CITY BEAUTIFUL MOVEMENT

CASE STUDY OF CHICAGO

AND
CHANDIGARH
 CITY BEAUTIFUL MOVEMENT

• The movement first gained ground in 1893 with the World’s

Columbian Exhibition in Chicago.

• The City Beautiful movement emerged at a time in U.S. history

when the country’s urban population first began to outnumber its
rural population.

• Most city dwellers perceived that cities were ugly, congested,

dirty, and unsafe.

• As cities grew—an increasingly rapid condition enhanced by an

influx of immigrants at the end of the 19th century—public space
was being usurped.

• American cities affected rich and poor alike, which is how the City
Beautiful movement gained both financial and social support.
 BURNHAM'S CENTRAL PLAN FOR CHICAGO 1909

• The pinnacle of the movement came in 1909 with Burnham and fellow architect and urban planner Edward H.
Bennett’s design for Chicago, published as the Plan of Chicago and also known as the Burnham Plan.

• The Plan of Chicago hoped for activities of the city to be distributed in an efficient manner and the physical
plan to be accessible in a way where we can carry on with our lives without sacrificing any convenience.

• The Chicago Plan, development of skyscrapers, the City Beautiful movement in order to beautify the city and
efforts to make the vision of the city more knit together between the pedestrians and drivers, housing and
commercial buildings, and historical preservations.

• In response to dirty, overcrowded and highly urbanized cities, there was a pressure to de- clutter and clean the
city to result in a beautifully designed and livable space.

• The urban design that was set forth in the Chicago Plan was based off a nodal concept with a city center,
streets, boulevards, fountains, and construction to resemble the design of Paris.

• This allowed for pedestrian-friendly cities with plenty of walkways and ways to get to the “downtown” of the city
with ease
 BURNHAM'S CENTRAL PLAN FOR CHICAGO 1909

The Plan of Chicago was meant to embody six elements to

maintain a flourishing city.

1. Improving lakefront: The plan wanted to reclaim the

lakefront that surrounds Chicago in order to allow the
public to be more in touch with it because it “belongs to
them.” This design element allowed for trade, commerce,
and appeal to the growing city during the early twentieth
century. The plan suggested building parks along
waterfront and expanding harbor facilities in proximity
Navy Pier in the early 1920's, after it opened in 1916
to the water.

2. Regional Highway: A highway system would allow for

ease of connection to the center city of Chicago to
surrounding nodes, which is especially crucial during the
emergence of the automobile age. This urban design
element of a central business city center and surrounding
residential is in order to create a de-clustering of the
urban downtown. Highways were built to be radial and
circumferential in order to allow for automobiles to have
eased when commuting in the 1920s.
 BURNHAM'S CENTRAL PLAN FOR CHICAGO 1909

C) Improving railways: This would allow for better transportation to and from the city, which can allow for
more trade and more commercial appeal to the city. In the plan, this would lead to economic growth for booming
Chicago.

D) Open parks: Preservation of natural areas would allow for a connection to open space. This is important to
the design of the city because it gives open spaces and pathways for pedestrians to roam freely. Parks were crucial
to citizens who could not afford travel and it provided a convenient area for any class for the public.
• Parks were a place that could not be sacrificed for the sake of the city.
• In the 1940’s the Chicago Park District established a ten year plan to improve and expand upon parks, and in
1959 it was again expanded.
• Today it results in over eight thousand areas of open space, including parks, benches, nature areas, etc.
 BURNHAM'S CENTRAL PLAN FOR CHICAGO 1909

E) Systematic streets: Incorporation of wider street ways that were set out in diagonal pathways would help to
connect the civic centers to the surrounding areas but also were designed to relieve traffic. During the official
planning of Chicago, in the early 1920s, there was the rise of the automobile so these wider street ways aided in
the growth of car ownership. This makes a city livable and appealing to both automobile owners, but also
pedestrians because the design incorporated both walking and travel areas. Some streets were even widened due
to automobile growth in 1915 -1931.

