Town and City Planning

Vitruvius mentioned town planning and favoured the radial rather than the rectangular pattern (Schulten, Bonner Jahr bucher, ciii., 23). He recognized the importance of adjusting the town plan to the site, and its influence on the placing of public buildings. The surviving street plan of Turin excellently rep resents the Roman military system of building. The Romans carried their town planning into their provinces. In England the uncovered site of Silchester and the plans of ancient York and Chester show evidences of Roman work in the first century A.D.

In Africa Timgad affords another example of the Roman sys tematic arrangement. Zoning regulations were not unknown in Roman law; there were restrictions on the location of cemeteries and brick-fields, and on the height of tenement houses and against fire hazards, although, as in modern times, not scientifically con ceived or effectively applied. The rectangular arrangement of towns practised by the Greeks and Roman military engineers continued to be followed after the fall of the Roman empire. The Chinese and, later, the Mongol system of town planning was similarly rectangular.

Mediaeval.

The need of defensive walls around the cities, the laying out of main streets from the entrance gates to the civic centre and the grouping of public buildings remained dominant features of town building in mediaeval times. But systematic regularity of the city street system was replaced by picturesque irregularity. The mid-European towns of the pre-Renaissance period that remain approach nearer than modern cities to being works of art. Built by artist craftsmen, cities like mediaeval Rothenburg, Nuremberg and Carcassonne are artistic units bound together by walls and decorated by towers, spires and arched approaches that still survive as monuments to their builders. University towns of this period were well proportioned and openly arranged. Camillo Sitte, of Vienna, in his book Der Stiidte-bau (1889), advocated the adoption of the picturesque as opposed to the symmetrical plan, and for a time the Sitte school in Germany influenced a great deal of town extension planning.

The development of architecture and the building of towns has always depended much on the leadership of statesmen and princes. In one age it has been a Pericles or an Augustus, in another a Peter the Great or a Napoleon III., and in still another a Wash ington or a Jefferson. Edward I. of England was a leader in his day. He directed the planning of many towns in southern France, of which Montpazier (1284), with its central market-place and arcades is an instance. He laid out Flint, Carnarvon and Win chelsea in England.

Renaissance.

The picturesque irregularity of the Gothic

towns with their closed pictures and many-gabled facades was supplanted in some cities in the Renaissance period by the dig nified and monumental regularity of the planned city, still en circled by walls but with streets geometrically arranged within them, with wide avenues terminated on the distant vista of a palace or a castle. Michelangelo was consulted on the enlarge ment of the Piazza della Signoria, Florence; Scamozzi prepared a design for an ideal city; and Leonardo da Vinci proposed roads on two levels. The grand manner of planning started in Italy and spread to France. Under Louis XIV. much replanning was done in Paris. The planning of Versailles by Le Notre has had much influence on the art of planning cities. Christopher Wren did similar work in England, and left to posterity one of the finest examples of town design in his plan for the rebuilding of London (1666). It should be said, however, of Sir Christopher's plan, that the requirements of the grandiose did not overshadow the truest utilitarian concern. Although to London's great misfortune the plan was not carried out, much work was done in laying out squares and in building development that greatly added to the beauty of the city. Inigo Jones did much to contribute to this result. Penn's plan of Philadelphia was made in 1682, and St. Petersburg was planned in 1703 under Peter the Great. Karlsruhe and Mannheim (1715) in Germany are among the classic exam ples of radial and rectangular plans, respectively, and include much notable architectural work. The Government centre of Nancy designed by Emanuel Here in 1750-57 is another notable example of town development. A beginning was made with the plan of the new part of Edinburgh in Scotland in 1767. A young archi tect, Craig, won the competition for laying out the new town, and then followed a long period of architectural control of build ing construction in the Scottish capital, with which were asso ciated such names as the brothers Adam, Playfair and Reid. Splendid work was also done at this period by the Woods in Bath, by Nash in London and Grainger in Newcastle. The plan ning of new developments in London included the reservation of many fine open squares, most of which still remain, although con stantly under threat of destruction. Architectural influence in these cities waned after the coming of the railroad and civic art has remained more or less in a dormant condition since. The plan ning of Washington, D.C. (1791), by L'Enfant, under the in fluence of President Washington and the architect-statesman Jefferson, marked an epoch in city planning.