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An ideal city is the concept of a plan for a city that has been conceived in accordance with a particular rational or moral objective.
The "ideal" nature of such a city may encompass the moral, spiritual and juridical qualities of citizenship as well as the ways in which these are realised through urban structures including buildings, street layout, etc. The ground plans of ideal cities are often based on grids (in imitation of Roman town planning) or other geometrical patterns. The ideal city is often an attempt to deploy Utopian ideals at the local level of urban configuration and living space and amenity rather than at the culture- or civilisation-wide level of the classical Utopias such as St Thomas More's Utopia .
Several attempts to develop ideal city plans are known from the Renaissance, and appear from the second half of the fifteenth century. The concept dates at least from the period of Plato, whose Republic is a philosophical exploration of the notion of the 'ideal city'. The nobility of the Renaissance, seeking to imitate the qualities of Classical civilisation, sometimes sought to construct such ideal cities either in reality or notionally through a reformation of manners and culture.
The Renaissance concept of an Ideal town developed by Italian polymath Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), author of ten books of treatises on modern architecture titled De re aedificatoria written about 1450 with additions made until the time of his death in 1472, concerned the planning and building of an entire town as opposed to individual edifices for private patrons or ecclesiastical purposes.
Alberti insisted on choosing the location of the town first, followed by careful setting up of the size and direction of streets, then location of bridges and gates, and finally a building pattern ruled by perfect symmetry. [1] One of the more prominent examples of a town modelled on this theory was Zamość founded in the 16th century by the chancellor Jan Zamoyski. At present, it is a World Heritage Site in Poland. [2]
The ideal town was seen as a utopia to be achieved by disregarding the reasonably regular planimetrics of real, historic towns for standards – geometric, aesthetic or otherwise – of ideal perfection. Therefore the debate about ideal towns has become isolated from the debate about real, historic towns. In fact, there has often been the temptation to superimpose and identify this debate with one about utopia and those town models often linked to the utopian concept. [3]
Examples of the ideal cities include Filarete's "Sforzinda", a description of which was included in Trattato di architettura (c. 1465). The city of Sforzinda was laid out within an eight-pointed star inscribed within a circular moat. Further examples may have been intended to have been read into the so-called "Urbino" and "Baltimore" panels (second half of the fifteenth century), which show classically influenced architecture disposed in logically planned piazzas.
The cities of Palmanova and Nicosia, whose Venetian Fortesses were built in the 1590s by the Venetian Republic, are considered to be practical examples of the concept of the ideal city. [5] Another notable example of the concept is Zamość in eastern Poland, founded in the late 16th century and modelled by the Italian architect Bernardo Morando.
James Oglethorpe synthesized Classical and Renaissance concepts of the ideal city with new Enlightenment ideals of scientific planning, harmony in design, and social equality in his plan for the Province of Georgia. The physical design component of the famous Oglethorpe Plan remains preserved in the Savannah Historic District. [6]
Late nineteenth-century examples of the ideal city include the Garden city movement of Sir Ebenezer Howard, realised at Letchworth Garden City and Welwyn Garden City in England. Poundbury, Charles III's architectural vision established in Dorset, is among the most recent examples of ideal city planning.
Built in 1950s Communist Poland, Nowa Huta, now part of Kraków, Poland, serves as an unfinished example of a utopian ideal city, and is still one of the largest planned socialist realist settlements or districts ever built and "one of the most renowned examples of deliberate social engineering" in the entire world. [7] Its street hierarchy, layout and certain grandeur of buildings often resemble Paris or London. The high abundance of parks and green areas in Nowa Huta make it the greenest part of Kraków. [8]
Kraków, less often spelled Cracow in English, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 and has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, economic, cultural and artistic life. Cited as one of Europe's most beautiful cities, its Old Town with Wawel Royal Castle was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978, one of the world's first sites granted the status.
Leon Battista Alberti was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer; he epitomised the nature of those identified now as polymaths. He is considered the founder of Western cryptography, a claim he shares with Johannes Trithemius.
A utopia typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, which describes a fictional island society in the New World.
Renaissance architecture is the European architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 16th centuries in different regions, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance architecture followed Gothic architecture and was succeeded by Baroque architecture. Developed first in Florence, with Filippo Brunelleschi as one of its innovators, the Renaissance style quickly spread to other Italian cities. The style was carried to other parts of Europe at different dates and with varying degrees of impact.
