Description of different types of city planning in Europe in Medieval era.

1. CITY
PLANING
IN MEDIEVAL
EUROPE
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE 4 GROUP MEMBERS:
1. UZAIR IQBAL F2018101064
2. AREEJ KHALIL F2018101069
3. JAVERIA ZUFLIQAR F208202005

2. 1 2th century
MEDIEVAL TOWN FOUNDATIONS
9th & 10th centuries 1 3th century
• cities grew more rapidly in
size and numbers.
• the transition from an open
plan to a structurally
definable and more closed
and compact form.
• by the early 13th century, the
number of German cities
had risen to 2000.
• the century produced the
most active colonization
and town foundation- it was
a veritable new town boom
new and completely
transformed towns and cities
begin to emerge in Western
Europe. These grow out of a
variety of urban nuclei, which
over time, develop into a new
urban fabric: the medieval city

3. Culture and it impact on Architecture and City Planning
The living conditions on
land and the hope of
better economic
circumstances drove the
poor to migrate to the
towns. The town and
market centralizing
function for the
surrounding countryside.
SOCIETY TRADE
WAR
The early Middle Ages were
largely populated by
farmers, and frequently the
artisans also had pieces of
ground which they
cultivated.
The building of new
towns were increasingly
influenced by the vision
of the 'ideal town' of the
Italian master builders.
Town fortifications in the
form of hexagons
octagons and
dodecagons were
published.

4. During the medieval period, basically two types of buildings
• religious medieval buildings
• military medieval buildings.
. Gothic buildings of medieval period The constructors of Middle Ages
started creating buildings with perpendicular architecture. These
gothic buildings were constructed in between 13th and 16th century.
Gothic buildings were more suitable for religious ceremonies because
they were lighter and more spacious. Unlike Romanesque buildings,
Gothic buildings had wider doors and windows and instead of roman
arch system, builders used flying buttress and more towers and pillars
which increased their strength. Gothic buildings were more decorative
and beautiful and one of the most significant decorative features of
these buildings was gargoyles.
Architectural character of the cities

5. Medieval cities did establish in many and
varied locations: in plains, on hillsides, on
hilltops, on island, in valleys, on river
crossings. Site selection would depend on a
combination of traditional needs such as
protection, commercial advantage,
suitable communications or fertile
hinterland. City layouts, therefore, follow
different planning styles depending on
location and topography e.g. the hill towns
of southern France, southern Germany, and
of central Italy.
Types of
Locations

6. Medieval Cities of Europe were orientated in
relation to their topography.
Intentional orientation is not noticeable;
layouts of towns and cities do not observe
the four cardinal points as in Antiquity
Orientation

7. The shape or outline of town plans was delineated
by the wall which would best protect the city.
A wall had to have the shortest circumference
possible and take advantage of topographical
features. Obviously, this often limited the use of
geometric shapes; yet simple, geometric plans
were adopted whenever possible, especially in flat
country.
However, the layout of medieval cities was not
based on any symbolic geometric figure. The
choice of form or outline of a town was left to the
engineer responsible for its fortifications (as in
Classical Greece).
Shape

8. TYPES OF TOWNS
MEDIEVAL EUROPE ERA

9. • No town was ever wholly unplanned in the sense of being a
randomly distributed assemblage of houses and public
buildings. Every town once had a nucleus that defined its
purpose. This might have been a natural feature such as a
river crossing or a physical obstacle that necessitated a
break of bulk, the transfer of goods from one mode of
transportation to another—from ship to land, from animal
transportation to a wheeled cart. The nucleus might also
have been a castle or natural place of security or defense, a
church or an object of pilgrimage.
• The streets would probably have originated in the paths by
which people approached this nuclear feature and would
have formed a radiating pattern, interlinked by cross streets
and passageways.
• Some roads would have derived from the ways by which
people walked or drove their animals to the surrounding
fields.
The Unplanned town

10. • It had laid out straight streets, intersecting at right angles,
and thus enclosing rectangular blocks. This is, indeed, the
street plan demonstrated in Piraeus even today. Such a
planned town implies the existence not only of an overall
authority, but also the need to create a relatively large center
of population.
• The planned European city was not restricted to those that
derived from the Greeks or the Romans. Similar conditions
during the Middle Ages contributed to similar developments.
The medieval king or baron might found a city on an empty
tract of land. It might be nothing more than an open-ended
street, its houses aligned along each side with their “burgage”
plots reaching back behind them. It might consist of streets
intersecting at right angles. The one pattern would be
straggling, the other compact.
The Planned Town

11. • According to legend, which may not have been so very far
from the truth, the city of Rome grew from the merger of a
small number of villages that had previously crowned its hills.
The space between them was gradually drained, the Cloaca
Maxima (the Great Drain) taking the water that lay on the
lower ground, where the Forum was later to be established,
down to the river Tiber.
• An enclosing wall, the Servian Wall of some six miles, then
converted the seven hills into a single city. The Aurelian Wall,
constructed under the empire, was, at over ten miles, even
longer. This pattern was to be replicated in many other
European towns.
The Multi-focal town

