
typical of the ribbon town which can be elongated on two sides while
it is limited in depth, makes it an ideal form for civilization and cul
ture," he said. Soria y Mata did not know the automobile and never
dreamed of its influence on city planning. But by separating the street
system of the residential area from the main thoroughfare he found
the solution for the problem the motor car would some day cause.
Frank Lloyd Wright's "Broadacre City"' (ill. 47) shows how the
present-day highway could well form the vertebrae of such a ribbon
settlement, and how such a settlement could be connected with the
countryside, combining agriculture with industry. His model shows
1 Soria y Mata: La Ciudad Lineal, Madrid 1931.
2Frank Lloyd Wright: Broadacre City. Taliesen, 1940.
68
47. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, Broadacre City.
four square miles of typical countryside along a highway. Broadacre
City provides homes for not only the families but it includes all the
elements of our social structure: the correlated farm; the factory—
with its smoke and gases eliminated by the use of coal at the mines;
the decentralized school; the residences differing in type and size.
Traffic here moves safely and swiftly. The government functions are
simplified, with common interests put into coordination for all. Here
are small farms, small houses for industrial workers, small schools,
and a small university. Here are even small laboratories for profes
sional men.
The minimum land allotted to a childless family is one acre. Accord
ing to the number of children, the land allotments increase to five
or more acres per family. The houses vary with individual choice.
"There is the professional house, with its laboratory; the minimum
house, with its workshop; the medium house; and the house of
machine-age luxury. We speak of them as an one-car house, a two-car
house, a three-car house, and a five-car house."
If Broadacre City were built it would demonstrate how city and country
can be connected and become a unit. "Broadacre City would not only
69
48. N. A. MILYUTIN, proposed plan for Stalingrad.
A — Railroad. B — Industry. C — Park. D — Highway. E — Residential area. F — River Volga.
preserve the integrity and beauty of the great nature-features that
happen to be its site, but would add to them another beauty, consid
ered and designed. This would come about as the natural result
of a new integrity of planning and building, with appropriate sys
tems of planning and cultivation in harmony with nature, but not
naturalistic."
Milyutin's N. A. Milyutin,1 a Russian city planner, also arrived at a ribbon
Stalingrad SyStem for cities. In his diagram of Stalingrad (ill. 48) the trans
portation artery forms the vertebra of the settlement. He divides
the city into six parallel zones : railroad ; area of production (industry
and industrial schools) ; green belt with main highway ; residential
area (dwellings, schools, administrative and communal buildings,
theatres) ; recreational area with playgrounds, and agricultural area.
This arrangement makes it possible to reach the industrial area
quickly, to supply the population with agricultural products, and to
place the industrial zone between the main arteries of railroad and
highway.
!N. A. Milyutin, "'Sotzgorod," Moscow 1930.
70
49. L. HILBERSEIMER: PLANNING SYSTEM.
A — Main traffic artery with station and airport. B — Commercial area.
D — Smoke-producing industry.
C — Smokeless industry.
Milyutin aims to bring industrial and agricultural production, admin
istration, education, and housing into proper relationship. He estab
lishes a scheme for an industrial settlement which he believes will
provide for the undisturbed growth of the city.
The author of this book has himself developed a planning system
(ill. 49) based on an independent settlement unit, limited in size and
containing within itself all the necessary elements of a city segregated
according to their function. In this plan, the backbone of the settle
ment unit is the main traffic artery. On one side of that artery are
located the industrial areas ; on the other side, first the buildings for
Hilberseimer's
planning sys
tem
71
Comparison of
the centric and
the ribbon sys
tem
commerce and administration set within a green belt, and beyond
them the residential area surrounded by a park with schools, play
grounds and community buildings in it. An agricultural area adjoins
this park.
Settlement units of this type could be combined into groups according
to requirements and could be modified as necessity arose. The settle
ment groups would form linear or point-formed, fanlike patterns, the
exact form of the group being determined by the analysis of the settle
ment's function and by the conditions peculiar to each situation.
Within these groups the residential areas would be within walking
distance of the working area. The groups would be related to and
connected with each other by a simplified traffic system. Because of
the flexibility of this plan, the city in which it is used might be large
or small, might increase or decrease in size, but it would always re
main a working entity. Each group within the city could be extended
or reduced in size without disturbing the life of the city as a whole.
The settlement would decrease in density toward the open country.
The open spaces between the groups could be used for gardening
and farming. And such garden spaces, taken together with the
adjoining agricultural areas, would achieve an integration between
industry and agriculture.
To make a fair comparison between the centric system and the ribbon
system and to weigh the economic merits of each, we need to consider
two ideal areas of equal size and similar problems, one treated accord
ing to the centric principles, the other according to the linear. Such a
comparison is afforded in two plans, one by Ludwig Sierks and the
other by Peter Friedrich. Sierks worked at the problem by the centric
system. Friedrich made a comparative solution by ribbon develop
ment. Let us consider these two solutions to determine which meets
better, for example, the traffic problem with which both propose to
deal.
The centric plan of Sierks fill. 50) calls for thirty-six terminals from
which two trains will leave each hour. The ribbon plan of Friedrich
(ill. 51 ) requires only twelve terminals. From each of these six trains
will leave every hour. The total number of trains is the same for
both plans — seventy-two. In the centric system, however, the trains
leave every half hour; in the ribbon system, every ten minutes. The
average distance between center and terminal in the centric system is
3.5 miles; in the ribbon system, 4 miles. The running time in the
ribbon system, therefore, is greater than in the centric system. This
extra running time is offset, however, by shorter waiting time, for
50. LUDWIG SIERKS.
Centralized traffic system.
51. PETER FRIEDRICH.
Traffic system in ribbon development.
• • I
4— •— I-
three times as many trains are running in this system as are scheduled
in the centric system. In the latter system, the number of trains would
increase toward the center because the different zones of influence
would overlap as the center is approached. In the ribbon system, the
number of trains will remain the same in all parts except in the center
line where all trains meet. The accessibility to means of transporta
tion is, therefore, practically the same throughout the entire area.
The superiority of the ribbon system, as far as transportation is con
cerned, is evident.
The planning ideas which we have examined reveal the elements of
the new city and the principles which govern the relationship of these
elements. We are forced to conclude that the centric system, when it
Conclusion
73
exceeds the limits set by pedestrian traffic, will never solve the prob
lems which face us today. The more the city increases in size and
population, the more impossible it becomes to cope with such prob
lems. Each new city block multiplies the difficulties at the city's
center.
All the proposals made, with the exception of those of Maechler and
Le Corbusier. propose the establishment of working areas and resi
dential areas within walking distance of each other so that local traffic
may be reduced as much as possible. This would lead to decentraliza
tion because it would divide the city into different and independent
functional elements. The linear or ribbon system, especially when
it is combined with point-formed settlements which increase its useful
ness and flexibility, is far superior to the centric system for the needs
of our day.
Decentralization is one of the trends of the present. We are now
able to concentrate what should, for human convenience, be concen
trated, and to disperse over a widening area what should, for human
welfare, be so dispersed. As we break through unnecessary concen
tration and centralization, our aim is to achieve an integration between
industry and agriculture to the benefit of the individual and of the
community as a whole.
Medical science, recognizing the dangers of too much specialization,
claims that there is no disease — only diseased persons. City planners
likewise should understand that only the whole can be dealt with
when improvement is sought — never the isolated part. It is of great
est importance that special problems be considered, not individually,
but in relation to the whole. Only then can the city be truly re
organized.
City planning The structure of city areas should depend upon the functions they
and housing are planned to serve. The nature of their industries will determine
the layout of industrial areas. The structure of commercial and admin
istrative area must be adapted to the needs of commerce and adminis
tration. The residential area can be planned on definite basic prin
ciples, modified by geographical and topographical conditions. When
we remember that these basic principles are rooted in the needs —
psychological, social, physical — of the people who live in the area, it
is clear that everything which affects the mode of living of these people
is properly a part of the settlement plan. The plan of the houses, the
distances between them, and their connection with the street system
are details of city planning which we cannot overlook.
A satisfactory solution of the problems of city planning can be
74
achieved only when plans for the whole city and plans for the houses
in it are both taken into consideration. Only then will it be possible
to meet the social, economic, psychological, and hygienic require
ments of good human living.
We recognize certain well-defined types of houses: row houses, Types of dwel-
attached houses, detached houses, and apartment houses. Any of
these can be satisfactory if it is built with regard for its purpose. Any
of them can be unsatisfactory if purpose is neglected.
The one-family house is generally regarded as the type which best
fulfills the social, psychological, and hygienic requirements of life.
It will always be the ideal type of dwelling for families because it
connects the house with a garden, a playground for children, and
provides the privacy necessary for relaxation and recreation. The
row-house may achieve a considerable amount of privacy also if it is
planned carefully and adequately. It can, however, never be quite as
satisfactory as the free-standing house.
The apartment house is in disfavor today and the opposition to it
is not unjustified. Most such houses today represent only the negative
aspects of this type of dwelling. The apartment house could, however,
offer many advantages. It could be the ideal home for single persons
and childless couples because it offers certain communal facilities
impossible in other kinds of dwelling. The apartment house can be
built with proper regard for its purpose. It can be free-standing so
that those who live in it may enjoy the benefits of sunlight and fresh
air. Though the apartment dweller has no garden, he can have a
view over gardens. In a mixed type of settlement, where one-family
houses are placed in the vicinity of apartment buildings, leaving open
spaces between, such garden outlooks are easy to arrange. By build
ing such mixed settlements, it is possible to meet the requirements
both of single tenants and of families (See ill. 70).
The plan of a house must relate each room to the other rooms and Minimum
to the house as a whole. It must help in the fulfillment of social, requirements
hygienic, and psychological needs of the family. Let us consider what
is involved in meeting those needs in planning a small house for a
family of six.
The house should contain at least three bedrooms, one master bed
room and two others for the children so that there are seperate sleep
ing quarters for boys and girls. It should have a living room with
considered minimal requirements; but in order to provide complete privacy and relaxation
the definite goal should be to furnish a bedroom for each member of the family.
75
a dining recess, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Each room should have
a separate entrance from a hall, so that it will not be necessary to
walk through one room to get to another. A definite place must be
provided for the activities which go on within the house, and the size
of the rooms must be governed by the purpose they are intended to
serve. Even if the house is rather small, the living room should be
larger than actual necessity dictates. A feeling of spaciousness is
important. Size, fortunately, does not wholly depend on area; it is
also a matter of proportion. If we want to create spaciousness in a
comparatively small room, we must think of the size, shape, and
arrangement of the windows ; of the size and particularly the height
of the furniture, and its arrangement. Light colors make small rooms
seem larger; dark colors make them look smaller. A competent
architect can make relatively small rooms look large.
Sunlight and Planners of dwellings should never forget the importance of sunlight,
housing jn jhg pagt tjje importance of the proper orientation of a house was
recognized. It is only in our own times that builders have flagrantly
disregarded it in their construction for human dwelling, though, oddly
enough, they seem to remember well the value of insolation when
they build shelter for domestic animals. Poultry breeders, for in
stance, almost invariably take care to locate chicken houses toward
the sun. It is good business for them to do so and they know it.
Socrates per- Xenophon, in his Memorabilia., tells of Socrates' clear perception of
ception value of sunlight in home planning. Socrates, he says, claimed that
all dwellings should be beautiful as well as useful. Asked how such
houses should be built, he resorted to his customary question method.
"When one means to have the right sort of house," he queried, "must
he contrive to make it as pleasant to live in and as useful as can be?"
This admitted, he asked, "Is it pleasant to have it cool in summer and
warm in winter?" And when this question too provoked no disagree
ment he was ready to expound his idea. He said: "Now, in houses
with a south aspect, the sun's rays penetrate into the porticoes in
winter, but in summer the path of the sun is right over our heads and
above the roof so that there is shade. If, then, this is the best arrange
ment, we should build the south side loftier, to get the winter sun, and
the north side lower, to keep out the cold winds. In short, the house
in which the dweller can find a pleasant retreat at all seasons, and
store his belongings safely, is presumably at once the pleasantest and
the most beautiful."
Socrates was not the only man of his time and nation to hold this
view. He is speaking, in his inimitable manner, of a basic expression
76
An experience
of Pueblo dwel
lers
of the Greek spirit. When, after the repeated destruction of Priene,
that city was rebuilt in 350 B.C., its lay-out was oriented with regard
to the points of the compass. The residential streets ran from east to
west; the streets connecting them from north to south. The impor
tant rooms of all houses, therefore, and the porticoes and other
communal buildings faced south. In winter, when the sun was low
in the sky, its rays could penetrate deeply into all dwellings. In
summer all rooms were protected against the rays of a sun high in
the sky.
As early as 1807, Bernhard Christoph Faust, a physician interested B. C. Faust's
in social hygiene, advanced the theory that houses should be built theory
with proper orientation. He was greatly influenced by Socrates, and
in the settlement he planned he arranged southern orientation for all
houses and placed them in rows at distances carefully calculated with
due regard for the narrow angle of the solar rays in winter.
That right orientation influences the health of the people is proved
by the experience of the Pueblo dwellers of San Ildefonso of which
Edgar Lee Hewett writes.1 The houses of that settlement originally
faced the south. The sunrays could penetrate into the rooms. The
people were healthy and the community prosperous. Then, on wrong
counsel, the settlement was moved to face north. Decline immedi
ately set in. Epidemics, famine, and consequent disaster wore the
people down, until the wise men and women of the community saw
that the whole Pueblo faced extinction. They advised removal from
the place of misfortune, and the settlement was again turned to face
the south. New houses were built, oriented toward the south. The
improvement in the lives of the Pueblo dwellers w7as beyond all expec
tations. Healthy children were born; tuberculosis slowed down; and
the settlement was prosperous once more.
In contrast to these commonsense practices of the past, a good deal Confusion of
of confusion clouds modern planning. The therapeutic value of sun- today
shine is. of course, undisputed. But there are wide differences of
opinion regarding the relative merits of various orientations of a room
or a dwelling, and also regarding the effects of such orientations upon
a settlement as a whole. Some planners prefer to place their rows
of houses from east to west so that the rooms have southern expo
sure. Others insist that rows of houses should run from north to south
so that the rooms have eastern and western exposures. Their argu
ments are further complicated because a house in a row which runs
from north to south may be made shorter than one located in a row
iEdgar Lee Hewett: Ancient Life in the American Southwest, 1930
Effects of dif
ferent orienta
tion
Room insola
tion
running from east to west. It is argued also that the distance between
the rows of houses can be less when those rows run from north to
south. Obviously, if it can be proved that the north-south direction
is desirable, more houses can be built in a given space and certain
economic advantage is secured. But the fallacy of the claim is evident
when one remembers that only the facades and not the rooms of such
houses receive sun in winter. Their insolation would then be insuffi
cient. For it is of primary importance that the rooms should get
the sun.
By actually setting up plans for a row of houses, we can make a critical
analysis of these much debated questions and arrive at absolute con
clusions. Let us consider three different orientations: one from east
to west; one from north to south; and one diagonally between these
two (ill. 52). We shall find that the insolation of our dwellings
strongly influences the structure suitable in each of these three
situations.
If the row of houses runs from east to west, we can face living room
and bedrooms toward the south. Kitchen, bathrooms, and stairs
would then face the north. If the row of houses runs from north to
south, we can orient the living room toward the west and the bed
rooms toward the east. If the row runs diagonally, we can in one
case orient the living room and bedrooms toward southeast or, in the
other the living room toward the southwest and the bedroom toward
the northeast or vice versa. If we use an L-shaped house we can
utilize this diagonal direction to excellent advantage. The living
room can then face southwest; the bedrooms, southeast.
If our comparisons are to be meaningful, we must assume that
the dwellings we are considering are of equal size, each having three
bedrooms, with two beds in each. Let us examine first one of these
bedrooms in its different orientations and consider the quantity of
sunshine which would penetrate into that room under each of the
three situations. Let us remember that the duration of the insolation
is important as well as the size of the sun prism formed by sunrays
coming through the window. Both duration and sun prism depend
on the size of the window, on the orientation of the room, on the time
of day, and on the season of the year (ill. 53). As the sun changes
its course throughout the year, the form and size of the sun prism
is constantly changing.
A careful and thorough study of room insolation has been made
and published by the author of this book.1 And more extensive data
!L. Hilberseimer, Penetration of Sunlight Into the Room, 1935.
78
D
C
C
D
B
52. PLAN OF APARTMENT HOUSES.
A — South orientation. B — East and west orientation. C — and D — The same plans for south-east
orientation.
on the subject under discussion may be found there. The following
paragraphs and the illustrations which accompany them are intended
to summarize the findings of that study.
In the illustrations which we are using here, the two sidewalls and
the rear wall of the bedroom studied have been revolved around the
baseboards so as to lie in the same plane as the ground plane (See ills.
54 to 59) . The results of this investigation can be considered absolute
with respect to the amount of sunshine computed in each case. It can
be varied in volume, but not in principle, by changing the plan of
the room.
79
WINTER
SOLSTICE:
DEC. 21 APPROX.
SPRING e
FALL EQUINOX
SEPT. 21 C MAR. 21
SUMMER
SOLSTICE
JUNE 21 APPROX
53. SUN CHARTS INDICATING THE ALTITUDE AND AZIMUTH ANGLES FOR LATI
TUDE 42°. After Howard T. Fisher.
Winter and summer solstice December 21 and June 21. Spring and fall Equinox March 21 and
September 21. Approximately one degree of the altitude angles must be subtracted for each degree
in more northerly latitudes, and added for more southerly ones.
Let us note first that the possible quantity of sunshine for the south,
east, and southeast orientation of that bedroom over the entire year
is almost the same for all three orientations.
This would seem to indicate that all three orientations are equally
good. But we must remember that equal quantity is not the same
as equal quality. When we examine also the quality of the insolation,
we find important variations.
Types of sun- To determine the qualitative effect of insolation we must consider
rays and their fae different kinds of sunrays. Three kinds of solar rays are of greatest
importance for our study: the light rays, the infra-red rays, and the
ultra-violet rays. Their dissimilarity is due to the difference in their
80
wave lengths. Their wave lengths depend on their location in the sun
spectrum. The light-producing rays are directly perceptible, but the
invisible rays can be perceived only through their effects. Infra-red
rays produce heat; ultra-violet rays exert chemical influences. The
effects of the various rays are modified by latitude, by altitude, by
season, and by meteorological conditions.
