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URBAN DESIGN
ASSIGNMENT : 1
S 7 B AT C H

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EARLY CITIES
Mesopotamian Civilization (UR,Babylon)
I n d u s Va l l e y C i v i l i z a t i o n ( H a r a p p a ,
Mohenjo-Daro)
Greek Cities(Athens ,Piraeus ,Miletus
,Rome) 2 2
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Mesopotamian
Civilization
UR , BABYLON

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INTRODUCTION

• Mesopotamia is a historical region of Western Asia situated within

the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile
Crescent. Mesopotamia occupies most of present-
day Iraq and Kuwait .The historical region includes the head of
the Persian Gulf and parts of present-day Iran, Syria, and Turkey.

• The study of ancient Mesopotamian architecture is based on

available archaeological evidence, pictorial representation of
buildings, and texts on building practices. Scholarly literature
usually concentrates on temples, palaces, city walls and gates,
and other monumental buildings, but occasionally one finds
works on residential architecture as well. Archaeological
surface surveys also allowed for the study of urban form in
early Mesopotamian cities.

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INTODUCTION

• Brick is the dominant material, as the material was freely available

locally, whereas building stone had to be brought a considerable
distance to most cities.[75] The ziggurat is the most distinctive form,
and cities often had large gateways, of which the Ishtar Gate from
Neo-Babylonian Babylon, decorated with beasts in polychrome brick,
is the most famous, now largely in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
• The most notable architectural remains from early Mesopotamia are
the temple complexes at Uruk from the 4th millennium BC, temples
and palaces . Houses are mostly known from Old Babylonian remains
at Nippur and Ur. Among the textual sources on building construction
and associated rituals are Gudea's cylinders from the late 3rd
millennium are notable, as well as the Assyrian and Babylonian royal
inscriptions from the Iron Age

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• The Sumerians were the first society to construct the city itself as a
built and advanced form. They were proud of this achievement as
attested in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which opens with a description
of Uruk—its walls, streets, markets, temples, and gardens. Uruk itself
is significant as the center of an urban culture which both colonized
and urbanized western Asia.
• The construction of cities was the end product of trends which began
in the Neolithic Revolution. The growth of the city was partly planned
and partly organic. Planning is evident in the walls, high temple
district, main canal with harbor, and main street. The finer structure of
residential and commercial spaces is the reaction of economic forces
to the spatial limits imposed by the planned areas resulting in an
irregular design with regular features. Because the Sumerians
recorded real estate transactions it is possible to reconstruct much of
the urban growth pattern, density, property value, and other metrics
from cuneiform text sources.

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• The typical city divided space into residential, mixed use, commercial,
and civic spaces. The residential areas were grouped by
profession. At the core of the city was a high temple complex always
sited slightly off of the geographical center. This high temple usually
predated the founding of the city and was the nucleus around which
the urban form grew. The districts adjacent to gates had a special
religious and economic function.
• The city always included a belt of irrigated agricultural land including
small hamlets. A network of roads and canals connected the city to
this land. The transportation network was organized in three tiers:
wide processional streets, public through streets ,and private blind
alleys . The public streets that defined a block varied little over time
while the blind-alleys were much more fluid. The current estimate is
10% of the city area was streets and 90% buildings. The canals;
however, were more important than roads for good transportation.

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ZIGGURATS

• They were huge pyramidal temple towers which were first built in
Sumerian City-States and then developed in Babylonia and Assyrian
cities as well. There are 32 ziggurats known at, or near,
Mesopotamia—28 in Iraq and 4 in Iran. Notable ziggurats include
the Great Ziggurat of Ur near Nasiriyah, Iraq, the Ziggurat of Aqar
Quf near Baghdad, Iraq, Chogha Zanbil in Khūzestān, Iran (the most
recent to be discovered), and the Sialk near Kashan, Iran. Ziggurats
were built by the Sumerians, Babylonians, Elamites, and Assyrians as
monuments to local religions. The earliest examples of the ziggurat
were raised platforms that date from the Ubaid period[20] during the
fourth millennium BC, and the latest date from the 6th century BC.
The top of the ziggurat was flat, unlike many pyramids. The step
pyramid style began near the end of the Early Dynastic Period.