12. • Security was a major factor in the creation and growth of
most towns. The Middle Ages were a lawless time, and most
citizens had much to lose not only from the activities of the
common thief, but also from the depredations of ill-
disciplined armies who made it a practice to live off the
country. • There was, therefore, some safety in numbers, and,
added to this, the medieval town usually took steps to defend
itself against these evils.
• During the “dark” centuries that followed, urban housing and
public buildings decayed, but walls survived, though
doubtless increasingly ruinous. When urban life began to
revive, their walls were still there, an object lesson in
fortification and urban security. In town after town in western
Europe the walls that had given their citizens protection under
the empire were patched and repaired and, here and there
extended to take in a newly developed suburb, again made
to serve.
The Walled town

13. • Most towns in western and central Europe grew up on the
banks of a river. In southern Europe, towns were more likely to
have been located on a hilltop, or at least on higher ground.
This may have been because of the need for a naturally
defensible site, but just as likely it was to escape the malaria-
carrying mosquito, which bred in the lakes and marshes of
the valley floor.
• A riverside location offered great advantages. The river itself
served both as a source of water and as a sewer. River
navigation was in much of Europe the cheapest, the easiest,
and the safest form of transportation, and, furthermore,
simply being on the banks of a river gave the town some
protection on at least one side. • There were even towns that
had their origin on an island encircled and protected by
rivers.
The Bridge town

14. Carcassonne is located in the Aude plain
between two great axis of circulation linking the
Atlantic to the Mediterranean sea and the
Massif Central to the Pyrenees.
Its strategic importance was quickly recognized
by the Romans who occupied its hilltop until the
demise of their western empire and was later
taken over by the Visigoths in the fifth century
who founded the city.
Town planning:
Carcassonne

15. •Carcassonne is a fortified medieval walled city in southwestern France.
•The City of Carcassonne’s double row of fortified walls run almost two
miles long and accentuated by 56 imposing watchtowers.
•The city of Carcassonne followed a irregular pattern of planning
composing of
market square, castle and church.
•The fortification was protected by the construction of a defensive wall
some
1,200 m long. The fortifications, consisting of two lines of walls and a
castle,
which is itself surrounded by fortifications, extend over a total length of 3
km
•Irregular pattern of streets are seen.
•The market square has narrow streets which also follows a irregular
pattern. •The walled town of Carcassonne is roughly rectangular in
shape, up to 525 meters long and 250 m wide. It is surrounded by its
medieval double enclosure wall; the inner curtain is 1245 m in length, with
29 towers, while the outer has 18 towers and is 1320 m long.
• The outer wall contains seventeen towers and barbicans. Most of the
outer towers were built with open sides facing the inner walls so that if
taken the towers could not provide protection for the attackers.
CITY
FEATURES

16. Town planning:
Carcassonne

17. The Elements of the
Medieval city

18. Civic Buildings
Express pride and wealth of a town’s inhabitants and are
concentrated around and near market place(s).
Town Hall Guild Hall Hospital
Always reserved prime site
on main market square
where their scale and size
provides striking contrast
to other buildings in the
area. - often positioned
opposite town church
(cathedral) or even
secular ruler’s castle.
-to care for old and poor
- set up by holy orders
besides church, the most
important representative of
corporate life

19. The Market Place
Street
Markets
public, social life concentrated in citycentres.
communal centers (i.e. belonging to community,
expressive of it). Emerge only during high middle ages In
earlier times the fortress, abbey, or Bishops’ seat took up
central positions.
Earliest form and represent
extension of the linear
traffic artery on which
many medieval plan
types are based.
Central Markets
preferred shape was that of a
regular rectangle, often also a
simple square shape e.g.
market and commercial cities
of central and eastern Europe
in 13th and 14th centuries. - to
maintain uninterrupted
enclosing facades, streets do
not enter space axially but at
corners only..

20. City Walls, Gates, Towers
-determine outline and general appearance of medieval city.
- give medieval community its strongest characteristic of
homogeneity.
Walls
Towers
Gates
Represent link with the outside
world
- major roads lead from gates to
other towns etc.
- control and customs point for
people and goods
- strategically represent weakness
in defensive system, therefore
often flanked by towers.
Defend city, people, animals and
property
- symbolise to outside world a
town’s strength & political
independence note:
destruction of urban wall
means loss of freedom
- large proportion of public funds
devoted to construct,
maintain and extend urban
fortifications
To defend walls and city and
afford the outflanking of
enemy (crossfire)
- re-inforce walls
structurally
- ballistically represent an
advantage as can fire
further away

21. POPULATION
Medium-sized towns not over
50 ha [124 acres]
Many small sized towns
4 – 10 ha [10-25 acres]
SIZE
• 1248:
• 25,000 population
• 1500:
• 35,000 population