Urban planning in ancient Greece

The Greeks had begun designing cities under the grid pattern before the start of the
classical era in the 5th century BC, with streets regularly crossing them at right angles.
However, the Greeks credit the invention of the right-angle plan to the Ionian architect
Hippodamus of Miletus (on the orders of Pericles) who planned new cities of Piraeus
and the Athenian colony of Thuril.

At the end of the 5th century, the city of Olinto had uniform streets and blocks. By the
4th century BC, cities were carefully planned and civic spaces had become common in
Greek city-states.

Greek architects adopted provisions that ensured the proper grouping of houses and
dwellings and also paid special attention to combining the different parts of a city into a
harmonious whole, centered around the market square.

Mycenaean precedents

The Mycenaean cities that have been preserved have a series of common elements:
elevated location, preferably a hill, on whose highest part - acropolis - the prince's
residence and the temple are built, especially walling this space; outer walls built with
large blocks of uncarved stone, called the Cyclopean wall because they considered
that it had been made by the Cyclops; ramp access; monumental entrances along with
other accesses protected with towers.
The best preserved cities are Tiryns, Mycenae and Pylos. In Mycenae there is the so-
called Lion's Gate built of large stone ashlars, closed by a thick lintel whose load has
been lightened with a triangular opening in which the relief that gives it its name is
inserted, where two facing lions are represented having as axis a column. In Tiryns we
find an excellent fortification that extends to the acropolis surrounded by another series
of walls. The acropolis is accessed through a monumental entrance called the
propylaea, allowing access to the palace built on the base of the megaron.

The Greek city

Due to the orographic circumstances of Greece, the population centers (surrounded by

the corresponding crop fields) are close to the sea, which serves as a means of
communication between them. The Greek man understood that the city should not be
too large so that its members could participate in its management. They tended to build
in high places for better fortification in the face of frequent attacks by invaders from the
interior and pirates from the coast; This protection was completed with walls, moats,
embankments, and towers.

Access to the city was through open doors in the wall that were often composed of
three openings: a larger one for the passage of carriages and horses and the two
smaller ones located on both sides for pedestrians. These gaps were closed with
wooden doors covered with bronze plates. These fortifications are called acropolis,
“elevated city”, and they constitute a first notable element of Greek cities, Athens being
the main one of them.

Little by little the acropolis was stripped of its homes to house temples and buildings for
civil use. At the same time, many inhabitants moved to live in the lower parts that
surrounded the acropolis, giving rise to a true city, more colorful than the acropolis,
more full of life and bustle, constituting the second notable element. The inhabitants of
the different population centers dispersed around its acropolis came to it for their
economic, political and religious activities, which gave them an awareness of unity
compared to the Greeks of other acropolises.

Athens had grown disorderly, without an urban plan, so most of its streets were narrow
and twisted, with countless very modest shacks, although it is true that there were
some neighborhoods of some affluence with larger homes.

But the artisans' neighborhoods suffered from overcrowding caused by small

workshops that were distributed on the streets by trade; and much more so that of the
attached homes that had to house a growing population without the possibility of
expansion: paradoxically, economic development led to a worsening of living
conditions, aggravated by the scarcity of water.

In any case, because of the climate of Athens, people made their living outside their
homes by working on the street. One of the aspects that characterized the Athenian
urban area was bustle. Another feature of democratic Athens was that the people did
not show any reverence before important figures, not even bothering to give way to
them: Plato lamented that even the donkeys circulated around freely as if they believed
they too had democratic rights. On the other hand, when night came the streets
became unsafe due to the lack of lighting; Thus, passersby tried to circulate in groups
carrying torches for fear of possible robberies or attacks. In front of this urban anthill,
the Acropolis offered a magnificent image, having been rebuilt after the invasion of the
Persian army.

The third element of Athenian urban life was the agora, the center of economic, social
and political life. The Greeks built their public squares in a square shape, with double
and spacious porticos, adorning them with numerous columns, supported by stone or
marble architraves, thus forming galleries at the top for strolling. In the case of Athens,
it was crossed diagonally by the Panathenaean Street (which started from the
sanctuary of Eleusis and led directly to the Acropolis), dividing it into two halves: the
western one housed a series of sumptuous and important buildings and monuments for
the city, while the eastern one was the market itself, with its countless shops and
workshops, installed in the shade of the trees that formed a kind of awning to protect
themselves from the sun.

