THE HISTORY OF THE EMERGENCE OF ANCIENT CITIES AND THEIR FORMATION UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF TIME

ABSTRACT

The article describes several types of urban planning at different intervals of human life. Beginning from the emergence of the very first towns and villages to modern types of urban design. Which factors influenced people to design the layout of an entire city and why cities should be designed this way? With the advent of the industrial era, urban life began to deteriorate. The period has come when people did not live up to 40 years. Modernist urban planners offered several ideas for a favorable life for the population and how the planning structure helped improve the livelihood of residents. The article analyzing one of the options for an ideal city, based on which some cities were embodied in reality in the 20th century.

Keywords: city, agriculture, urban planning, settlements, medieval city, ideal city, industrial era, green city, garden city.

The first cities were emerged near by waterways. Because in every case, the first cities emerged only after a preceding agricultural revolution, during which plants and animals were domesticated and small permanent settlements of cultivators appeared. In the beginning, people did not have one definite place to live. It was easier for people to lead a nomadic lifestyle. They got together and hunted. Society was growing, they needed more food. Gathering in communities, they started to develop an agriculture. To develop agriculture and get a harvest, they had to stay in one place for a long period. Then they had their own land. There were formed a several communities. To defend their own territory and to get more food they started domesticated the animals. Domesticated plants appeared in Sumer about 5000 B.C., while Eridu the first city that we know of in that area - existed by 4000 B.C., housing several thousand persons.

Fig. 1. First settlements

Is it possible that violence and war have had a positive effect on human development?

Wars are usually some type of competition for resources. But war can also lead to cooperation. People have always fought between their own kind. One of the best defenses against a raid is to gather people together in a group. According to some sources, it can be assumed that it was from the wars that the formation of cities began. Since even agriculture requires protection from outsiders. In order to develop agriculture, people had to defend their lands from outsiders.

There is the fact that agriculture itself has some defensive value, for example herding, because herds are a very inviting target for raids. The herds can run, therefore all cows can be round up and enemies make off with them, but for example rustle 30 tons of wheat fast is almost impossible. Plus, agriculture usually requires larger concentrations of people, which has a defensive value, and, as far as armies go, agriculture provides the resource surpluses that sustain larger group of warriors. The people who were best at gathering loot became chiefs, and then through conquest, chiefdoms grew into kingdoms.

The next and a great invention was a writing. Writing appeared in Mesopotamia over 5,000 years ago.

With the increase in the number of people in cities, it became necessary to control and store data. By and large, this was required not only to preserve history, but primarily in order to inform the government about the situation in the city, about trade and taxes. Due to pictograms people could to develop the trade and created a money. Certainly, the money specifically differed from the subsequent money. However, people could exchange goods by determining the price of one or another.

This is how the first holy books and poetry appeared. In history, the emergence of writing played such a huge role that historians believe that it was writing that laid the foundation for the history of mankind.

Cities also developed thanks to another great invention at that time - the wheel. The development of crafts led to the development of trade. Residents exchanged goods and innovations between neighboring cities and towns. Cities began as settlements, which, because they were stationary, were targets for raids. To deter raiders cities built walls. But those efforts required coordination, or else coercion, and resources which states are good at.

Fenced settlements were a very common type of pre-state settlement. A distinctive feature of these settlements is a pronounced and often fortified border. The fences were very varied. These could be embankments, ditches, walls, ditches for water drainage, joining a fortified wall with a dwelling, etc. The internal structure of such settlements is very diverse. From dispersed structure to perimeter, centric or linear.

Fig. 2. Fenced settlements

Settlements of the “city-house” type are a separate, very interesting type of settlements of the pre-state period. The geography of this type is very extensive. From the north and east to the south of the Eurasian continent and America. A distinctive feature of these settlements, very different and striking in their architectural and urban planning essence, was that the settlement acted as a single spatial planning organism.

The emergence of urban planning primary elements. At the pre-state stage of development, a prototype of a street-corridor, an entrance space, a public zone with underground and above- ground meeting rooms appears, various techniques of densely low buildings are being worked out. The great variety and individuality of the solutions of these settlements is noticeable at the level of leading structural materials such as stone, clay, wood, turf, mixed materials, etc. The most suitable materials of the area in which the inhabitants lived were always used. We can say that urban planning in the classical sense of the word appeared simultaneously with the emergence of the state. However, considering the ancient settlements of the pre-state period, it can be noted that each of them has quite bright elements of urban planning culture. At this stage of the development of urban planning, a person, one way or another, worked out the main primary elements of the city, such as the border of the settlement, the central place of the settlement, the interposition of houses, the street, the nature of the building. At the same time, a fairly diverse initial typology of populated areas developed. Based on the available data, it cannot be said that there was any strict time sequence in the appearance of the types and primary elements of the city. They arose depending on the natural and socioeconomic needs of the tribe.

The medieval city was significantly different from modern cities. First of all, it was usually a fortified city. This was evidenced by the thick and high city walls with towers and lockable gates. The city was located so that it would be convenient to surround it with a protective wall, but so that the environment would also serve it as protection.

Fig. 3. Carcassonne- typical medieval city

The first medieval cities were surrounded by an earthen rampart and a wooden palisade, the later ones were already surrounded by one, two, or even three stone battlements with round towers. The streets were narrow. Houses were built in several floors, with each of the upper floors protruding above the lower so that the street was permanently twilight, even on sunny days. Under these conditions, in the cities there was naturally little room for gardens and other plantings.

