During the medieval period in Europe and India, towns were planned with defenses, resources, and social organization in mind. Medieval European towns often developed around castles, churches, or trade routes and were walled for protection. They prioritized locations on rivers as trade routes. Medieval Indian towns like Jaipur followed Hindu texts on urban planning and had grid-like layouts with sectors, public squares, and bazaars. Jaipur was painted pink in the 19th century and remains known as the Pink City today for its distinctive color.

1. URBAN DESIGN
9TH SEM
GROUP MEMBERS-
● ALAN .K. JOSEPH
● KUMAR SATYAM
● NIRANJAN KAR
● ROHAN DUTTA
● ZUALA
● KHELANG JAMATIA

2. Table of contents
Introduction Conceptual PLAN
Urban form &
Architectural
identity
02
05
01 Entrance
03
Medieval Europe
04

3. INTRODUCTION
MEDIEVAL PERIOD
Medieval towns were mainly created by wealthy peoples, these
are the people that would have owned large plots of land that
would have been given to them in return for services provided for
the King under the medieval feudal system.
Features of medieval towns
● Urban centres of the medieval times were surrounded by
agricultural land, and farmers and labourers commonly
were having their dwellings near or outside the town limit.
● The areas within the walls of a town near its bound were
occupied by artisan castes engaged in handicrafts.
Medieval town in India
Surat, Hampi and Masulipattanam were the major towns in India
during the medieval period.
( Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Agra, Lucknow, Nagpur, etc.)
➢ The three types of towns during the mediaeval period were
temple town, administrative centre and commercial
towns.

4. HOW DID A MEDIEVAL TOWN WORK?
● New towns developed around religious buildings, castles or trade routes.
● The town was run by powerful people such as merchants and lords, while the crafts workers and traders
made their living in the bustling markets.
● Medieval towns tended to grow around areas where people could easily meet, such as crossroads
or rivers.
● Towns needed more water than villages, so a nearby water supply was vital.
● Many towns had large fences built around them and the gates of these fences were locked at night to
keep out undesirables.
● Towns range in population from 1,000-8,000 people, with typical values somewhere around 2,500.

5. MEDIEVAL PERIOD
● Medieval cities of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries usually bid irregular street patterns and heavy walls.
● A Medieval city was considerably smaller with a limited population.

6. ● It is a model of town planning- the first planned city in India. It is based
on Hindu systems of town planning and followed the principles
prescribed in the Shilpa-shastra, an ancient Indian treatise on
architecture .according to this shastra the site should be divided into
grids or mandalas rangung from 2x 2 to 10 x 10.
● Planned according to the Prastara type of layout, which gives
prominence to the cardinal directions.
● Thus plan of jaipur is a grid of 3×3 with gridlines being the city’s main
streets.
● The central axis of the town was laid from East to West between the
gates of the Sun(Suraj pol) and the moon(Chandpol)
● This was crossed by two roads at right angles dividing the town into
nine almost square, almost equally sized blocks, which were further
subdivided by lanes and alleys all at right angles.
CONCEPTUAL PRASTARA PLAN

7. EVOLUTION OF CONCEPT IN PLANNING
ESTABLISHING THE CITY
AXISES ON THE SITE
ACCOMMODATING THE WESTERN
AND EASTERN ADJUSTMENT
DEVELOPING THE SITE
AS A MANDALS

8. MEDIEVAL EUROPE
LOCATION :
● Europe is a small continent, but it is very diverse.
Many different landforms, water features, and
climates can be found there.
● Although we call Europe a continent, it is actually
part of Eurasia, the large landmass that includes
both Europe and Asia.
● Geographers consider the Ural Mountains to be
the boundary between the two continents

