Culture and Urban Form
I. Cities across globe today are very diverse, but often share regional characteristics.
**** Remember Carl Sauer’s Cultural Landscape
A. Europe = Medieval Cities =
- densely packed w/ narrow buildings and winding streets
- contains ornate church in city center
- surrounded by high walls to defend city
- time of city-state – fighting for power
- today in many Euro cities rich live in inner city and poor in suburbs. Suburbs = high rise, cheap apartment buildings w/ poor (high rates of drugs, crime, and violence)
B. Islamic Cities (ex: Mecca)
- owe geog to Islamic faith and desert climate
- Mosque = city center
- walls guard perimeter
- open air markets, courtyards surrounded by high walls
- many dead end streets
- light colored surfaces & roofs designed to capture and recycle rainwater
C. Africa and Latin America – many of these cities owe much of urban form to colonialism, 20th century industrial expansion, and rapid, unplanned pop growth (mega cities of LDCs)
- squatter settlements – have few services (no schools, paved roads, telephone, and sewer). Sometimes electricity stolen from nearby power line. People camp outside or build shelters w/ cardboard, boxes, etc.
- 33% in squatter settlements in Sao Paulo, Brazil
- 85% in squatter settlements in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
II. Transitions in Architecture….
A. BeauxArtsSchool – centered in Paris and Vienna
- major implications for city planning in Eur
- stressed marriage of older, classical forms w/ newer industrial ones
- wide streets, spacious parks, and patriotic civic monuments
B. City Beautiful Movement – late 1800s early 1900s
- drew from BeauxArtsSchool but had greater impact in US
- sought to create order in chaotic city
- Chicago = expansive parks, monuments, gardens, ordered street plan
- Modern Architecture – early to mid 20th C
-based on belief in the preeminence of scientific rationality and human progress
-emphasized function over form (looks not important)…@ efficiency, not ornate design
-functional, boxy skyscrapers in CBD, multistory apartment towers in central city, and miles of ranch houses in suburbs (very futuristic and industrial
-i.e. Leave it to Beaver of 1950s/60s – male breadwinner, wife homemaker
-believes in universal models for how the world does and should function
-ex: Brasilia, Brazil
E. Post Modernism 1950s- today
- celebrates diversity and denies modernism idea that there are universal models for how the world does and should function
- emphasizes style, aesthetics, decoration, context, and historic preservation (form as well as function)
- post modernism has dozens of different styles and much more diverse
****No 2 cities look alike, feel or smell the same. All are products of cultural landscape – interaction of the natural landscape and the unique culture of the group that occupies it……history, geography, religion, values, monuments, language, food, priorities, etc. etc.