The Genealogy of Cities (PDF’s from the CD)

In 2009 my book, The Genealogy of Cities, was published. The book displayed around 600 city plans in figure ground format. In a pocket on the inside of the rear cover of the book is a computer disk that contained over a 1000 city plans. In the last year I purchased a new laptop, which (what seems to be the norm now) did not come with the ability to play CD’s. Due to this change in technology I decided to load all of the figure ground city plans from the book CD onto the Looking@Cities web site.

SharpVillage — An example of one of the books I used for city plans. *The Anatomy of the Village* is by Thomas Sharp, published in 1946

SharpVillageInterior — Two of the village plans from *The Anatomy of the Village* that were scanned and traced to create the figure grounds.

Writtle_GB_1946 — The figure ground created from *The Anatomy of the Village*

For those of you not familiar with The Genealogy of Cities, here is a brief description.

“Although contemporary professionals use of the term dates from the mid-twentieth century, “urban design” has been practiced throughout history. Examples of carefully planned ancient cities exist in Asia, India, Africa, Europe, and the Americas and are hallmarks of classical Chinese, Roman, and Greek cultures. The Genealogy of Cities is a compilation of ancient and modern city plans, from 350 BCE to the present, depicting both built and proposed plans. Written in clear and accessible prose, it is illustrated with more than 500 plans drawn at the same scale, a unique feature of this work. It provides a previously unavailable tool for academics and professionals who must grapple with the issue of scale in researching and teaching urban design or when creating new urban spaces. Author Charles P. Graves Jr. created these computer-generated plans to provide a method of understanding models for modern cities while also creating a series of typological diagrams for both historical periods and city fabric. Also included in this volume is a DVD containing 1000-plus plans that will allow the user to print the urban plans at any scale. This will be a useful and impressive reference book for students, scholars, and urban design and planning professionals and those interested in city planning, urban geography, urban morphology, architecture, cartography, and art history.”

The drawing standards for the figure ground plans are based on one of the four types shown above. a) Outline of the block as a solid mass, b) Outline of the block with the division of property lines, (c) Footprint of buildings with possible property division, and foliage (shown in gray), and d) Footprint of the buildings (with key public/private buildings shown in ground plan commonly referred to as a Nolli Plan) with possible property division, and foliage (shown in gray).

The first file listed below, • Comparative Scale, shows an outline of all the city plans in red, and at the same scale. I’ve also highlighted files below in green if they appear in the book.

It’s important to note that when I began to write this book, in 1999, the World Wide Web was in its infancy. Towards the beginning I had to purchase historic city plans from dealers, or find them in books. These plans were then scanned and traced, with the intention that they can easily be compared and studied. Over the ten years though the web became a major source for finding city plans. I’d like to list three sources where you can still find historic city plans, and typically at a high resolution. These sites are, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection located at the University of Texas at Austin, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Historic Cities, and the David Rumsey Map Collection.

All Images are Copyrighted © by Charles P. Graves, Jr.. The images may be downloaded and used for personal use. I ask though that you please obtain permission prior to using them, and note the author, and where you obtained the work.

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