The Grid as a Generator

In the book Urban Space and Structures, the opening essay by Martin (1972) discusses criticisms that have been made of urban design or planning.


Martins begins by introducing the two major ideas upon which planning doctrine is generally based:


1. The visually ordered city
- total city plan is the inspired and all encompassing work of art.
- civic art must be an expression of the life of the community.
- works of art cannot be created by committee but only by a single individual.
(the above all make reference to ideals discussed by Camillo Sitte)
- the planner then is the inspired artist expressing in the total city plan the ambitions of society.


2. The statistically ordered city
- basis of those planning surveys in which uses are quantified, sorted out and zoned in to particular areas: population densities are assessed and growth and change predicted.


Opposition against the visual and statistic ordering of cities focus on the observations of organically growing cities. An artificial frame for a city does not exclude the potential for organic growth dictated by the patterns of human activity. New York is an example of where this the strict rectilinear grid of Manhattan has not prevented organic growth of the city.


Martin believes that:


"an organic growth without the structuring element of some kind of framework, is chaos... it is only through the understanding of that structuring framework that we can open up the range of choices and opportunities for future development."