Architects have significantly influenced urban planning throughout history. Notable architects mentioned include Rem Koolhaas, Le Corbusier, Jane Jacobs, Kevin Lynch, Daniel Burnham, Jan Gehl, Camillo Sitte, Raj Rewal, Fredrick Law Olmsted, Arata Isozaki, Massimiliano Fuksas, Norman Foster, Jaime Lerner, Robert Moses, Catherine Bauer Wurster, Rahul Mehrotra, Gordon Cullen, and Jean Nouvel. These architects brought innovative design solutions and a creative vision to shaping the built environment of cities and towns. Today, architects continue to play an important role in urban planning by working to create livable, sustainable,

1. Famous Urban
Designers
By: Mary Rose Ann V, Payba

2. List of Urban Designers
• Rem Koolhaas
• Le Corbusier
• Jane Jacobs
• Kevin A. Lynch
• Daniel Burnham
• Jan Gehl
• Camillo Sitte
• Raj Rewal
• Fredrick Law Olmsted
• Arata Isozaki
• Massimiliano Fuksas
• Norman Foster
• Jaime Lerner
• Robert Moses
• Catherine Bauer Wurster
• Rahul Mehrotra
• Gordon Cullen
• Jean Nouvel

3. Rem Koolhaas
The Pritzker Prize laureate of 2000, a
revolutionary Dutch Architect, Urban planner,
Journalist, and Urban essayist. Alongside well-
known projects like the Seattle Public Library,
Euralille (an urban quarter in the center of Lille,
France), Kunsthal (an exhibit space), Koolhas has
published, “S, M, L, XL” a book that ended up
becoming a Bible for Urbanists across the world,
and “Delirious New York” which was then a best
seller of Urban theory.
Thriving on constant change, uncertainty, and
endless possibilities in a world of extremes that is
open to every kind of human experience, Rem
Koolhaas describes new urbanism as “the
manipulation of infrastructure for endless
intensifications and diversifications, shortcuts and
redistributions – the reinvention of psychological
space.”

4. Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, was a Swiss-French
architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the
pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was born
in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930. Recognized as the
founding father of the Modernist movement, Le Corbusier was also an
architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and believed that,
“Architecture is an economic and political tool that could be used to
improve the world through the design of buildings and urban planning.”
Steel and reinforced concrete along with clear forms and structures were
the glories of his work. Having envisioned prefabricated houses,
imitating the concept of assembly line manufacturing of cars, his design
theories became a reality, and he built a workers’ city of 40 houses at
Pessac, near Bordeaux. His principles have proven to apply to an entire
city – Chandigarh, in India, labeled, ‘The Planned City’.

5. Jane Jacobs
An author and an activist with no college degree or any
formal training in urban planning, Jane Jacobs criticized
experts in the male-dominated field of urban planning and
she endured scorn from established figures. Her book “The
Death and Life of Great American Cities” argued that urban
renewal/ slum clearance did not respect the needs of city-
dwellers and was not what the towns needed and focused
on community-based approaches to planning. Jane
organized protests to protect neighborhoods from slum
clearance, particularly Robert Moses’ plans to outstrip her
own “Greenwich Village” neighborhood. She views cities as
ecosystems, mixed-use developments, bottom-up city
planning opportunities, and local economies.

6. Kevin A. Lynch
An American urban planner and author, Lynch
advocated mental mapping, which is a process of
working on an individual’s perception. His works
depicted a perceptual form of urban environments
and his book, “The Image of the City” is a seminal
work on the same. He worked towards mastering an
improvement in the visual aesthetics of cities and his
process of people receiving sensory inputs from
their environments is still widely used in urban design
studies and research today.
According to Lynch, Path, Edge, Landmark, Node, and
District along with Cleanliness of the streets, are the
key elements that identify a particular city. He
introduced concepts of ‘Place design’ and
‘Placemaking’ that are applicable today more than
ever.