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ZIGGURATS

• Built in receding tiers upon a rectangular, oval, or square platform, the

ziggurat was a pyramidal structure. Sun-baked bricks made up the
core of the ziggurat with facings of fired bricks on the outside. The
facings were often glazed in different colours and may have
had astrological significance. Kings sometimes had their names
engraved on these glazed bricks. The number of tiers ranged from
two to seven, with a shrine or temple at the summit. Access to the
shrine was provided by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat
or by a spiral ramp from base to summit. It has been suggested that
ziggurats were built to resemble mountains, but there is little textual or
archaeological evidence to support that hypothesis.
• Classical ziggurats emerged in the Neo-Sumerian Period with
articulated buttresses, vitreous brick sheathing, and entasis in the
elevation. The Ziggurat of Ur is the best example of this style. Another
change in temple design in this period was a straight as opposed to
bent-axis approach to the temple.

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BABYLON

• Located about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Baghdad in modern-

day Iraq, the ancient city of Babylon served for nearly two millennia as
a center of Mesopotamian civilization.
• One of its early rulers, Hammurabi, created a harsh system of laws,
while in later times the Babylonian language would be used across
the Middle East as a way of communicating across borders. Another
great accomplishment, if the ancient stories are true, is the
construction of the Hanging Gardens, a wonder of the ancient world,
which some believe was built by the biblical king Nebuchadnezzar II.
• The ancient scientists who lived in the city made important
discoveries in mathematics, physics and astronomy. Among their
many accomplishments, they developed trigonometry, used
mathematical models to track the planet Jupiter and developed
methods of tracking time that are still used today. Ancient Babylonian
records are still used by modern-day astronomers to study how
the rotation of the Earth has changed.

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• Built by Nebuchadnezzar II and named after Ishtar, a goddess of love

and war, the Ishtar Gate served as the ceremonial entrance to the
inner wall of Babylon, a route that ultimately leads to the ziggurat and
Esagil shrine. People passing by it in antiquity would see glazed blue
and yellow bricks with alternating images of dragons and bulls carved
in relief. A reconstruction of it that incorporates surviving materials is
currently in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Vorderasiatisches
Museum in Germany.
• Joachim Marzahn writes in a chapter of "Babylon" that the "amazing
Ishtar Gate, composed of an ante-gate in the outer wall and the main
gate in the larger inner wall of the city, with a 48 meter-long (158 feet)
passage, was decorated with no fewer than 575 depictions of animals
(according to calculations made by excavators)," noting that these
"pictures, of bulls and dragons, representing the holy animals of the
weather god Adad and the imperial god Marduk, were placed in
alternating rows."
• In addition, Marzahn writes that a processional way ran through the
Ishtar Gate, and for about 590 feet (180 m) had images of lions
carved in relief. The mouths of the lions are open, baring their teeth, 1111

and the manes of the creatures are finely detailed.

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HANGING GARDENS
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• The Hanging Gardens [is so-called because it] has plants

cultivated at a height above ground level, and the roots of the
trees are embedded in an upper terrace rather than in the earth.
This is the technique of its construction. The whole mass is
supported on stone columns, so that the entire underlying space
is occupied by carved column bases

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INDUS VALLEY
CIVILIZATION
H A R A P PA , M O H E J O - D A R O

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INTRODUCTION

• The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus

Civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilization in the northwestern
regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its
mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE.Together with ancient
Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilizations of
the Near East and South Asia, and of the three, the most widespread,
its sites spanning an area stretching from today's
northeast Afghanistan, through much of Pakistan, and into western
and northwestern India. It flourished in the basins of the Indus River,
which flows through the length of Pakistan, and along a system of
perennial, mostly monsoon-fed, rivers that once coursed in the vicinity
of the seasonal Ghaggar-Hakra river in northwest India and eastern
Pakistan

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HARAPPAN Master title style

• The Indus civilization is also known as the Harappa Civilization, after

its type site, Harappa, the first of its sites to be excavated early in the
20th century in what was then the Punjab province of British India and
is now in Pakistan. The discovery of Harappa and soon afterwards
Mohenjo-Daro was the culmination of work beginning in 1861 with the
founding of the Archaeological Survey of India during the British
Raj.[10] There were however earlier and later cultures often called
Early Harappa and Late Harappa in the same area; for this reason,
the Harappa civilization is sometimes called the Mature Harappa to
distinguish it from these other cultures.

