LECTURE 10
Neighbourhood Concepts
Garden City
The Linear City
Modern Architecture and City Form
Radburn’s Concept
Garden City
Ebenezer Howard first presented the idea in
1898
A way to capture the primary benefits of the
countryside and the city while avoiding the
disadvantages presented by both.
He presented this idea to relieve cities of
congestion and unhealthy environment
Inspired by the idea of ideal/Utopian cities
Comprised of Town, Country and Town-country
interactions
Three Magnets of Ebenezer Howard
• Each illustrated magnet
represents a specific
environment the town, the
country, and the town-
country
The first two magnets list
the positives and negatives
of town life and country
life, while the third magnet
combines the advantages
of both.
Characteristics of Town
Social opportunity Well-lit streets
offered isolation of Army of unemployed
crowds and distance Fog and droughts
from work foul air,
Places of amusement murky sky and
High money wages slums.
High rents and prices Closing out of nature
Chances of
employment
Characteristics of Country
Natural beauty, Lack of society
Low rents, and public spirit
Fresh air, Hands out of work
Abundance of Long hours but
water low wages
Bright sunshine lack of drainage
Wood, Meadow, lack of
forest amusements
Characteristics of
Town-Country
beauty of nature,
social opportunity,
Fields and parks of easy
access,
Pure air and water
Plenty to do
Good drainage
Bright homes and gardens
No smoke no slums
Freedom and cooperation
low rents, low prices
high wages and
field of enterprise
Ebenezer Howard’s idealized garden city would house
32,000 people on a site of 9,000 acres (3,600 ha)
Howard's diagrams presented such a city in
a concentric pattern with open spaces, public parks,
and six radial boulevards, 120 ft (37 m) wide, extending
from the center
The garden city would be self-sufficient and when it
reached full population, another would be developed
nearby.
Howard envisaged a cluster of several garden cities
as satellites of a central city of 58,000 people, linked
by road & rail.
Detail of towns
Central with 58,000 population
Surrounding with 32,000 population
All with radial pattern
Concept of neighbourhoods
Green belts
Public transport
Farm housing
Cycle paths
Examples of garden cities
Letchworth, England
one of the world's first new towns and the first garden city it
had great influence on future town planning and the New
towns movement
Welwyn, England
Welwyn Garden City was the second garden city in England
(founded 1920) and one of the first new towns (designated
1948)
Radburn
Founded in 1929 in New Jersey
Explicitly designed to separate traffic by mode, with a
pedestrian path system that does not cross any major
roads at grade
introduced the largely residential "superblock"
Letchworth, England
superblock
Radburn, USA
Australian capital Canberra
The Linear City
Soria Y Mata (1844-1920)
was Spanish highway engineer
and businessman.
He presented the idea of Linear
City or La Ciudad Lineal in
1882.
He proposed that houses and
buildings could be set
alongside linear utility
systems supplying water,
communication and electricity.
Advantages of Linear Development
This city was formed and planned along a
highway on both sides of which structures
were supposed to be constructed.
The design provided the maximum
accessibility to the adjacent development.
The utility lines that are laid down along the
highway, can directly be utilized.
The design also ensures the controlled
direction for future growth i.e. along the
communication route.
Disadvantages
Some people criticize that it is not a town
but just an expansion of town.
The original design absorbs because of
explosive expansion by the increase in
population.
Cross junctions are inevitable which are not
suitable for the present situation of heavy
volume of traffic.
Ciudad Lineal - Planned Linear City
Ciudad Lineal near Madrid was the first
planned linear city.
This city form suburban ring around Madrid
some 50 KM long at a distance of about 7
KM from the center to which it would be
tied by existing highways and subways.
Ciudad Lineal, Spain
Ciudad Lineal, Spain
Stalingrad, Russia
Later, the linear city idea was followed by
N. A. Miliutin and the name of city planned
was “Stalingrad” in 1930.
The basic scheme of the city consisted of 4
parallel zones.
Zone 1 was a railway zone,
Zone 2 was an industrial zone or factory area,
Zone 3 was a green zone or technically we can
say it was buffer and not less than 500m wide
with a main arterial highway passing through it,
Zone 4 is residential zone with agricultural fields
and recreational areas.
Stalingrad in Russia
Stalingrad, Russia
This plan stretched many kms along the
Volga River.
The town was planned to be divided into 5
settlements, of 75,000 to 90,000 population
each.
Instead of individual houses, the whole
population was to live combine e.g. hostels,
eating, dining and studying halls like
university campus, apartment buildings etc.
Stalingrad in Russia
The residential areas were cut off from
industrial area by green zone.
The grid iron layout was imposed on the
land regardless of the topographical
features.
In 1943, this town was destroyed due
to military operations.
Modern Architecture and City Form
Le Corbusier fused the ideas of modern
architecture and city form with modern
technology.
In 1922, in his hypothetical plan for a city of
3 million people; Une Ville Contemporaine,
he proposed rearrangement that created
three distinct areas
A central business city with 400,000 inhabitants
in twenty four sky-scrappers
An encircling residential zone of 600,000
occupying multi-storey buildings
The garden houses for 2 millions.
Modern Architecture and City Form
He showed how massive design problems
could be handled by large groups of high
and low buildings; in effect, he brought
cubism to large-scale architectural
compositions.
Through the years, Le Corbusier had been
applying his ideas – on paper – to many
cities of the world eventually gave birth to
the ‘International Movement’.
Sky-scrappers
Multi-storey buildings
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broad acres
and Mile-High Sky-scrapper
In 1932, in contrast to Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd
Wright proposed that every family should live
on an acre of land.
Present day American suburbs are crude
examples of Wright’s Broad acres.
In recognition of difficulties of land supply an
logistics in applying the broad acres plan,
Wright unveiled a scheme for a super-sky-
scrapper a full mile high in order to free the
land for greenery.
RADBURN’S CONCEPT
Separation of pedestrian and
Vehicular traffic
Super block- large block
surrounded by main roads
Houses grouped around small Cul
de Sacs(Dead end street)each
accessed from main road, living,
bedroom faced garden & parks
services areas to access roads
Remaining land – park areas
Walkways- designed such that
pedestrians can reach social place
without crossing automobile street
Houses around small Cul de
sacs System
THANK YOU