The solution to combine these elements and solve growth problems was planning:
cities grew according to a plan and under a quadrangular or hippodamic design. All
streets had to have the same width, and the distribution of jobs should be done with
logical criteria.
We cannot forget the mythical or religious element that influenced urban planning in
Greece. Thus, it was assumed that the Greek polis always had a mythical founder and
that mythical founder had to be a hero, so his memory had to be honored, either by
placing his tomb in a visible place in the city or by erecting a commemorative
monument where he could not be found. were the remains (some authors suggest that
the Lapis Niger of Rome was possibly Greek).

However, little by little the rational aspect was imposing itself as Vitruvius tells us, in
“The Ten Books of Architecture”, in which he establishes the conditions of the
settlement of the city: “Before laying the foundations of the walls of a city A place with
very healthy air must be chosen.

This place will have to be high, with a temperate temperature, not exposed to mist or
frost, neither to heat nor cold; It will also be away from swampy places to avoid the
exhalations of marsh animals, mixed with the fogs that arise from those places when
the sun rises, vitiate the air and spread their harmful effluvia in the bodies of the
inhabitants and therefore make it infectious and pestilent. the place. Nor will the places
whose walls are located next to the sea, facing South or West, be healthy, because in
these places the Sun, in summer, is very strong from the moment it rises, and at noon
it is scorching; In those exposed to the West, the air is very warm at sunset. And these
sudden changes in heat and cold significantly alter the health of the beings that are
exposed to them.” He also adds that before founding the city or setting up winter
camps, cattle were sacrificed and the observation of their entrails determined whether
or not the place was healthy for their settlement. He relates the case of the city of
Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos, in which “when the Midday wind blows (S.) people
get sick, and when the Galician wind (O.) blows, they cough; and when the
Tramontana (N.), they are reestablished.”

This rational and empirical climate is manifested in the technical advances discovered
by the Greeks. In the 3rd century BC. C. Archimedes created a theoretical system on
the multiplication of force that is achieved with the lever, the effect of the wedge and
the use of the inclined plane or the pulley. The new mechanical devices especially
benefited civil engineering and mining. Through this partial mechanization of manual
labor, large establishments emerged and urban planning gained significant momentum,
allowing greater resources to be dedicated to architecture and art in general.

Greece

Urban Development of Greek culture during its three characteristic periods,

Minoan, Mycenaean and Classic.

The influence of Greek civilization throughout history is enormous, the urban structure
has been strongly conditioned by the creation of the Greek urban colonies, and not
only in what refers to the urban aspect, but in all artistic aspects. , political,
philosophical and cultural. According to the topic that concerns us, we will divide, this
history is divided into three periods: the Minoan, the Mycenaean, and the Classic.

Also included is a description of the main Greek cities such as: Athens, Sparta, Miletus,
Olympia, Corinth, Priene and Rhodes, as well as the Acropolis.

2. Minoan period.
During the Minoan period, human settlements occurred in the famous palaces of Crete,
in Knossos, Festus, Malia and Zakros, and their surroundings, around the 16th and
15th centuries BC. The shape of the palace of Knossos is that of a labyrinth, no other
building in Greece has so many and so varied spaces: some parts were open to the air
and sun, others completely closed, it has warm and cold, light and dark spaces, it is in
itself a clear example of the skill of the inhabitants of the kingdom of Minos in planning
organized urban settlements.

In this period, we are not yet talking about cities, but about residences of sovereigns
who reign over small regions and whose court, very small, and whose administration ,
not very large either, lived off the tribute of the agricultural regions that they controlled,
however in most cases did not have any type of fortification. Over time they expanded
into larger palaces, with more numerous rooms appearing around them, giving it a
greater urban character .

An important fact about the city of Knossos is the existence of a drainage system that
extraordinarily anticipates the modern use of hydraulic and sanitary resources . Around
4000 years before Christ, some farmers settled on the island of Malta, who built
notable monuments. , this is a region in which great Western influence is evident, these
are monuments formed by two twin apses facing a corridor on their sides, they are
joined together by passages and the vaults are horizontal voussoirs.