Zamość is a historical city in southeastern Poland. It is situated in the southern part of Lublin Voivodeship, about 90 km (56 mi) from Lublin, 247 km (153 mi) from Warsaw. In 2021, the population of Zamość was 62,021.
Nowa Huta is the easternmost district of Kraków, Poland. With more than 200,000 inhabitants, it is one of the most populous areas of the city. Until 1990, the neighbouring districts were considered expansions of the original Nowa Huta district, and were linked by the same tramway system. They are now separate districts of Kraków.
The culture of Poland is the product of its geography and distinct historical evolution, which is closely connected to an intricate thousand-year history. Poland has a Roman Catholic majority, and religion plays an important role in the lives of many Polish people. Polish culture forms an important part of western civilization and the western world, with significant contributions to art, music, philosophy, mathematics, science, politics and literature. Its unique character developed as a result of its geography at the confluence of various European regions.
Antonio di Pietro Aver(u)lino, known as Filarete, was a Florentine Renaissance architect, sculptor, medallist, and architectural theorist. He is perhaps best remembered for his design of the ideal city of Sforzinda, the first ideal city plan of the Renaissance.
Bernardo Morando, also known as Bernardino or Morandi was an Italian architect from the Republic of Venice. He is notable as the designer of the new town of Zamość, modelled on Renaissance theories of the 'ideal city'.
The Renaissance in Poland lasted from the late 15th to the late 16th century and is widely considered to have been the Golden Age of Polish culture. Ruled by the Jagiellonian dynasty, the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland actively participated in the broad European Renaissance. The multinational Polish state experienced a period of cultural growth thanks in part to a century without major wars, aside from conflicts in the sparsely-populated eastern and southern borderlands. The Reformation spread peacefully throughout the country, and living conditions improved, cities grew, and exports of agricultural products enriched the population, especially the nobility (szlachta), who gained dominance in the new political system of Golden Liberty.
Palmanova is a town and comune (municipality) in the Regional decentralization entity of Udine in Friuli Venezia Giulia, northeast Italy. The town is an example of a star fort of the late Renaissance, built up by the Venetian Republic in 1593.
Łaźnia Nowa Theatre is the newest dramatic theatre in Kraków, Poland, founded in 2005. It is located in the district of Nowa Huta which was built from the ground up during the 1950s' Communist policy of Socialist realism. Appropriately, the theatre is residing in the post-industrial halls of a former technical school.
The Historical Museum of the City of Kraków in Kraków, Lesser Poland, was granted the status of an independent institution in 1945. Originally, it was a branch of the Old Records Office of Kraków, in operation from 1899.
Zamość Synagogue is a UNESCO-protected Renaissance synagogue built between 1610 and 1618 in Zamość, southeastern Poland. Erected during the times of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, it functioned as a place of worship for Polish Jews until World War II, when the Nazis turned the interior into a carpenters' workshop. The structure was spared from destruction and in 1992 it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside the Old City of Zamość.
The metropolitan city of Kraków, former capital of Poland, is known as the city of churches. The abundance of landmark, historic Roman Catholic churches along with the plenitude of monasteries and convents earned the city a countrywide reputation as the "Northern Rome" in the past. The churches of Kraków comprise over 120 Roman Catholic places of worship, of which over 60 were built in the 20th century. They remain the centers of religious life for the local population and are attended regularly, while some are often crowded on Sundays.
The city of Kraków is divided into 18 administrative districts, each with a degree of autonomy within the municipal government. The Polish name for such a district is dzielnica.
The architecture of Poland includes modern and historical monuments of architectural and historical importance.
The osiedleOld City is the oldest historic district of the city of Zamość. It is one of World Heritage Sites in Poland. According to UNESCO, this monument value lies in it being "an outstanding example of a Renaissance planned town of the late 16th century, which retains its original layout and fortifications and many buildings of particular interest, blending Italian and Central European architectural traditions.". The Medieval Town has an area of 75 ha and a buffer zone of 200 ha.
Zamość, founded in 1580, is a town in Poland.
Utopian architecture is architecture inspired by utopianism. Examples for such an architecture are Phalanstère, Arcology and Garden Cities. Earthships are realizations of the utopia of sustainable living and autonomous housing. Also, the concept domed city functions as a potential utopia.
Media related to Ideal city at Wikimedia Commons
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