9. CASTLES :
● USED AS ESTATES AND KINGS LIVED THERE.
● IMPORTANT DEFENSIVE MILITARY PLACES.
● IN TIMES OF PEACE, THEY SERVED AS SYMBOLS OF POWER.
MEDIEVAL FAIRS :
● OBJECTIVE WERE TRADE AND COMMERCE
● LOCAL PEOPLE COULD VISIT TO BUY THINGS NOT NORMALLY AVAILABLE AND ALSO SELL WHAT THEY PRODUCED.
● LOT OF OPPORTUNITIES FOR FUN AT MEDIEVAL TOWNS.
RIVERS :
● DEVELOPMENT OF MEDIEVAL TOWNS.
● THEY WERE NATURAL HIGHWAYS ON WHICH ARTICLES OF COMMERCE COULD BE EASILY TRANSPORTED.
● THE RESURGENCE OF TRADE IN EUROPE WAS A PRIME CAUSE OF REVIVAL OF TOWNS.
CHURCH :
● THE ONLY PLACE WHERE ONE CAN CONTACT WITH THE WORLD OUTSIDE ONE'S COMMUNITY WAS THE CHURCH.
● CHURCH WAS THE BIGGEST BUILDING , BRIGHTLY COLOURED INSIDE AND FOCAL POINT OF MANY FEAST DAYS.
SIGNIFICANCE OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE

10. During the medieval period, basically two types of buildings :
● religious medieval buildings
● military medieval buildings.
● Christianity was well supported and promoted by kings
and lords of the medieval period and as a result, they also
promoted the church building programs and as a result,
some very fine and large religious buildings were
constructed during this era Religious buildings which is
known as basilica. This constructional design included a
nave, transepts, and altars.
● Christian buildings were also influenced by the Byzantine
architectural design as those cathedrals which had huge
domes over the top.
ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERS

11. ● No town was ever wholly unplanned
in the sense of being a randomly
distributed assemblage of houses
and public buildings.
● Every town once had a nucleus that
defined its purpose.
● The streets would probably have
originated in the paths by which
people approached this nuclear
feature and would have formed a
radiating pattern, interlinked by cross
streets and passageways.
● Some roads would have derived from
the ways by which people walked or
drove their animals to the
surrounding fields.
THE UNPLANNED TOWN

12. ● It had laid out straight streets. This is,
indeed, the street plan demonstrated
in Piraeus even today.
● The planned European city was not
restricted to those that derived from
the Greeks or the Romans. Similar
conditions during the Middle Ages
contributed to similar developments.
● The medieval king or baron might
found a city on an empty tract of land.
It might be an open-ended street, one
pattern would be straggling, the other
compact, and also be that agriculture
was more important in the one than in
the other. Such towns could be found
in all parts of medieval Europe.
THE PLANNED TOWN
Fig: Ladlow, England
Fig: Kalista, Poland

13. ● Security was a major factor in the
creation and growth of most towns.
● There was, therefore, some safety in
numbers, and, added to this, the
medieval town usually took steps to
defend itself against these evils.
● In town after town in western Europe
the walls that had given their
citizens protection under the empire
were patched and repaired and,
here and there extended to take in
a newly developed suburb, again
made to serve.
THE WALLED TOWN
Fig: Extension of Paris
Fig: Extension of Florence

14. ● Most towns in western and central
Europe grew up on the banks of a
river.
● In Southern Europe, towns were more
likely to have been located on a
hilltop, or at least on higher ground.
● A riverside location offered great
advantages. The river itself served
both as a source of water and as a
sewer.
● River navigation was in much of
Europe the cheapest, the easiest, and
the safest form of transportation, and,
furthermore, simply being on the
banks of a river gave the town some
protection on at least one side.
THE BRIDGE TOWN
Fig: The bridge Town

16. URBAN FORM
AND
ARCHITECTURAL
IDENTITY

17. The town has around it a masonry wall, 25ft. high & 9ft. thick,
with eight gates.
● The gates are:
● Chandpole Gate
● Ghat Gate
● Ajmeri Gate
● Sanganeri Gate
ENTRANCE
● Surajpole Gate
● Gangapole Gate
● Zorawar Singh Gate
● New Gate
● The palace building covered two blocks, the town
six and the remaining ninth block was not usable
on account of steep hills. So this North-West ward
was transferred to the South-East corner of the
city, making the shape of the plan as a whole
asymmetrical rather than square.
● The city’s division into nine wards was also in
conformity with the Hindu caste system, which
necessitated the segregation of people belonging
to different communities and ranks.
● Even the lanes were named after the occupations
of inhabitants such as Maniharon ka Rasta,
Thatheron ka Rasta & many others.
● Following the directions of the Hindu Shilpa
shastra, width of the main streets & other lanes
were fixed. Thus the main streets of the city were
111ft. wide, secondary streets 55 ft. wide & the
smaller ones 27ft. wide.
● On the North of the main road from West to East are the Purani Basti, the Palace and
Ramchandraji.
● The principal bazaar leads from the western gate in the city wall, The Chandpole, passing in
front of the Tripolia Gate, to the eastern city gate, the Surajpole.

