2013 Reprint of 1945 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Camillo Sitte (1843-1903) was a noted Austrian architect, painter and theoretician who exercised great influence on the development of urban planning in Europe and the United States. The publication at Vienna in May 1889 of "Der Stadtebau nach seinen kunstlerischen Grundsatzen" ("The Art of Building Cities") began a new era in Germanic city planning. Sitte strongly criticized the current emphasis on broad, straight boulevards, public squares arranged primarily for the convenience of traffic, and efforts to strip major public or religious landmarks of adjoining smaller structures regarded as encumbering such monuments of the past. Sitte proposed instead to follow what he believed to be the design objectives of those whose streets and buildings shaped medieval cities. He advocated curving or irregular street alignments to provide ever-changing vistas. He called for T-intersections to reduce the number of possible conflicts among streams of moving traffic. He pointed out the advantages of what came to be know as "turbine squares"--civic spaces served by streets entering in such a way as to resemble a pin-wheel in plan. His teachings became widely accepted in Austria, Germany, and Scandinavia, and in less than a decade his style of urban design came to be accepted as the norm in those countries.
De ce ne plac orașele medievale atât de mult? De ce căutăm străzile înguste, neregulate, piețele închise? (De ce vrea toată lumea să meargă la Sibiu, la Brașov?)
Importantă pentru oricine e interesat de oraș..o gură de aer proaspăt pentru oricine s-a săturat să trăiască într-un oraș făcut pentru și despre mașini. Deși a fost publicată la 1889, oferă explicații relevante până în zilele noastre și, mai mult decât atât, oferă idei de gândire pentru viitoarele proiecte. Poate fi radicală în unele momente și, desigur, nu reprezintă adevărul absolut, dar consider că e un pion important în cunoștințele oricărei persoane pasionată de arhitectură și de urbanism.
"...dar, ca regula generala, cu cat spatiul este mai mare, cu atat efectul produs este mai slab, pentru ca edificiile si monumentele nu se mai pot impune."
(despre piete vechi neregulate): "Oricine stie, din proprie experienta, ca aceste neregularitati nu au deloc un efect neplacut ci, dimpotriva, ele accentueaza impresia de natural, stimuland interesul nostru si, mai ales, intaresc pitorescul tabloului."
"A cauta parcele ortogonale pentru pretinse avantaje "arhitectonice" este o grava eroare si aceasta solutie nu va fi adoptata decat de cei care nu se pricep deloc la conceperea planurilor."
This is a really good book if you don't know anything about urbanism and want to start. It is entry level so besides being a must read for any architecture student it can be a fun short and easy to read book for the average layman. Unfortunately I could not read chapters IV and V because I don't have them. I did not check the PDF of the book I got from my teachers before printing it. So yeah if you have any position of power in the domain of city building don't act before you read this.
His cynical commentary on the death of public space (frankly long before it was announced in 1970s) is witty, but not hopeless - he still show a great care for the cities and its open spaces, still fights for their quality. Bless him, honestly.
Spoiler alert: “The block” is the culprit of all evil in the modern city planning :D