7. Daniel Burnham
“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir
men’s blood and probably themselves will not be
realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and
work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram
once recorded will never die, but long after we are
going to be a living thing, asserting itself with
ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons
and our grandsons are going to do things that
would stagger us.” — Daniel Burnham
The most successful power broker the American
architectural profession has ever produced, Daniel
Burnham, was an American architect and urban
designer. Burnham has been instrumental in
contributing to the master plans of several cities,
transforming the cityscapes of Chicago, downtown
Washington D.C, Manila, and Baguio to name a
few. Along with urbanization, he took an interest
in designing skyscrapers and shopping centers.

8. Jan Ghel
Having given importance to urban pedestrian life, Jan
Gehl, a Danish architect, and urban designer is
prominent in creating “Cities for People.” He believes
in systematic, gradual incremental improvements in a
city. Gehl’s book “ Public Spaces, Public Life” describes
how such incremental improvements have transformed
Copenhagen from a car-dominated city to a more
pedestrian-oriented, people’s city.
Gehl is also committed to making cities,
neighborhoods, and places where people have control
over their health and wellbeing and are enabled to
take meaningful, climate-conscious decisions within
their daily lives.

9. Camillo Sitte
Camillo Sitte was an Austrian
architect, painter and urban
theorist whose work influenced
urban planning and land use
regulation. His book “City
Planning According to Artistic
Principles” talks about creating
spacious plazas, monumental and
decorative features, and other
complementary elements that
draw a parallel between urban
spaces and interiors of a room.

10. Raj Rewal
Raj Rewal weaves history and modernity into a
singular design and aims to create humane
architecture that focuses on scale, geometry, and
rhythm. He has made a colossal contribution to the
urbanscape of many major cities in India.
"Passive energy saving systems learned through
traditional methods can go hand in hand with
smart buildings based on state-of-the-art
technology," said Rewal.

11. Fredrick Law
Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public
administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the United
States. Olmsted not only created numerous city parks around the country, he also conceived of
entire systems of parks and interconnecting parkways to connect certain cities to green spaces.
Drawing influences from English landscape and gardening, Olmsted emphasized design that
encourages the full use of the naturally occurring features of a given space, its "genius"; the
subordination of individual details to the whole so that decorative elements do not take
precedence, but rather the whole space is enhanced; concealment of design, design that does not
call attention to itself; design that works on the unconscious to produce relaxation; and utility or
purpose over ornamentation. A bridge, a pathway, a tree, a pasture: any and all elements are
brought together to produce a particular effect.

12. Arata Isozaki
Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning
architect Arata Isozaki, was one of
Japan's most influential post-war
architects. He was described by the
Pritzker Prize jury as "a versatile,
influential, and truly international
architect". Arata’s style is a blend
between New Brutalism and
Metabolist Architecture. He
developed one of his most
fascinating projects, City in the Air, in
the field of urbanism, which remains
proposed to this date.

13. Massimiliano Fuksas
As an Italian- Lithuanian Architect and head
of Studio Fuksas, Massimiliano Fuksas
defines his vision as giving his structures
emotions. His style is easily recognizable and
offers a new definition to
the modern urbanscape. As an avid writer,
his excerpts in the architecture column of
the weekly publication, L’Espresso
understands the urban problems,
particularly that of the suburbs.

14. Norman Foster
Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames
Bank, OM, RA, HonFREng (born 1 June 1935) is a British architect and
designer. Closely associated with the development of high-tech architecture,
Foster is recognized as a key figure in British modernist architecture. His
architectural practice Foster + Partners, first founded in 1967 as Foster
Associates, is the largest in the United Kingdom, and maintains offices
internationally. He is the president of the Norman Foster Foundation, created
to 'promote interdisciplinary thinking and research to help new generations
of architects, designers and urbanists to anticipate the future'. Foster worked
with Steve Jobs from about 2009 until Jobs' death to design the Apple offices,
Apple Campus 2 (now called Apple Park), in Cupertino, California, US. Apple's
board and staff continued to work with Foster as the design was completed
and the construction in progress. The circular building was opened to
employees in April 2017, six years after Jobs died in 2011.