F) Civic Center of City: In an effectively planned city, there is the main focus on the center based around
government and business/ commercial districts. Sometimes known as a “downtown” or even a monumental civic
center. Burnham proposed a cultural center in Grant Park as the central axis of the city, which would be the field
Museum.

http://chicagoplanninghistory.weebly.com/urban-design.html#:~:text=PLAN%20OF%20CHICAGO,-
Following%20the%20City&text=The%20urban%20design%20that%20was%20set%20forth%20in%20the
%20Chicago,resemble%20the%20design%20of%20Paris.
 CHANDIGARH

HISTORY INDIA DURING PARTITION

• After the loss of Lahore, the idea of building a new capital for the Indian part of Punjab took form in 1948.
• Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said “Let this be a new town, symbolic of freedom of India unfettered by the traditions of the
past….. an expression of the nation’s faith in the future”. The city is a product of Nehru’s vision.
I. A need for the capital Rehabilitating refugees
II. A centre for governance
III. A rich cultural legacy like Lahore
IV. A vision of the future
SITE SELECTION
The present site was selected in 1948 taking into account various attributes such as
I. Central location in the state
II. proximity to the national capital
III. availability of sufficient water supply
IV. fertile soil
V. gradient of land for natural drainage
VI. beautiful site with the panorama of blue hills as backdrop
VII. moderate climate.
VIII. The site was the sub mountainous area of the Ambala district about 150 miles north of New
Delhi.
IX. The area was a flat, gentle sloping plain of agriculture land consisting of 59 villages.
 LE CORBUSIER CONCEPT OF CHANDIGARH

BASIC PLANNING CONCEPTS

The city plan was conceived as post war ‘garden city’ wherein vertical
and high rise buildings were ruled out, keeping in view the living habits
of the people.
• Le modular system
• Analogous to human body – HEAD : capital (place of power) – HEART :
the city centre – STOMACH :the commercial area – ARMS :university
and industrial zone – LUNGS : leisure valley, open spaces – ARTERIES :
network of roads.
The basic planning of the city is a sector
• to accommodate 3,000 to 25,000 persons
• 30 sectors in chandigarh
• 24 are residential
• The sectors surrounded by high speed roads
• Bus stops every 400m
• The main principle of the sector is that never a door will open on the
surrounding of fast vehicular road
• The size of the sector is based on the concept of no pedestrian need
to walk for more than 10min
 LE CORBUSIER CONCEPT OF CHANDIGARH

PRINCIPLES OF URBAN DESIGN

• Convenient walking distance for special services like schools and shopping centers.
• Street system
• Major roads should not pass through residential neighborhood.
• Internal road pattern should encourage quite , safe, low volume traffic movement.
• Orderly arrangement of facilities which would be shared common by the residents
• A unit having shops , school , health centers and places of recreations and worships.
• These sectors varies depending upon the size and the topography of the area
 LE CORBUSIER CONCEPT OF CHANDIGARH

ELEMENTS

1. CIRCULATION
• An integrated system of seven road types
V1 : fast roads connecting Chandigarh to other towns
V2 : arterial roads
V3 :fast vehicular roads (These make the next layer of
connecting vehicular roads binding the sectors to the arterial
roads. The regular grid formed by the V-3 roads define each
sector’s boundary)
V4 : MEANDERING SHOPPING STREETS (These bisect a sector
and have shopping areas and other conveniences located along
them. Connections with adjoining neighbourhood were made
through these roads, forming one long continuous ribbon from
east to west besides the bands of open spaces that cut across the
sector in the perpendicular direction. )

Shopping streets cut through the sectors with shops on their

southern side. They are placed keeping in the mind the direction
of the sun so that anyone walking along the commercial area will
always walk in shade.
 LE CORBUSIER CONCEPT OF CHANDIGARH

ELEMENTS

V5 :SECTOR CIRCULATION ROADS (These are the circulation

roads within a sector. They meander through the sector giving
access to its inner lanes,)
V6 : ACCESS ROADS TO HOUSES
V7 : FOOTPATHS AND CYCLE TRACKS ` corbusiers conceptual
sketch showing the v-road system BUSES WILL PLY ONLY ON
V1, V2, V3 AND V4 ROADS
• Pathways for cyclists
• Roads intersected at right angles forming a grid
• Hierarchy of movement
• Residential areas segregated from the traffic
 LE CORBUSIER CONCEPT OF CHANDIGARH

ELEMENTS

2. LIVING
• The functions of living occupies primary place.
• Le Corbusier planned that every dwelling should have three
elements of sun, space and greenery.
• The housing in the city can be sub-divided into two parts- –
Government housing – private housing.
 LE CORBUSIER CONCEPT OF CHANDIGARH

ELEMENTS

3. THE SECTOR

• The primary module of the city ‘s design is a sector , neighborhood unit of size 800mtrs×1200mtrs
• Each sector is a self sufficient unit having shops ,school , health centers and places of recreations and worship
• The population of a sector varies between 3000and 2000 depending upon the sizes of plots and the topography of the
area
• Convenient walking distance for social services like schools and shopping centers The functions of living occupies
primary place.
• Le Corbusier planned that every dwelling should have three elements of sun, space and greenery.
• The housing in the city can be sub-divided into two parts- – Government housing – private housing.