Daylight is the result of the light-producing visible rays. It consists
of both direct solar rays and indirect rays which cause diffused light.
The effect of such rays is dependent on the duration of the sunshine,
on the solar altitude, and on the degree of cloudiness. These factors
exert much greater influence at low altitudes than at high altitudes.
Remembering this, we will realize that we must use every possible
means to effect insolation of rooms at low altitudes, particularly* in
the winter season.
Infra-red rays are believed to be especially intense in winter.' In
summer, when the sun reaches its highest altitude, such rays have
been found to be only four per cent more intense than they are in
winter when the sun is low in the sky. These infra-red rays are of
great importance hygienically and therapeutically. Especially in the
winter and spring, if they penetrate deeply into the body, they bring
a beneficial and lasting warmth.
Ultra-violet rays exert chemical influences very important biologi
cally. Careful study shows that such rays are especially active from
May until September during the daylight hours of eight in the morn
ing until four in the afternoon. Unfortunately, all direct rays, and
particularly the ultra-violet rays, lose much of their intensity when
they have to pass through the haze and smoke which hangs over
our cities.1
Our investigation indicates that when the bedroom faces south, the Results of our
insolation of that room reaches its maximum in winter and its mini- investigation
mum in summer. When it faces the east, the case is exactly opposite :
insolation is at a minimum in winter and at a maximum in summer.
The southeast orientation gives a situation midway between these
two extremes (ills. 60 to 62). In the winter, the sun shines for only
a comparatively short time, is very low in the sky, and, therefore,
penetrates deeply into the room with south orientation, but hardly
penetrates at all into the room facing east. In the summer, wheft
the sun shines all day long, sunshine penetrates deeply into the room
1The National Conference Board on Sanitation states that in one year a city like New York loses
35 per cent of the sunlight that should be available. On certain days as much as 73 per cent is
cut off by smoke and fog, and during a certain period the loss is 50 per cent.
81
DIAGRAMS showing how different orientations effect the penetration of sunlight into a room
on December 21.
54. EAST EXPOSURE.
10 A. M.
12 Noon.
55. SOUTH-EAST EXPOSURE.
10 A. M.
12 Noon.
56. SOUTH EXPOSURE.
10 A. M. 12 Noon-
On December 21 — the winter solstice — with due south exposure, the sunshine in a room is at a
maximum; with due east exposure at a minimum.
82
DIAGRAMS showing how different orientations effect the penetration of sunlight into a room on
June 21.
57. EAST EXPOSURE.
6 A. M.
12 Noon.
58. SOUTH-EAST EXPOSURE.
7 A. M.
12 Noon.
59. SOUTH EXPOSURE.
9 A. M. 12 Noon.
On June 21 — the summer solstice — east exposure gives a maximum; — and south exposure a
minimum of sunshine.
83
DIAGRAMS showing the maximum and minimum amounts of sunlight penetration by different
orientations at different seasons.
f
^v
A' -13
60. DECEMBER 21 : East orientation — —Southeast orientation - - - - South orientation — . — . — .
South orientation — Sun Maximum. East orientation — Sun minimum.
x:
61. JUNE 21. East orientation-
Southeast orientation - - - - South orientation — . — . — . —
South orientation — Sun minimum. East orientation — Sun maximum.
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62. IVTARCH 91 and .Spntpmhpr 91 TT.qet nripntatinn Srmthpnet rvripnt.itinn —
South orientation — . — . — . — Sun penetration at all orientations approximately the same.
with east orientation in the morning and into the one with west
orientation in the evening. At noon, when the sun is high in the
sky, little sunlight will come into the room with south orientation.
During the spring and fall, the quantity of insolation lies midway
between these two extremes. Then all orientation can be considered
equally good.
The warmth of the health-bringing infra-red rays is useful in the
spring and winter only if the sun can penetrate deeply into the room
at those seasons. A south, southeast, or southwest orientation ful
fills this condition ; an east or west orientation does not.
The beneficial effects of the ultra-violet rays may be obtained only
when the sun can penetrate into the room at the season when they
are at their maximum intensity — the season between May and Sep
tember and the hours of 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Here again the south,
southeast, and southwest orientations are the most advantageous,
inasmuch as the maximum sunshine, for rooms so oriented, is reached
during the hours between eight and four. Orientation toward the
east or west is unfavorable because most of the sunshine enters those
rooms earlier or later in the day.
On the basis of such study, we are justified in concluding that the
east and west orientation of rooms is the least advantageous; the
south most advantageous; the southeast and southwest, reasonably
satisfactory. Southwest and southeast orientations are, in fact, to be
preferred to due south orientation when they are combined in a
single dwelling unit, so that the bedroom receives sunshine from
the southeast and the living room from southeast and southwest. At
high population densities this arrangement is possible only with the
L-shaped house. At low densities it is possible with every free
standing house.
Our desire for sun in winter is matched by our need for protection Protection
against sun in summer. Here again our investigation shows the merit against sun
of the south, southwest, or southeast orientations. The summer sun
does not penetrate deeply into rooms so oriented. The sunrays do,
however, strike the outer walls of the dwelling and heat them so that
the temperature inside goes up. To achieve maximum benefit from
the orientation suggested, we must cope with this problem.
Cross ventilation can help to a certain extent. Covering the walls
with vines is also a useful device. An old Chinese philosopher sug
gested planting trees at the south of the house. The shade of these
trees would protect the house in the summer, he pointed out, and in the
winter, when the trees were bare, the sun could find uninterrupted
access into the rooms. There is much wisdom in his suggestion.
85
Structural elements, however, can afford even better protection than
planting. One-storey houses can be protected against the sun by
eaves which prevent the sunrays from reaching the walls. The same
effect can be achieved for two-storey houses by cantilevering the floor
slab of the second floor. A balcony can be provided in front of the
bedrooms which protects the walls on the ground floor against the sun.
For the protection of the walls of the second floor, eaves or awnings
can be used. Apartment houses of several storeys can have tiers of
balconies extending along the whole length of the house. Such
balconies will not only protect the walls from the sun, but will also
provide an additional open-air space for each room.
Population Population density is a social problem; housing, a building prob-
density iem Yet the two problems are closely related, for population density
determines the kind of housing which may advantageously be con
structed. The higher the density the smaller the freedom a builder
enjoys; and conversely, the lower the density, the greater the scope
of the construction possibilities he may consider.
The main consideration in building, up to our time, has been the
exploitation of the land, with little regard for the social and hygienic
needs of the people who must live in the buildings constructed.
Consequently, the one-family house, always generally recognized as
the ideal form of dwelling for families, has been rejected in favor
of constructions which seem to promise greater return on land invest
ment. Feeble attempts to cope with the evils of too great population
density have been made through zoning laws, but these laws have
been altogether insufficient. They have not prevented, and could
not prevent, the increase of population densities in all our large cities
to such an extent that social and hygienic requirements are com
pletely forgotten.
All cities have wide variations in population densities. In their over-
populated sections, the density is often so high as to cause social,
moral, and physical diseases. The alleviation of such conditions is one
of the greatest problems of our time. In the sparsely settled sections
of these same cities, population density decreases sharply. Houses
are built much farther apart in such areas. The city loses its urban
character and gradually assumes the aspect of the open country.
How great a degree of density is consonant with good city planning?
In what ways does population density dictate structures and arrange
ments suitable for a good settlement plan? What factors related to
density must we keep in mind as we plan?
86
63. DIAGRAM showing the influence of the type of roof on density. Provided four hours of
sunshine on December 21, — the steeper the roof the lower the density.
64. DIAGRAM showing the relation between latitude and population density. A — Latitude 55°
Moscow. B — Latitude 48° Paris. C — Latitude 42° Chicago.
It becomes clear as we consider questions like these that the solutions
we seek for the settlement as a whole must rest upon the same under
standing of the importance of insolation which we sought in consider
ing the plan of a single room in a single dwelling. Such an approach
to the problem reveals new flexibility in city plans, new ways of meet
ing old problems which seem insoluble on any other approach.
A careful study of the effects of insolation upon the settlement as a
whole and its relation to population density is available in a publica
tion by this author, entitled: Penetration of Sunrays and Density of
Population* Only the results of that study are summarized here.
!L. Hilberseimer, 1936.
South orientation.
South-east orientation.
zoo
240f
200
I do
120
100
10
tO STORIES
East orientation.
I ^ HflS. 3UNSH1NE
160
Z20
aool
160
^0
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20 STORIES
10 STORIES
65. POPULATION DENSITY AT LATITUDE 51° 30'
For one to twenty storeys, and one to four hours of sunshine on December 21, for south, south
east and east orientation; showing that at this latitude, and by utilizing the valuable winter sun,
little can be gained by increasing the number of storeys.
What does pop
ulation density
,9
mean
Population density may be defined as the number of inhabitants
per acre of land. Since it is reckoned on the number of people living
in a given area which includes open land as well as the buildings on
that land, it is obvious that the length and depth of the house built,
the distances between houses, will determine the size of the lot. If
we are to arrange our buildings according to good insolation prin
ciples, the distance between the houses must be determined by the
shadows cast by these houses. The length of such shadows will be
governed not only by the height of the shadow-casting structure, but
also by the latitude in which we build, the time of the year and the
day, and the altitude and azimuth angles of the sun.
Latitude Permissible population density — that is the density which may be
attained without impairment of social and hygienic life — depends on
various factors. Some are natural and unchangeable. Latitude is one
of these. The correlation between latitude and population density is
shown by comparing the same apartment in a five-storey building at
different latitudes. The apartment in each case has south exposure
and four hours' sunlight on December 21. It is apparent, however,
that the desirable population density at 55 degrees latitude (Moscow)
could be only half what it might be at 48 degrees (Paris) and only
one-third of that possible at 42 degrees (Chicago) (ill. 64). Other
conditions being equal, it is possible to achieve, without social impair
ment, greater population densities in southern latitudes than in north
ern. This is true because of the variations in the angles of the sunrays.
The farther south one moves, the higher the sun is in the sky and
the steeper the angle of its rays. A variation of a single degree makes
a considerable difference at northern latitudes, whereas in the sub
tropical section the effect of such variation is negligible.
Topography is another unchangeable factor with which we must
cope in our studies of population density. More people can live com
fortably and healthfully in an area sloping toward the south than
can live on a level area of the same size or on one sloping toward the
north. The greater the southward slope, the higher will be the per
missible density. That density increases with the number of storeys
more in territory which slopes to the south than in level territory.
On northward slopes, dwellings with southern exposure permit den
sity of population in inverse ratio to the extent of the slope. If the
angle of the slope is identical with the altitude angle of the sun,
permissible density reaches the zero point.
We cannot change latitude; we cannot change the natural contours
of the terrain; but we can determine whether our buildings shall
face south or east or some other direction. And our decision at this
point will help determine the population density allowable in the
settlements we plan. We must take into consideration also the insola
tion period attainable, remembering that increase of density can be
achieved only by decreasing the insolation period or increasing the
number of storeys in our structures. Obviously the number of storeys
we may add is limited by construction considerations.
Orientation and duration of insolation must be considered together
in relation to density. Where the insolation period is four hours on
December 21, diagonal orientation will permit a lower density than
southern orientation ; but where the period is one, two, or three hours,
the reverse situation occurs : the south orientation will permit a lower
density than the diagonal. If the orientation is toward the east an
insolation period of four hours on December 21 will be impossible.
Three hours will be the maximum period, and therefore the density
permissible under such circumstances will be much less than that
allowed in the south or diagonal orientations. Such differences are
much more marked in northern latitudes than in southern. The
permissible density increases abruptly with an insolation period of
two hours and even more so with an insolation period of one hour, as
the number of storeys is increased. This is true because, as we have
already seen, orientation toward the east provides insufficient insola-
Topography
Orientation
Duration of in
solation
PLAN A. 4 storeys 40 people per acre.
PLAN A. 4 storeys 80 people per acre.
PLAN A. 4 storeys 120 people per acre.
PLAN A. 4 storeys 200 people per acre at latitude 51°30' unsufficient sunshine. But at latitude 42° (broken
line) sufficient sunshine.
PLAN A. 20 storeys 200 people per acre at latitude 51° 30' unsufficient sunshine. But at latitude 42° (broken
line) sufficient sunshine.
PLAN B. 5 storeys 200 people per acre.
PLAN A. 12 beds.
PLAN B. 18 beds.
PLAN A. 4 storeys 200 people per acre.
PLAN B. 4 storeys 300 people per acre.
66. APARTMENT HOUSES with different densities and plans. For latitude 51°30' and 42°. The unbroken line
indicates the decisive angle at 51°30', the broken line at 42° latitude.
90
tion of the rooms on December 21. At that time of year, the sun
strikes only the outside of the dwellings and does not penetrate into
the rooms. The high density figures which we obtain by mathematical
computation, therefore, have no actual reality.
To a certain extent, permissible population density rises also with
south exposure as the number of storeys increases. The ratio of this
rise however, decreases in proportion to the increase in the number
of storeys. At 51% latitude (London) the permissible density in
creases, for dwellings with one to five storeys, by about 20 per cent.
But the increase in density made possible by an increase in the number
of storeys from five to twenty is only about four per-cent. This is true
because the land necessary for the erection of the dwellings decreases
with the increase in the number of storeys, and thus loses its influence
on the density (ill. 65) .
Problems of population density relate closely to the plan of a dwelling
and, particularly to the relation between its depth and length. If
conditions compelled us, for instance, to put 200 people on one acre
at 51% degree latitude (London) we could achieve such an increase
in one of two ways. We could increase the number of storeys in the
buildings of the acre in question, but we should then impair the
insolation of the apartments located in the lower storeys of those
buildings, or we could shorten the length of the houses and increase
their depth (ill. 66). All rooms would then receive sufficient insola
tion. They would, however, be narrow and deep, wrongly propor
tioned and, for that reason, very unsatisfactory.
The population density is also related to the height of the individual
storey. The greater its height the lower the population density, and
vice versa. The type of roof chosen also has a bearing on our problem.
At 51% degrees latitude, a steep roof, on a two-storey house, will
reduce this population density to half of that possible with a flat
roof (ill. 63).
All other circumstances being equal, the difference in permissible
population density between the one-family dwelling and the multi
storey building with a southern exposure and an insolation period
of four hours on December 21, will decrease the farther north the
settlement is located; it will increase the farther south the settlement
is. At 55 degrees latitude (Moscow), for example, the difference
in permissible population density between one- and ten-storey houses,
will be only eight per cent. At 51% degrees latitude (London) this
difference will be 23 per cent. And at 42 degrees latitude (Chicago)
the difference will be 70 per cent.
Fallacy of mul
ti-storied build
ing
Relation of
depth to length
Storey height
Differences be
tween the one-
family house
and the multi
storey building
91
How to achieve
privacy in high
density
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67. L-SHAPED HOUSES at a density of 120 people on one acre.
At a given population density, the greater the number of storeys the
larger can be the intervals between the rows of houses. If 120 people
live on one acre, the multi-storey building will usually be preferred
to the one-storey, one-family house. If the settlement were at 51%
degrees latitude, the multi-storey building would not be an inevitable
solution. Here the one-family house would receive sufficient insola
tion. But the rows of houses would have to be close together. Their
residents would have little privacy and a limited view. Two-storey
buildings would be even less satisfactory here. They would be too
high in relation to the distance between the houses. Furthermore
row upon row of such houses spread over a large settlement would
create an almost unbearable monotony of aspect. The one-storey
building, because of its low height, can easily be hidden behind trees
and other planting. It is to be preferred, for that reason, to the more
conspicuous two-storey house. If, instead of the usual rectangular
shape, we choose to build our house in the shape of an L, the one-
storey building loses its disadvantages at this density (ill. 67) . It can
92
be isolated from the neighboring houses and achieve the privacy and
quiet necessary for the relaxation and recreation of the people who
live in it. All its rooms would connect with a garden which, though
small, would have an atmosphere of comparative spaciousness.
This L-shaped form makes possible adequate insolation in every room.
The southeast sun will penetrate into the bedrooms, and the south
west sun into the living room. This L-shaped, attached type of house,
therefore, must be considered as a relatively perfect solution of the
housing problem where population densities are as high as 120 per
acre. It is by no means implied that such density is necessary or
desirable. Our intent in this discussion has been merely to show
what would have been possible if the development of our large cities
had been controlled by the human needs of their inhabitants instead
of by the ruthless will to exploit city land.
The lower the population density, the fewer the restrictions upon the
house plan, the better the degree of insolation, the higher the degree
of privacy. The average density of Paris is 140; of Berlin, 120; of
London, 60; and of Chicago with its suburbs, 50. The average den
sity of city population is therefore, about 80. Where 80 people live
on one acre, detached one-family L-shaped houses can be built in
which the living room can receive both the southwest and southeast
sun, and the bedrooms southeast insolation. Here the L-shaped house
offers more advantages than the rectangular house (ill. 69), but
the attached rectangular house, despite its disadvantages, is better
than the detached rectangular house at such a density because the
space between detached houses must necessarily be smaller than that
between attached houses and the privacy therefore would be less.
Not until the density drops to forty can the usual rectangular free
standing house offer all its advantages, especially that of the necessary
spaciousness. Where the density drops to 20, the L-shaped form of
the one-family house may be reversed. Then the living-room and
bedrooms would no longer need to be located along the inside of the
L, but could be placed at the outside so that the dwelling, like the
free-standing rectangular house, would be best exposed to the sun.
The houses of a settlement would not have to be built according to
o
certain schemes. We have used several plans only to simplify the
problem. But an improved type always tends to be repeated. Repeti
tion, like standardization, is undesirable only when it restricts living
conditions and impairs the welfare and development of the individual
(ill 68).
The freedom of planning houses increases, in general, as population
The influence
of density on
the plan of a
building
93
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L .
-i «
68. EFFECT OF DIFFERENT DENSITIES on the plan of houses. A— 80, B— 40, and C— 20
people on one acre.
94
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StSva fe?
