Urban Planner, Architect, Mathematician, Philosopher, Physicist, Meteorologist (498 BC – 408 BC)
Hippodamus is one of the lesser-known polymaths of Greek antiquity. He is considered the Father of urban planning, a branch of architecture concerned with organization and design of urban space. In addition to his contributions in architecture, he was a skilled mathematician, able to implement mathematical and geometrical principles in the construction of cities as well as a philosopher interested primarily in politics.
He is the founder of the Hippodamian plan, a city planning system that is widely used to this day in urban planning for the construction of city layouts. According to it, rectangular blocks representing land of equal area were crossed by parallel lines representing streets in such a way as to create an idiomorphic pattern. The location of important city structures and landmarks were determined with precision; the agora, the vouleuterion and the temples were placed in the center of the grid while the houses were placed in the periphery. Before the invention of the Hippodamian plan, most cities’ grid was irregular and buildings were built around an important landmark e.g. the Acropolis in Athens. This often hindered transport or water supply to the houses. That is why Aristotle credits Hippodamus with “inventing the art of planning cities”.
Following his success and having achieved fame, Hippodamus was called up by Pericles and was tasked with building the city layout of Piraeus. He built neighbourhoods composed of two-storey houses with a kitchen, living room and garden. He orientated every house in such a way that they could be warm during the winter and cool during the summer. He also invented an ingenious water supply system that supplied every house with clean water. Moreover, roads with big inclination were designed to remove water during floods. Upon its completion, Piraeus’s layout stood as the prototype for all ancient Greek cities. To this day, Piraeus retains the same layout. He went on to do the same for Miletus, another port town, Thouria in Southern Italy and Rhodes. After this, numerous cities adopted this system implemented by Hippodamus, namely Olynthus, Priene and Alexandria.
In addition to being an urban planner, Hippodamus was involved in the political and administrative aspects of a city. He distinguished 3 types of properties: public, private and sacred. He studied how a city must be structured in order to function excellently and its people live gracefully. Numerous Ancient Greek writers such as Strabo, Stobaeus and most importantly Aristotle cite him on their works and credit him as a meteorologist and physicist. Sadly, his works in mathematics, physics and meteorology have not survived.
Bibliography
- “Hippodamus”. Helios New Encyclopaedic Dictionary. Passas, I. Athens: 1946. Print.
- Vassileva, Diliana. “Hippodamus and Early Planned Cities”. museumofthecity.org. 29 March, 2016.
