IDEAL CITIES
Howard,
Wright and Le Corbusier were strongly impressed by recent technological
advances. Their writings were filled with the image of the city as a living
organism, a city that can always be changed or up-to-date with new
technologies.
Howard's image of the ideal city was a city where
town and country must be married, and his plan was for decentralization and a
radical reduction of density, which he believed to be one of the major ills of
the city. The green belt, that surrounded the city, would consist of farms and
parks; the garden city would contain quiet residential neighbourhoods and area
for industrial, commercial and cultural activities. People would be able to
live, play and work without having to go elsewhere. The neighbourhoods would be slices in the
circular pie of the town, with each comprising a sixth of the population. The
basic neighbourhood unit would be the single-family detached house surrounded
by a garden. In the middle of a central park, there would be the town hall,
museum, library and hospital. Howard proposed a system of rail lines and canals
for connections to the other parts of the city.
Wright's image of the ideal city was the issues of
individuality and family. In his model he showed a very decentralized community
since he felt even more strongly than Howard about the subject of density. He
envisioned a place spread out over a grid system of highways, with everyone
having at least one acre of land; families would stay in touch trough
sophisticated transportation and communication systems and, above all, by use
of car. Broadacre City would be a city without walls, with the freedom of
mobility, its plan showed a mix of residential, industrial and agricultural
uses of land, and people would move on foot, by cars and by helicopters.
Le Corbusier, a Swiss architect and planner, belief that
the key to the ideal city was rather to increase density and centralization
even further, he proposed a Radiant City. The solution would be found in the
"vertical garden city": the superblock, the project neighbourhood with as much
green and nature as possible, particularly in the form of grass, and high rise
in the garden. For connections to every parts of city he proposed a system of
highways and tramways radiating from the centre; industries would be located
somewhere on the outskirts. The centres of life in the Radiant City were the
great residential high rises, these places were meant to be a complete
neighborhood and many collective services would be provided.
The work of
Howard, Wright and Le Corbusier has offered alternative visions of the city and
demanded a re-examination of such central urban issues.
The plan is a rectangular arrangement of
streets, but local and traffic are distinctly separated. The large open spaces
are treated with informal pedestrian circulation and landscaped. The difference
in scale of open space and building coverage is indicated in the plan sketch.
[ Picolo appunti ]