69. VIEW OF L-SHAPED HOUSES. 80 people on one acre.
density decreases. The lower the density, the greater the freedom
in planning the house and its architectural expression. The architec
tural character of an entire settlement depends also on the degree
of its population density. Here also, the lower the density the fewer
the restrictions put upon its development. When the density sinks
to very low levels, the homogeneous character of the settlement may
disappear — a development which sometimes may be very desirable.
In planning four-storey houses at a density of 40 people to an acre
(ill. 66), we are surprised by the spaciousness possible between two
rows of houses. These wide areas between the rows would be avail
able for gardening, but they could also be used for the building of
one-family, one-storey houses. The general aspect of spaciousness
would be retained, for these one-storey houses would disappear, to a
considerable extent, behind the trees and other plantings of their
gardens. By combining both types of dwelling, we should achieve a
mixed settlement, in which the population density could be increased
to 80, the average density of our large cities. There would be room
for even 120 people per acre, if such an increase should become
necessary.
Mixed type of
settlement
95
Average popu
lation density
Building and
zoning laws
Minimum
demands
Spaciousness and privacy are achieved in this mixed settlement. We
can have both, the one-family house with its gardens, and the apart
ment house with a free view over these gardens. This new type of
settlement is a form of housing which meets the actual needs of man.
It gives him complete freedom to choose the kind of dwelling he pre
fers. Here we may see the community of the future (ill. 70) .
The average population density we have used in constructing these
plans for a new satisfactory settlement type is, strangely enough,
higher than the average population density of our cities. How is it
possible then that housing conditions in those cities are so inade
quate? The explanation lies in two main causes. The first is the
enormous density in the over-populated parts of these cities. In
Paris and Berlin, for instance, the density in certain areas reaches
nearly 400 persons per acre. The second is the division of land into
unsuitable lots, so that the city is unfavorably affected even in areas
of low population densities. Certain advantages which cannot be
gained by building on individual lots can be realized by building on
a large integrated area ( ills. 71 and 72) .
If we want to meet certain social and hygienic demands in connection
with population density, we must strive to influence the factors on
which this density depends. Building laws and zoning laws are a
means to this end, but such laws have up to now served merely
to prevent the worst abuses of building; they have given no con
structive aid toward real solutions.
Instead of improving housing conditions, zoning laws have at times
served to legalize the exhorbitant exploitation of the land. It would
seem irresponsible to have made the inadequate small apartments of
the lower classes more inadequate, thus tolerating ever-increasing
densities. Our laws have done this, however, partly because they
have been concerned chiefly with individual lots instead of large inte
grated urban areas, even though the historical development shows
an increasing preference for the erection of buildings on large land
units.
Instead of the insufficient zoning laws we now have, we shall have
to establish certain minimum demands in order to have adequate
buildings. One of these must be that dwellings be properly insolated
so that the precious winter sun may be utilized to its fullest extent.
This demand for insolation should be accompanied by a law limiting
population density. Such a law would differ in different localities. In
southern latitudes, relatively high densities may be allowed, with a
sufficient insolation period. High densities, likewise with a sufficient
96
insolation period, may also be possible in northern latitudes if the
relationship between the length and depth of the house is altered
(See ill. 66, Plan A and B) . Therefore an additional law must estab
lish a minimum area for a dwelling according to the size of the family.
Far reaching improvements can be achieved by laws based on such
minimum demands. These laws will permit the builder to erect
dwellings according to the needs of the people. No matter whether
one-story or multi-story dwellings are to be erected, the builder can
and must comply with the requirements of such laws. But within
those restrictions he can still create with absolute freedom.
70. MIXED TYPE OF SETTLEMENT. Apartment houses distantly separated; between them
one-storied single family houses.
Our studies and analyses have shown us that population densities
as great as those prevailing within our large cities can be handled
with due regard for the minimum demands of human living. Such
demands could be fulfilled in all the metropolises, without enlarging
the city area and without jeopardizing the economic basis of the trans
portation systems and the public utilities. It may be that in the
future, social and economic development will not necessitate urban
mass concentrations with such high population densities, but no mat
ter how small or how large may be the settlements of the future, they
must be so built as to fulfill in their structure our basic minimum
demands: adequate insolation, a limited population density, and a
minimum dwelling area.
97
71. PARIS. View of densely built and highly populated residential areas.
72. LONDON. View of a residential area with open and green space.
98
73 & 74. CITY STREETS: Past, present and future.
99
Insufficiency of
the present
block and street
system
Combination of
blocks
The super
block:
Residential
area
The city today is based on a street and block system which was used
in Egyptian cities four thousand years ago and which is certainly
even older than Egypt. The function of the block has been the same
at all times. It serves to group houses together, to connect them by
means of streets, and to connect these with the entire street system.
Up to our times the system functioned admirably. However our
motor vehicles have rendered this once perfect system questionable
and even dangerous. We are beginning to consider and try out modi
fications of, and even departure from, the block system. We are try
ing especially to solve the problem created by the speeding automo
bile — the dangerous intersection.
In order to avoid too many intersections, each of them not only a
point of danger but also a hindrance to the speed of motor vehicles,
we could put together two, four, eight, or any number of blocks. This
would reduce the danger points and would also create better condi
tions inside the new area of combined blocks. If we put together
eight blocks (ill. 75) , for example, we should have four intersections
instead of fifteen. The combined area of the eliminated streets would
be large enough to provide space for a park inside the area, in which
a school and a playground for children might be placed. This park
could be a green area for all the block's inhabitants. At the same
time the building lots, freed from the narrowness of the usual divi
sions, could provide better conditions for the houses themselves.
Those houses now could have the right orientation, and each room
in them could get enough sunlight during the wintertime when sun
light is needed most. Each house could have a useful garden. Even
though the population density remained the same, there would be far
less sense of crowding. Some apartment houses could be built in
addition to the prevailing single-family houses, and a housing to meet
a greater variety of need would be thus afforded. Garages could be
arranged as group garages. Necessary stores and shops could find
their place within the area. Traffic danger would be eliminated for
there would be no street-crossings within the area — only walks.
This solution of block combination is a step forward from our present
community plan, but it is not a complete solution of our problems.
Favorable as the conditions inside such an 8-block area would be,
there would still remain the four intersections outside of it, where
traffic still crossed on one level. The danger would have been reduced,
but it would not have been eliminated entirely.
If we want to avoid the danger of traffic intersections altogether, we
must combine a considerable number of blocks. We might plan a
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103
The super
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Commercial
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Advantages
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The need of a
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SUPERBLOCK (ill. 76) of, say, an area of two square miles. Ludwig
Sierks first suggested such a solution. In an area of such dimension,
it would be economically practical to replace the four boundary streets
with highways, and to build clover leaf intersections at the four cor
ners. This would solve the traffic problem quite satisfactorily. The
new settlement units, which we shall describe immediately, within
these areas would be limited in size to convenient walking distances.
The park space within such an area could now be much larger.
Schools and playgrounds could be located within these parks. The
street system of the unit would be so planned that pedestrians would
be entirely free of traffic danger. The main street would be connected
with the highway. Where the size of the city would justify it, trans
portation could be by subway as well as by highway.
Such a SUPERBLOCK could also be used in the commercial area of
the city (ill. 77 ). Four groups of commercial buildings, instead of
four settlement units, could be placed within such a Superblock, and
they could be surrounded by a park area. Each of the buildings
would have two parts. In one, which would be rectangular and three
to five storeys high, would be located all kinds of stores, banks, exhi
bition halls. In the other, which could be H-shaped and which might
be a skyscraper, would be many kinds of offices. Each office room
would have sufficient light. Motor vehicles could drive underneath
each building and park there.
Many of our worst problems could be solved with such a plan. But,
as we study it, it becomes evident that it would, if the centric system
is retained, leave us still faced with two important unsolved problems.
There would still be a distant separation between residential and
working areas, and the problems of local transportation needed to
carry workers to and from their jobs would be as acute and tangled
as ever. And there would still remain untouched the problem of
industrial nuisances — smoke, soot, and fumes — and their ill effect
upon the health of the community. These two problems can be
solved only in relation to the city as a whole.
We can never arrive at an organic city structure by merely multiply
ing city blocks. Such a procedure only increases the traffic moving
toward the city center. We need a new city element to replace
the archaic block or gridiron system. The structure of this new
settlement unit (ill. 80) should permit, not only a general solution
of all the different parts of the city and their relation to each other,
but also free and unhindered urban growth.
The backbone of such a settlement unit would be the main traffic
104
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78. HENRY WRIGHT AND CLARENCE STEIN, Radburn. Safety-street plan by means of
closed end-streets.
79. RAYMOND UNWIN, System of closed end-streets.
105
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80. A NEW SETTLEMENT UNIT. A— Industry. B— Main highway. C— Local highway. D
Commercial area. E — Residential area. F— Schools in the park area.
106
artery. On one side of it would be the industrial area; on the other,
first buildings for commerce and administration located within a green
belt, and then houses of the residential area surrounded by a park
containing schools, playgrounds, and community buildings. This
park area would make the settlement part of the landscape and create
an organic relation between city and country.
Theoretically the shape (ill. 81 ) of such a settlement unit would be
a rectangle of such proportion that it would reduce to a minimum
the amount of street area required. Its size would depend mainly
on the number of people living within it, on the density of the popu
lation, and on the type of the buildings required. The depth of these
units is a consideration of utmost importance. Every resident should
be able to walk to and from his work. Therefore, the depth of the
residential area should not exceed the distance a person can walk
within the residential zone, and the functional organization of the
street system would bring about a differentiation of traffic routes:
from the residential lanes, intended only for pedestrians, to the main
highways — for automobiles only.
We should have, in such a residential area, first lanes, then streets
into which the lanes lead, then traffic streets into which the streets
lead, and finally the traffic highways fed by the traffic streets. This
traffic highway would, at convenient points, connect with the main
highway.
All communication roads would be planned according to their par
ticular functions. The main highway would consist of two separate
roads, one for each direction of traffic. This main highway might be on
ground level, elevated, or below ground level. Rotary or cloverleaf
constructions would enable motorists to negotiate intersections and
connections without difficulty. The local highway would connect
the main highway with the residential traffic streets at suitable points.
The residential traffic streets would connect the settlements with their
respective business and industrial zones. The streets and lanes would
be closed-end streets, so that through traffic would not enter or pass
through the residential zones.
Closed-end streets are an old solution, which was suggested for the
cities of our times first by Raymond Unwin (III. 79) and later by
Henry Wright (ill. 78) . Only essential traffic — cars of householders,
delivery cars, ambulances, and fire engines — would enter the resi-
Structure,
shape and size
of the new unit
Street system
!If anybody chooses to live farther away from his place of work, he will have the freedom to do
so. He would then have to use some kind of transportation, as he does today, but he would use it
under greatly improved conditions.
107
Y
AJ
B
T
81. THEORETICAL SHAPE OF A SETTLEMENT UNIT and its requirement of street space.
A needs one-fourth more than C; and B one-sixth more space than C.
108
82. A NEW SETTLEMENT UNIT and the orientation of houses.
To achieve the proper orientation of the houses within the unit we can move the unit itself —
A; or the street — B; or better and simpler the lanes — C.
109
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83. A NEW SETTLEMENT UNIT: Details.
A — without garages; public garages elsewhere. B — with group garages. C — with individual
garages. Note the separate walks for pedestrians.
dential zones. The length of the residential lanes would depend upon
the equipment of the fire department and on the calculation of the
"reasonable" distance for carrying things. The internal street system
would also be influenced by the kind of heating system in use ; whether
the community received its heat through individual heating units or
from a central source; the kind of fuel in use, etc. To provide for
emergencies, the closed-end streets could be connected with a drive
way, running through the park but closed except in cases of need.
The course of the main highway and the traffic highway would be
determined by the settlements to be connected and, of course, by
topographical conditions. The course of the residential streets and
lanes would be determined by the buildings and their orientations,
and modified by topographical conditions.
To secure the proper orientation for the houses within this settle
ment unit, we could move the unit as a whole to the necessary angle ;
or we could move the streets within^ the unit ; or — an even better and
simpler solution — we could move the lanes leading from the houses
to those streets (ill. 82) . If we followed the last plan, wre could use
the vacant triangles on the streets as sites for group garages.
Whether streets should be straight or curved has been a subject much
debated during the last fifty years. City "improvements" have been
sought through the use now of the one, now of the other of these
street types. We are coming to realize now, that the mere changing
of a single element can never lead to an effective improvement of the
whole. Only a change in the 'entire structure according to new de
mands can bring about real "improvement" for use and for beauty.
Incidentally, the question — straight or curved streets — is a foolish
one. The course of a street should obviously be determined, not
by preconceived rule, but by topographical, structural, and traffic
requirements.
The width of a street should be determined by its function. It
should not be decided upon arbitrarily, but should be settled in rela
tion to the number of vehicles the street is to serve. It should not, of
course, be wider than necessary. Streets and intersections of unnec
essary width do not provide definite lanes for motor vehicles, and
they thus increase rather than diminish confusion and traffic hazards.
1By the ever increasing distance of transmitting electric energy it may very well be possible to
heat entire cities with electricity.
If we take everything into account, beginning with the installation of heating equipment to the
transportation of coal through the country as well as through the cities, use of electricity for
heating purposes would become less expensive and create better health conditions and cleaner
surroundings.
Straight or
curved streets?
The width of
streets
111
84. SETTLEMENT WITH SMOKELESS INDUSTRY.
Ribbon-formed arrangement with residential areas on one side (right), and on both sides (left).
112
The width of the residential lanes should depend on the number of
people using them and whether those people are to walk single file
or side by side. By separating highways and streets according to
their different functions, by limiting their number, and planning
them adequately, we could effect such savings that these new adequate
highways and streets could be developed without additional cost.
Within the settlement, the buildings may be of a mixed type. They
might include one-family houses and apartment houses. The dwell
ing types would differ according to the differences in population den
sity in various units. But no matter how much such population
density may vary, no matter how different in aspect the buildings in
different settlement units may be, in each and every unit, dwellings
would be surrounded by parks in which schools and playgrounds
stand. Children could reach school and playground without crossing
traffic streets. Even if, instead of the collective or group garages
suggested, individual garages (ill. 83) were provided, the children
could still reach school and playground without crossing traffic streets,
for each "block" would have separate streets for pedestrian and auto
mobile traffic.
Like a brick — always so typical and yet so various in use — such a
settlement unit could be used for every requirement that might arise
in any city of whatever type or size or topographical character. It
would provide the greatest possible flexibility in itself, and the great
est possibilities for useful combination. No matter how many such
units were combined, the same favorable conditions for one unit
would remain in all its combinations. The use of such a unit would
solve the problems involved in organizing all the city's parts. It would
make a complete traffic solution truly possible. It would create an
organic structure for the community life of the people.
The simplest way to construct a settlement with industry would
be to combine such units in a row along a traffic artery. A ribbon-
shaped settlement would result, in which the residential area lay
on one side of the traffic line, the industrial area on the other. Such
an arrangement would make free industrial development possible. A
second ribbon of such units could run parallel with the first and
could, at convenient distances, be connected with it. If the industries
produced no smoke or wind-borne nuisances, there could be resi
dential areas on both sides of the industrial area. A denser settling
would follow, but the industries could only be extended within a
limited area (ill. 84) .
Most industries, however, produce nuisances such as smoke, soot,
gases, smell, and noise. Countless complaints have been voiced
Advantageous
features of the
new unit
Flexibility of
use of the new
unit
Simple
industrial
settlements
Smoke
pollution and
its ill effects
113
85. CORCULA, DALMATIA.
See also illustration 20.
S
about air pollution from smoke producing industries and much has
been said about the ill effects on health1 and property2 of such pollu-
1During the depression, when most of the Pennsylvania factories and mines were shut down, so
reducing the emission of smoke, the pneumonia death rate dropped to a low of 91.6 per 100,000
population in 1933. With the return of better times and the reopening of industrial plants, and
the ensuing increase in smoke, soot, and fly ash, the death rate from pneumonia jumped from
the previous low in 1933 to 167.4 per 100,000 population in 1936. The conclusion is of course
obvious: an increase in the amount of smoke results in a proportionate increase in respiratory
diseases. — American City Magazine — March, 1940.
Dr. Thomas Barlington, of the New York Health Department, has stated that in his opinion smoke
is primarily responsible for a 50 percent increase in cases of cancer of the lungs. And a Health
Commissioner of Chicago asserted that the death rate in his city could be reduced from 12,000 to
10,000 of population — a reduction of one-sixth — if smoke were eliminated from the atmosphere. He
estimated that between 5,000 and 6,000 persons were killed each year by Chicago smoke. — Henry
Obermeyer: Stop That Smoke. New York and London, 1933.
2Human beings, unfortunately, have developed no special resistance against smoke. Neither
has iron or stone. Smoke defaces, corrodes, and, disintegrates practically all kinds of building
material. . . . This form of defacement, plus the wholesale destruction of merchandise on the
shelves, is said to cause the country a net loss of five hundred millions of dollars every year. The
complete total of America's smoke bill has been estimated as high as "2.400,000,000 annually or
$6,850,000 every day of the year." Henry Obermeyer: Stop That Smoke. New York and
London, 1933.
tion. It is as great a crime, many doctors insist, to pour poison into
a man's lungs as it is to pour poison into his coffee !
What can be done to eliminate such nuisances, which all arise from
our present-day industrial conditions and which harm people and
property in our communities? There are two answers to that ques
tion; two methods available to us. One is techno-chemical devices,
the other is planning. In other words: the nuisances may be elimi
nated either through artificial or through natural methods. The arti
ficial methods, however, are not wholly adequate, and they are very
expensive. They cost a great deal both to install and to maintain. The
only truly efficient remedy is planning — the natural means at our
hand for combating the smoke and nuisance evil. It may sometimes
be advisable to combine with planning some use of the techno-chemi
cal means of smoke abatement, and certainly the possibilities and
limitations of this method should be studied and fully understood.
Large claims have been made for smoke abatement with techno-
chemical means. Careful appraisal of results, however, make it appear
that the amelioration such methods bring is too often an amelioration
for the eyes but not for the lungs, the nose and ears ! The only com
pletely satisfactory method of mechanical smoke abatement would be
to replace coal with electricity for energy as well as for heating. This
would effectively eliminate smoke and soot, but it would not in any
way change the other nuisances produced by industry. Gas and
smell could be eliminated by techno-chemical means to a limited
extent.1 Noise would not be affected by such devices at all. One
might go on piling up evidence to show how incompletely and inade
quately we can solve our problem if we rely on such means.
