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Ancient Greek Urban Planning

Urban planning is the branch of architecture in which urban spaces and activities are designed and detailed. Within the ancient world, this form of design and organization was just beginning to take root within civilizations and early societies. The Ancient Greeks led eastern European in their sciences, politics, economic and social philosophies. Through their architecture and design, the Greeks also lead most of the ancient world in urban planning and construction of some of the first major trading cities in history. As populations began to increase rapidly, urban populations began to identify themselves within regions of the Greek countryside. Cities began to form around these populous regions, creating some of the first great trading and merchant cities of the ancient world. The Greeks excelled at many crafts, including trade, which took on a great role in the beginning formations of ancient Greek cities. Cities were created through a natural growth process and later, as the city-states prospered, were designed specifically using the Hippodameian system of urban planning. By incorporating regional, climate, trading, social, and other factors in their designs of urban spaces, the Greeks excelled in urban design and created some of the most well preserved and historic landmark cities within the ancient world.

Early Beginnings of Greek Urban Planning

“The ancient city-states were created in two fashions: the older cities were constructed through natural growth and as ancient Greek society prospered the cities were designed using the Hippodameian system”. The very first recorded urban planner amongst the Greek philosophes was Hippodamos, who designed the ancient harbor town of Piraeus, an outlet city for additional trading further toward the coast from the city of Athens. By arranging the streets and buildings amongst the wind currents of the surrounding coast by right angles, one of the first examples of ancient Greek urban planning can be observed through the design of such details within a city. Through his contributions to some of the first organized urban planned cities of ancient Greece, future systems of organized design within the ancient world are known as examples of the Hippodemeian system. Before the Greeks began the technique of urban planning and design, the streets of the small cities were packed and difficult to navigate. Originally, the city street designs were specifically created to be disorganized in order to protect the cities from invasions. Unorganized, cramped and disorderly street designs created a large challenge for possible invaders. These designs also made the construction of a city wall easier since the city was more compact in size. The homes which were built within it were small and packed together leaving the city deficient of efficient trading capabilities.

Urban Population

As the populations of Ancient Greece grew in size and diversity, the idea of a separating factor amongst regions of the country progressed in political and social aspects of the culture. As populations in certain areas of the country increased, the idea of city-states was created in order to establish regions separated by physical obstacles and other regional terrains. City states or polis, were individual regions of Greece with their own politics, goals and customs . Famous states such as Sparta, Athens, and Corinth were independent of each other with their individual governments and militaries that would join together on occasion to fight a common foe or dispute amongst each other. Within each city state, there were unique factors of regional climates, population or culture that separated states from the others. However, these city-states remained independent of each other but throughout all of them, the cities built shared many similarities. According to modern archeological surveys, an average Greek city was home to about 6,000 inhabitants with the majority of the population living within the walls of the city . Historians estimate the population of ancient Greece at the time to be around 8 to 10 million people, all residing in individual city-states. Larger states such as Athens and Sparta usually had larger cities, housing hundreds of thousands of citizens within these cities walls. As the populations of ancient Greek city-states continued to increase, the specifics of each city and the importance of organized design became more critical.

City Planning

Originally, the cities of early ancient Greece were formed around a hillside or mountain range, the Acropolis. This was the typical center of a city where all other districts and spheres of populations branched from. Traditionally, the head of government or ruler of the specific city-state or town was housed on the Acropolis, residing at the heart of the city and its people. The growth from this center point within ancient Greek cities is known as the natural growth system in which cities were not designed and remained unorganized . As cities grew out in spheres, a second main center was created called the Agora. This was the center of political, commercial and social gatherings. As ancient Greek civilizations continued to prosper and increase in size, the urban planning due to natural growth shifted the main center of ancient Greek cities from the Acropolis to the merchant and trade oriented, Agora. Through this shift, further Greek urban planning also shifted concentration from the Acropolis to the business districts of towns and the needs of the merchants and tradesmen. Planning within Greek cities was established “to take advantage of the natural landscape and to create both public and private spaces according to rational and functional considerations with man at the center” . Depending on the region, the urban planning of specific cities differed by the factors of climate, region, terrain and population size but remained focused upon the needs of the citizens and ancient Greek populations. Based on the climate and orientation of the city to the sun, buildings were designed to provide the greatest efficiency for their specific uses. Farming states planned cities containing adequate merchant and trading sections of the cities for optimum sale and trade of goods. Produce and other products were stored inside buildings that would not be exposed to the sun at the hottest part of the day. As an example, storage houses were pointed in the direction of the setting sun in order to avoid food and other produces spoiling in the heat of the drier state’s climates. Coastal towns were usually designed with the harbor and nearby market places as greater factors. In order to ensure the protection of citizens against coastal gulls and the efficiency of buildings, the streets and buildings were designed to run with the currents of the coastal winds to avoid possible damage to buildings and injury to citizens during the stormy seasons. Urban cities located close to a coast or harbor centered urban planning on the harbor and the merchant ships and business. As ancient Greece continued to flourish, stricter design plans within cities were enforced, usually developing the Hippodameian system of urban planning. Basing the designs of cities on a rectangular system, the streets were planned along a grid, creating orderly and well organized districts within Greek cities. Buildings along these grid based streets were usually placed within a coordinated arrangement with the majority of the buildings in the same general orientation . Since this urban planning system was based on angles and measurements, it could be easily placed in any terrain, region or geographic location, creating a universal system applicable in any part of Greece.

