Arch.Angle.Blog

NeoTraditional Urbanism Ellin, N 1999, ‘Neotraditional urbanism or the new urbanism’, in Postmodern urbanism, rev edn, Princeton Architectural Press, N.Y., pp.93-113 The Reading this week talks about the different planning systems, varying from historicism and the re-creation of historical towns, to the creation of tyrannical planning regulations used in places such as Seaside. The effort has not been in recreating simple copies of the various typologies set forth throughout history; rather it has been to create slightly modified copies. Although it is commented in the reading that it is the messiness that postmodernism wants to recreate and sometimes what they allude to is neigh on impossible to see, there is no mistaking much of their blatant examples of monumentalising elements from the past to create a shouting match of architecture and planning, rather than a debated dialogue The reading also goes in to discuss how some people who have no real architectural background are th...

Modernist Relationships: MARS, CIAM Gold, J 2000, ‘Towards the functional city? MARS, CIAM and the London plans, 1933-42’, in The Modern City Revisited, ed. Deckker, T, Spon Press, London, pp 80-99 Gold refers to the creation of the Modern Architectural Research Group or ‘MARS’ and its relation to CIAM as the English architectural delegation. After interest regarding an initial research scheme compromised of 9 plans and some written material presented at CIAM IV, a congregation of 33 nations aboard an 8 day journey to Athens, MARS retired to London to research the development of a new central mega city. Unveiled in 1942 the plan, that consisted of linear street layouts with heavy reliance on public transport, segregation of industry and living, creation of residential, neighbourhoods, boroughs, and city districts; also the availability of not being restrained by the concentric green wedge by allowing farmland to penetrate close to the heart of London, the plan was rejected as del...

Three Normative Theories of City Form Lynch, K 1981. ‘Three normative Theories’, A theory of good city form, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., pp.73-95 Since the dawn of the city there has been the question about its origin and its significance. Human beings have been attracted by their power and mysticism that has meant a support of the city for many aeons. The original layout and form of the city as described by Feng Shui in China (and most of the close by Asian nations) and the mandala in India, made the city form a simple, almost mechanical way of being protected from the elements and strange goings on as well as a point of blame for when these things occurred. This city as a science or as a spiritual guide started the “pseudoscience of geomancy” over the times however this geomancy has moved into social sciences, architecture, urban design and the like. Although more modern terms the city still shows that “power is still expressed and reinforced by the same means” walls, gates, ...

The City of Utopia: Amaurotum More, T 1964, ‘The best state of the Commonwealth’, ‘The Cities, especially Amaurotum’, and ‘social realations’, in E Surtz (eds.) Utopia, Book II, Yale University Press, New Haven, pp59-66, 75-81. The reading seems to be very similar to the ideas expressed in Alois Huxleys The Island published in 1962. Amaurotum being an idyllic island isolated 15 miles offshore from an existing continent. The island, based of a unidentified amount of separate nation states that culminate in a senate, or a congress to decide issues has ties with the socialist or communist notions of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles. Amaurotum is seen in the time when there was no mass transport, where horse and cart were the main means of cargo shipping and walking for human transport. Thus the distances of cities are relegated to this. Each city has a sufficient hinterland to support its needs. However a mere 12 miles radius may not be enough to feed a cities population of approximat...

Housing the poor: a study of Aranya, India. Thomas Barker Deakin University, Geelong, Australia ABSTRACT: Due to a growing number of urban poor in the major cities of developing countries, there has been a large-scale international effort to implement an appropriate solution to housing the urban poor. Some of these systems have worked and some have not. This paper will consider Aranya low-cost housing in India as an example of an architecturally planned master scheme where slum dwellers have been displaced from their illegal dwellings. The paper will also consider what lessons can be learnt from its considered successes and its relevant failures to see whether or not this type of development is pertinent as a contemporary means of housing the poor. The research finds that four major areas are essential to making low income development plausible for the future: government investment; adequate service provision; appropriate construction techniques; and government regulations. Keyw...