Only when industrial and residential areas are brought into proper
positional relationship to prevailing winds, is a true solution reached.
The natural method — planning — can be fully and completely suc
cessful. Re'sidential areas, where proper planning methods are used,
may be so placed as to escape all wind-borne nuisances.
As sun and summer breezes determine the proper plan for a house,
so should prevailing winds determine the shape of a settlement.
We are learning to use knowledge of wind patterns to shape our
modern industrial cities, but prevailing winds also had in other times
their effect on city planning. Obviously smoke abatement was not
the end sought by these early planners, and their experience suggests
that we may well consider the wind patterns and prevailing winds
*It is known that the smell of chocolate factories may carry for several miles, and that the smell
from stockyards is perceptible at distances of more than ten miles.
How to abolish
smoke — by
techno-chemi
cal means or by
planning?
Influence of
prevailing
winds on
industrial
settlements
115
INFLUENCE OF PREVAILING WINDS on the distribution of smoke and on the shape of
settlements.
I
I
86. WIND DIAGRAM 1.
I
I
I
I
I
• 1
:
87. WIND DIAGRAM 2.
116
INFLUENCE OF PREVAILING WINDS on the distribution of smoke and on the shape of
settlements.
88. WIND DIAGRAM 3.
89. WIND DIAGRAM 4.
117
even in planning cities which have no industry and settlements where
industries produce no smoke.
Corcula (ill. 85), in Dalmatia, for example, is located on an island
on a sound of the Adriatic Sea. It faces a mountain on the mainland,
the Monte Vipere. The position of this mountain influenced the loca
tion of the city; winds from its summit influenced the city's structure.
The streets are arranged in a herringbone pattern so that the cold
mountain winds cannot penetrate them. These streets are laid out
at an angle to the direction of the prevailing winds.
Four wind dia- To protect residential areas from the atmospheric discharge from
grams industrial areas, the layout of both areas must be determined by the
prevailing winds. The distribution of all wind-borne nuisances may
be represented in diagram form. In such a diagram, the sector of
smoke is more or less extended within a circle. If the residential
area is to escape this smoke, it is obvious that it should be placed
outside the smoke sector. As prevailing winds differ in every part
of the country, no one pattern of location for residential and indus
trial areas can be devised. A new pattern must be worked out for
each new set of circumstances.
Four diagrams show the influence of typical prevailing winds on the
formation of industrial settlements. They illustrate also the great
importance which wind conditions have in city planning.
In diagram 1 (ill. 86) we have a situation in which the prevailing
winds blow from one direction only. A simple ribbon form of settle
ment is the result. In this arrangement, the industrial zone lies in
the lee of the residential zone, in what we may call the wind shadow.
The distance between such a settlement and the next settlement rib
bon would depend upon the area necessary for the absorption of the
industrial smoke and fumes. This would, of course, vary according
to the type of industry and the kind of fuel it uses.
In diagram 2 (ill. 87) the winds blow in two opposite directions and
have wind shadows of equal area and shape. Here again the settle
ment is a ribbon formation. The two most important elements — resi
dential and industrial areas — are, however, no longer ribbon-like.
They have become squares, placed point to point, with their diagonals
forming an unbroken straight line. As in case of diagram 1 the next
settlement ribbon can run parallel to the first at a sufficient distance.
In diagram 3 (ill. 88) the prevailing winds, blowing from two direc
tions, do not cast equal wind-shadows. One wind-shadow dominates
the other, but it does not exceed half a circle. The result is again
118
90. INTEGRATED SMOKE-PRODUCING INDUSTRIES. Wind conditions necessitate a separa
tion of residential areas from industrial areas.
B£
91. COMMERCIAL AREA with residential sections on both sides. See also illustration 92.
120
Integrated
industries
The
commercial
area
a ribbon settlement form. Here the two areas, industrial and resi
dential, form triangles which lie opposite each other's apex. Once
more, the adjacent settlement can run parallel.
In all three cases studied so far the prevailing winds have been
so distributed on the wind chart that the total wind shadow has never
exceeded half a circle. There are cases however, in which the wind-
shadow exceeds this limit.
Diagram 4 (ill. 89) shows such a case. Here the industrial and resi
dential areas form squares which are placed opposite one another.
Parallel and directly opposite ribbon-like settlements become impos
sible in such conditions. A wind-shadow of such proportions permits
only point-formed, fan-like settlements which must be built inde
pendent of one another. The spacing of these single settlement-
points is, as in the other cases, dependent upon the size of the absorp
tion area. In this case, however, this absorption area is not three-,
one-, or two-sided, but all-sided.
These four diagrams show that, no matter how far the smoke sector
may extend, a satisfactory solution can always be found and our
settlement unit can always be used. That unit may not always retain
its rectangular shape, for it may be modified according to conditions.
When integrated industries must be located where prevailing winds
result in point-formed settlements, then industries would be divided
into several parts at considerable distances from each other. Such
a division would disintegrate the industries, and the solution would,
therefore, probably be unsatisfactory. It would be better in such a
case, to abandon our principle that the distance between residential
and industrial areas should not exceed that which a man can con
veniently walk. We would remove the residential area beyond the
reach of the smoke — that is, to a distance from the industries identi
cal with the radius of smoke absorption. The industrial and residen
tial areas would then need to be connected by highways and railroads
(ill. 90).
For commercial areas too a proper relationship can be established.
Because these areas are free of smoke, we need not consider that
problem in their planning. Residential areas may be on either side
of a traffic artery which passes through a park-strip amidst the com
mercial area. If necessary, this traffic artery may consist of a railroad
as well as a highway. Motorists can drive and park underneath each
building in the commercial area — a solution for the tremendous
parking problem in the commercial areas of our present cities. There
would be no pedestrian hazard, no traffic congestion. It would be
122
93. PLAN OF AN INDUSTRIAL CITY. Showing how natural features— in this case the river-
can be included in the planning. The river together with a park form an ideal recreation area.
123
I!!
94. PART OF A REPLANNED CITY ON HILLY GROUNDS. Showing the flexibility and
adaptability of the settlement units to any kind of terrain.
124
possible to walk from the residential area to every building in the
commercial area. Each building in the commercial area could be
reached from two sides, from one by car only; from the other on foot
only. The pedestrian, freed from the dangers of traffic, could shop
as leisurely as if he were in a park (ills. 91 and 92) .
To simplify the problems under discussion, we have considered, in
making our diagrams, only level ground. But the flexibility of our
settlement unit as well as of our planning system makes it entirely
possible to use these units on any kind of terrain whether flat or hilly
(ills. 93 and 94) . Sometimes the units may be used without modi
fication. Sometimes they must be modified according to topographi
cal conditions. They can be so modified and yet retain all their essen
tial advantages.
As settlement units in every part of the city would be surrounded by
parks, and the parks connected with the open country, a wide-spread
recreational area would exist within easy reach of every dwelling.
Only in residential areas with a comparatively low population density
will it be expedient to connect vegetable gardens directly with the
houses. Where population is dense such gardens might be located
in the adjoining open area, though a small garden plot would still
be available near each home. Such a plan would make it possible
to keep at a minimum the length of the streets, the conduits for
water, gas, etc., and so keep the cost of settling the area low.
Our diagram (ill. 95) shows how large gardens directly connected
with the houses would increase the size of a settlement. To settle
a population of 25,000, at a population density of 80 people per acre,
we should require four units. If the density were to be 50. seven units
would be needed. And if the density were decreased to 30, ten units
would be required to settle the 25,000 people.
The location of the vegetable gardens in the open area instead of
beside the homes has certain advantages other than economy. Such
an arrangement would create a productive park system. The recrea
tional area would thus be increased and the cost of its maintenance
considerablv decreased.
j
The free space between the settlements could be used for farming.
The extension of this agricultural area would depend on two factors :
first, the open space necessary for the absorption of smoke, which,
of course, would vary; and second, the number of people which the
area has to supply. The farm area should be large enough to feed
the whole population of the adjoining settlements. Where areas are
Adaptability of
the unit to any
kind of terrain
Increase of the
number of units
by decreasing
density
The city in the
landscape —
its natural
recreation
area
125
80 people on one acre.
50 people on one acre.
30 people on one acre.
95. DIAGRAM showing how the number of units increases by decreasing population density.
densely populated, it would be necessary, therefore, to have additional
agricultural areas in connection with the settlements. This will be
true also at points of central and regional concentration. Such points
of concentration would have to receive their food supply from other
agricultural areas.
Settlement units such as we have been considering, with their gardens
and surrounding parks and the adjoining agricultural areas, bring
the city into close relation with the landscape — its natural recreation
area. The city, in fact, becomes part of the landscape. The one-storey
house in the settlement unit disappears among trees and behind
shrubs and a natural camouflage results (ill. 96). The city will
be within the landscape and the landscape within the city (ills. 70,
92,105).
126
- :-
,.
m
Theory and The proposed combinations of settlement units to form cities con-
reality stitute neither definite plans, nor suggestions for standardization.
They are abstractions. Absolute cities do not exist. Cities are indi
viduals. Their physiognomy depends on the character of the land
scape, on the people who live in them, and on their function in
the nation's life. Therefore, these elements which we have described,
and their manifold possibilities of combination, must remain in the
realm of theory. We need such theory as a starting point for the
discovery of our methods of work. But when we undertake the actual
work of planning, our methods must always be modified by reality.
For city planning is not an abstract task. It is the fulfillment of
human needs; the realization of human aims.
128
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97. AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL CITY Replanned. See also illustration 102.
PART THREE
REPLANNING OF CITIES
To replan an existing city seems even more difficult and, therefore,
more Utopian, than to plan a new city.
Great obstacles stand in the way of intelligent replanning. A con
siderable part of the national wealth is invested in the buildings of
our cities. And even when the material values represented in these
buildings no longer serve the interests of man, man still clings to
them, not realizing that he has become their slave. Because of this
paradoxical situation, many of the recognized evils of our cities are
not being eliminated, even though their elimination is known to be
absolutely necessary for the welfare of the whole community. Where
material values are allowed to overshadow human beings planners
are allowed to attempt only partial solutions. They have been con
sistently and constantly blocked from adopting plans which would
involve changing the structure of the city. But the chaos within our
cities can never be eliminated by individual partial solutions. Such
solutions, in fact, only serve to perpetuate the chaos. And much of
the money spent for "improving" the city is, for this reason, sheer
waste.
How can we — and how must we — change our cities? How can we
eliminate their defects and transform them so that they meet our
present-day requirements of health and safety?
Obstacles of re
planning cities
Old methods
129
The ever
changing city
The city's
environment
We must remember at the outset of our discussion that the old meth
ods of replanning were costly and only temporarily successful. They
reached only partial solutions and were mainly concerned with the
alleviation of traffic conditions. They usually consisted of expensive
reconstruction of old streets and equally expensive construction of
new highways and subways. Such measures improved specific condi
tions for a time, but did not touch the causes of the evils they sought
to remedy. The old conditions soon began to reappear as traffic
continued to increase. The "improvers" failed completely to recog
nize that traffic in itself does not cause the difficulties. Those difficulties
have, a far more fundamental cause, and it is essential to find and deal
with that cause if we are to effect a permanent and complete solution.
The city is in a constant process of change. A comparison of our
present-day cities with those of fifty or one hundred years ago shows
how tremendous are the changes which have occurred (ill. 98) . Will
not similar changes also occur in the next fifty or a hundred years?
Is it not obvious, therefore, that the only satisfactory plan must be
one which takes account of this element of change? Would it not
seem obvious also that expediency and economy alike dictate the
basing of all necessary reconstruction on a comprehensive plan in
stead of perpetuating the present chaos by planlessly building new
houses, streets, highways, and subways ? Only when all reconstruction
is based on such a plan can a new and organic city structure develop.
The process of change is as typical of the city's zone of influence as it
is of the city itself. As conditions within the city become increasingly
unhealthy, prospective home owners choose to built outside the city
limits. New settlements develop rapidly in the environs of the city.
Such settlements exert a negative influence upon the city, even
though the city continues to be the basis of their existence.
Industry, as well as individuals, is in flight from the city, though the
reasons for that flight are somewhat different. An industry, for
example, is compelled to enlarge its factory. Land inside the city
is expensive. An investment in city property sufficient to allow the
enlargement of the plant there would, if used outside the city limits,
provide, perhaps, for the purchase of a new site and the building
of a new factory. The new factory in its new location could be built
to incorporate more economical productions methods. More favorable
production conditions could be achieved, whereas those in the city
are becoming increasingly unsatisfactory. Quite naturally the move
to the country seems attractive. Yet the relief secured by the move
is temporary. Within a relatively short time, the conditions typical
of our present-day city, will prevail in the new location, since the
130
98. NEW YORK'S BROADWAY. 100 years ago, 50 years ago, and today. Tomorrow. . . ?
131
Application of
our planning
principles
An European
industrial city
The city's cha
otic structure
development of these new settlements is proceeding as planlessly as
did that of the city itself. A sound plan for a city must reach beyond
the city borders to its environs and its zone of influence. We must
always realize that city planning involves regional planning.
In order to demonstrate how our principles of city planning can be
applied to the replanning of existing urban communities, let us
consider three cities and make diagrams of their replanning. These
diagrams do not pretend to be final solutions. They are general sug
gestions only, intended to offer planning ideas. City planning will
always depend upon specific conditions and upon the tasks demanded
of each particular city. No two cities have identical problems. Yet
by dealing with typical problems generally and abstractly, we may
clarify certain recurring urban problems and simplify the theoretical
possibilities of reconstructing the city.
Let us examine first two small industrial cities and follow their devel
opment and their possible replanning. We have chosen these particu
lar cities because they have defects characteristic of many of our
cities and because they present varied problems due to the differences
in their prevailing winds. Later we shall examine a metropolis and
show how our principles could be applied in the replanning of a city
of several millions.
The first of our small cities was founded during the twelfth century,
at the lime of the colonization of Eastern Europe. The original settle
ment was protected by its location on a height within a flood area
of a large river. Situated on an old highway, the city was, like most
colonial cities of its time, peopled first by peasants and craftsmen.
During the 14th century it became the residence of a prince and the
center of a territorial state. Gaining in importance during the 18th
century, it became the administrative seat of a small state, and parks
and palaces typical of such cities appeared within it. It was so favor
ably located near a region rich in natural resources, that it devel
oped during the 19th and 20th centuries into an industrial city. Its
population has increased steadily and is still increasing. Today it
numbers 80,000.
As the city gradually developed into an industrial one, its structure
was completely disorganized. Residential areas are located in the
wind shadow of the industrial plants which rose along the railroad
1 C
lines. The defects of such a city are only too apparent. The entire
residential area suffers from the smoke, fumes, soot, noise, and odors
from the industries. Conditions within the residential area vary
considerably. Large parts of the city are desolate; other parts are
situated in the flood area. The replanning of such areas is essential for
132
social and hygienic reasons. The railroad is located on street level,
causing traffic disruptions which will have to be eliminated by elevat
ing the tracks. The main highway cuts irregularly through the resi
dential area and traffic accidents are therefore numerous (ill. 99) .
These structural defects can be rectified only by reorganizing the
city. Such reorganization must be based on the correlation of the
city areas. It must pay special attention to the expedient location of
industrial and residential areas in relation to prevailing winds. Once
such fundamental reorganization is effected, traffic disturbances and
dangers can be easily eliminated.
A simplified scheme shows the principal defects of the present city
and, particularly, the faulty location of the residential area in relation
to the industrial area.
A second scheme demonstrates how, if the industrial area is retained
and concentrated, suitable location of the residential areas will elimi
nate the nuisances caused by the industries. This solution is not com
pletely satisfactory. It still has faults which a more efficient reconstruc
tion could eradicate. Should the city expand, the distance between
residential and industrial areas, which should not exceed the limits
set by pedestrian traffic, would increase to such an extent that mechan
ical means of transportation would become necessary.
A third scheme proposes a ribbon-like arrangement of the existing
industrial area along the railroad. Here too the residential area must
be re-located opposite to the wind direction. All traffic disturbances
are eliminated in such a plan. The railroad and the main highway are
located within a green belt between the residential and industrial areas.
The workers live opposite their places of work and they can walk
to work since the maximum distance between residential and industrial
areas is kept within the limit of convenient pedestrian travel. Future
expansion of the city can proceed organically, along the traffic belt,
with no impairment of favorable traffic conditions. Congestion, such
as might arise if the second scheme of reconstruction were used, wall
be avoided. Considered from every point, the superiority of the ribbon
system is evident (ill. 100) .
The final scheme shows how the replanning of this city should be
carried out. The ribbon of the city is divided into three groups; each
group subdivided into four settlement units. Each unit contains those
community institutions necessary for it. Each unit shares with its
neighboring unit those social and cultural institutions which are neces
sary for two units in close proximity. All four units together maintain
those communitv institutions and services which can best be main-
Three schemes
The replanned
city
133
99. EUROPEAN INDUSTRIAL CITY. Diagram of present state and condition. In lower left
corner the historical development during six centuries — at 1200, 1400 and 1800 A. D.
134
100. EUROPEAN INDUSTRIAL CITY. Diagram of its proposed replanning, 1933. In the
lower left corner three schemes; the upper showing present state; the left a replanning around
the existing industrial area; the right as a ribbon development.
135
The actual re
construction
An industrial
city in the Mid
dle West
tained by the entire group. The institutions of the business and
administrative zones can be distributed in the same way. Adjacent
to the units are kitchen gardens, situated in parks surrounding these
units. Though separated by these parks all these units of the three
groups comprising the settlement together form an urban organism.
Each of the three main groups of the city has a railroad station for
local traffic with the other groups of the settlement and for long
distance traffic. The highway connects the different groups with the
main highway. Communication among neighboring groups could be
also achieved by buses, or streetcars.
The actual reconstruction of the city, in accordance with this scheme,
would be very simple. The existing industrial plants along the rail
road could form the basis for it, and later industrial developments
could be added in accordance with the plan. All new dwellings could
be built according to this scheme. The large desolate areas of the old
city could be gradually rebuilt in new locations. Their necessary
reconstruction might be the beginning of a rebuilt city.