Cities usually had irregular radial street patterns, but plans with a rectangular street grid are becoming more common. With the development of cities, the development of the territory outside the defensive fortifications begins. Nearby castles and monasteries are surrounded by residential areas. A concentric building system is gradually taking shape. This is how a new planning scheme of the city appears - a radial-circular one.

The city, as well as the feudal castle, could only be entered through the drawbridge and narrow gates, which were securely closed at night. Already in the XII - XIII centuries. Urban buildings in Western Europe were predominantly made of stone and brick, which is explained by the availability of appropriate building materials in the West. The architecture of town houses, however, was generally uncomplicated and monotonous. Only public buildings - city cathedrals and churches, city halls (houses where the city government was located) and a few palace houses of wealthy merchants and feudal lords living in cities - stood out among others for their size and decoration.

Fig. 4. Palmanova, Italy

Renaissance architects began to apply the principles of choosing a favorable area for the foundation of a city, main city squares and streets, typologies of buildings described in books. They also studied Vitruvius' advice on ordination, reasonable planning, observance of the uniformity of rhythm and structure, symmetry and proportion, conformity of the form to the purpose and allocation of resources. Nevertheless, cities, like many things in the Renaissance, become rather art. Many architects are more theorizing on the "ideal city" theme, writing treatises and drawings. In their works one can find rationalism, geometric clarity, centric composition and harmony between the whole and parts. In treatises, new issues are also often raised - aesthetics, economy, hygiene, defense. Architects try to create a city that meets the requirements of composition, harmony, beauty, proportions. Moreover, the energy of the "ideal city" structures were likened to the human body, as a standard perfect proportions and beauty. The man took the lead the city, everything in it was measured by it.

Fig. 5. Ebenezer Howard’s vision for a ‘Group of Slumless, Smoleless Cities’

During the industrial era, cities grew rapidly and became centers of population and production. Rapid growth brought urban problems, and industrial-era cities were rife with dangers to health and safety. Quickly expanding industrial cities could be quite deadly, full of contaminated water and air, and communicable diseases. Poor sanitation and communicable diseases were among the greatest causes of death among urban working class populations.

Fig. 6. Ebenezer Howard's influential 1902 diagram, illustrating urban growth through garden city

In the 19th century, better sanitation led to improved health conditions.

The first idea for creating optimal conditions in the city was the proposal for a garden city by Ebenezer Howard, the founder of the new town movement. With the development of industry, problems began with the ecology of the city. At the same time, the first problems of housing appeared, since the emergence of a new class of urban population - workers. For the first time the idea of a garden city was described in the book "Garden Cities of the Future", which was written by him. The book formulates the concept of an ideal city, which later played an important role in the development of urban planning in the 20th century. The book also criticizes modern cities, which he considered "outdated", his unsanitary conditions, which led to the deterioration of living conditions. Consequently, with the pollution of the environment, the average life expectancy of the population also decreased. In order to solve these problems, Howard proposed the idea of small cities (satellite cities) in which there was a combination of cities and at the same time and villages. The population averaged about 250 thousand inhabitants. The structure of the city consisted of concentric circular zones with a common center where a public park was located. There were also public buildings in the park. Six boulevards, lined with buildings of cultural and religious significance, depart from the center along the radius. The park itself was surrounded by a residential area consisting of small low-rise buildings with personal plots. The radius of the residential area averaged 1 km. The satellites are connected to the central city by a railway network. This, according to Howard's analysis, provided the necessary comfort for pedestrians and the infrastructure of the garden city.

Howard's Garden City idea was conceived as a model for a harmonious relationship between manufacturing and agriculture. In this model, green space is not primarily intended for recreational or hygiene purposes. The economic calculations given by Howard confirmed the vitality of the idea of ​​a garden city and were reflected in the works of subsequent city planners. Some of his work has been completed. For example, in 1903, the town of Letchworth was built. It is located north of London, about 16 km northeast of Luton. It was the first realized garden city, or rather a large village for 35 thousand people, consisting of one- and two-story cottages and apartment buildings, skillfully located along the streets, freely traced along the terrain. Radial streets diverge from the square to all parts of the city, of which the main highway is 30 m wide, and the main shopping street is 15 m. The city itself occupies 600 hectares, including about 50 hectares allotted for streets, and about 60 hectares - for open spaces.

Welwyn Garden city. Also in 1920, the garden city of Welwyn was founded, which located 32 km from London. It was designed for 40-50 thousand inhabitants. This city created to provide for both industry and pleasant living conditions. Across a main railway line a large concentration of light industrial factories has developed, but many of the inhabitants commute daily to London, which is 37 km away.

Thus, Howard is probably one of the most effective expressions of the ideal society project, drawn from the broad forces of ideology and the collective experience of industrialism.

It was Howard's ideas that influenced the futuristic ideas of 20th century architects' cities of utopias. Among them, the ideas of Antonio SAnt'Elia ‘La Citta Nuova’ and ‘Ville Radieuse’, designed by Le Corbusier.

References:

1. ‘Theory of Good City Form’ by Kevin Lynch (1981)
2. E. Howard Cosmopolis: ‘Yesterday’s Cities of the future’
3. V.L. Glazichev ‘World of Architecture’
4. Kuznecova N.V. ‘History of architecture’
5. V.I. Luchkova. Lecture course: The history of urban planning in the pre-industrial period
6. URL: [https://medium.com/precis/%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B8-%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BD%D1%8B%D1%85-%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%B8-%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4-%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B4-57c9ff8f52f2] (date of referring 03.01.2021)