Download the roman city: town planning

THE ROMAN CITY: TOWN PLANNING
organized planning
orthogonal plan / grid plan / ‘Hippodamian’ plan
Hippodamus of Miletus – 5th century BC
- ‘father of town planning’ (Aristotle)
regular planning had existed long before - systemized by Hippodamus
5th/4th century BC examples [west coast of Asia Minor]:
Miletus (destroyed by Persians 494 BC; flat ground)
Priene (relocated at new site; sloping ground)
streets create square or rectangular grids
insulae – ‘islands’/blocks (sing. = insula)
zoning – e.g. important public buildings focused in one area
often N-S orientation
Early Italy:
- Etruscan town planning (influenced by Greek colonies in Magna Graecia)
e.g. Marzabotto, late 6th century BC
a ‘normal’/’ideal’ planned Roman city (with many variations)
- often applied to military colonies (castrum, castra) and new foundations
- like a Roman military fort
- square or rectangle (‘playing card’ plan, with rounded corners)
- cardo maximus (N - S street)
- decumanus maximus (E – W street)
- four gates
- forum usually central
One of the best examples:
Timgad in North Africa, planned by Trajan as a veteran colony
ROME
– ‘unplanned’
Monarchy:
Capitoline temple
Forum Romanum -
Temple of Vesta
Curia (Hostilia)
Comitium
Regia
Circus Maximus
Forum Boarium (cattle market)
Servian Wall
gradually, more buildings added to forum (basilicas, temples) to give it a roughly
rectangular shape – but never as regular as fora in most other Roman cities, e.g. Pompeii
End of Republic:
Julius Caesar initiated some reorganization and new building projects
- e.g.
moved curia and rostra
Forum Julium
Augustus:
Temple of Divus Julius
Forum of Augustus
“I found Rome a city of brick (i.e. mud-brick) and left it a city of marble”
Imperial fora complex competed by:
Forum of Vespasian
Forum Transitorium (Domitian – Nerva)
Forum of Trajan ( and Trajan’s markets)