In the second half of the 16th century, theurban setting became a collective concern…a large number of perspective city viewsin which a great deal of information wascombined in a realistic rendering. For thefirst time the entire heritage of the Europeancities was precisely represented accordingto the tenets of Renaissance visual cultureand given general circulation. The populationbecame accustomed to the syntheticperception of parts of the urban organismand the relationship between the city andthe geographical setting. Perspective,the tool used to create these images wassubsequently and continuously employed forthe rectification of urban settings. The newrectilinear avenues became more frequentand longer, and better emphasised the viewof the vanishing point (Benevolo & Ipsen,1993).
This application of perspective as an urban design technique impacted city design through the Renaissance and into the Baroque periods. During the 1400s the urban aspirations of the inhabitants of Rome varied from their predecessors. A new desire for an emphasis on the Church and the path of pilgrims was reflected with urban interventions – straight axial streets terminating in vistas marked by ‘wayfinding’ obelisks and religious buildings (Bacon, 1974). This urban design paradigm reflected the melding of the current urban aspirations and the new design technique – perspective.
Figure 7: Photogrammetry point-cloud aerial view of the Michelangelo plan for the Capitoline Hill (Piazza del Campidoglio), map data: Google, LandsatICopernicus.
A prime example of urban design paradigms taking into account a city’s urban desires as well as expressing technological achievements (design procedures), is Michelangelo’s Campidoglio (1546) which remodelled the Capitoline Hill to reflect Pope Paul III’s vision for the new Rome, turning away from the Roman Forum towards the civic centre – St Peter’s Basilica. The design involved ‘tidying up’ the space giving ‘clarity and formal order’ by adding a veneer of Renaissance façade creating a trapezoidal plaza space to achieve the desired perspectival effect [Figure 7 and Figure 8] (Mumford, 1940).
The potential of perspectival composition of urban form illustrated in the Campidoglio was explored further by French landscape architect to King Louis XIV of France, André Le Nôtre (1613 – 1700) who’s design for the Palace of Versailles [Figure 9], emphasises axial composition and terminating vistas on a large scale. This bisecting axis created inspiring vistas that would influence many other designers internationally including Pierre L’Enfant in his design of Washington DC in 1791.
Figure 8: Photogrammetry point-cloud aerial view of the Capitoline Hill (Piazza del Campidoglio), map data: Google, Landsat/Copernicus.
Figure 9: Photogrammetry point-cloud aerial view of Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles (built 1668–74) gardens by André le Notre, map data: Google, Landsat/Copernicus.
With the understanding of perspectival composition technique and the urban design paradigm came an understanding of the importance of the individual spectator’s point of view, raising questions of whether urban composition was for the glory of God or the individual. The French philosopher and mathematician, René Descartes, a prime contributor to developing analytic geometry referred to as the Cartesian coordinate system (1637) suggested that space was the projection of thought where every viewpoint can be deduced, abstracted, from the universal position of a god for whom all viewpoints are instantaneously accessible. As noted by NYU academic Allen S. Weiss, depth is the function of ratiocination; depth exists because man is not God (1995). None the less, the importance of the individual human experience continued to be of interest. Weiss refers to the French philosopher, Merleau-Ponty:
…every perspectival projection… returns tothe spectator’s point of view, to that zero-degree visibility which is the pure latency ofdepth…. There is a fundamental “narcissismof vision” inherent in all systems ofrepresentation (1995).
This ‘narcissistic position’ in perspectival representation seemed particularly evident in the picturesque movement of the 1700s. One of the aspirations (urban desires), of the wealthy English ‘leisured class’ was to show off their beautiful estates to colleagues during ‘pleasure rides’ (on horseback) [Figure 10]. English Landscape designers such as Capability Brown and Uvedale Price used the projected perspective views as a compositional tool, which in turn informed their landscape plans (Broglio, 2008). Key moments along a path were chosen as viewing points where one would dismount from the horse and view the perspective composition of the estate.
In most literal aesthetic observations, wemight note that it is only in the “major”art of architecture and the “minor” art ofgardening that the artist – and the spectator– may literally enter and explore theperspectival projection, taking his body intothe very work of art (Weiss, 1995).
The picturesque design paradigm was possible because of the discovery and understanding of perspective, but it was also due to advancements in cartography and surveying. The concept of triangulation used for surveying being fully understood at a similar period. This triangulation would have allowed landscapers to sculpt the ground surface to gently roll under the sublime follies and artificial ruins.
Another example of urban scaled composition would occur over 50 years later in Paris, France between 1853 and 1869 with Baron von Haussmann’s interventions into the Parisian urban fabric, which involved carving great boulevards through the medieval city, creating public squares and grand vistas to civic buildings. This major ‘urban surgery’ work recalled the perspectival interest of the Renaissance and the grandiose Baroque of Versailles.
The Austrian architect and city planning theoretician Camillo Sitte criticised the boulevards of Haussmann advocating curving or irregular streets for ever-changing vistas in lieu of ‘a monotony of vistas, and an architectural ineffectiveness’ (1986). Sitte argued that the city should be considered art, with a spatial and formal composition that preceded the considerable population explosion of his century. He suggested that the pre-industrial medieval cities had an inherent beauty forged by the intuitive creativity that shaped the irregular streets and public spaces. It would seem that the ‘pack donkey’ was better at urban composition than Haussmann or the modern planners thereafter.
Figure 10: Drawing of Warkworth Castle by Thomas Allom, Source: (Rose, Allom, & Pickering, 1835).
Despite these critiques, the Baroque style boulevards of Haussmann would also be revisited on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. In the 1890s and 1900s a reform movement known as City Beautiful recalled the planning of the Baroque mixed with Beaux-Arts elements. The movement came to prominence in US cities such as Chicago and Washington D.C. which believed that the beautification of cities could counteract the moral decay of the poor, encouraging ‘civic virtue’ (Bluestone, 1988).
The concept of grand terminating vistas did not stop with the rise of Modernism. The capital of Brazil, Brasília, inaugurated in 1960, applied the CIAM¶ principles established in the Athens Charter of 1933. Designed by Brazilian urban designer Lúcio Costa with Oscar Niemeyer as the chief architect, Brasilia is essentially a gridded city bent in the centre, the Eixo Monumental. The focal point of this axis is the Congresso Nacional. Niemeyer and Costa worked closely to set up a strong relationship between