The other small industrial city we have chosen for study was founded
with the settling of the American Middle West. It is located on one of
the Great Lakes, between two large cities, one of which has developed
into a metropolis during the last hundred years. These two large
cities have influenced the development of their smaller neighbor.
Geographical location has also been a determining influence upon its
development. In 1835 a few families founded this settlement at the
mouth of a river, in the midst of a rich farming region. It soon
became the trading center and port for the surrounding countryside.
Rather early in its history, it concerned itself, not only with trade, but
also with the processing of agricultural products and the manufacture
of farm machinery. In 1850, when the settlement was incorporated
as a town, its population was 3,500.
The coming of the railroad made the town's port location less strategic.
Gradually, like many another small trading center, it lost its impor
tance as a port. Changes in agricultural production, as the cultivation
of corn and grain was replaced by the raising of cattle and the produc
tion of dairy products for city consumption, also contributed to the
change in the character of the town. Such new conditions spelled
disaster for many similar communities. For this city, however, they
marked the beginning of a period of new growth. Because it was situ
ated between two large settlements, of which one became a transcon
tinental railroad center, land prices were low there and skilled labor
plentiful, the town gradually developed into a manufacturing city
with a population of 50,000.
136
This change from a small agricultural trading center to an industrial
city provided a new basis of existence. But it weakened the structure
of the city. Two railroad lines traversed it and were connected by a
third. Industrial plants developed along these railroad lines and an
H-shaped industrial area arose within the city. This arrangement of
the industrial area was favorable economically, but it had unsatisfac
tory effects upon the entire city area. All the residential areas are now
located within the smoke zone. Motor highways cut through the city
area, with consequent hazard and confusion. Conditions in the resi
dential districts vary. A considerable number of the dwellings should
be rebuilt, particularly in the old parts of the city and around the
industrial plants (ill. 101) .
Any permanent solution for this city's problems must include the
elimination of all its defects. As soon as a suitable location of the
different areas in relation to the prevailing winds has been found,
unsatisfactory traffic conditions can be easily rectified. Wind conditions
are such in this city as to require the type of layout where residential
and industrial areas form squares lying opposite to each other. The
wind shadow exceeds half of the area of a circle, and therefore, a
point-formed, fan-like arrangement of the single settlements built in
dependently of each other is indicated. The square of the industrial
area can be expanded according to its requirements. All plants pro
ducing smoke, fumes, and noise must be located within this square.
The residential area, also theoretically a square, can likewise be
expanded as necessary. The entire population of the city could be
placed within one such square. But if this were done, the distance
between residential and industrial areas would be so great that mechan
ical means of transportation would become necessary. This would be
in contradiction to our basic principle that the distance between such
areas should not exceed the limits set by pedestrian traffic. If it seemed
desirable or necessary to concentrate the entire population in one such
square, however, a solution could be found by increasing the popula
tion density. This would avoid the use of mechanical transportation,
but it would mean the sacrifice of another of our basic principles—
the desirability of housing the entire population in one-family houses.
We should have to provide only apartment houses. A better solution
would be to plan two settlements. At a population density of 80
people to an acre, 25,000 could be housed conveniently in each
settlement. The distance between the two settlements would be
determined by the extent of the smoke zone.
Each residential square is divided into four converging units. In the
sectors between these units are parks which connect the settlement
The replanned
city; wind con
dition result in
fan-like
arrangement
137
101. AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL CITY. Diagram of present state and condition.
138
102. AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL CITY. Diagram of its proposed replanning, 1938. See also illustration 97.
139
with the landscape. Schools, playgrounds, and kitchen gardens are
located within the parks. To compensate for the different location of
their units, we have chosen one-family houses which differ in their
shape but which have the right orientation. In front of these units
within a park area are located apartment houses where single persons
and childless families may live. Between these apartment houses
and the industrial area are the commercial and administrative build
ings (ills. 97 and 102).
Future expan- Future expansion will be accomplished by the erection of new settle-
sion ments either in a north-south or an east-west direction. While rail
roads and motor highways connect the settlements with one another
and with other cities, the settlements themselves will be free of through
traffic.
Procedure of The actual reconstruction of this city could begin in connection with
reconstruction fae existing principal industrial plants. All building of new residen
tial dwellings could then be carried out in accordance with our dia
gram. Buildings in the slum area could be replaced in the same way.
A reconstruction of the city could thus take place gradually without
disturbing its life.
Chicago: Its Now let us apply our principles of city planning to a metropolis. The
planless and diagram we use is, of course, simplified. This metropolis, Chicago,
was founded in the beginning of the nineteenth century. It is located
on Lake Michigan where an old trade route crossed the intercontinental
river system of the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence River. The city
early achieved prominence as an inland harbor, as well as an overseas
port. With the development of the railroad, it became the center of
a continental railroad system and the most important commercial
and industrial center of the Middle West. Today its population —
suburbs included — is almost 4,000,000. Due to its rapid and un
precedented growth, a considerable part of the city still has an aspect
of incompleteness. It shows all the symptoms typical of our present-
day cities. Industrial plants are scattered over the entire city area, so
that all parts of the city suffer from the noxious fumes those plants
produce. The residential districts are very uneven in quality. Large
parts are in such desolate condition that their removal is one of the
main and pressing problems of the city. The large commercial dis
trict, though it is also to some extent dispersed over the whole area,
is mainly concentrated in the city's center. Here too is little uniformity
of quality. Many of the buildings have become obsolete, and even
the good buildings have decreased in value because they have been
built too close together and therefore deprive each other of light and
air. The divergence between city plan and its buildings is particu-
larly evident here. The existing block and street system has no organic
relationship to the skyscraper.
Traffic constitutes the principal problem here. Industry and, to some
extent, business, is dispersed over the whole city. There is no natural
relationship between these districts and their residential areas. There
fore, traffic has had to develop beyond reasonable requirements, with
the result that today communication by means of motor vehicles has
become extremely difficult and slow. Many costly attempts have been
made to improve traffic conditions, but the problem, which is caused by
the disorganization of the city structure, and that of the suburbs, has
not been solved. We have here clear evidence of the way in which
the disorganization of the city affects the suburbs. We have indicated
in our diagram the zone of influence of the smoke and gases from the
industries dispersed over the whole area. If we observe the steady
growth of the suburbs and their industries, we can see that soon we
shall have the same unfavorable conditions outside the city as now
prevail within the city limits (ill. 103) .
"The growth of the city," wrote Daniel H. Burnham1 in the introduc
tion to his famous Plan of Chicago, in 1909, "has been so rapid that
it has been impossible to plan for the economical disposition of the
great influx of people, surging like a human tide to spread itself wher
ever opportunity for profitable labor offered place. Though few
people are appalled at the results of the progress; at the waste in
time, strength, and money which congestion in the city streets begets ;
at the toll of lives taken by disease when sanitary precautions are
neglected ; and at the frequent outbreaks against law and order which
result from narrow and pleasureless living. . . . The people in Chicago
have ceased to be impressed by rapid growth or the great size of the
city. What they insist upon asking now is, How are we living? Are
we in reality prosperous ? Is the city a convenient place for business ?
Is it a good labor market in the sense that labor is sufficiently com
fortable to be efficient and content? Will the coming generation be
able to stand the nervous strain of city life? When competence has
been accumulated must we go elsewhere to enjoy the fruits of inde
pendence? If the city does not become better as it becomes bigger,
shall not the defect be remedied? These are questions that cannot
be brushed aside. They are the most pressing questions of our day,
and everywhere men are anxiously seeking the answers."
Today, one generation later, these questions are still unanswered.
1Daniel H. Burnham and Edward H. Bennet: Plan of Chicago. Edited by Charles Moore,
Chicago, 1909.
141
Daniel H.
Burnham's
opinion
103. CITY OF CHICAGO. Diagram of present state and condition.
Turn to next page number 142.
The reorganiza
tion of the city
saw.
)arl
he said.
Comment on the City.
The pert, pretty girl in the
bright spring coat was obviously
glimpsing Chicago for the first
time. She sat tensely peering out
the window of the northbound
North Shore train.
As the train twisted north and
west from the Merchandise Mart
she voiced her amazement with a
soft, deep-South drawl.
"Look at all the houses jammed
smack together. Why, there's not j
a foot between 'em!"
As street after street of smoke- j
blackened, dingy houses slid past: !
"Are there really people living
there? I haven't seen a tree or a
lawn, just cement sidewalks and
streets."
When the train turned north
nearing Wilson av., she saw the
wide, spring-greening cemetery.
"Well," she said. "At least
there's sky and sun for them,
trees and grern grass, when
they're dead in this city."
Sp<
The problems remain the same.
Chicago has become bigger and
more populated. Its difficulties
have increased in even greater
proportion.
The reorganization of the city
areas is essential here. To effect
this we must distinguish be
tween two main parts of our
city plan : The commercial area
and the industrial area. The
industrial area may be subdi
vided into two parts ; heavy and
light manufacturing industries.
These parts, together with their
respective residential districts,
form the city. The suburbs, and
also the areas containing coun- A VOICE FROM THE PEOPLE.
. , r i • From the column of "Here is Chicago": Chicago
try residences, are parts ol this Daily News
whole. A replanning of the city
must begin with the reorganiza
tion of these areas. It must establish a proper relationship between
them and provide for their connection with one another by adequate
means of transportation.
Heavy industry The large area of the heavy industries lies along the lake to the
south. This location provides access to direct water transportation
as well as to railroads. In our reorganization, the heavy industries
could remain where they are, for the time being, but they should
ultimately be removed from the lake front and situated along a canal.
The residential districts related to these areas will have to be changed,
for their present location, within the zone of especially heavy fumes
and gases, is extremely unsatisfactory. If the entire area of the heavy
industries were rearranged according to the prevailing winds, it would
have to be divided into various parts, at a considerable distance from
one another. A better solution would be not to sub-divide these indus
tries but to place the residential area at an adequate distance from the
industrial area, and to use railroads and highways to connect the two
(ill. 90).
144
104. CITY OF CHICAGO. A diagram of its proposed replanning, 1940. A—
Park. B — Commercial area. C — Smokeless industry. D — Smoke-producing light
industry. E — Heavy industry. F — Residential areas for heavy industry. G —
Airport and central station. H — Harbor, freight yard and warehouses. Turn to
previous page.
Unlike the fairly concentrated heavy industries, manufacturing plants
of light industries are scattered over the whole city. Some are located
on the river which connects the lake with the Mississippi. This river
will in part determine the future location of the manufacturing indus
try. By a system of canals connected with it, adequate water transpor
tation as well as adequate railroad transportation would be available.
These light industries can easily be divided into smaller units without
impairing the production process. Some of them are producers of
smoke and fumes, but some are free of such disturbing by-products.
In the former case, the prevailing winds will determine the theoretical
shape of the settlement; in the latter the settlement can be laid out
without regard to the winds. New plants of the smoke-producing
industries should be spread over a wider area, but their residential
and industrial areas can still be located within the limits set by
pedestrian traffic. The different settlements form a quasi-ribbon to
which, at adequate distances, other settlement ribbons run parallel.
All settlements, as well as the settlement ribbons, are connected with
one another by a railroad and highway system.
Proper relationship can also be established between the residential
and commercial areas. The size of the residential area here must
be kept within the limits set by pedestrian traffic, so that transportation
is unnecessary in the commercial area. Since commercial areas are not
smoke-producers, residential districts can be erected on both sides of
them.
The efficient reconstruction of the commercial area presents very
difficult problems. The main consideration which has guided their
building hitherto has been, not actual requirements, but the exploita
tion of land. An ever-increasing number of storeys was the unsatis
factory result of this policy. One building, therefore, deprives the
next one of light in the lower storeys. The over-valuation of one
building causes the depreciation of the next. Technical progress in
the construction of office buildings has steadily advanced, but little or
no attention has been given to the problems of city planning which
arise with that construction. As a result of this one-sided development,
the office building has never attained the utility of which it is capable.
In order to determine at least approximately the amount of office
space actually needed, we shall base our calculations on one of the
settlement units of the residential area. About 12,500 people can be
housed in such a unit, at a population density of 80 people to an acre.
Approximately one third of these people — about 4,000 — are em
ployed. Each one of these employed persons will need 100 square feet
Manufacturing
industries with
smoke and
without
The commer
cial area
145
o
o
PS
W
146
of office space, a total of some 400,000 square feet for our commercial
unit. This area could be provided by one twenty-storey office build
ing, having a floor space of 20,000 square feet per storey. Since the
settlement unit, with its adjacent park area will be approximately
2500 feet wide, the length of the related commercial unit would
therefore be 2500 feet. The width of the commercial unit would be
determined by local conditions. An office building such as we have
described, if an H-shaped plan is used in its construction, would re
quire an area of only 200 feet by 200 feet. Enough space would thus
be left for the other buildings required by the unit, such as adminis
tration buildings, stores, restaurants, theatres. Even when all these
buildings are erected, ample space will be left to give the entire com
mercial area a park-like aspect (ills. 91 and 92).
In our diagram we show how the various parts of the city might Diagram of the
be arranged (ills. 104 and 105). The entire lake front becomes a reorganized
park. In this large wooded area are spacious residences, apartment
houses, hotels, gardens, farms, playgrounds and camps. When the
heavy industries have been moved to a canal inland, this park will
stretch unbroken along the entire lake shore. Inland, behind this
park area, are the heavy industries to the south and the commercial
area to the north, both with their residential districts.
The commercial area as well as that occupied by heavy industry is
shifted somewhat from its present site. The beginnings of such devel
opment could, therefore, be made in unoccupied land where new build
ings could be erected to replace those which have become obsolete.
Parallel to the commercial area, but separated from it by another
park strip, lie the light industries which do not produce noxious fumes.
Beyond these and the residential settlements of the heavy industries,
the other light industries are so arranged that each settlement is free
of the smoke and fumes produced by its own or neighboring factories.
The land between these scattered settlements could be used for farms
and woods. A system of highways and railroads connects all parts of
the city. All heavy industries and, where necessary, light industries
as well, will be served by canals. The center of this transportation
system — the main station — lies between the heavy industry and the
business area. Here are the airport, the warehouses, the freight
yards, and the docks.
Any of the areas of the city could be easily expanded by the addition
of new units. A new railroad running from north to south, parallel
to the lake shore, will unite all existing railroad lines and connect the
areas of the new city. Communication with the remotest parts of the
147
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148
whole city area will be possible by means of the network of railroad
lines. Another network of highways provides additional means of
communication. The enormpus traffic problem of the metropolis
which today seems to defy solution will disappear. Citizens will be
able to reach all parts of the city by automobile, not only quickly but
safely.
All the residential areas in this plan are based in their structure on
our settlement unit. The buildings in these units can, however, be
varied according to particular requirements. And, no matter how much
the units may differ, they will all be free of through-traffic, because
only necessary traffic will enter them. The size of the units is limited
always by pedestrian traffic. In all parts of the city, except the area
of the heavy industries, the residential areas are opposite the places
where their people work, and traffic, therefore, is greatly reduced. All
residential districts of the industrial areas are located according to the
prevailing winds and are therefore free from the nuisances of industry.
Good hygienic conditions can prevail everywhere. Sunshine will pene
trate into each room of every house and every apartment. Each house
can have its garden. Since the settlement units are surrounded by
parks, recreational areas are in the immediate vicinity of the houses.
Schools and playgrounds are in these parks and can be reached from
the houses of the settlement units without crossing a traffic street.
If we meet these requirements, we shall have, not only a city built
according to the needs and demands of today, but also a city rather
well protected against aerial warfare. It will tend to be decentralized,
and it can thus combine the advantages of the small town with those
of the large city. The metropolis, too, can be merged with the land
scape; it can, in fact, with its parks and gardens, become a part of it.
"Urbs in horta" — the city set in a garden — Chicago's old motto,
could become reality again.
It is claimed that such reconstruction of the metropolis is impossible,
but the objections raised do not stand the test of reason. Naturally a
reconstruction cannot be effected by tearing down the existing city.
But if all future building were to be carried on according to a compre
hensive plan, the desired end could be reached with comparative ease.
If we understand clearly the necessity of the task, if we visualize with
imagination the steps toward its accomplishment, the means and
possibilities to carry through the work can surely be found.
Reconstruction could begin with the construction of a main highway
and the connection and consolidation of the railroads. Such recon
struction is badly needed, not only for the city's development of the
"Urbs in
Horta"
Is reconstruc
tion possible?
149
future, but also to meet pressing needs of today. Because there is
little space available for expansion, many industries are being com
pelled to move their plants outside the city limits. If the building
of such new plants is carried out systematically, the beginnings of
actual reconstruction will already be made. Thousands of new dwell
ings are needed each year, as old structures become obsolete. They
also could be built in relation to a comprehensive plan.
The slum prob- The rebuilding of large slum areas and the removal of their insufficient
lem and unsanitary buildings is a task we know to be imperative. We
should undertake that task, but not without understanding and recog
nition of the causes of the conditions we seek to remedy. Slum clear
ance as a project independent of an over-all plan can never hope to
accomplish its purpose. A brief survey of the making of slums will
show that this is true.
What has created our slum areas? Certainly not the impoverished
slum dwellers who must live here because here alone are rents within
their reach. Why are rents low in such areas? There are three principal
reasons. In the first place, the houses and flats are old, overcrowded,
in disrepair, and without modern conveniences. In the second place,
the owners are holding their property in the hope that the spread of
the commercial administrative center of the city may bring that prop
erty into demand as a skyscraper site. While they wait for their
property valuation to be thus suddenly increased, they are content to
make from the obsolete structures on their land just enough to pay
the taxes. This hopeful waiting is, of course, useless, for as the modern
office building tends to increase in height the area required for com
merce and administration tends to decrease, and the possibility of
increased valuations in the slum area becomes more and more remote.
In the third place, as warehouses and factories with their smoke and
fumes encroach upon these once desirable residential districts, their
tenants leave in search of more pleasant surroundings.
It is possible to approach slum clearance by the simple expedient
of replacing obsolete apartments and houses with modern dwelling
units. But such an approach is futile. The factories would still re
main, and therefore the new buildings would be far less attractive than
dwellings in the suburban districts with their better air and more
favorable surroundings.