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PLANNING

• A notable feature of Harappa architecture is that of a developed

infrastructural city plan, in that they had sophisticated systems to
control the flow of water and waste with public wells and drains that
may have required advanced planning to implement. The cities were
divided into rectilinear grids, encircled by fortifications, with each block
containing a network of houses and public wells. Harappa cities
featured urban and social elements such as roads, fire pits, kilns, and
industrial buildings, and were primarily functional in purpose rather
than aesthetic. The city sewerage, plumbing, and drainage systems
were distributed in the network of the grid planning by early hydro-
engineers to be functionally used and maintained. The Harappa
civilization seems to also be capable of astrological observation and
alignment, as some evidence exists that Mohenjo-Daro was aligned
with the star Rotini

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MOHENJO-DARO

• Mohenjo-Daro had a planned layout with rectilinear buildings

arranged on a grid plan. Most were built of fired and mortared brick;
some incorporated sun-dried mud-brick and wooden superstructures.
• Sites were often raised, or built on man made hills. This could be to
combat flooding in the nearby areas. Another aspect of the
architecture is they often built walls around their entire cities. This
could have served several different needs. Many believe that the
walls were built as defensive structures, where “Large and impressive
construction works can be used to intimidate potential attackers
(Trigger 1990),” . It was also an obvious feature to show the city was
strong and powerful by being able to divert resources and labor to
make such a large structure and not focus all of their energy on
survival. This was not the only purpose for the wall, it is thought that
the wall also served as protection from floods. There is also evidence
of a tapering at the bottom of the wall to guide the water away from
the city.

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MOHENJO-DARO

• The city could be split into two different sections: an upper "acropolis"
and a "lower town". The lower town consisted of lower valued
residential buildings located on the eastern side of the city, while the
upper acropolis would be on the western side of the city which
contained the higher value buildings and public buildings. The
acropolis was a “parallelogram that was 400–500 yards north-south
and 200–300 yards east-west” It was also thought that the acropolis
area would be built on the highest part of the mound in the city
showing the importance and status of the area was much higher than
the rest of the area. Another feature which suggests the acropolis is of
higher importance is that the fortifications around the area where
bigger and stronger than those around the rest of the city.

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• Great Bath, ancient structure at Mohenjo-Daro, Pakistan, an

archaeological site featuring ruins of the Indus civilization. The Great
Bath dates to the 3rd millennium BCE and is believed to have been
used for rite Great Bath is part of a large citadel complex that was
found in the 1920s during excavations of Mohenjo-Daro, one of the
main centers of the Indus civilization. The bath is built of fine
brickwork and measures 897 square feet (83 square meters). It is 8
feet (2.5 meters) lower than the surrounding pavement. The floor
consists of two skins of sawed brick set on edge in gypsum mortar,
with a layer of bitumen sealer sandwiched between the skins. Water
was evidently supplied by a large well in an adjacent room, and an
outlet in one corner of the bath led to a high corbeled drain that
disgorged on the west side of the mound. The bath was reached by
flights of steps at either end, originally finished with timbered treads
set in bitumen.

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GREEK CITIES
AT H E N S , P I R A E O U S , M I L E T U S , R O M E

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INTRODUCTION

• Ancient Greek architecture came from the Greek-speaking

people (Hellenic people) whose culture flourished on the Greek
mainland, the Peloponnese, the Aegean Islands, and in colonies
in Anatolia and Italy for a period from about 900 BC until the 1st
century AD, with the earliest remaining architectural works dating from
around 600 BC.
• Ancient Greek architecture is best known from its temples, many of
which are found throughout the region, with the Parthenon regarded,
now as in ancient times, as the prime example. Most remains are very
incomplete ruins, but a number survive substantially intact, mostly
outside modern Greece. The second important type of building that
survives all over the Hellenic world is the open-air theatre, with the
earliest dating from around 525–480 BC. Other architectural forms
that are still in evidence are the processional gateway (propyl on), the
public square (agora) surrounded by storied colonnade (stoat), the
town council building (bouleuterion), the public monument, the
monumental tomb (mausoleum) and the stadium.