Separation of Classes within Cities

Within the ancient Greek culture, citizens were separated by the social class in which they were born into or rose up to. Based on this fact, cities were designed for not only the merchant, trading, and social aspects of a specific city’s culture and traditions but also the size and separation of social classes. Separating citizens by their class can be seen throughout many cultures and regions of the world . In ancient Greek civilizations, the population was broken up into lower class, merchant, tradesmen or middle class, and the upper classes. Above the upper class were the politicians within the greater cities, since Greece was not ruled by one head of the government like the Roman Emperor, each city-state had its own government and military. Typically, in the average urban city within a city-state, the lower classes remained on the outskirts of town, on either side of the protective city wall if the urban city had one. The middle classes and merchant classes were found closer to the middle of the town where markets and other trading venues were located, specifically in the Agora. As the classes grew in status, the wealthy and influential citizens of the urban cities were usually found within the center of town, near the Acropolis or main center of cities. The houses of the poorer lower classes were significantly similar to most throughout the country, usually made out of mud and clay bricks, the homes of the poorer citizens were scattered across the outer borders of the town and were made of lesser materials than the middle and upper class homes. The separation of lower class districts of the cities was also a great factor in the planning and design of Greek cities. The middle class housing was significantly better than the lower classes depending on what trade the citizens practiced. Middle class merchants and tradesmen were located in their specific section of the city, usually within the Agora, and maintained the social and economic portions of the city and its populations. The middle class housing was usually centered closer to the middle of a city, on the upper class districts and outskirts of the Acropolis. Typical ancient Greek cities were built on a mountain side or on a steep slope leading up to the highest point where the Acropolis would stand, the middle class sections of cities were usually halfway up the hill or slope . The upper classes were typically found at the very center of a city where the homes differed greatly from the middle and lower classes and constructed mostly of expensive material. In larger cities, this elite section of Greek urban spaces was separated further by gates and high walls resembling those found on the very outskirts of the city. Since the origin of Greek cities were about the Acropolis, upper class citizens lived on the highest points of urban residential areas. Usually in the larger and more prominent cities within the Greek city-states there were larger percentages of upper class citizens who were located in the most protected portion of the city .

Religion and Government

In accordance with the archaic tradition of the ancient civilizations of the world, the center of an ancient city was the location of the most important civic public spaces. The Greek city-states centered their religious housing and government buildings at the center of the city. Temples found in the historical city of Athens, Greece were known for their scale and grandeur, such as the Temple of Hephaestus. This well preserved and well known site is an example of the design and construction of religious temples within Ancient Greece and the location of its origin within the city of Athens. Along with the religious establishments of the Greek city states, the political buildings controlling government within a city were also traditional located within the center of the town .To introduce importance and regality, urban planning connected both the wealth and splendor of the upper class citizens with the grandeur of the city’s political and religious buildings. Political buildings within ancient Greece tended to have highly decorated and extravagant architecture including marble columns, roofs and carvings created by the most famous and well known architects of the time. Incorporating the wealth of a city’s center population, government buildings that housed the leaders of each city and even the city-state were also major factors in the urban planning and design of ancient Greek cities.

References

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