15. Jaime Lerner
As an urban planner and architect, he was renowned in
Brazil as he helped design most of the city walkways,
roads, and public transportation of Curitiba such as the
Rede Integrada de Transporte. In 1965, he helped create
the Instituto de Pesquisa e Planejamento Urbano de
Curitiba and designed the Curitiba Master Plan.

16. Robert Moses
Robert Moses, (born Dec. 18, 1888, New Haven, Conn.,
U.S.—died July 29, 1981, West Islip, N.Y.), U.S. state and
municipal official whose career in public works
planning resulted in a virtual transformation of the
New York landscape. Among the works completed
under his supervision were a network of 35 highways,
12 bridges, numerous parks, Lincoln Center for the
Performing Arts, Shea Stadium, many housing projects,
two hydroelectric dams, and the 1964 New York
World’s Fair. His projects greatly influenced large-scale
planning in other cities in the United States. He was
also instrumental in bringing the UN complex to
Manhattan’s East River waterfront.

17. Catherine Bauer Wurster
Catherine Krouse Bauer Wurster was an American public
housing advocate and educator of city planners and urban
planners. A leading member of the "housers," a group of
planners who advocated affordable housing for low-income
families, she dramatically changed social housing practice and
law in the United States.

18. Rahul
Mehrotra
Rahul Mehrotra is Founder Principal of architecture firm RMA
Architects of Mumbai + Boston, and is Professor of Urban
Design and Planning and Chair of the Department of Urban
Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of
Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Mehrotra has written and lectured extensively on issues to do
with architecture, conservation, and urban planning and
design in Mumbai and India. His writings include coauthoring
Bombay: The Cities Within, which covers the city’s urban
history from the 1600s to 1990; Banganga: Sacred Tank;
Public Places Bombay; Anchoring a City Line, A history of the
city’s commuter railway; and Bombay to Mumbai: Changing
Perspectives. He has also coauthored Conserving an Image
Center: The Fort Precinct in Bombay. Based on this study and
its recommendations, the historic Fort District in Mumbai was
declared a conservation precinct in 1995 – a first such
designation in India.

19. Gordon Cullen
The book’s title is ‘The Concise Townscape,’ and
Gordon Cullen is the author. He was a well-known
urban planner and architect from England who
played a significant role in the townscape
movement. Cullen introduced a novel theory and
approach to urban visual analysis and design
founded on the psychology of perception,
including human perceptions of time and space
and the need for visual stimulation. The Concise
Townscape is the name given to later versions of
Townscape. Through this book, he significantly
contributed to the Townscape’s structure.

20. Jean
Nouvel
“Since the beginning of his architectural career in the 1970s, Frenchman Jean Nouvel has broken
the aesthetic of modernism and post-modernism to create a stylistic language all his own. He
places enormous importance on designing a building harmonious with its surroundings,” said Bill
Lacy in his book, One Hundred Contemporary Architects. Lacy, who was executive director of the
Pritzker Architecture Prize from 1988 until 2005 when he retired, continued, “In the end that
building’s design may borrow from traditional and non-traditional forms, but its presentation is
entirely unique.”
Jean Nouvel’s projects transform the landscapes in which they are built, often becoming major
urban events in their own right. His unique approach, driven by the specificities of context,
program, and site has proven effective in numerous successes around the world.

21. Summary
Architects have played a significant role in urban
planning throughout history. They bring their design
expertise and creative vision to shaping the built
environment of cities and towns. Today, architects
continue to play a vital role in urban planning,
working to create livable, sustainable, and resilient
cities for the future. They often bring innovative
solutions to complex urban problems, such as
affordable housing, transportation, and public
space.

22. Thank You!

23. References
https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/2020/09/02/a1670-10-famous-
urban-designers-throughout-architectural-history/
https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/2022/03/11/a6400-dissecting-
15-urban-designers/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page