Masters of Urban Design

Fall Term

The History of Urban Form (UD713)

Cities have often been likened to symphonies and poems, and the comparison seems to me a perfectly natural one: they are in fact objects of the same kind. The city may even be rated higher, since it stands at the point where nature and art meet. A city is a congregation of animals whose biological history is enclosed within its boundaries; and yet every conscious and rational act on the part of these creatures helps to shape the city’s eventual character. By its form, as by the manner of its birth, the city has elements at once of biological procreation, organic evolution, and aesthetic creation. It is both natural object and a work of art; individual and group; something lived and something dreamed; it is the human invention, par excellence.

-- Claude Levi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques (1955).

Course Objectives:

This course has an important pre-requisite that is not listed in the College Bulletin: you have to love cities.

As an historian, I have often been accused of living in the past. This accusation is true. As I see it, to turn to the past is not nostalgia, but a way to escape the limitations of our own time, and thus to extend the possibilities for action in the present.

Today, with everything defined as “urban” and “public” perpetually in crisis, the history of cities becomes a crucial source for a whole range of successful urban forms that are difficult to plan or even to imagine today: great public spaces and monuments; pedestrian-scaled neighborhoods; lively and beautiful streetscapes.

We will be examining a wide range of cities from all the major urban civilizations ranging from ancient times to the present. From this wonderful variety of historic urban forms we will be seeking timeless principles of urbanism through a kind of dialogue or conversation among three great urbanists whose work forms the bulk of the readings:

  • Lewis Mumford
  • Spiro Kostof
  • Jane Jacobs.

In addition to the readings, class discussions, and papers based on the readings, students will be required to choose one city and to analyze its history in depth.

“The city,” as Lewis Mumford observed, “is the point of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a community.”

Required Books:

  • Jane Jacobs. The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
  • Lewis Mumford. The City in History.
  • Spiro Kostof. The City Shaped.

The required books are available for purchase at Shaman Drum Bookstore, State Street, downtown Ann Arbor. The City in History is now being re-stocked at the publishers’, and will (hopefully!) be available in mid-September.

Assignments:

Assignment One: Plan, Fabric, Monument.

  • Part I, due September 18 (post to CTools).

    Choose a city—perhaps one that you already know well, or one that you want to know more about. Locate three images for that city:

    1. a detailed groundplan. “The plan is the generator” – Le Corbusier.
    2. the characteristic “urban fabric” for that city; that is, the characteristic building type that is most important in forming the mass of the city. Examples would include the brick rowhouses of the cities of the Eastern United States; the detached frame houses of the Midwest; the bungalows of the cities of the Western United States; the apartment houses lining the boulevards of Paris, etc. Even if no single type defines your city, choose one that seems most characteristic to you.
    3. an important monument or large public space that helps to define and identify your city. This might be an individual structure such as a cathedral, temple and/or the public space that surrounds it; or the “monument” might be more distinctive to the city, for example, New York’s Central Park and the high-rise apartment houses that line it; the skyscrapers of Chicago seen from Lake Shore Drive; the Los Angeles freeways, etc.

    Import each image into a separate Word page; briefly caption the image (one or two sentences at most); and then upload the three pages into your personal folder in our CTools class site (under Resources). These images and their captions will be available to the other students in the class.

    If you later find better images, or wish for any reason to substitute others, please do so. The point of this assignment is to get you started.

  • Part II – Due October 18.

    Write short captions, less than a page in length, explaining each of the three images.

  • Part III

    Each student will be asked to present in 5-10 minutes his or her city to the class, and to explain why the images were chosen and what they mean. These presentations will take place during the class sessions designated in the schedule below. Those who volunteer to be among the first presenters will be appreciated; more will be expected of those who come later.

    No grade will be assigned for these assignments, but they are integral to assignment three, which counts 40% of your grade, as well as to class participation, which counts 10%.

Assignment Two: Essay.

Due October 31. Paper – Four to six pages of text (double-spaced). 30% of grade.

Lewis Mumford takes a highly personal view of the city in history; he does not hesitate to inform the reader of his views on individual cities and on the evolution of cities in general. In this essay I want you to respond in your own “personal” way to Mumford’s arguments. What did you find compelling, interesting, valuable in Mumford’s approach? What would you disagree with? Most importantly, were you convinced by his vision of the good city and his prescriptions for urban design?

Assignment Three: Essay.

Due December 5. 4-6 pages of text. 40% of grade

Take one or more of Kostof’s big themes—the organic city; the grid; city as diagram; the grand manner—and apply them to the specific city you are studying. First, which of Kostof’s themes apply to your city—can it best be characterized as organic or grid, or some combination of the two? Are there examples of what Kostof calls “the grand manner” that define the urban identity? Kostof emphasizes that urban form does not determine urban life, so try to evaluate the role and significance of these forms within the city you are studying. If, for example, your city is predominantly gridded rather than organic, what difference do you think that has made to the life and uniqueness of this city?

As with other assignments, please upload your assignment into your folder so that it can be viewed by the other students. If you can illustrate your response with other relevant images of your city, that would be greatly appreciated by me and by the other students.

Assignment Four: Final Exam/Take-home Essay

Due December 18. Five pages of double-spaced text maximum. 20% of grade.

Write a “ballet of the good city sidewalk” similar to Jacobs’s “Hudson Street ballet” (pp. 50-54 in The Death and Life of Great American Cities) for the city that you are studying in this course or for any other city you know well. Identify the specific area within the city you wish to describe, and show how the “individual dancers all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole.” (Page 50).

Schedule of Classes

Except for the relatively few classes labeled as “Lectures,” all classes will include an important element of class discussion. So it is especially important that you do the reading before class so that you can both follow and participate in the discussion. There is no formal attendance requirement, but class participation will count as 10% of your grade.

Sept. 5:Introduction to the course.
Sept. 7:Lecture: Cosmopolis, the Grandeur and Horror of the Ancient City.
Sept. 12:Kostof, Introduction; Jacobs, chaps. 19 and 22.
Sept. 14:Mumford. Chap. 4.
Sept. 18:Assignment 1. Choose a city and post three images (plan, fabric, monument) to your folder under “Resources” in CTools.
Sept. 19:Lecture: The Classical City, Athens to Rome
Sept. 21:Mumford readings, Chap. 5-8.
Sept. 26:Student presentations.
Sept. 28:Mumford, Chaps. 9-11
October 3:Lecture: Venice.
October 5:Mumford, Chaps. 12-14.
October 10:Student presentations.
October 12:Mumford, Chaps. 15-17.
October 17:No class. Midsemester break.
October 18:Assignment 1, Part 2: Add captions to your images; post on CTools.
Oct. 19:From Mumford to Kostof; Mumford, Chap. 18
Oct. 24:Kostof Chap. 1.
Oct. 26:Kostof, Chap. 2
Oct. 31:Lecture: Urban Utopias: Howard, Wright, Le Corbusier.
Mumford paper Due.
Nov. 2:Chap. 3, “City as Diagram.”
Nov. 9:Student presentations
Nov. 16:Edmund Bacon, “Rome,” [video]
Nov. 21:Kostof, Chap. 4.
Nov. 23:Thanksgiving
Nov. 28:Student presentations.
Nov. 30:Jane Jacobs, chaps. 1-5.
Dec. 5:Jacobs, chaps. 6-8. Kostof Paper Due.
December 7:Jacobs, chaps. 11-13.
December 12:Jacobs, chaps. 15-16. Last day of class.
Midnight, December 18:Take-home final due. Leave in my mailbox or post to
your Dropbox on CTools

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