18. ● To the NW of this lay the Jai Niwas.
Given that its royal association
meant that it had to be within the
palace compound, the site of the
palace was established. Indeed,
given the wish to locate the palace
centrally, the position of the
brahmasthana was also established.
A wall surrounds the palace
buildings.
● The serving class occupied the
peripheral areas.
● Another constraint was the position
of the lake, which formed a part of
the pleasure garden around which
the city was built. This lake lay close
to the hillside. In the original design
it fell outside the main block of the
city; but due to Jai Singh’s wish to
include the old garden in the city, the
lake was made the tank of palace
garden.

19. VIEWS OF GATES AND DIFFERENT STRUCTURES
ACCORDING TO ITS LOCATION

20. Jaipur is known as the Pink City, a rather idealized
description of the terra-cotta-colored lime plaster
that coats the old part of the city’s walls, buildings,
and temples.
WHY PINK?
● The reasons for painting the town pink are
unknown, but various theories have been
tossed about, from using pink to cut down
glare,
● To Jai Singh II’s apparent devotion to Lord
Shiva (whose favorite color is reputedly
terra cotta).
● Others believe Singh wanted to imitate the
color of the sandstone used in the forts and
palaces of his Mughal emperor-friends.
● The most popular reason is that pink is the
traditional color of hospitality, and the city
was freshly painted and paved with pink
gravel to warmly welcome Edward VII for
his visit here in 1876.

21. ROAD NETWORK
● Jaipur’s road network follows a definite
hierarchy. The major east-west and
north-south road ,form the sector
boundaries and are called Rajmarg as
they lead to the city gates. These
measure 33m. Wide.
● Next there is a network of 16.5m wide
which runs north-south in each sector
linking the internal areas of the sectors to
the major activity spine
● An orthogonal grid of 8.25mx4.00m
roads in the prastara-chessboard pattern
further divide sectors into Mohallas
CHAUPAR

22. PUBLIC SPACES
CHAUPAR – It’s a square that occurs at the intersection of east west
roads with three north south roads. Each chaupar is around 100m x
100m. Were used for public gathering on festive occasions. The distance
between two chaupars is about 700m which is ideal for pedestrian
movement. It has controlled façade treatment enveloping it.
Historically, the chaupars were outlets for intense social use with water
structures connected by underground aqueducts, supplying numerous
sources of drinking water at street level. Presently, the centre of each
chaupar has square enclosures with ornamental fountains
SECTION THROUGH THE RAMGANJ BAZAAR
BAZAARS – Originally only four bazaars
were planned for the city. These were later
named as Johri bazaar, Sireh Deori
Bazaar, Kishan pole Bazaar & Gangori
Bazaar
Typical architectural features of the bazaar
streets are – use of chhajjas (sunshades)
resulting in strong horizontal lines,
projecting vertical blocks on brackets, a
modular system of arches filled with
delicate latticed screens to cut direct sun
and glare of reflected sun in the street.

23. PUBLIC SPACES
● Bazaar streets have temples above shops with wide
staircase starting from pavement to the temple level.
Space above shops at first floor level originally
functioned as galleries for watching royal processions,
religious festivals and public celebrations
Uniform planned shop fronts on bazaar streets with
upper floors in interesting juxtaposition.
Defined street facade at a chaupar with sunshades
and latticed colonnades at upper floors and shop
fronts on the ground floor.

24. REFERENCE
● www.google.com
● https://www.archinomy.com/case-studies/jaipur-evolution-of-an-indian-city/

25. Alternative resources

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