3. Mycenaean Period
The peak of this civilization occurred in the period called Mycenaean, which is between
–1500 and –1100. This population is originally from Asia Minor. Among the important
settlements of this period is Mycenae, which is a fortress that has a palace, founded by
Nestor the legendary king, in Pylos, with buildings around it.

The initial nucleus of Mycenae was the acropolis, with its palace, outside there were
several neighborhoods, which formed a single group, these people formed a rural type,
who perhaps were dedicated to commerce and crafts. This is the popular sector, built
with stone, grass and clay roofs. Despite the division by areas, everything works as a
single organism.

The Tiryns area also develops during this period, starting as a village, it becomes a
fortified city and is a satellite city of Mycenae in which important fortified constructions
are built.

The urban space is divided into three zones: private, sacred and public areas. The
streets are not planned but important hydraulic work is carried out: the channeling of
the river, which in other times flooded the lower city.

After the destruction of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations, they began to rebuild
their settlement systems . In this beginning, there was only a single authority who was
a god or king, who made all the decisions, and where the numerous inhabitants had
the right to make themselves heard. their voice, who were considered free citizens.
This city constitutes the beginning of the truly urban city. From this moment on, the
Greeks began to form the city by uniting various settlements.
Most of the cities were small settlements, but some reached up to ten thousand
inhabitants. Where perhaps they were dedicated to long-distance trade, which was
unimportant, although its existence does not necessarily imply true urbanization.

4. Classic Period
What we call Classical Greece designates the period of two centuries, between the
expulsion of the tyrant of Athens -510, and the conquest of Greece by Philip II -338.

The urban settlements were larger, such as: Athens, Corinth, Sicily, etc. The population
was larger, and where they lived was imposed on people. These cities were registered
in approximately 1800 meters that were made up of houses of poor construction quality
, and a series of monuments and religious and civic buildings of superior architectural
quality. The buildings were monumental in nature, located on the perimeter of its
acropolis, and those of the agora in the center. Classical Greece is the typical case of
city-states. The agora is the center of urban life due to its cultural functions , which
plays a key role along with the city.

Athenian houses were made of brick and were grouped around a hill called the
Acropolis. Narrow alleys were unpaved and very dirty, as everyone threw garbage into
the street. There were no windows in the houses, except for some on the 2nd floor. All
the rooms faced a central patio, where people spent most of their time.

The floors were plaster and rammed gravel and were never swept. There were no
glass in the windows, no chimneys. From -700 writing was known, and what is more
important, currency was invented. Which is one of the greatest Greek contributions,
which due to its weight and certain content of metals precious, they have intrinsic value
. With this barter, exchanges were facilitated, favoring a new function in the city: that of
issuing currency.

All these cities can be classified in urban terms into two main categories:
-cities of natural growth
-intentionally planned cities.

Aristotle speaks of cities created according to the old style and of new cities, or built
according to the Hippodamic method

Greece was the first civilization that asked about city planning from the point of view of
its size, Aristotle and Plato dealt with this problem. For Aristotle, the maximum problem
was the limit of inhabitants that should not be exceeded. He said that it was essential
for citizens to know each other, because with this we would save ourselves problems of
insecurity , since foreigners who were going to do destruction could make it easy for
them to escape.
 Plato was more specific, giving the figure of 5040 citizens, as heads of families , which
implies a population of 20,000 inhabitants, where they would integrate the rural with the
urban, he said that the city should be small enough to allow meetings to be held. public
events that all citizens can attend. In practice, the Greek cities were small in size,
Athens, at its peak reached and exceeded 100,000 inhabitants, but the others rarely
reached 40,000 inhabitants. Among the cities created in the old style is Athens, where
the agora was the central point of the entire city, and the acropolis was its monumental
and religious center.

Within the Hippodamic method, which refers to the division of the city invented by
Hippodamus of Miletus, the city was divided into blocks or groupings of buildings. He is
considered the father of ancient Greek urbanism, and among his typical examples are
the cities of: Priene, Miletus, Rhodes, and Casope.

