TOWN PLANNING IN ATHENS

• Athens grew from its focal point, 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 as narrow and tortuous, unpaved, unlighted, and more like a chaos of mud and sewage than even the usual Greek road.

A T H E N S• The geography of ancient Greece was divided into three regions: the coast, the lowlands, and the mountains. The rocky and uneven soil on the peninsula of Greece allowed for less than 20 percent of the land to be farmed, so the Greeks relied heavily on imports of grains and other foods from other regions around the Mediterranean.

ACROPOLISThe Acropolis hill, so called the "Sacred Rock" of Athens, is the most important site of the city.The entire development of Athens has originated from the acropolis. It is the focal point of Athens.

Neolithic Era - 6000BC-1600BC

Early settlements chose to stay on top of the hill

Gradually they descended down the slope towards the northern and southern sides

SEAthe people kept in close contact with the coasts

The early Bronze Age (3200–2000 BC)The settlements started expanding over wider area . They started moving towards the sea.

During this age feudal system existed.

KING

FREEMEN

SLAVES

FARMERS

In the later bronze age the northern parts also started developing and expanding.

DARK AGES (1.150 BC/1.100 BC – 900 BC)

Invasion of Peloponnesse which came as a blow and the Athenians took time to stand up again. The attack resulted in the reduction of population.

GEOMETRIC PERIOD (900 BC – 800/750 BC)

Athens suffered a heavy blow, perhaps on account of a drought followed by famine and epidemic diseases.

ARCHAIC ATHENS (800 BC/750 BC -494 BC)

Peisistratos built the first wall around the city. This wall was almost circular and had eight gates. Many monuments were built on the Acropolis

For the first time an underground aqueduct was constructed to bring water from mount Hymettus.

No concrete town planning appears to have existed; the streets of the city were in their majority narrow and irregular in shape, while the inhabitants built their houses arbitrarily

The city was again attacked destroyed, this time by Persians

Classical Athens(494 BC -478 BC)

• City rebuilt according to plan devised by Hippodamus

• Themistocles wall was built around the city. Athens soon prospered again.

• Hippodamos devised an ideal city to be inhabited by 50,000 people

• He studied the functional problems of cities and linked them to the state administration system.

• As a result he divided the citizens into three classes (soldiers, artisans and 'husbandmen'), with the land also divided into three (sacred, public and private).

• The port of the harbour-town Peiraeus grew in importance. Ship sheds and dry docks were constructed for the warships. He planned the arrangement Peiraeus at Athens in the middle of the fifth century BC.

Broad, straight streets

Right angles

Open space for development of agora

• The placement of buildings were decided on natural factors such as the morphology of the land

• For eg. The theatres were generally built around a slope to provide natural seating.

• The Agora was built over a flat surface.

• The houses were generally placed along the southern slope and part of Acropolis facing the sea.

Hellenistic Athens(339 BC - 168 BC)

• Demand for regularity.

• Acropolis was the initial core. Some main streets started at its entrance, as well as from the road immediately surrounding it, proceeded radially throughout the city and came to an end at the city wall gates. In doing so, they left some free areas, the most important of which was Agora.

Roman Athens (183 BC-BC 31)

ACROPOLIS

ATHENIAN AGORA- NEW BUILDINGS BUILT HERE

NEW

NEW ROMAN CLOSED AGORA- HOUSES AND BUILDINGS HERE WERE DEMOLISHED.

The Last Roman Century and Medieval Athens 330 - 1000 & The first period of the Byzantine/Greek Empire & The Athenian renaissance (1000-1205) & and Ottoman Empire

(1456-1689)

The Athenian empire was limited to the post roman fortification with development of smaller towns around it. These merged later to form Athens as we see today.

ATHENS IN THE 19th CENTURY• Its entire orientation was aimed at Piraeus and primarily the Akropolis, at whose feet it spread out in an open embrace.

• Kleanthes and Schaubert developed a capital plan for a city of 35,000 to 40,000 inhabitants even though in 1833 Athens had only 4,000 citizens.

• The New City included about half of the Old one, while extending from it to the West, the North and the East. The other half of the Old City, was to be expropriated for archaeological excavation.

• The Old City was maintained only as a geographical space, and not as a construction zone, since it was anticipated that its largest section would be divided up by new roads and standard rectangular building lots.

• The shape of the main axes would be an isosceles triangle, with its peak at today’s Omonia Square, its sides defined by Piraeus and Stadiou streets, and Ermou Street as its base.

ACROPOLIS

PIRAEUS

The road network was elaborated in part as spokes with hubs at circular plazas, and in part as horizontals and verticals in the direction of the main axes, always with absolute regularity.

SPOKES AT CIRCULAR PLAZAS

HORIZONTAL & VERTICAL

FORMATION OF SQUARE BY FOUR BOULEVARDS AND TO HOUSE THE ROYAL PALACE

Leo von Klenze’s plan (1834)• Strict planning and grid patterns are less necessary to the southern

city.• They are more organic in development.• Streets and squares are smaller in size. Thus he left the existing city,

especially its residential parts, untouched.

Expansion was directed to the west and to the south in his plan. This planner believed in the concept of the 'southern city'.

WE SEE THE GROWTH IN THE CITY OF ATHENS (1870) IN THE KAUPERT PLAN

ATHENS IN THE 20th CENTURY

• In 1960-64 the first Athens Regional Plan was created to remedy problems stemming from the vast population increase of 4,000 in 1833 to 1,490,000 in 1959.

• There was a lot of revising of such plans, under the fascist government, but not much implementation. In 1982 the socialist government set up local and national planning boards but they were ineffective

SOURCES

• INTERNET:

• http://www.athens-today.com/• http://www.eie.gr/archaeologia/En/chapter_more_9.aspx• http://athang1504.blogspot.com/2011/01/ancient-athens.html• http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=23182822• http://ancientathens3d.com/ottomanathensEn.htm

• BOOKS:

• HISTORY OF HUMAN SETTLEMENT• TOWN PLANNING REPORTS FROM SPA LIBRARY

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