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ORDERS

• Ancient Greek architecture of the most formal type, for temples and
other public buildings, is divided stylistically into three Classical
orders, first described by the Roman architectural writer Vitruvius.
These are: the Doric order, the Ionic order, and the Corinthian order,
the names reflecting their regional origins within the Greek world.
While the three orders are most easily recognizable by their capitals,
they also governed the form, proportions, details and relationships of
the columns, entablature, pediment, and the stylobate. The different
orders were applied to the whole range of buildings and monuments.
• The Doric order developed on mainland Greece and spread to Magna
Graecia (Italy). It was firmly established and well-defined in its
characteristics by the time of the building of the Temple of
Hera at Olympia, c. 600 BC. The Ionic order co-existed with the Doric,
being favored by the Greek cities of Ionia, in Asia Minor and
the Aegean Islands. It did not reach a clearly defined form until the
mid 5th century BC.[27] The early Ionic temples of Asia Minor were
particularly ambitious in scale, such as the Temple of
Artemis at Ephesus.[12] The Corinthian order was a highly decorative
variant not developed until the Hellenistic period and retaining many 2222
characteristics of the Ionic. It was popularized by the Romans
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• The Doric order is recognized by its capital, of which the echinus is

like a circular cushion rising from the top of the column to the
square abacus on which rest the lintels. The echinus appears flat and
splayed in early examples, deeper and with greater curve in later,
more refined examples, and smaller and straight-sided in Hellenistic
examples. A refinement of the Doric column is the encases, a gentle
convex swelling to the profile of the column, which prevents an optical
illusion of concavity. This is more pronounced in earlier examples.
• Doric columns are almost always cut with grooves, known as "fluting",
which run the length of the column and are usually 20 in number,
although sometimes fewer. The flutes meet at sharp edges
called arises. At the top of the columns, slightly below the narrowest
point, and crossing the terminating arises, are three horizontal
grooves known as the hypotrachelion. Doric columns have no bases,
until a few examples in the Hellenistic period.

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IONIC ORDERS
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• The Ionic order is recognized by its volute capital, in which a

curved echinus of similar shape to that of the Doric order, but
decorated with stylized ornament, is surmounted by a horizontal band
that scrolls under to either side, forming spirals or volutes similar to
those of the nautilus shell or ram's horn. In plan, the capital is
rectangular. It is designed to be viewed frontally but the capitals at the
corners of buildings are modified with an additional scroll so as to
appear regular on two adjoining faces. In the Hellenistic period, four-
fronted Ionic carlike the Doric order, the Ionic order retains signs of
having its origins in wooden architecture. The horizontal spread of a
flat timber plate across the top of a column is a common device in
wooden construction, giving a thin upright a wider area on which to
bear the lintel, while at the same time reinforcing the load-bearing
strength of the lintel itself. Likewise, the columns always have bases,
a necessity in wooden architecture to spread the load and protect the
base of a comparatively thin upright. The columns are fluted with
narrow, shallow flutes that do not meet at a sharp edge but have a flat
band or fillet between them. The usual number of flutes is twenty-four
but there may be as many as forty-four. The base has two convex
moldings called torus, and from the late Hellenic period stood on a 2424

square plinth similar to the abacus.[pitas became common.

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CORINTHIAN ORDERStitle style

• The Corinthian order does not have its origin in wooden architecture.
It grew directly out of the Ionic in the mid 5th century BC, and was
initially of much the same style and proportion, but distinguished by its
more ornate capitals. The capital was very much deeper than either
the Doric or the Ionic capital, being shaped like a large crater, a bell-
shaped mixing bowl, and being ornamented with a double row
of acanthus leaves above which rose volute tendrils, supporting the
corners of the abacus, which, no longer perfectly square, splayed
above them. According to Vitruvius, the capital was invented by a
bronze founder, Callimachus of Corinth, who took his inspiration from
a basket of offerings that had been placed on a grave, with a flat tile
on top to protect the goods. The basket had been placed on the root
of an acanthus plant which had grown up around it .The ratio of the
column height to diameter is generally 10:1, with the capital taking up
more than 1/10 of the height. The ratio of capital height to diameter is
generally about 1.16:1.

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ATHENS

• Athens was the center of ancient Greek theatre, a city embellished

with open-air structures constructed on the sloping hillsides. One of
the surviving ancient Greek theaters is the Theatre of
Dionysus located at the foot of the Acropolis. It dates back to 600 BC
and is dedicated to the god of Dionysus. The theater can easily
accommodate up to 20,000 people. West of the ancient theatre lies
the Odeon of Herodias Atticus.
• In the heart of the city, opposite Syntegra Square lies the
remarkable Greek Parliament. The building was originally the house
of the royal family but the early 20th century the building was
devastated by a fire and the family had to abandon it. In 1930, it
became the Hellenic Parliament. For more ancient sightseeing in
Athens, you can visit the historical neighborhoods
of Monastiraki, Plaka, and Thision and stroll through the classic
Roman monuments and Ancient Agora. Athens central streets host
some of the most beautiful 18th and 19th-century buildings of
neoclassical architecture like the National Library and the Academy.