The ideal planning of an ancient Greek city was the synthesis of the organic approach,
in order to transmit the image of natural relationships between its buildings, and the
rational planning, according to a geometric grid for the organization of the main body of
the city.
Athens

The city of Athens develops around Piraeus. A road 8 km long and 150 m wide,
protected by walls 6 m high and 1 m thick, is built between fortified Athens and its port,
the largest agglomeration occupies the more or less flat strip that extends north of the
Acropolis and the Areopagus; The Agora is located there, for the citizen assembly and
the development of intense public life: in official buildings, markets , squares and
political meeting centers. Under Pericles the Golden Age flourishes during which the
sciences , philosophy and arts reach their maximum splendor.

Architecture absorbs the greatest activity motivated by two interests: the reconstruction
of the Acropolis destroyed by the Persians and the construction of new monuments
that express its artistic desire for perfection. The architects Ictinio and Callícrates built
the Parthenon and under the direction of Mnesicles the monumental gate of the
Propylaea was made. The Erection has woman -shaped caryatid columns. The
concentration of effort on monumental architecture contrasts with the neglect of urban
planning aspects. In the distribution of the Acropolis, a geometric but rather a
landscape criterion prevails.

In the city, houses built with flimsy materials are scattered irregularly; The narrow
streets are never paved, and limited access to water , carried manually, translates into
a lack of sanitary services . The garbage accumulated around the city creates serious
health problems, as demonstrated by the plague that plagued the city during the
Peloponian Wars .

The disorderly growth of the city worries legislators and philosophers . Aristotle
proposes limiting population growth and distributing the inhabitants taking into account
the safety and well-being of the citizens, that is, the privileged only. In one of his
treatises , Hippocrates cries for "air, water and spaces"; establishes a public health
policy taking into account the allocation of spaces essential to urban planning;
emphasizes the orientation that streets and buildings must have to protect themselves
from the sun and obtain ventilation; presents a plan for obtaining and distributing
drinking water ; but it omits the much-needed drainage systems.

These measures are not fulfilled. The polis, transformed into a cosmopolis, is an
amalgam of individualities without specific personality . Of the 150 thousand
inhabitants, 40 thousand are citizens and 110 thousand slaves and foreigners, six out
of seven lack civil obligation and responsibility , since only citizens have duties and
rights. This contributes to the decline and fall of Athens under the Roman Empire.

5. Sparta
Sparta consolidates itself as the military city of Greece, with 30 thousand inhabitants,
the walled city has four vast neighborhoods adorned with gardens. Lacking an
Acropolis, this name is given to one of the hills on whose summit is the temple of
Athena. At the foot of the hill is the agora, with notable administrative buildings, such as
the Gerusia, the main neighborhood is Pitana, to the northwest, where the theater and
the monuments of Leonidas are located; To the east, two gymnasiums with domes and
the Paseo de los Plátanos, where athletic competitions are held.

6. Miletus
At the beginning of the 700th century BC The city of Miletus is the most important
Greek city. It is also a fortified city and it is more than anything a city dedicated to
commercial traffic. The agora has a long Doric colonnade that connects with the
sanctuary of Apollo and the senate building. The market is a wide square, open to the
sun, and very busy. After a Persian invasion the city was completely destroyed, but
years later it was recovered by the Spartans and Athenians.

The exiled inhabitants return and rebuild Miletus, a task that marks a milestone in
Hellenic urban planning, acquiring its own features and urban planning is carried out
taking care of the symbolic demands of mythology . Due to this, the road network and
the façade of public buildings and residences are oriented towards the south. The
streets intersect at right angles, within a plane regulated by the topography . The
buildings stand more as groups than as isolated works of art .

7. Olympia
Olympia is another of the important Greek cities, which is where the Olympic Games
begin, it is a city built to exercise the body, mind and spirit. The Palestra is a wrestling
field, which is transformed into a gym with bathrooms, locker rooms and a library . Here
is also the temple of Zeus, one of the most important Greek works. There was also a
racecourse, and a stadium.

8. Corinth
Corinth has two ports through which they maintain trade with Greece, Egypt and
Phenicia. The road that connects to the port leaves the agora, defended by double
walls. At the entrance to the city are the administrative buildings, the ceramists' quarter
and the workshops are concentrated at the east end; In the south, spaces intended for
recreation are accessible only to the aristocracy. The agora has a long portico under
which shops are established. The market, the baths and the fountains of Pirene and
Gluke, together with the theater and the Odeon, make up the complex.

