Conceptual City Plans

[balletomane]

Many architects and urban planners have designed conceptual city plans, most of which are meant to be "Utopian". Most were never actually meant to be built, but the architects of these plans hoped that their ideas could one day be implemented into existing cities.

Ville Contemporaine by Le Corbusier

http://www.archdaily.com/411878/ad-c...e-le-corbusier

Ville Radieuse by Le Corbusier

http://www.willofmemory.com/?page_id=299

Cite Industrielle by Tony Garnier

https://senacatal.wordpress.com/2016...dustrial-city/

Uxcester Garden City by David Rudlin, a modern version of Ebenezer Howard's Garden City plan

http://urbed.coop/wolfson-economic-prize

World Capital by Ernest Hebrard and Hendrik Christian Andersen

http://digitalarchives.mundaneum.org...QQ_clnh7?hl=nl

Welthauptstadt Germania, plan for Berlin in Nazi Germany

http://utopicus2013.blogspot.ca/2013...-germania.html

New Jerusalem by Cyrus Teed, near present day Estero, Florida

https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/258022

Futurama at 1939 World's Fair by Norman Bel Geddes

http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/stati...turama-18.html

Democracity at 1939 World's Fair by Henry Dreyfuss

http://www.annaadahl.com/work_in_progress/democracity/

Metropolis of Tomorrow by Hugh Ferriss

http://www.graphicine.com/the-metrop...-hugh-ferriss/

Broadacre City by Frank Lloyd Wright

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/529384131172281183/

City Beautiful Plan for Chicago by Daniel Burnham

https://www.recivilization.net/Ameri...ybeautiful.php

City Beautiful Plan for San Francisco by Daniel Burnham

http://www.trampsofsanfrancisco.com/...-park-part-vi/

City Beautiful Plan for Manila by Daniel Burnham

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/lifes...chitect/story/

Roblin City by William Bruce

http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/mb_history...blincity.shtml

Zion City by John Alexander Dowie

http://urbanplanning.library.cornell...S/schermer.htm

Also, not really a Conceptual City, but Fake Omaha is a project by Neil Greenberg that is meant for skyscraper and urban planning enthusiasts such as ourselves. Its an open platform for your own ideas, and one of my favourite projects out there. The "explore" link is broken, but the description of the project and map of the fictional city are available to explore.

http://www.fakeomaha.org/

If anybody knows of any other conceptual city or unbuilt city plans, please post them!

[The North One]

Le Corbusier was such a moron, so concerned with numbers, never did he once consider how people actually live. Can you imagine if he had his way with Paris? It would have been a worse outcome than if the city had been bombed in the 2nd world war.

[balletomane]

Originally Posted by The North One

Le Corbusier was such a moron, so concerned with numbers, never did he once consider how people actually live. Can you imagine if he had his way with Paris? It would have been a worse outcome than if the city had been bombed in the 2nd world war.

Agreed. I think his city plans are still a interesting concept, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to live in his "Utopian" vision. They look like those Soviet commie block style neighborhoods, without the history and culture of the old city.
I guess its more of a dystopian nightmare, they look like they could be the setting for a Hunger Games style book or movie.

[10023]

Thank god Corbusier never got to build his hellhole.

[Pedestrian]

Some saw the destruction of San Francisco in 1906 as an opportunity. The famed Chicago architect Daniel Burnham created a plan for a new city:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Burnham

But the plan was larely ignored as the city sprang back to life along the street grid it had had.

[The North One]

It seems he had a thing for irregularly shaped diamond patterns, looks rather ugly actually. Another bullet dodged.

[Muji]

Interesting idea for a thread. After being commissioned to develop final plans for Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Jacques Gréber produced a map that imagined a number of other diagonal boulevards throughout the central city. I don't think these were seriously considered at any point, but it's a sweet map. I blogged about this many years ago here: http://briangoestotown.blogspot.com/...bers-1917.html



Image source: Gréber, Jacques. "Partial plan of the city showing its new civic centre and the connexion of the Fairmount Parkway with the present street system & other proposed radial avenues." Drawing. Fairmount Park Art Association. The Fairmount Parkway. Philadelphia: Fairmount Park Art Association, 1919.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by The North One

Le Corbusier was such a moron, so concerned with numbers, never did he once consider how people actually live. Can you imagine if he had his way with Paris? It would have been a worse outcome than if the city had been bombed in the 2nd world war.

To be fair, Le Corbusier wasn't the only one planning such schemes at the time. It was the fashionable thinking of the day among architects and planners.

To be honest, there's something about the optimism in that kind of modernism that I like. I think something like that could potentially "work" and be a nice place to live under certain, very limited, circumstances with a very certain, limited, kind of populace living in them (think: Vulcan-like people). Alas, those specific circumstances and people basically almost never exist so that's why planning schemes like that were doomed to failure.

[Leo the Dog]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Some saw the destruction of San Francisco in 1906 as an opportunity. The famed Chicago architect Daniel Burnham created a plan for a new city:

But the plan was larely ignored as the city sprang back to life along the street grid it had had.