If we undertake to clear these slums then, we must ask ourselves:
Who will occupy the new dwellings built to replace obsolete struc
tures? Will the tenants of the old slum tenement move into the newer
better homes, or will new tenants who can pay higher rentals take their
150
place? If old tenants are driven out, where will these old tenants
find homes?
It has been argued that people now living in the suburbs would move
back into such new dwellings in order to be nearer their places of
work. It does not seem quite plausible, however, that such suburban
ites would exchange their more favorable living conditions for those of
a congested city center, even though that center were greatly improved.
It is much more probable that families living within the city in old
dwellings where they pay substantial rentals would move into the new
houses. Former slum dwellers might then fill the vacancies these
families left, but they would not be able to pay as high rentals as their
more prosperous predecessors had paid. The landlords might balance
their reduced income on these houses by neglecting upkeep ; or they
might subdivide the property so that they could take more tenants
into the same space and thus increase their returns. In either case, a
higher population density would result and another slum be produced.
The disease would have moved from one part of the city to another,
but it would still exist. Investments in land and building in these
rebuilt districts would soon depreciate. Slum clearing can be effective
only when based on an adequate city structure.
During the next generation an estimated half a million new houses
will have to be built in Chicago. This means rehousing half the
city's population. Such a vast housing program would make it pos
sible to change the whole city.
All these new buildings could be built according to a comprehensive
plan. Gradually, without forcing a change, those parts of the city
which are becoming obsolescent would be reconstructed according
o G
to the plan without impairing the life of the city. The best of plans,
however, is inadequate unless there is behind it a determined will
to execute structural changes according to its provisions. Onlv where
there is a will to do so can permanent values be created. The aims
of city planning are not determined by present needs alone, but also
by the needs of the future.
In June, 1942, the M.A.R.S. group published the Master Plan For
London (ill. 107 )\ If we venture to compare that plan with the
diagrammatic sketch for a future London which this author worked
out in 1941, we do so only because planning is an all-comprehensive
subject. Comparison of two solutions, discussion of the relative merits
of the two plans, helps to clarify the problems of planning. Every op
portunity for such comparison and discussion should be fully utilized.
^Architectural Review. London. June, 1942.
How
reconstruction
achieved
can
"Master plan
for London"
151
CMOOl
107. THE M. A. R. S. PLAN FOR LONDON. 1— Residential area. 2— Commercial administration. 3—
Political administration. 4 — Shopping center. 5 — Cultural center and park. 6 — Western industries. 7 —
Eastern industries and Port of London. 8 — Local industries.
A — Main passenger station. B — Main goods station. C — Secondary goods station. D — Market halls.
Analysis The M.A.R.S. plan reveals its merits at first glance. Its great freshness
of conception is apparent. It does not indeed, err on the side of the
academic and the conventional.
The "herringbone" arrangement is evidence of structural thinking
which renders the plan most convincing. The "vertebra" of this
herringbone comprises the areas of administrative and commercial
buildings, with the docks and industries at its ends. The "bones" are
the residential areas with the local industries at their ends. Between
the residential ribbons are parks and recreation grounds where schools
and playing fields are located. All parts of the city are connected by an
interurban railroad system, whose stations are within walking distance
even from the remote parts of the residential area. The long-distance
lines are connected by means of a belt which forms a traffic ring to
the north and south, meeting in a central line where the main pas
senger stations are located.
Traffic Interesting as the plan is, however, it does seem to fail in its solution
of certain fundamental problems.
One of these is the problem of transportation and traffic.
Since Ebenezer Howard, repeated discussions have centered on the
152
108. A DIAGRAMMATIC SKETCH FOR LONDON, 1941. 1— Political administration with residential areas.
2. — Financial administration with residential areas. 3 — Commercial administration with residential areas. 4 —
Central station. 5 — Smokeless industry with residential areas. 6 — Smoke-producing industry with residential areas.
7 — Port of London. 8 — Long distance railroad. 10 — Main railway station. 11 — Airport. 12 — Railroad yards. 13 —
Possible extensions. 14 — Wind diagram.
best means of establishing a more satisfactory relation between work
ing and residential areas. Special thought has been given to limiting
the distance between such areas to a reasonable walking time. The
end sought was the elimination of transportation between areas and
the consequent saving of time, effort, and money.
The M.A.R.S. Plan does not establish such a relationship between
working and residential areas. The two areas are separated so that
much traffic will be necessary and traffic congestion within the working
area will be inevitable. The nucleus of the city remains crowded and
hazardous. It is still exposed to the same dangers the old city experi
enced in air raids. Only the residential areas have been decentralized.
Why not go a step further and decentralize also the working areas,
bringing them into direct relation to the residential ones?
Another point where the M.A.R.S. Plan is weak is in its handling
of the smoke nuisance. The adverse effects of smoke upon the health
Industry
153
of the city population have always been considered a failure of otfr
industrial cities. An official report issued in London in 1940 states:
"One of the Medical Officers of Health went so far as to state that the
lack of success in controlling smoke was the great failure of modern
public health. It is true that smoke pollution still persists to a harmful
extent in many large towns, and the adverse effects of smoke are not
confined to health. It is unquestionable that smoke costs the country
many millions of pounds a year."1 Much has been achieved in the field
of smoke abatement. The use of power, for example, has eliminated
many sources of smoke. However, this step toward healthy living
has achieved success only in certain industries, whereas others have
not been affected favorably. Even if the smoke nuisance could be
completely abated, other nuisances, such as gases and noise, would
remain. A complete solution of this nuisance problem can be reached
only when those who plan cities divide industries into two classes:
those which cause nuisances, and those which do not ; and provide for
the location of industries of the first class according to wind directions.
The M.A.R.S. Plan locates industries without regard to wind condi
tions and the subsequent effects of industrial nuisances upon the city.
To dissipate these nuisances, an absorption area is required. Indus
trial areas should, therefore, be farther from each other and from
commercial and administrative areas than this plan provides.
Railroads A third weakness in the M.A.R.S. plan has to do with the position
of transportation lines and their connections. The terminals of the first
railroads were always located at the periphery of the old city. As
cities developed and expanded, this arrangement created great obsta
cles to the free movement of goods and passengers. To connect the
different lines within the city itself was proposed, but it would have
been extremely costly. Therefore, the lines were connected by means
of a belt line outside of the city.
The M.A.R.S. Plan seems to apply the same method, fencing the city
in, as it were. This is obviously a fault in the plan, and perhaps a fault
which could be simply avoided. For instance, lines leading to different
cities could branch from a main line without destroying the structural
shape of the city.
Housing Finally the M.A.R.S. Plan appears limited in the kind of housing
facilities it proposes.
Different forms of dwellings have both advantages and disadvantages.
The one-family house is the ideal dwelling for families with children,
because it has the obvious advantages of privacy and a garden space
1Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population. Report. London. 1940.
154
for children to play in. The apartment house is the ideal form of
dwelling for childless couples and single persons. A combination of
these two f.orms would, therefore, best serve the needs of a community
including both groups.
The M.A.R.S. Plan appears to favor apartment houses. It does not,
therefore, provide for all kinds of people. The use of the apartment
type is not conditioned by lack of space. The average population
density is 75 persons to one acre. It would be quite possible to build
free-standing family dwellings of varied types as well as apartment
houses.
Our own diagramatic sketch (ill. 108) divides the city into two parts.
To the north of the River Thames are the areas for administrative
and commercial buildings, with their residential areas located in parks.
South of the river are the industrial areas, with their residential parts
likewise in parks. The two parts of the city are separated by a large park
area, through which flows the Thames. In this park area are located
the main highway; the main railroad line with its central station;
the airport; and, at the east end, the docks. All parts of the city are
connected by an interurban highway and railroad system. The ribbons
of the administrative and commercial areas could also be connected
with each other by a bus line leading over a highway through the park
areas between the ribbons. The main highway and main railroad lines
run from east to west and connect with all long-distance lines. These
long-distance lines branch off in any convenient direction without
interfering with the city structure.
The basic principle would be to connect all working areas with their
respective residential areas and place these areas within walking dis
tance of each other. Thus the bulk of the traffic would be eliminated.
Both areas would, moreover, be decentralized.
The administrative and commercial districts are arranged in a manner
like that shown in ills. 91 and 92. On both sides of the highway and
railroad system are office buildings, department stores, shops and all
the buildings necessary in this zone. Separated from the structures
by a park strip are the residential parts of this area.
Each building in the administrative areas, as well as each settlement
in the residential areas, can be reached by automobile on traffic streets
which connect with the highway at suitable points. Cars can be driven
and parked underneath each building in the administrative areas, thus
solving the parking problem. Each building in the administrative area
can also be reached on foot from the residential area.
Our diagram
matic sketch
for London
Administrative
and
commercial
districts
155
area
Possibilities of
expansion
The industrial The industrial area is divided into two parts. One contains those
industries which produce smoke and fumes, the other those which
do not. The latter are arranged in a manner similar to that illustrated
in ill. 84, left. The layout of the industries producing smoke and
fumes is determined by prevailing winds. Those winds in London —
(See wind diagram) — blow north-northeast and south-southwest,
influencing settlements in a manner somewhat comparable to the
arrangement illustrated in No. 2 of our wind diagrams (ill. 87). To
provide the necessary absorption area for smoke and fumes, these
industries and their settlements have to be spread over a large area.
All residential districts are divided into units, similar to those shown
in ill. 80. Their streets are so arranged that the surrounding parks,
with their schools and playgrounds, can be safely reached without
crossing a traffic street.
The park areas between the two parts of the city, and between the
settlements and ribbons, include vegetable gardens, woods, and farms.
They are, therefore, productive parks.
The city could be expanded in either of two ways. The city as a whole
might grow (as indicated) ; or any one part of it might be expanded.
It is interesting to speculate, however, whether the city, especially
the metropolis, will be as necessary in the future as we now believe
it to be. Decentralization will influence our cities, as concentration
once did, possibly much more than we know or can imagine. City
planning would then become regional planning, or national planning.
Its aspects and its significance would be greatly changed.
Our diagrammatic sketch is a mere outline of the problem involved.
Much more data, more maps and statistics not now available, would
have to be analyzed before the details of that sketch were filled in.
Topography and local conditions will modify the scheme. However
in a planning system as flexible as this one, such change is easy and
adaptable to any conditions or size.
The city changes constantly. Houses, streets, bridges, transportation
lines become obsolete and have to be rebuilt and replaced. In London,
dwellings for four million people were built during the last twenty
years. Just think what could have been done if these new houses and
the schools, streets, and transportation lines built in the same years
had been built and placed according to a comprehensive plan of
London !
New York: The commercial area of New York — Manhattan — is one of the over-
Manhattan congested Metropolitan areas. It presents the most difficult planning
problems, and these problems seem to defy any solution. Approach by
156
technical means have failed, because the central problem is not merely
a technical but basically a structural one. Only if the right structure
has been found, can technical means be employed successfully. The
recent suggestion by Herman Herrey1 still fails to meet this test. He
proposes a super-structure, a Highway belt some 80 feet high consist
ing of six separate levels for truck, bus, passenger and express traffic,
and two levels for parking. His suggestion is technically admirable
but it would not change very much basically, and would not create a
new structure. This proposal is reminiscent of the attempted sky
scraper solution, which did not eliminate the then existing problems,
but rather added immeasurably to the difficulties which are prevalent
to this day. Planning is more than the use of technical means. Its
main purpose will always be to provide a framework for life. One
wonders how life in all its ways can be maintained in such an over-
congested area as Manhattan has become.
Every new highway leading out of a city has a concentrating as well
as dispersing effect and will unavoidably increase traffic in its center.
Only when working areas are connected with their residential areas
in walking distance can traffic be reduced and more of it eliminated.
In a diagrammatic sketch, ///. 109, we applied our planning principles
to the commercial area of New York. Ills. 91 and 92 show how we
developed another commercial area, a scheme which modified accord
ing to local features could also be applied to Manhattan.
Our suggestion is based on a simplified traffic system. A traffic belt
is suggested consisting of two highways, one local which connects all
units of the residential area, and one for express traffic. These high
ways can be connected with each other at convenient points. Subways
or cut-in drives could, wherever convenient or necessary, connect both
traffic belts and also any other part of the city. Outside of this traffic
belt is located a strip of buildings needed for commerce, offices, stores,
and so on. Then, separated by a green belt, follow the units of the
residential area. Residential units and commercial buildings are
everywhere within walking distance of each other. Between traffic
belts is a huge park area; an extension of Central Park North and
South. Within this park area are hotels and apartment houses in very
spacious arrangement. It will be possible to drive and park under
neath each building in the commercial area as well as under hotels
and apartment houses. The parking problem which appears to defy
any solution so far would then be eliminated.
About 80% of Manhattan's buildings are overaged and obsolete and
February, 1944.
157
Two schools of
thought in city
planning
Procedure of
rebuilding a
city
will have to be replaced before long. Here is a great oportunity for a
planned rebuilding. After a comprehensive plan, Manhattan could
be changed gradually. All good buildings could be used until they
are obsolete. Rockefeller Center, for example, would be located in
the park and would remain there during its useful lifetime.
We have limited our suggestion to the commercial area. To replan the
metropolitan area of New York is a problem of regional planning.
Regional planning however makes the city an integrated part of the
region so that "the ruralizing of the stony wastes of our cities" as
Lewis Mumford puts it, become possible. Our suggestion is an attempt
to ruralize the stony wastes of the city. Manhattan could become a
park and garden city and still maintain its importance.
There are two schools of thought in city planning. One takes into
consideration only parts of a city, without connecting these with the
whole. "Little" things are thought about, and little parts are changed.
Everything is done on a "sound basis." This is the school of the prac
tical man. Paradoxically, this practical work, which considers econ
omy first, eventually reveals itself as impractical and unsound. The
expense it entails is futile expense. The city so tinkered with remains
essentially the same.
The second school thinks about the city as a whole, its zone of influ
ence, its function in the region, and in the nation. It takes everything
into consideration and tries to conceive of the needs and function
of the city as an entity.
This school is often regarded as impractical and theoretical. It is
indeed accused of being destructive, eager to tear everything down.
Its real purpose, however, is to reconstruct the city, according to a
plan, building everything in its proper place.
Such a plan should be completely flexible. It should provide for
future growth or future shrinkage in the city without disintegration of
its unity. It should plan to use buildings as long as they are useful
and to replace them when they become obsolete. Provision should, of
course, be made for the preservation of certain historical landmarks.
The city could be changed step-by-step by the careful and patient
following of such a plan. And the expense incurred at each step would
be sound constructive investment.
Four diagrams show the steps in rebuilding a city. The city repre
sented is an industrial one which has all the disadvantages of our
existing cities. Four diagrams show, in a synoptical way, how its dis-
158
109. MANHATTAN. A diagrammatic sketch of its replanning.
order could gradually give place to constructive order, without inter
ference of the city's life during the reconstruction.
Diagram A (ill, 110) shows the present city; its disorganization, the
disorder of its parts, and the lack of relation between residential and
159
working area. It also illustrates the all-pervasive nuisance of smoke
and fumes from the scattered industries. Highways and railroads radi
ate from the center of the city, cutting it into disjointed parts.
Diagram B (ill. Ill) shows the first step in rebuilding. A new rail
road and highway system has been constructed, and some of the
smoke-producing industries have been moved to new locations accord
ing to plan. Workers employed in these factories can, for the time
being, live in their old houses and reach their places of work by the
newly built railroads and highways.
In Diagram C (ill. 112) the removal of most of the factories of smoke
producing industries has been accomplished. Some of the other
industries and parts of the commercial areas and their respective
residential areas have been established also in new planned locations.
Diagram D (ill. 113) shows the completed reorganization of the city
with everything in its proper place. The change could be accom
plished gradually within one or two generations. The new city would
be not only a better working "organism" economically, but also a
better and a more pleasant place to live.
The same method could be applied to large as well as to small cities. It
would work a transformation, but it wTould in no way disrupt the life
of the city in the process.
The purpose of The diagrams presented here make no claim to be complete solutions
our city of the problems involved. They are rather a framework for solutions,
diagrams Tneir main purpose is to encourage discussion about the traffic and
planning problems which we have to face.
Administration
and legislation
All communities, especially the larger ones, are today confronted
with the necessity of replanning and rebuilding themselves. It is the
task of the present and of the future to eliminate existing defects by
productive reconstruction. Only by the creation of an adequate city
structure can the rebuilding of the city be effective. Prerequisite to
such reconstruction are : a comprehensive city plan which takes every
thing into consideration, and a new kind of zoning which determines
where what may be built.
The rebuilding of a city has its important influence on administration
and legislation — local, state, and national. Our modern metropolis,
because of the rapidity of its technological development, has become
too small for effective administration and for some essential services
— such as water, power, sewage disposal, and transportation, which
the city provides and controls. The suburbs, meanwhile, cling to a
theory of administrative independence which, in fact, no longer
160
exists. They have become part of the larger city upon which they are
dependent for their livelihood. But the old habit persists and subur
banites vigorously refuse to recognize that dependence. They want
to have all the advantages they can derive from the large city without
assuming any responsibility for its maintenance. The trend, however,
is strongly toward an integration of city and suburbs. Such unifica
tion is prerequisite for effective city development.
The cost of city rebuilding makes many officials shake their heads
when plans for such rebuilding are proposed. It has been the regret
table tendency of our time' to regard money, not as a means to an
end, but as the end in itself. We recognize that an individual is con
cerned with quick financial return on his investments. We forget
that a community is not bound by the same necessity. In time of
war, we somehow see these facts more clearly. Adolph A. Berle,
Assistant Secretary of State, says: "Too often the opportunities for
improvement of our social structure have been lost, not because we
did not know how, but because no one really wanted to make them
effective. In finance, for example, there are techniques which are as
able to rebuild and to rehouse the United States as they are to equip
an army. They have not been used primarily because there was no
compelling desire to use them."
In planning and building cities, the best solution is also the most
economical solution. But we must remember that temporary economy
quite often proves to be a burden in the future, and that the fortuitous
gain for an individual frequently becomes community loss. Real
economy in the building of dwellings and cities cannot be effected by
saving money through reduction of space. It can be achieved only
by perfect planning and construction, and by reducing the costs of
production.
