City Planning
Ancient Romans used a consolidated scheme for city planning for both defense and civil convenience; however, the roots of this scheme go back to even older civilizations. At its most basic, the grid system of streets, a central forum with city services, two main slightly wider boulevards, and the occasional diagonal street were characteristic of the very logical and orderly Roman design. Ancient facades and building layouts were oriented to these city design patterns and they tended to work in proportion with the importance of public buildings.
Many of these urban planning patterns found their way into the first modern planned cities of the 18th century. Exceptional examples include Karlsruhe and Washington DC. Not all planned cities and planned neighborhoods are designed on neoclassical principles, however. Opposing models may be found in Modernist designs exemplified by Brasilia, the Garden city movement, levittowns, and new urbanism.
Read more about this topic: Classical Revival Architecture
Famous quotes containing the words city and/or planning:
“Do you know what Agelisas said, when he was asked why the great city of Lacedomonie was not girded with walls? Because, pointing out the inhabitants and citizens of the city, so expert in military discipline and so strong and well armed: “Here,” he said, “are the walls of the city,” meaning that there is no wall but of bones, and that towns and cities can have no more secure nor stronger wall than the virtue of their citizens and inhabitants.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)
“My consciousness-raising group is still going on. Every Monday night it meets, somewhere in Greenwich Village, and it drinks a lot of red wine and eats a lot of cheese. A friend of mine who is in it tells me that at the last meeting, each of the women took her turn to explain, in considerable detail, what she was planning to stuff her Thanksgiving turkey with. I no longer go to the group.”
—Nora Ephron (b. 1941)