Those diagonal arterials in Richmond/Sunset districts remind me a bit of L'Enfant's plan for DC.


source

[proghousehead]

Does anyone think if Manhattan's street plan grew organically prior to 1811 commissioners plan (let's say current Manhattan below 14 on West Side and Houston on East Side continued with similar lay out through out the island), it would have grown at the same clip and be as urban as it is today? Would it make the walking experience more interesting than the monotonous super blocks that exist today from 14th up until 110th street (below and above there are enough deviations from the grid and interesting nooks and crannies to make it a more pleasant walking experience in my opinion).

[Cirrus]

Ours was built! It's very nice!


google


Here's another one that was built and turned out great (even better, really):

PARIS PAR RÉNOVATION


London considered a similar plan after one of their great fires, but couldn't get their together. Basically the same story as SF's Burnham plan.

christopher wren

[Cirrus]

Oh, here are some followup DC plans that never quite happened as proposed:

[JManc]

Originally Posted by The North One

Le Corbusier was such a moron, so concerned with numbers, never did he once consider how people actually live. Can you imagine if he had his way with Paris? It would have been a worse outcome than if the city had been bombed in the 2nd world war.

Moron? Hardly. You're judging him and this plan from a totally different perspective...70 years after the fact. This style of urban development and design was very much considered ideal at the time.


Hindsight, this type of development in the form of urban renewal was a colossal failure everywhere it was implemented and has largely been redeveloped.

[SLO]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Ours was built! It's very nice!


google


]

The Daniel Burnham plans are really terrific urban layouts. It would have been great to see some of that in San Francisco. San Francisco really benefits from its spectacular setting, which tends to make anything look great.

[balletomane]

Originally Posted by Muji

Interesting idea for a thread. After being commissioned to develop final plans for Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Jacques Gréber produced a map that imagined a number of other diagonal boulevards throughout the central city. I don't think these were seriously considered at any point, but it's a sweet map. I blogged about this many years ago here: http://briangoestotown.blogspot.com/...bers-1917.html



Image source: Gréber, Jacques. "Partial plan of the city showing its new civic centre and the connexion of the Fairmount Parkway with the present street system & other proposed radial avenues." Drawing. Fairmount Park Art Association. The Fairmount Parkway. Philadelphia: Fairmount Park Art Association, 1919.

Thanks for posting this one! I'd heard of it before but couldn't remember the architects name. The one I originally saw was this:



http://www.uwishunu.com/2011/09/the-...planning-maps/

[animatedmartian]

Detroit's infamous Woodward Plan of 1807. The highlighted section is the only part of the plan that ever got built.


http://vegan27.livejournal.com/735374.html

The bases of the town of Detroit shall be an equilateral triangle, having each side of the length of four thousand feet, and having every angle bisected by a perpendicular line upon the opposite side...

The only exception was when the Plan intersection with natural terrain, like the Detroit River. Luckily, the area around Detroit is pretty flat with only creeks and streams and this plan could have been repeated infinitely in most directions.


plan of detroit, annotated version. by whitewall buick, on Flickr


1838 map of detroit by whitewall buick, on Flickr

Woodward himself managed to get Congress to give Detroit (technically the Michigan territory whose then capitol was Detroit) 10,000 acres a few miles north of town (around what is currently Highland Park and Hamtramck) which is presumably how far this plan would have extended. Never mind the silly farmers already in the area.


http://www.atdetroit.net/forum/messa...tml?1173667967

However, Woodward had to go away to Washington DC and about 2 or 3 years had passed before the powers back in Detroit decided to give up on the Woodward Plan and just stick to plain ole grid iron streets.

[The North One]

Those damned French farmers were too stubborn.

I like how the grid turned out though.

[balletomane]

More links regarding Neil Greenberg's Fake Omaha project.
Not really a conceptual city, its a fictional city, but I think it should be of interest to others on this forum.

The goal of the project is to draw people such as ourselves to collaborate and make an ink and paper city into a real , living city. Even though you can participate in the development of the city, by opening your own "businesses" or pitching ideas to the "city planners", it still functions as a blank canvas for anyone who enjoys urban planning.

Main website:
http://www.fakeomaha.org/

Current city map (pdf):
http://map.fakeomaha.org/samples/wiremap.pdf

Brief History of Fake Omaha and current developments:
https://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/c...me__fake_omaha

An interview with Neil Greenberg:
http://goodspeedupdate.com/2007/2169

[Cirrus]

Oh, here's a close up of the proposed treatment for Ben Franklin Parkway from that Philadelphia plan above:

CLICK HERE for a much larger version.

[ue]

Originally Posted by balletomane

Agreed. I think his city plans are still a interesting concept, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to live in his "Utopian" vision. They look like those Soviet commie block style neighborhoods, without the history and culture of the old city.
I guess its more of a dystopian nightmare, they look like they could be the setting for a Hunger Games style book or movie.

It's not like Le Corbusier type developments never sprang up, a la his 'Radiant City'. Many public housing projects and other mid-century high-rise communities share its ethos.

Aesthetically, Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai seems to carry what Le Corbusier was after, at least superficially...

• Video Link


https://thecharnelhouse.org/2010/09/17/exact-air/