9. Priene
Priene this city is built on the slopes of Micala, on four staggered embankments of
equal height 300 meters. It is protected by a wall reinforced with a wall reinforced by
bastions and 16 towers. The acropolis was built separately, enclosed by a wall with ten
towers. There are four gates, into which large streets leading from east to west lead.
The terraces are arranged from the agora located in the center; Higher up is the temple
of Athena, in the lower part there is a gymnasium connected to the stadium. The fourth
terrace is the highest, separated from the others, and is occupied by the sanctuary of
Demeter. To the east are the sanctuaries of the Egyptian deities. The houses have a
solid construction , of various types, with a predominance of the design with a central
patio. An excellent water conduction system provides the cisterns, which store and
distribute large flows.

10. Rhodes
Rhodes is located on the main island of the archipelago. Hippodamos of Miletus carries
out the urban layout; Its planning obeys both practical objectives and the idealistic goal
of incorporating a rational social order, which includes the provision of growth: straight
streets, of uniform width and length, intersect at regular distances at an angle of 90º. In
this way, large square or rectangular plots of land are formed with the possibility of
housing large temples and buildings, the agora and the living area; With strict order,
maximum use of space is made.

11. Activities.
The nature of the Greek soil implies low agricultural yields and productivities and
relatively high transportation costs , and therefore high urban growth costs .
They exchanged their manufactured products for agricultural products and also some
of their agricultural products, such as oil , for other foodstuffs such as cereals. The
magnitude of full-time agricultural work in the cities was greater than that of full-time
industrial work. There were cities only inhabited by farmers, or others in which only 20
to 40% were dedicated to farming. Greece found it necessary to import grain to feed its
urban population.

Commercial paper was local, each city was a market for the surrounding district, where
peasants went to sell their products and received in exchange money with which they
paid their taxes , their rents, when these had to be paid in currency. They also went
there to buy imported manufactured products that the village industries could not
provide them. In each city there were a certain number of merchants who moved
agricultural products and also groups of artisans who produced simple items for the
use of the peasants, to whom they sold them directly.

About 53 sacred banks , private or public, have been found, real banks that carried out
exchange operations , payments, for consumption and the public sector.
Within other types of jobs are specific urban ones, which derive directly from the urban
way of life, which are those of the maintenance ening of streets and gardens.

12. The Acropolis

It is a sacred hill or mountain, crowned with temples. It was probably originally a
fortified city, whose location was chosen for religious reasons and partly for defensive
reasons, appearing on an elevated platform on which monumental buildings were
erected.
When the city expanded, descending to the lower surrounding lands, it was the agora
that became its main center, leaving the acropolis dedicated as a religious sanctuary,
for the purposes of worship, celebrated in its temples and sacred precincts. In the
Athenian acropolis, from the Parthenon and the Erechtheon, the Propylaea can be
observed due to the calculations they made, so that the arrangement was in such a
way that it could be observed with angles of 30 and 60°.

The choice of this hill could have been partly because it imitated Mount Olympus,
where the gods lived, or partly because perhaps they would be closer to them. The
Greek influence has been of vital importance to this day, due to the great perfection
that was sought, not only in architecture, but also in the arts in general, philosophy,
sciences, sports and the beauty that is undoubtedly its main concern, as expressed by
the city of Athens. Without a doubt, they achieved perfection thanks to experimentation
and repetition, in their desire to achieve perfection because we were able to observe
how the main Greek cities that we mention in this audiovisual have the same
characteristics.

This is why to this day we can continue to marvel at the perfection they achieved... but
above all at what they could have achieved.
Summary: Urban Development of Greek culture during its three characteristic periods,
Minoan, Mycenaean and Classic.

The influence of Greek civilization throughout history is enormous, the urban structure
has been strongly conditioned by the creation of Greek urban colonies, and not only in
what refers to the urban aspect, but in all artistic aspects. , political, philosophical and
cultural. According to the topic that concerns us, we will divide, this history is divided
into three periods: the Minoan, the Mycenaean, and the Classic.

Also included is a description of the main Greek cities such as: Athens, Sparta, Miletus,
Olympia, Corinth, Priene and Rhodes, in addition to the Acropolis,