The automobile is no longer a luxury. Mass production methods have
made it available to all. Mass production could also decrease the costs
of houses and put well-built structures within the reach of all. The
late Edsel Ford, president of the Ford Motor Company, told the
Federal Monopoly Committee on April 10, 1940, that the cost of a
popular priced automobile, then selling for about $700, would be
more than $17,000 if it were manufactured by hand labor instead
of by huge labor-saving machines. At $17,000, probably not more
than 50 cars a year could be sold, and few of the 125,000 men
employed at Ford's plants would have their jobs. Houses as well as
motor cars could be mass-fabricated. Their parts could be produced
in quantity and assembled into different types of dwellings without
making the houses stereotyped.
Finance prob
lems
Economy of
planning
The pre-fabri-
cated house
161
PROCEDURE OF REBUILDING A CITY
110. A. EXISTING STATE AND CONDITIONS. Disorder and no relation between the various
areas.
111. B. FIRST STEP. Relocation of railroads and highways. Parts of smoke-producing in
dustries removed.
162
PROCEDURE OF REBUILDING A CITY
112. C. SECOND STEP. Most of the smoke-producing and parts of the smokeless industries,
the commercial areas, as well as their respective residential sections removed.
113. D. THIRD STEP. Within two generations an entirely new city can be gradually built.
A — Central station and airport, B — Civic center, C — Commercial area, D — Smokeless industry, E —
Smoke-producing industry.
Charles Brees-
ey's proposal
Pooling of own
ership
Mortgages and
their amortiza
tion
Rebuilding
without loss of
national wealth
Passive obser
vation or cre
ative action?
The prefabricated house, which has seemed until recently merely an
interesting theory, is now becoming a reality. Some companies are
working out production methods for such houses, but Henry Kaiser
has gone ahead of plans to concrete proposals. He proposes to pro
duce a six-room house, prefabricated and completely outfitted, at the
cost of $1500.
Sir Charles Breesey and Sir Edwin Lutyens have made interesting
suggestions for practical economy in the reconstruction of London.
Sir Charles Breesey proposes planning new traffic routes instead of
widening existing streets. He believes that the cost of improving
traffic conditions in city districts where buildings have high value
is out of proportion to the advantages gained. It would be more expe
dient, in his opinion, to use funds available for the improvement of
traffic conditions for the planning of necessary traffic routes through
obsolete city districts.
Sir Gwilyn Gibbon suggests a plan to avoid the complications which
ensue when individual owners must be dealt with separately.1 He
proposes the compulsory pooling of ownership, each owner to be
reimbursed according the value of his property. Freed from the
obstacles of property boundaries and rights, the reconstruction of
some city districts, and the creation of new traffic routes, could thus
be more easily effected.
Banks and insurance companies are also exponents of united action
in the reconstruction of obsolete areas. Some of them have proposed
the elimination of private ownership where obsolete dwellings must
be torn down and replaced by new buildings. They have hoped to
increase the value of these buildings sufficiently to pay off the old
mortgages with the earnings gained in the new construction,
A better method of financing the rebuilding of city areas is to free
the houses from their liabilities by amortizing their mortgages gradu
ally. Such amortization, which would have to be regulated by appro
priate laws, would permit reconstruction on a large scale without
loss in national wealth.
We have traced certain forces which have brought about the concen
tration of cities, and we have considered other forces which today
are tending toward disurbanization and decentralization. It is not
enough merely to observe passively this tendency of our times. Crea
tive action is vitally necessary. Decentralization, as we now see it,
affects not only the locality and the surroundings of the city itself,
ir Gwilyn Gibbon: Problems of Town and Country Planning.
164
but also a whole state, a region, even a whole nation. This broad field
must now be included in our planning. Local, state, or regional plan
ning can be adequate only if it is related to national planning.
National planning must develop according to comprehensive prin
ciples, in which local and regional planning are interrelated parts.
Such national planning has to do with agriculture and forestry, with
industry, mining, and manufacture, and their relationship to each
other. It must deal also with power systems and transportation lines.
A broad concept of our task would enable us to find, not only the
right location for the decentralized industries, their settlements and
O '
their related agricultural areas, but also the best routes for power
lines and transportation systems; we could discover new and better
ways for the use of land and water; for the development and con
servation of local, regional, and national resources.
Every city has its zone of influence: the area where live people who
work within its boundaries. The larger the city, the more its zone
of influence expands. Interurban tracks at first, and later the automo
bile, have provided the means of transportation within this zone.
As transportation has advanced, settlement of such areas has in
creased. The tendency toward decentralization, the exodus from the
city, is manifest here.
Because the growth of these suburban areas has been planless, how
ever, a disorganized and chaotic suburbanization has resulted, uneco
nomic and unsatisfactory to the population.
As people leave the city because conditions become unfavorable for
good living there, so also do industries seek more convenient loca
tions for their plants outside the city limits. Their movement, like
the movement of the population, is proceeding without plan or fore
sight. This planless decentralization of industry is even more danger
ous than the random flight of residents to outlying areas. In a very
short time, it will produce outside the city the same unfavorable
conditions of smoke, soot, and fumes which now prevail within it.
Such a planless suburbanization must unquestionably be put under
control. The zone of influence of the city as well as the city itself
must be replanned. Even the replanning of this influence zone may
not be enough. It becomes evident, as we study into our problem more
deeply, that adequate solutions can be reached only when planning
extends to the entire region, of which the city and its zone of influence
is only a part.
National
planning
Planless decen
tralization
and its
consequences
165
The region and
a balanced
economy
Harmony be
tween the parts
and the whole
Man — the
object of all
planning
Our diagram of Chicago shows that local or areal planning is no longer
sufficient. The area shown in this diagram extends far beyond the
limits of the existing metropolis and its suburbs. It comprises, and
must comprise, the whole area related to Chicago. This area reaches
beyond the borderline of Illinois. The area of Chicago, in fact, spreads
out into several states. Chicago affects these states, and is affected
by them, for better or for worse.
It becomes evident here that state planning, like areal planning, may
sometimes be too limited in scope. An adequate plan must be a plan
for an entire region. But what is a region? It may be defined as an
interrelated part of a nation, a natural unit, self-contained by reason
of its geographical characteristics, its natural resources, the conditions
of its soil, the natural and artificial transportation routes used and
developed by its people. Such a region should constitute an interre
lated community, in which individuals and groups of individuals all
bear their share in working toward the good of all. It should be an
organic unity, an economic, social and cultural region with a homo
geneity of living conditions. The creation of such organic and self-
contained regions would enable us to divide the nation into her natural
geographic and economic parts. The organic interrelationship of
such regions would bring about an harmonious and balanced economy
not only within the regions, but also in the nation as a whole.
The city by itself cannot solve the great national economic prob
lems; nor can the country alone master them. The nation needs its
urban industrial centers and its agricultural areas, both working
together. To render such cooperation possible and efficient, we need
national planning, superior to the planning of city and country, state
and region. National planning can link together the different func
tions of different areas and relate them to their respective importance.
Such co-related planning would usefully develop and conserve national
resources to the advantages of the population. It would also estab
lish real harmony within the parts, and between the parts and the
whole.
Plan we must, not only economically, but always and primarily for
the benefit of man. We should always bear in mind that at the center
of all things is man — man who creates everything and for whom every
thing is created. Our real problem is life itself. Agriculture, indus
try, and transportation are important only as they contribute to the
richness and fullness of life. We should plan to make this earth a
better place to live in. Life has cultural as well as material aims. Plan
ning can be one of the means for their realization.
166
114. GREEK TEMPLE in the landscape.
PART FOUR
THE ART OF CITY PLANNING
The objective in the art of city planning is the creative use of the city's
elements. Its basis is spatial feeling, expressed according to its era.
The city planner has but limited means of expressing artistic aims.
The more clearly these means are recognized, the more effectively
can they be related to particular tasks; and the more completely
they are mastered, the more constructively can they be employed
to achieve satisfying results.
The means, however, remain always the means. Their mere applica
tion does not insure fruitful results. Artistic ability cannot be ac
quired: it is innate and intangible. The only tangible factors in city
planning are the social and practical requirements which can and
must be fulfilled. Since there is an inner relationship, an enigmatic
correlation between art and utility, the meeting of utilitarian aims is
prerequisite to creative city building. Artistic expression will vary
according to the particular task and according to the creative aims
of the planner. That which is designed primarily to serve utilitarian
ends can, without sacrifice of utility, gradually ascend into the realm
of art.
The object in
the art of city
planning and
its means
167
Principles of At the outset of this book, we distinguished between two diametrically
the organic opposite city types: the organic and the geometric. We saw that they
"geometric" were exPressi°ns °f two distinct iorms of society. We noted that these
two types are just as much an expression of different social structures
as they are the outcome of different structural conceptions. Recti-
linearity and rectangularity have usually been regarded as the distin
guishing characteristics of planning, but this is not necessarily true.
The organic city may be just as much an expression of planning as the
geometric city.
It is true that the plans of the organic cities of the past were not
drawn as we should draw them today. The plan was a helpful, but
not a dominant factor in the building of such cities. The decisive
factor there was the spatial concept influenced by conditions and to
pography in fulfillment of definite needs and particular demands of
the community. The builders considered, for example, the kind of
fortifications needed for defense; the relation of the entrance of the
city to those fortifications ; the connection of the city with a stronghold
or a cloister ; the streets necessary within the city ; the roads for com
munication between the city and its environs, and the most useful
arrangement of churches and other communal buildings. They often
achieved great harmony between natural conditions and practical re
quirements. In the organic cities all parts, developing according to
their own laws, were correlated into a harmonious whole.
It should be remembered that rectilinearity and rectangularity can
be used as organic means without forcing upon a city the character
of the geometric. The city of Ragusa in Dalmatia (ill. 25) shows
this, and so do our own suggestions for organic city planning.
Organic city formations are, as we have seen, intrinsically the result
of conditions and requirements. Geometric cities, in contrast, are
based upon an abstract idea which dominates the entire city area. The
development of the parts and of the whole according to their own
laws is usually impossible in such cities because of the dominating
force of the axial geometric system. The abstract preconceived plan
ning idea is, generally speaking, contrary to functional demands.
Utility tends to decrease in direct proportion to the increase of empha
sis upon axial monumental expression, pomp and display.
Two examples The plans of Jueterbog and Karlsruhe (ills. 115 and 116) illustrate
this point. Jueterbog is a small city, structurally unchanged since its
founding in the Middle Ages. Its structure was determined primarily
by its need for defense and by the location of its church and city hall.
The thought of defense led the planners of the city to arrange the city
168
gates so that they did not give immediate access to the center of
the settlement. The main streets in the city itself can be entered only
through winding narrow streets. Streets crossing the main streets
lead to the defense towers. Behind the city wall is a circular walk.
The main street is slightly bent, giving an impression of spatial limi
tation. The church and city hall are placed behind the main street
on squares removed from traffic. The church towers high above the
houses and dominates the view of the winding streets. The city shows
what may be achieved with very simple means.
Karlsruhe, in contrast, is typical of cities founded during the terri
torial state system. At the time of its building the reigning prince
was considered almost a god, and the social structure of the day is
symbolically expressed in the structure of the city. The palace of
the prince stands at the head of the city, which spreads in a fan-like
formation before it. All nine radial streets are oriented toward the
palace tower which, in its prominent position, symbolizes the omni
presence of the prince. This tower is also the center of a circle, one
quarter of which comprises the palace, the palace grounds, and the
city, and the other three quarters, the park. Radial roads oriented
toward the tower cut through this park as the streets do through
the city itself. The city structure has a geometric axial design. Strik
ing effects have been achieved here, but they are in no proportion
to the extraordinary architectural means employed. It may even be
said that no more has been achieved artistically here than was achieved
in Jueterbog where the very simplest architectural means were used.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Karlsruhe was expanded
according to a plan by Weinbrenner. The plan of the old city was
retained. The center axis was made particularly impressive by means
of a series of contrasting architectural squares connected to the axis.
The largest of these squares was the marketplace, which was sur
rounded by imposing edifices. If we compare this marketplace with
that of Jueterbog, we see at once that the essential difference between
the geometric and the organic city lies not only in the city formation
itself but also in its contributing parts. The market place of Jueter
bog, like the city itself, is simple yet adequate. It is free of through
traffic and is connected with the main street by small streets. The
market place of Karlsruhe has by no means the same functional value.
It is surrounded and even crossed by traffic streets and is, therefore,
quite inadequate for its intended purpose. No link has been forged
between architectural expression and utility. To achieve a monu
mental effect, the functional purpose of the market has been neg
lected. Architectural display and utility can be combined only by
a mutual diminution of their respective values.
169
Structure and
art
115. PLAN OF JUETERBOG: An organic city.
The ancients had a better understanding of the difference between
the functional and the monumental than did the builders and plan
ners of Karlsruhe. The market of Priene, for example, was located
at one side of the main street. The forums of Imperial Rome — the
prototypes of monumental squares — and its many other monumental
squares were invariably set at one side of the street, and, therefore,
free of through traffic. They could serve adequately their important
functional purpose in a day when much civic life centered around
the public square.
The idea of planning is at the base of all art. It is basic to organic
cities and to geometric cities. We have not always recognized this. We
have believed, for example, that aesthetic values undeniably found in
certain organic cities of the past were achieved accidentally. To
day we see that the structural difference between organic and geo
metric types of city is of no importance aesthetically. Cities of either
type may be built artistically or inartistically. Art is not dependent
upon type. Each type can offer its own possibilities of expression. This
remains true whether we plan a city or a building within a city. Build
ings with bearing walls, for example, offer certain possibilities of
expression; skeleton buildings quite other possibilities. No matter
how the possibilities of expression may vary, the structures of well
170
116. PLAN OF KARLSRUHE: A geometric-axial city.
planned cities can have artistic values — values which may overshadow
the material structure.
The material of the art of city planning is the city area and its topog
raphy, its buildings and its free space. The artistic means the planner
uses are proportion, contrast, and perspective. We can consider and
analyze these means separately, but we should not forget that in real
ity they are so closely interrelated as to be inseparable.
Proportion is the relation of the parts to the whole, and of the whole
to the parts. In city planning, the whole is the city area; the parts its
buildings and its free spaces. We can study proportion in city plan
ning effectively only when we link it with the other means at the
planner's command. We must recognize that, inasmuch as all these
means arise from one source, the planned effect we seek can be
achieved only by the close interworking of them all. By skilful use
of proportion, for example, we can make buildings appear solemn
and grave, or graceful and spirited. Deliberate contrast of small and
large, of high and low, can increase visual dimensions. With the
means of perspective, proportion can become the predominant spatial
factor. It can make large objects appear small, and small objects
large. It can make distant objects appear near, and near ones far
away.
Contrast between small and large is also a means of increasing visual
Material and
artistic means
Proportion
171
117. MANSION.
118. FRAUEN-
KIRCHE, DRESDEN.
172
Relative and
absolute
proportion
dimensions. A small mansion (ill. 117) may have its dimensions
visually increased because a smaller building, having different pro
portions, stands next to it. The same effect of visually increased
dimensions can be achieved even when the buildings which surround
the first edifice are comparatively high. This may be accomplished
by replacing relative proportion by absolute proportion.
By relative proportion we mean a system in which the relations of
parts and whole remain constant regardless of scale. In absolute pro
portion, these relationships vary with variations in scale.
The Frauenkirche in Dresden (ill. 118) illustrates how the use of
absolute proportion can achieve interesting contrasting effects. Cer
tain parts of this edifice, such as the high windows, the slender dome
which rises high above the towers, are disproportionate in the sense
of relative proportion. For this very reason, they effect an extraor
dinary increase in dimension which increases the visual size of the
building.
In the Church of Saint Peter in Rome ( ills. 119 and 120) application
of relative proportion achieves the opposite effect — an optical decrease
of actual dimensions — despite its contrast to the colonnades which sur
round the square. The difference between actual and apparent size is
even more striking in the interior of Saint Peter's. There the dimen
sions of the tremendous dome above the crossing are visually decreased
so that it seems incredible that this dome is actually higher than that of
the Pantheon.
The effect of contrast between small and large is particularly impres- Contrast
sive when it is also a contrast between high and low. Cathedrals of
the Middle Ages (ill. 125) were usually surrounded by small low
buildings. The contrast between the familiar scale of the houses and
the unusual scale of the cathedral increased the visual size of the
cathedral beyond its actual dimensions. This optical illusion is further
enhanced by the use of absolute proportions — a characteristic of
medieval architecture. In this absolute measure, parts and sections
of a building are not proportionate to a relative scale, as they are in
the architecture of antiquity, but they appear in their absolute
dimensions.
An entire town may be in contrast to a single predominant edifice or
group of edifices. Medieval strongholds dominated the cities in which
they stood, visually as well as functionally. Such visual contrast is
reduced if the structure of the stronghold is divided. The stronghold
of the city of Sebenico in Dalmatia (ill. 121 ) illustrates how the effect
of contrast may be lost through segmentation. The towers of this
173
119. ST. PETER'S, ROME.
120. ST. PETER'S SQUARE, ROME.
stronghold visually decrease the bulk of the unit. It takes on a struc
tural resemblance to the rest of the city and there is no real contrast.
Melk on the Danube (ill. 123) presents a quite different aspect.
Here the large massive structure of the cloister on the hill above the
city forms a real contrast to the city, and that contrast is enhanced
by the formation of the landscape.
Even large cities can be dominated optically by a group of buildings.
In Prague, (ill. 122) the widespread horizontal edifice of the Hrad-
schin, with the Cathedral of St. Viet as its vertical accent, is situated
on a hill. Its homogeneous structure forms a strong contrast with the
conglomeration of buildings in the city and therefore dominates the
entire settlement.
Compact and homogeneous buildings on hills are an important ele- Cities on hills
ment in planning, not merely because they provide contrast, but also an(^ in pla
because they introduce an organizing principle which brings visual
unity into the city area. A comparison between Stuttgart and Bath
(ills. 141 and 142) shows this clearly.