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MILETUS

• Evidence of first settlement at the site has been made inaccessible by

the rise of sea level and deposition of sediments from the Maeander.
The first available evidence is of the Neolithic. In the early and
middle Bronze Age the settlement came under Minoan influence.
Legend has it that an influx of Cretans occurred displacing the
indigenous Leleges, and the site was renamed Miletus after a place in
Crete.
• Recorded history at Miletus begins with the records of the Hittite
Empire, and the Mycenaean records of Pylos and Knossos, in the
Late Bronze Age. Miletus was a Mycenaean stronghold on the coast
of Asia Minor from c. 1450 to 1100 BCE.
• The 13th century BCE saw the arrival of Luwian language speakers
from south central Anatolia calling themselves the Carians. Later in
that century other Greeks arrived. The city at that time rebelled
against the Hittite Empire. After the fall of that empire the city was
destroyed in the 12th century BCE and starting about 1000 BCE was
resettled extensively by the Ionian Greeks. Legend offers an Ionian
foundation event sponsored by a founder named Neleus from
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ROME

• Ancient Roman architecture adopted the external language of

classical Greek architecture for the purposes of the ancient Romans,
but was different from Greek buildings, becoming a
new architectural style. The two styles are often considered one body
of classical architecture. Roman architecture flourished in the Roman
Republic and to even a greater extent under the Empire, when the
great majority of surviving buildings were constructed. It used new
materials, particularly Roman concrete, and newer technologies such
as the arch and the dome to make buildings that were typically strong
and well-engineered. Large numbers remain in some form across the
former empire, sometimes complete and still in use to this day.
• Roman architecture covers the period from the establishment of the
Roman Republic in 509 BC to about the 4th century AD, after which it
becomes reclassified as Late Antique or Byzantine architecture. Few
substantial examples survive from before about 100 BC, and most of
the major survivals are from the later empire, after about 100 AD.
Roman architectural style continued to influence building in the former
empire for many centuries, and the style used in Western Europe
beginning about 1000 is called Romanesque architecture to reflect 2828
this dependence on basic Roman forms
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THEATRES

• Roman theatres were built in all areas of the Empire, from Spain to
the Middle East. Because of the Romans' ability to influence local
architecture, we see numerous theatres around the world with
uniquely Roman attributes.
• These buildings were semi-circular and possessed certain inherent
architectural structures, with minor differences depending on the
region in which they were constructed. The scaenae frons was a high
back wall of the stage floor, supported by columns.
The proscaenium was a wall that supported the front edge of the
stage with ornately decorated niches off to the sides. The Hellenistic
influence is seen through the use of the proscaenium. The Roman
theatre also had a podium, which sometimes supported the columns
of the scaenae frons. The scaenae was originally not part of the
building itself, constructed only to provide sufficient background for
the actors. Eventually, it became a part of the edifice itself, made out
of concrete. The theatre itself was divided into the stage (orchestra)
and the seating section (auditorium). Vomitoria or entrances and exits
were made available to the audience
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TEMPLES

• Roman temples were among the most important and richest buildings
in Roman culture, though only a few survive in any sort of complete
state. Their construction and maintenance was a major part of ancient
Roman religion, and all towns of any importance had at least one
main temple, as well as smaller shrines. The main
room (cella) housed the cult image of the deity to whom the temple
was dedicated, and often a small altar for incense or libations. Behind
the cella was a room or rooms used by temple attendants for storage
of equipment and offerings.
• Some remains of many Roman temples survive, above all in Rome
itself, but the relatively few near-complete examples were nearly all
converted to Christian churches (and sometimes subsequently
to mosques), usually a considerable time after the initial triumph of
Christianity under Constantine. The decline of Roman religion was
relatively slow, and the temples themselves were not appropriated by
the government until a decree of the Emperor Honorius in 415. Some
of the oldest surviving temples include the Temple of Hercules
Victor (mid 2nd century BC) and Temple of Portunus (120–80 BC),
both standing within the Forum Boarium. 3030