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Arc 432 City in
architectural history
Instructor: Susan Henderson
Feb, 2002
New York was founded by the Dutch at lower Manhattan in 1624. After about 200 years development, a completed city plan was done on 1811: a perfect grid system is created by 12 north-south avenues and 155 east-west streets. (Figure 1)
Beijing became the capital of China about 900 years ago, and remained the world’s largest city until 1800. It has 4 important changes in the last 4 Dynasties, but the basic idea of city planning keeps similar: rectangular outline with gates on each side of the wall, and orthogonal grid inside with imperial city in the center. (Figure 2)
Manhattan and Beijing both use grid system for city planning. However they have lots of differences by comparing the shape, the termination, the nature and the relations of the grid, etc.
Cause of formation of the grid depends on the function and status of the city.
Manhattan was designed as a real estate city in 19C. So the grips are very even, which is the easiest and most strict way to distribute the estate. There are very few conditions that one building block occupied more than one ‘estate block’, except the really big building, like Grand Central Station, or the public open space. The system is very straightforward. It can be applied in any cities has the similar commercial and development need.
Beijing, as the capital in China, was designed under social and political control. So the imperial city is the most important element in the city. It is located in the center of the city, plus the waterway, it has great impact on the grid system. It blocks the transportation from the east side to the west side. The rest of the city was design under most strict hierachical and Fengshui idea, which is about how to create harmony between nature and people and artificial thing. The hierarchy of the building is shown by how big the site is.
The size and shape of the block and their internal organization depends on the building size, the hierarchy and orientation of the building.
In Manhattan, the distance between two avenues is about 750 feet, while the distance between two streets is about 170 feet. In order to let more buildings have open façades facing either the avenues or the streets, most building sites are longitude rectangles facing streets. (Figure 3) There always is a gap inside the block, between the back of building on both sides, especially for residential blocks. For the bigger or more important buildings, they usually occupy the corner, which face avenue, or the entire block.
In Beijing, there are two levels of blocks. The first level is defined by avenues on four sides. The dimension of the block comes from the size of royal palace. For example, in Qing Dynasty, the size of Forbidden City is about 753m by 961m, which is used as a module for the lay out of the avenues. So the size of the city is about 49 times of Forbidden City, which is also according to idea of Fengshui. (Figure 4) The second level is defined by streets on north and south sides, and avenues on the others. The size of the block on north-south direction is about 70m. It is the reasonable depth of one quadrangle yard, which can has enough sun shine and proper arrangement of the yard. The entrance is on the southeast corner of each yard.
The nature of the street grid depends on the organization and system of the grid.
In Manhattan, emphasis is created when the system changed. The avenues, 100 feet wide, are much important than the streets, 60 feet wide, in the grid system. They are much longer and wider and have more public buildings, comparing the streets. The grids are very even until they meet the diagonal street, Broadway, where triangle shape blocks or open spaces are created, and emphasis is created by breaking the grid. (Figure 5)
In Beijing, a systematic distinction is made between primary and secondary streets. The north-south avenues are important and wider than the east-west ones, which is about 36 meters, twice as wide as east-west ones. Because most east-west avenues are blocked by the imperial city and the water way in the middle. The scale of the streets are much smaller, which is about 5 – 7 meters. And most streets face east and west, considering the direction of the wind in the winter time (from north). (Figure 6)
The termination of the grid depends of the function of the city, also the topography of the land.
The grid in Manhattan is open-ended, which opens at the boundary of the
island. The individual land, divided by the grid could be bought and sold on
the market, such as the land purchase for Central Park in 1850’. And also the
grid is unbounded or unlimited, so it could be extended whenever it is in need
for the city development or it has great profit, for example the continued
expansion of the city grid to the north from 1811 to 1890’.
The grid in Beijing has a very firm boundary, the city wall. There are 11 gates at the end of 5 N-S avenues and 3 E-W avenues in Yuan Dynasty (there is no gate at the north of the center avenue, consider of Fengshui). The rest of the avenues end with the wall and the streets end with the avenues.