In Stuttgart many small detached houses have been built on the
heights surrounding the city. The result is that the city appears
disconnected and insignificant. In Bath large buildings on the city
heights create a very different effect. The crescent-shaped apartment
houses on the hill embody a new principle of city planning. Not only
do they bring visual order into the city area, but they also broaden
the view and connect the city with the landscape.
When a city is located on a plain, the city area can also be brought
into visual order by large individual buildings. In Stralsund (ill.
124), for example, this order is achieved by the location of the
churches. These churches are varied in structure but, being all ori
ented alike, and far apart from each other they achieve the effect of
spaciousness. They create an impression of expanse within the nar
rowness of the city. They give it a large scale in contrast to its inner
dimensions and the narrowness of its streets. Here is a creative possi
bility which can be applied to the cities of our time, and which can
be carried out in the mixed type of building which we advocate.
The teniDles of Aesculapius in Priene (ill. 128) and of Zeus in Mag- Perspective
nesia (ill. 127 ) are approximately of the same dimensions, but the
effects which they create upon the observer are widely different. The
temple of Aesculapius stands in a small court and is built against a
building which forms the rear wall of that court. The temple of Zeus
stands free in the Agora. The porticoes surrounding the Agora and
those of the court in which the temple of Aesculapius stands are of
175
121. SEBENICO,
Dalmatia.
122. PRAGUE, the
Hradschin.
123. MELK, on the
Danube.
176
the same height. Because of the relatively great distance between the
temple of Zeus and the porticoes of the Agora, and also because the
temple is interposed between those porticoes and the observer, the
porticoes seem reduced in scale and the temple appears disproportion
ately large. The top of a distant hill can be seen far beyond the porti
coes and this contributes further to the perspective effect. The temple,
the porticoes, and the landscape, connected in perspective, form a
visual unity. The distant is connected with the near and, through
such connection, contributes to an increase of the temple's apparent
size.
In the temple of Zeus in Olympia (ill. 126), perspective has been
employed conversely. The dimensional difference between the rela
tively small temple of Zeus and the relatively high hill of Cronos,
which rises behind it, is here visually neutralized and balanced by
means of perspective.
A noteworthy example of the effectiveness of perspective spatial Saint Mark's
devices is afforded by the squares bordering on the Cathedral of Saint Square
Mark's in Venice (ills. 129 and 130). The piazza in front of the
cathedral, as viewed from the church, becomes narrower toward the
rear because the walls of the palaces enclosing the sides slant inward.
The feeling of depth is thereby increased because the converging hori
zontal sidewalls reinforce the perspective effect and make the square
appear deeper than it actually is.
One might expect that, looking toward the cathedral from the far end
of the piazza, the opposite effect would be apparent ; that the square
would seem shorter than it actually is. But the free-standing Campa
nile has been so placed that this foreshortening effect has been neu
tralized and an impression of greater depth attained. The tower seems
to make the space in front of St. Mark's contract and, therefore,
appear deeper. It enhances this effect of depth to an extraordinary
extent by interposing itself between the observer and the church so
that the church is forced back visually. The illusion of depth is still
more increased because the tower is well removed from the church,
and is of considerable height.
The piazza of St. Mark's is enclosed on all sides. The piazzetta adjoin
ing it at right angles is open. The contrast between the two squares
increases the feeling of confinement of the piazza and emphasizes the
openness of the piazzetta. The latter is open on the side toward the
lagoon and, therefore, appears to draw into the total spatial effect,
not only the buildings of the island lying oposite, but also the remote
distance.
177
124. STRALSUND, on the Baltic sea.
125. CHARTRES, Cathedral.
178
Spatial feeling is self-evident and existent in all periods of history,
but spatial concepts and their expression have changed with the
centuries.
Narrow, high, enclosed space, for example, was the spatial concept
of the Gothic, and it is expressed best in the narrow and high naves
of the cathedrals (ill. 131) . In their loftiness those naves symbolize
the aspiration of those times toward the supernatural. The spatial
expression they achieve is raised to the mystical by the manner in
which light pours through the windows. The same spatial concept
expresses itself in city structure. Here also narrow, high, enclosed
space predominates, and all means are used to enhance the feeling of
confinement. The narrow high buildings permit bends in the streets
(ill. 132). The narrowness of the streets practically prevents any
opening along the main street or the squares.
A new spatial concept entered city building as the supernatural spirit
of the Gothic was followed by the strict logic of the Renaissance. The
Renaissance city, arranged geometrically, strove for rectangularity
and clarity. While the court of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome (ill.
133) , for example, still gives an impression of spatial limitation, the
Palazzo itself, comprising an entire block, stands free between the
streets — a building of static character.
Centric building was the ideal of the Renaissance. It was best ex
pressed in the Santa Maria della Consolazione in Todi (ill. 135),
an edifice of simple forms wholly symmetrical in plan as well as in
inner and outer appearance. The spatial concept of the Renaissance
was centralistic, harmonious, and immovably static. The design of
Santa Maria della Consolazione may be by Bramante who attempted
to execute the same spatial concept in the church of St. Peter's in
Rome (ill. 134) . Bramante's suggestion for the square of St. Peter's
is of unusual interest. In his design, the church stands free in the
center of a large quadrangle surrounded by porticoes. With its semi
circular extension, this square follows exactly his plan for St. Peter's.
Thus the total symmetry of the church is embodied in the square,
achieving a spatial concept of magnitude and unlimited expanse.
This centralistic concept is expressed also in Renaissance city plan
ning. Fra Gioconda's design for an ideal city (ill. 136) shows this
clearly. The circular city surrounds a central edifice from which the
streets radiate. This concept of a city as a homogeneous entity in
which all parts are subordinated to the whole was a new view in
city planning. Originally it was merely a formal concept. Later, with
the development of firearms, it was generally adopted for reasons of
Spatial feeling
and spatial
concepts :
Gothic
The static con
cept of the
Renaissance
Circular build
ings
Circular cities
179
126. OLYMPIA, Temple of Zeus and the Hill of Cronos.
127. MAGNESIA, Temple of Zeus.
128. PRIENE, Temple of Aesculapius.
180
129. PIAZZA ST. MARK, Venice.
130. PIAZZA ST. MARK, Venice.
181
The dynamic
concept of the
Baroque
Free space: A
new city
element
defense. A fortress in the center of the city could command the
whole circular settlement. Palma Nuova (ill. 237), near Venice,
was built according to a plan by Scamozzi in 1593, one hundred years
after Fra Gioconda designed his ideal city. It is a perfect realization
of the Fra's ideal of centralistic city planning and it became the pro
totype of many cities founded during the Renaissance.
The rational spirit of the Renaissance was completely displaced by
the supernaturalism of the Baroque which was a product of the
Counter Reformation. The Renaissance's static concept changed to
a dynamic concept of space. This change is illustrated in the altera
tions of the cathedral and piazza of St. Peter's in Rome (ills. 119
and 120) . The centric structure above the symmetrical Greek cross,
with the dome dominating the whole, dates back to Bramante. His
square repeats the outline of the church, which is located in the center
of the wholly symmetrical square. This concept of the centric struc
ture was maintained by Michael Angelo when he took over the con
struction. St. Peter's was almost completed according to Michael
Angelo's plan when it was decided, under Pope Paul V, to base the
plan on the Latin cross instead of the Greek. Carlo Maderna added
an oblong extension in front of the central edifice after the pattern
of the church of II Gesu. The centralistic, static spatial concept
changed thus for the dynamic. And when the piazza of St. Peter's
was formed in the same spirit by Bernini, church and square were
fused into one homogeneity expressive of the newer concept, but
diminishing the importance of the dome (ills. 119 and 120).
Under the influence of the Baroque, the city area no longer converged
toward a center. It became instead a series of squares which, by
reason of contrast, enhanced each other dramatically. In such cities
the spatial dynamic concept transcends the city area and gradually
embraces the free space also, making it a vitally important part of
the whole.
Free space as a new city element was discovered by Michael Angelo.
He used it for the first time in the structural formation of the Capitol
square in Rome (ills. 139 and 140) . The plan of this square shows
that the side buildings diverge, thereby expanding the square toward
the Senate house and narrowing it toward the opposite open side.
This causes a closing and opening of the square, with the spatial con
finement being simultaneously maintained and suspended. Here we
see for the first time how spatial order is possible without enclosures
on all sides. The spatial movement in depth is much increased by
the divergence and the particular formation of the buildings, by the
182
131. INTERIOR OF A GOTHIC CATHEDRAL.
132. MEDIAEVAL STREET.
183
133. MICHELANGELO AND SAN
GALLO. Palazzo Farnese, Rome.
134. DONATO BRAMANTE. Plan of
St. Peter's Church and Square.
Sxiiiil
135. DONATO BRAMANTE. Santa
Maria Delia Consolazione at Todi.
184
136. FRA GIOCONDA. Design for an ideal city.
Seal a
: as. ooo
137. PLAN OF PALMANOVA.
185
Union of the
city with the
landscape
horizontal aspect of the lateral buildings, and the vertical aspect of
the tower at the rear.
The same device of connecting the landscape spatially with archi
tecture is illustrated in a painting by Perugino: "Christ delivering
the keys to St. Peter" (ill. 138). The triumphal arches to the left
and right of the central building in the painting cause a movement
in depth heretofore unknown to the Renaissance. It anticipates, in
a sense, the spatial feeling of the Baroque.
The union of the city area with the landscape around it was aided
by changes in power politics. It became possible to build unfortified
cities. Such cities as Versailles, Karlsruhe, and others founded in
the Baroque period, show the connection of the palace — and later
of the city — with surrounding open country by means of parks. City
space and free space, subordinate to one formative will, are developed
according to the same architectural principles. This new develop
ment is also a development of princely domination. Just as the state
was subordinated in the period to an absolute system, so also the city
became subordinated to an absolute artistic principle. The city be
came an artistic homogeneity — a work of art.
At the end of the Baroque period, as the classic revival began, a
new and significant idea came into city planning which is influencing
even our own times. This idea was based upon the realization of the
spatial concept of the Baroque without making the city and the land
scape geometrical in the process. This important contribution was
made by the architects Wood, father and son, as they worked upon
plans for the expansion of the city of Bath (ills. 141 and 142) .
During the eighteenth century Bath had become quite prosperous
because of its therapeutic springs. The population had so increased
that it was necessary to enlarge the city. No space for such expansion
was available on the plain on which Bath stood. The city could
expand only on the sloping land to the north. At first this extension
was carried out in the conventional manner. Closed streets and
squares were planned. Their spaciousness was unusual, and unusual
also was their connection with green areas, and their architectural
homogeneity. The planners achieved harmony between buildings and
topography, between the city and the landscape.
As the expansion of the city went on, however, the problems it created
were solved in an entirely new manner. During the Baroque period
only princes had built their palaces in the open country. But now,
homes for the common people came to be built in the open. Free-
186
138. PERUGINO. Christ delivers
the keys to St. Peter.
139. MICHELANGELO. Plan of
the Capitol Square of Rome.
140. MICHELANGELO. View of
the Capitol Square.
187
Classic revival
Beauty at the
expense of
truth
The imitative
spirit of the
nineteenth cen
tury
standing, large, crescent shaped apartment houses were erected on
the slopes near Bath, and these structures were organically connected
with the landscape. These buildings were no longer absolutely
dependent upon streets. The streets led to the buildings, but they
no longer determined their location. Buildings and streets have spe
cial functions to fulfill which may, but need not, coincide. Freed of
the formalistic, super-architectural spirit with which the Baroque
stifled the function of the dwelling, these buildings could develop
according to their own laws.
The traditional confinement of the city was broken for the first time
in Bath. Harmony was created here between the city area and the
landscape by joining them and giving both city elements equal value.
The pomp of the Baroque was followed by the sobriety of the classic
revival which derives its chief energy from intellectual rationalism.
Two factors influenced the rise of this movement: the discovery of
Pompeii during the 18th century, and the influence of the Roman
concept of democracy upon the French. The Roman influence, giving
rise to democratic principles, led to the French revolution.
The spatial concept of the classic revival, however, based as that
revival was on pseudo-antiquity, was more closely related to that of
the Renaissance than it was to the antiquity from which it thought to
draw its inspiration. The extraordinary vitality which distinguished
the Renaissance, however, was completely lacking in the classic re
vival. The tendency was toward imitation rather than creation. The
strength of the spirit of the times lav in its ability to meet the dangers
of life with discipline of spirit, and to oppose to external unrest an
inward poise and steadfastness. But since this goal was sought through
the sacrifice of truth and reality, the quest was shallow and was
directed more often to "beauty" than to inner truth. The imitative
tendency of the nineteenth century found its roots in this classic
revival and the tendency has not been overcome to this day. Its
expression in city building has led to decorative instead of structural
results.
This decorative element in city building is, however, not the product
of the nineteenth centurv classicism alone. It is as old as r.itv building
itself. Because decorative city building became general during the
nineteenth century, however — because one misguided building at
tempt followed another — the cities developing so fast in those years
became more and more chaotic. More buildings were erected durins;
this period than had been built in the preceding thousand years. And
because this unprecedented spurt in building coincided with the arti-
188
141. BATH. Panoramic view.
142. BATH. View from Hedgemead Park.
189
The esthetic
and the scientif
ic approach
Science and art
Adequacy of
the spatial con
cept and of the
new city struc
ture
ficial concepts of nineteenth century pseudo-classicism the results
were particularly bad. City building came to be a conglomeration of
quantity without quality, a lucrative business enterprise instead of a
creative art. And we have, therefore, a fatal heritage, whose liabilities
weigh more and more heavily upon us and whose harmful effects
can be eliminated only gradually through generations in the future.
At the turn of the century a decisive change took place. Men began
to explore the possibilities of finding new forms for implements and
utensils, and of making those forms expressive of beauty. Similar
trends appeared in the planning and building of cities and houses.
This was an incomplete approach to the problems of the builder and
the designer. Such problems could not be solved on the basis of
formal aesthetic considerations. So long as form was still considered,
as the nineteenth century had considered it, as an arbitrary artistic
element, independent of all the many social relations and require
ments and their technological bases, the solutions sought continued
to be elusive.
Not until the first quarter of the twentieth century was there a con
sciousness of the social responsibility of architects, especially of plan
ners of cities. Then the growing recognition of the forces shaping
intellectual, social and economic and technical changes was definitely
brought into the field of city planning to effect there significant and
lasting new concepts. City planning became a science. Man came
to realize that, like any other science, it is rational and must be
mastered in all its phases.
The rational elements of the new science were over-emphasized in
some quarters. The erroneous view arose that city planning, having
risen to the status of a science, was totally divorced from art, that
the city planner should neither seek nor be allowed artistic freedom.
We know that this is completely fallacious reasoning. The dependency
of city planning on a scientific basis does not limit its artistic expres
sion. On the contrary, it is the beginning of new possibilites, for
the problem of city planning as a whole consists in the creative mas
tery of all conditions and means.
Since the Gothic period, our spatial concepts have been moving
steadily in the direction of greater freedom. We have become more
and more concerned with widening and opening the city and merging
it with open space. Today our spatial feeling tends to openness; so
does our city structure. Different forces tend to dissipate the confine
ment of the city, to liberate the house, and with it, man ; and to link
man to nature once again.
190
The planning principles outlined in this study are adequate to this
new spatial concept. The new settlement unit which we have con
structed contains all the elements we need for its realization. Such
a unit can be surrounded by gardens and parks. The mixed type of
settlement permits the erection of free-standing buildings, each of
which can develop functionally according to its own particular laws.
Higher buildings within the "garden" parks, contrasting with the
low one-family houses, may be used to create a feeling of spaciousness
and openness. The narrow confined street and city area can give way
to an entirely open and free city area. Just as the house fuses with
the landscape, the room with the garden, the interior with the exterior,
so also the city itself can merge with the landscape and the landscape
can come within the city.
We have tried, in this discussion, to ask rational questions and answer
them rationally. But a wholly rational discussion of the problems of
city planning must always remain incomplete. The art of city plan-
nine is not susceptible of analysis by reason alone. Artistic ability,
which cannot be taught, is beyond technical means. Though the pro
portions of the Doric temples may be determined geometrically, they
cannot be formulated. Not in the measurable, but rather in the
immeasurable, lies the essence of art.
Onlv bv mastering the technical means can the citv planner realize
his aims with artistic freedom. This freedom must be always linked
with the useful and the necessary. It by no means is contrary to them;
it is indeed fundamentally dependent upon them. Artistic freedom
in city planning is not possible without this link with reality. All that
is created by man is bound to time and space and can be executed only
in time and space. Spiritual creativeness alone can turn the transitory
into the permanent, the temporal into the eternal.
Rational ele
ments: the base
of artistic
freedom
191
A NOTE BY THE AUTHOR
It has taken time to arrive at the basic principles of City Planning,
and many years of thought and work to evolve a solution in accordance
with them. The first diagrams I made, some 20 years ago, dealt over
much with the metropolis and its traffic problems. In those days I
made plans for skyscraper cities. Later I became interested in the
considerably more important problems of sunlight, prevailing winds,
small houses and gardens, and the human aspects of planning. I
studied all the different problems involved, and developed planning
principles out of the needs of life and the nature of things, and ar
rived at the solution presented in this book.
I began to write this book after teaching City Planning a number
of years at the Bauhaus in Dessau. When the Nazis came into power
I was forbidden to teach. There was then scarcely a chance to publish
the book. Yet two parts of it, "Penetration of Sunlight into the
Room" and "Penetration of Sunrays and Density of Population",
were published in the Moderne Bauformen 1935 and 1936. Other
parts of the book were used in addresses to the Chicago Chapter of
the American Institute of Architects— "Literature of City Planning",
January 1939, and "Cities and Defense", October 1941. A portion
of the first was published in the Architectural Forum., August 1940.
In 1939, at the request of Mr. S. Papadaki then editor of Plus, I
wrote an article in which I used some of the material in this book.
But Plus discontinued, and this article was then published in the
Armour Engineer and Alumnus, December 1940, under the title
"Elements of City Planning".
Since 1938 I have been teaching City and Regional Planning at the
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. Here an ever increasing
number of students have become deeply interested in planning prob
lems. Their mutual work has made it possible to develop certain plan
ning ideas, and to apply my planning principles to various towns
and cities.
L. Hilberseimer
Chicago, September 1943
192
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