Your Favorite Unrealized Urban Plans

[Krases]

So I have seen a lot of cool urban plans on the internet and I figured I would share some of my favorites:

The Woodward plan for Detroit. Looks like something you would see in renaissance Italy or France. I tried making this layout in google sketchup and was surprised to see that the squares pictured around only about 50 x 50 feet wide. Not very big buildings to be honest, though blocks could be combined to make some larger structures.


whitewallbuick


Next up, the Burnham plan for Chicago. Partially built, but would have been pretty epic if it had been fully built. Also included a pretty massive central civic structure.


Penn State Library

Penn State Library


The Completion of Washington by Leon Krier. I mean its a crazy giant lake for a national mall. Its like Amsterdam and Washington DC had a baby. Now all it needs are canals everywhere.


MOMA

Germania, a replacement for Berlin. Not so much the actual plan, which consisted of a giant dick-move by running people who didn't vote for Hitler out of their homes and building a giant city on top of the ruins. It did have some crazy grand looking architecture though. Kind of makes me think about how beautiful the Colosseum is, in spite of the whole "feeding people to lions" thing. Honestly though, it looks cool from a distance, but would have been horrible to live in due to a lack of human scale.



imageshack, originally posted here

Show me your favorites.

[volguus zildrohar]

Jacques Gréber's 1917 plan for Philadelphia. It included radial boulevards out from City Hall and major points downtown. The circles at major Broad Street intersections would have been nice to see.



Photobuket

[Swede]

The some-what realized Lindhagen-plan for Stockholm from 1866. A quick comparison with today's Stockholm will tell you that a lot of it was realized, but there's many bits I'd have loved to see;
Ringvägen (the ring-road on the Southside) would have extended all the way to the northern shorelines,
Folkkungagatan (the main east-west street on the Southside) extended all the way to the west instead of stopping half-way,
Sveavägen (main north-south avenue on the Northside) would have continued all the way to the palace and the water instead of turning and then stopping a dozen blocks away,
Kungsgatan (main east-west street on the inner Northside) would have connected to Fridhemsplan in the west and Karlaplan in the east.


source: wikipedia


Half of this in now the most protected greenspace in Sweden, half is suburbia and university campuses (Swedish style, i.e. slabs-in-a-"park").

source: wikipedia

[hudkina]

The Woodward Plan was conceived in 1805 after the city burned to the ground. The problem is that the landowners wouldn't have any of it.

[zilfondel]

Nothing wrong with slabs-in-the-park. Juxtaposition between nature and the man-made. Could be worse. Could be like the US - modular classrooms, trailer-park style prefab units decomposing in fields.

[Krases]

Maybe someone can help me with this. I believe there was a plan to rebuild a crowded part of london, using a number of large traffic circles and orientating it around a circular shape. I think it is near where the Millennium dome is now.

It was a rejected plan, but still looked pretty interesting.

[seaskyfan]

Originally Posted by Krases

Maybe someone can help me with this. I believe there was a plan to rebuild a crowded part of london, using a number of large traffic circles and orientating it around a circular shape. I think it is near where the Millennium dome is now.

It was a rejected plan, but still looked pretty interesting.

I'm assuming you're thinking of something more recent but the Wren plan from 1666 has some of the features you mentioned.

http://mapco.net/london/1666wren.htm

[Krases]

Originally Posted by seaskyfan

I'm assuming you're thinking of something more recent but the Wren plan from 1666 has some of the features you mentioned.

http://mapco.net/london/1666wren.htm

That was one plan that I ran into during the search, but not quite the one I remember.

I remember it having something to do with streetcars and wanting to either remove some of them ore revamp the streetcar system in that area.

I faintly remember a map with some red lines marking where new roads would go. Yet, this map was somewhat old if I remember right, like 1800's era.

[Swede]

Originally Posted by zilfondel

Nothing wrong with slabs-in-the-park. Juxtaposition between nature and the man-made. Could be worse. Could be like the US - modular classrooms, trailer-park style prefab units decomposing in fields.

There's plenty wrong with slabs in the "park". It wastes tons of space, destroys the urban fabric (or prevents it from ever being created). Most of Stockholm is slabs-in-a-"park", and all these 'burbs are pretty dead, no streetlife since there's no place for streetlife.
But, yeah, of course it could be worse.

[ColDayMan]

This site has some good ones, including one for Columbus I actually wish was implemented.

http://www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/schermer.htm

[Tom Servo]

Exodus or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture, London, UK, 1972.
Rem Koolhaas.



[Click for full size]

http://thefunambulist.net/2010/12/16/students-exodus-or-the-voluntary-prisoners-of-architecture/

I'm a fan of radical architectural theory.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Tom Servo

Exodus or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture, London, UK, 1972.
Rem Koolhaas.

What the fuck? This is worse that Corbusier's plan for Paris.




The only one of these I like is the Burnham plan. The Detroit plan seems like a traffic nightmare... too many diagonals and circuses.

[Tom Servo]

Originally Posted by 10023

What the fuck? This is worse that Corbusier's plan for Paris.




The only one of these I like is the Burnham plan. The Detroit plan seems like a traffic nightmare... too many diagonals and circuses.

Worse? You mean better and more philosophical?

[Krases]

Originally Posted by 10023

The Detroit plan seems like a traffic nightmare... too many diagonals and circuses.

I think with a good light rail/streetcar system, subway system, bike paths and generally way less auto dependence, it would be plenty doable. I don't see the diagonals as much of a problem and the circuses are not to be confused with traffic circles. They are over twice as wide as the large roundabouts in Washington DC, so at that scale you are talking about a series of slightly curved stop-lights at worst. Not a giant roundabout that when mixed with Diagonal streets tends to cause chaos.

[The_Architect]

^ One of those walls would go right through my building.. yikes.

Anyway here's the original plan for Metro Centre in Toronto, which would have required the demolition of Union Station. The only part of it actually built was the communications tower, as the CN Tower (obviously with a different design):




Source.

Next there's Buckminster Fuller's fever dream with it's 400 foot tall crystal pyramid, "Project Toronto":


Source.

Complete with floating "Pro-to-Cities" on Lake Ontario:




Source.

[Centropolis]

That Metro Centre plan looks like the equivalent of strewing a pile of jersey barriers between the city and lake. UGGGh.

[Centropolis]

that Rem Koolhaas scar tissue through london is disturbing. i guess it's different and upsetting now that inflated egos have actually cut wound like swaths of destruction through cities and it's not just some wacky advanced thing that is talked about with turtleneck people a generation or two ago.

[Centropolis]

man just like you know i can hear the jazz flute.


http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7013/6...496e8fbe5c.jpg


http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7015/6...b658ab7cc1.jpg

From the 1960 Downtown St. Louis Plan. The brooding sacrificial sun-pyramid in the first rendering is probably unnecessary...Memphis built it instead...without the cloaked blood-wizard on top.

[MolsonExport]

Some of these look great for victorious generals riding on horseback, and not much else besides.

[Krases]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Some of these look great for victorious generals riding on horseback, and not much else besides.

I think the Burnham plan for chicago is truly good and I feel like the design for detroit wasn't too bad, though they would have struggled with such small blocks.

Hitlers plan for Berlin was nucking futs.