The main direction of the grid, the avenues in Manhattan are parallel to the longitudinal side of Manhattan Island, which if from northeast to southwest, and the streets are perpendicular to that, end with Hudson River or East River on either sides of the island. (Figure 7) The lay out of the grid depends on the topography in big scale, the shape and direction of the island, not on the direction itself. But the grid is even and all the way across the island, not considering the topography difference inside the land.
The lay out of the grid in Beijing faces exactly north-south and east-west, and considering the direction of the royal palace, the city faces south. The city is located at where there are mountains on farther north and west of the city and ocean on farther East side of the city. The lay out of the city comes from “Zhouli – Kaogongji”, a very old city planning theory book, which has a very strong relationship to Fengshui. But virtually it is considering about the topography and climate of the site, in order to create harmony between artificial objects and nature. The grid changes according to the topography inside the city, such as the grid is broken or shifted when it meets the nature or artificial water, or hill. And even the wall is adjusted a little bit because of the water way inside or outside the wall. (Figure 8)
The open spaces and their distribution tell the character of the city, also depend on the cause of formation of the city.
There are two major kinds of open spaces in Manhattan. One is when the diagonal street, Broadway, meets the avenue, the triangle area itself or plus a couple of blocks beside that area will become the public open space, like the Time Square on 7th Avenue or Madison Square Park on 5th Avenue. The other type is a couple of blocks are taken off to become a well-designed open space directly, like the Central Park. This kind of open spaces usually exit in the center of the neighborhood or the city itself. The open spaces have a very strong function use, and serve for public.
Basically there is no open space for public in ancient Beijing, like the plaza or park. For the royal family, they have their own royal garden, located inside the imperial city. For the officers, usually they have their own private garden attached to the house. For the public, the yard inside their house is where they can get fresh air and sunshine. The ‘open spaces’ are individual or have political function.
The grid in three dimensions depends on the era of the city. It depends on the mode of transportation and building material and technology.
The skyline of Manhattan in 19C is uniformed by three and four-story high buildings, built by brick. They were about 40 to 50 feet height. The rate between height of the building and the wide of the street is about 2/3 to 5/6. Now the rate is much and much bigger. The city is for car.
In Beijing, almost all the blocks are one-story height buildings. The rate between the height of the building and the wide of the street is about 1/2 to 4/5. The city is for pedestrian. (Figure 9)
For Manhattan and Beijing, the difference between their cause of formation, scale, organization, nature and their relationship to the neighbors etc, make the spatial quality and experience quite different in deeper meaning. Manhattan has bigger street scale, which is not intimate for people, while it might be comfortable for fast transportation, like car. It has even and neutral grid, where people can only identified where he is by the number on the street. The buildings are open to the streets, and there are even public spaces for exchanging information and communication. However, Beijing has smaller street scale which is very ideal for pedestrians. The hierarchy is the key, leading everything. People can easily find their way by locating the important buildings. The buildings are very close to the streets. It is the walls that are the façade to the streets. The streets are not engaged to the activities inside the wall.
Manhattan is a fast and rational city, with lots exchanges between or inside the grid and the blocks. While Beijing is a slow, intimate and hierarchy city, but the order of the grid is much higher than the blocks in between. They are independent to each other, like frame and infill. In summary, the characters of the city mostly depend on the function or cause of the formation of the city. Commercial city must have the fast, easy, and advantageous way for exchanging good and also information, which likes Manhattan. On the other hand, city itself is one of the best ways to show the right of the dominator and the order of the hierarchy, where everything is highly in charged, as Beijing. Topography is also an important factor for planning a city. But the position of that could be different: Manhattan has this issue in big scale, while Beijing in small scale. Manhattan just accepts the fact, while Beijing try to negotiate with that and take advantage of the topography.
A.E.J. Morris, History of Urban Form ---- Before the industrial Revolutions
Spiro Kostof, The City Shaped ---- Urban Pattens and Meanings Through History
Renzhi Hou, Beijing Historical and Geographic Planning
Xinian Fu, Chinese Ancient City Planning and Architecture Composition
