ANCIENT TOWN

PLANNING
GREECE

TOWN PLANNING
The art of laying out towns with due care for the health and comfort of
inhabitants, for industrial and commercial efficiency, and for reasonable beauty
of buildings.
It is an art of intermittent activity.

THE ANCIENT GREEK CITY-STATE AND TOWN

There were hundreds of Greek city-states, or poleis, and these varied greatly in
size, social life, and economic basis.
The old cities had irregular street patterns and the new cities had Grid- iron street
pattern.
Many were small communities, supporting no more than a thousand individuals,
and without the means to construct impressive public buildings.
At the other extreme is the city of Athens, the best known -- and by far the largest
-- polis.
The city was divided into 3 spaces: ACROPOLIS, AGORA and the TOWN.
Towns had fixed boundaries and some were protected by fortification.
Much of the town was devoted to public use.
The city planning and design was centered on the appreciation of buildings from
the outside.

ATHENS
The geography of ancient Greece was divided into three regions: the coast, the
lowlands and the mountains.
ATHENS grew from the focal point of the rocky and uneven soil, the
ACROPOLIS, which became the ceremonial center of the city-state, decked with
temples including the PARTHENON.
It has organic plan.
PROPYLEA, is the main entrance gate at ATHENS.
AGORA was the center of Athenian life. Laid out in the 6th century B.C,
northwest of the ACROPOLIS, it was a square lined by public buildings, which
served Athens needs for commerce and politics.
The streets of ATHENS are narrow and tortous, unpaved, unlighted and more like
a chaos of mud and sewage than even the usual Greek road.

ACROPOLIS
An Acropolis is any citadel or complex built on a high hill.
The Acropolis rises 490 feet (150 meters) into the sky above the city of Athens
and has a surface area of approximately 7 acres (3 hectares). There was already a
complex built on the hill, and a temple to Athena in progress, which was
destroyed by the Persians. The later structures, were built to exemplify the glory
of the city. It combined Doric order and Ionic order in a perfect composition of
the four main buildings: The Propylaia, The Parthenon, The Erechtheion, and The
Temple of Athena .
The Propylaia was the ornate entranceway into the temple complex, while the
Parthenon was the central attraction.

AGORA
The Agora of Athens has been in use since the late Neolithic era, and it
was used as a cemetery during the Mycenaean and the later Iron Ages.
From the 6th and until the 1st century BCE the Agora as the heart of
the government and the judiciary, as a public place of debate, as a
place of worship, and as marketplace, played a central role in the
development of the Athenian ideals, and provided a healthy
environment where the unique Democratic political system took its first
wobbly steps on earth.

OLYNTHUS
The city of Olynthus was divided into three main sections that were all built at
different times and considered independent of one another the South Hill, the
North Hill, and the Villa Section. The North Hill was built in 432 BC and follows
a Hippodamian plan. The North Hill was laid out on a Hippodamian grid of
straight, wide streets. At the south end of the North Hill was the agora, which
covered nearly four city blocks. The agora was surrounded by several other
public buildings and an area of commerce which ran along a central avenue of
the city. The agora was highly accessible to both North and South Hill residents,
as well as foreigners passing through Olynthus. The public land was surrounded
by private homes, creating a separation between public and private land, as per
the Hippodamian plan.

THE HIPPODAMIAN PLAN

The Hippodamian city plan called for a rectangular grid. At the time this was
rare, because in case of a strike or invasion of the city, infiltrators could easily
find their way in and around a rectangular grid, whereas a city of curves, twists,
dead ends, and unorganized streets is much harder for a stranger to navigate, thus
serving as a protective measure.
Nevertheless, the Hippodamian plan called for a neatly arranged, ordered,
organized city, of lined up wide streets. Public space was to be clustered together
in the center of the city. Shrines, theaters, government buildings, market space,
and the agora (a central space where athletic, political, artistic, and spiritual
activity took place) were all to be close together in the center of the city, enclosed
by the grid of city streets. Sites for public space were allotted in advance,
whereas prior to the Hippodamian plan, site allotment seemed to be done at
random.

REFERENCE
Cahill, N. (May 01, 2000). Olynthus and Greek Town Planning. The Classical
World, 93,5, 497-515.
TOWN PLANNING: THE CITY OF THE PAST
THE CLASSIC CITY
ATHENS by Joshua J. Mark
Wycherley, R.E. 1973. The Athenian Agora 3: The Literary and Epigraphical
Testimonia, Princeton.
Gutenberg EBook of Ancient Town-Planning, by F. Haverfield

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