HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Camillo Sitte (17 April 1843 – 16 November 1903) was an
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n
architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
, painter and urban theorist whose work influenced
urban planning Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
and land use regulation. Today, Sitte is best remembered for his 1889 book, ''City Planning According to Artistic Principles'', in which he examined and documented the traditional, incremental approach to urbanism in Europe, with a close focus on public spaces in Italy and the Germanic countries.


Life

Camillo Sitte was born
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
in 1843. As the son of architect Franz Sitte, he was able to work on his father's construction sites during his youth. He was an architect and cultural theoretician whose writings, according to
Eliel Saarinen Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1873 – July 1, 1950) was a Finnish-American architect known for his work with art nouveau buildings in the early years of the 20th century. He was also the father of famed architect Eero Saarinen. Lif ...
, were familiar to German-speaking architects of the late 19th century. He was educated and influenced by Rudolf von Eitelberger and
Heinrich von Ferstel Freiherr Heinrich von Ferstel (7 July 1828 14 July 1883) was an Austrian architect and professor, who played a vital role in building late 19th-century Vienna. Life The son of Ignaz Ferstel (17961866), a bank clerk and later director of the ...
, and on the recommendation of Eitelberger Sitte became the head of the new State Trade School in Salzburg in 1875, but Sitte returned to Vienna in 1883 to establish similar school there. Sitte traveled extensively in Western Europe, seeking to identify the factors that made certain towns feel warm and welcoming. Sitte saw architecture was a process and product of culture. He received praise for his 1889 book, ''Der Städtebau nach seinen künstlerischen Grundsätzen'' ("City Planning According to Artistic Principles," often translated as "The Art of Building Cities."). Sitte founded the Camillo Sitte Lehranstalt and the Camillo Sitte Gasse in Vienna, and also the magazine ''Städtebau'' in 1904. Camillo Sitte was the son of the architect Franz Sitte (1808–79) and the father of the architect Siegfried Sitte (1876–1945).


''City Planning According to Artistic Principles'' (1889)

In 1889, Sitte published ''City Planning According to Artistic Principles'' (often translated as ''The Art of Building Cities''). Richly illustrated with sketches and neighborhood maps, Sitte drew parallels between the elements of public spaces and those of furnished rooms, and he made a forceful case that the aesthetic experience of urban spaces should be the leading factor of urban planning. At the same time, he was highly critical of the patterns of industrial urbanism in Europe at that time, including the development of many site plans along the Ringstraße in his native Vienna. Sitte was one of the first urban writers to consciously emphasize the value of irregularity in the urban form. He challenged, among other things, a growing tendency toward rigid symmetry in contemporary urban design, including the isolated placement of churches and monuments in large, open plots. He also identified and advocates a host of traditional approaches to creating public spaces that had grown out of the town planning traditions of Europe. He illustrates these approaches with examples through sketches and diagrams of numerous neighborhoods (mainly in Italy and Germany). Sitte believed in an incremental approach to urbanism, formed by the aggregation of many sophisticated site plans within a more general scheme determined by street patterns and other public factors. Building on some of his principles, he follows his criticism of contemporary development on Vienna's Ringstraße with proposals to improve the spatial and aesthetic dynamics of some of its major sites. Sitte's book had an impact on European conversations about urban planning and architecture. Eliel Saarinen notes that ''The Art of Building Cities'' was familiar to German-speaking architects in the late 19th century. At least five editions were published between 1889 and 1922, including a 1902 French translation. An English translation was not published, however, until 1945 -- a factor that may explain his relative obscurity in the British Empire and the United States in the years before World War II.See the essay by Peter Kellow. He states that the English translation was not available in the United States until 1946. http://www.nccsc.net/essays/urban-design-footsteps-camillo-sitte Nevertheless, Sitte's ideas made their way into the English-speaking world through the writings of the British urbanist,
Raymond Unwin Sir Raymond Unwin (2 November 1863 – 29 June 1940) was a prominent and influential English engineer, architect and town planner, with an emphasis on improvements in working class housing. Early years Raymond Unwin was born in Rotherham, York ...
, who was deeply influenced by ''The Art of Building Cities''. Sitte's theories influenced other subsequent urbanists, including Karl Henrici and
Theodor Fischer Theodor Fischer (28 May 1862 – 25 December 1938) was a German architect and teacher. Career Fischer planned public housing projects for the city of Munich beginning in 1893. He was the joint founder and first chairman of the Deutscher Wer ...
. On the contrary, Modernists rejected his ideas, and
Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), 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 ...
, in particular, is known for his dismissals of Sitte's work. For Sitte, the inherent, creative quality of
urban space An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, ...
is its most important factor, with whole effect being more than the sum of its parts. Sitte contended that many urban planners had neglected to consider the spatial dimensions of urban planning, focusing too much on paper plans; and argued that this approach hindered the efficacy of planning in an aesthetically conscious manner. Although most of his examples come from the urbanism of Medieval and Renaissance Europe, he also cites Classical urban forms like the
agora The agora (; grc, ἀγορά, romanized: ', meaning "market" in Modern Greek) was a central public space in ancient Greek city-states. It is the best representation of a city-state's response to accommodate the social and political order o ...
of
Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...
and the Roman forum as examples of well designed urban space. The book's colophon is a picture of a winged snail. This alludes to the ancient adage ''
festina lente ''Festina lente'' () or ''speûde bradéōs'' (, ) is a classical adage and oxymoron meaning "make haste slowly" (sometimes rendered in English as "more haste, less speed"). It has been adopted as a motto numerous times, particularly by the emp ...
'' and also the Viennese delicacy, ''
Helix pomatia ''Helix pomatia'', common names the Roman snail, Burgundy snail, or escargot, is a species of large, edible, air-breathing land snail, a pulmonate gastropod terrestrial mollusc in the family Helicidae.MolluscaBase eds. (2021). MolluscaBase. ...
'', which would be sold in the snail market and cooked with butter and garlic as "poor man's oysters" and as an alternative to meat at
Lent Lent ( la, Quadragesima, 'Fortieth') is a solemn religious moveable feast#Lent, observance in the liturgical calendar commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring Temptation of Jesus, temptation by Satan, according ...
.


Books by Sitte

* ''City Planning According to Artistic Principles'', 1889 * ''The Birth of Modern City Planning''. Dover Publications, 2006, * ''Gesamtausgabe. Schriften und Projekte''. Hrsg. v. Klaus Semsroth, Michael Mönninger und Christine Crasemann-Collins. 6 Bände. Böhlau, Wien 2003–2007


Literature

* Karin Wilhelm, Detlef Jessen-Klingenberg (Hrsg.): ''Formationen der Stadt. Camillo Sitte weitergelesen'' (= Bauwelt Fundamente; Bd. 132). Birkhäuser, Basel; Bauverlag, Gütersloh u. a. 2006, * George R. Collins & Christiane Crasemann Collins. ''Camillo Sitte and the Birth of Modern City Planning.'' Random House: New York, 1965. * Michael Mönninger: ''Vom Ornament zum Nationalkunstwerk. Zur Kunst- und Architekturtheorie Camillo Sittes''. Vieweg, Wiesbaden 1998, * Leif Jerram: ''From Page to Policy: Camillo Sitte and Planning Practice in Munich''. Manchester Papers in Economic and Social History, No. 57, September 2007. ISSN 1753-7762. An introduction to Sitte, alongside an analysis of how his ideas were actually used. Available online at https://web.archive.org/web/20140116134302/http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/subjectareas/history/research/manchesterpapers/ .


References


External links


''The Art Of Building Cities'', English translation (1945). ''Internet Archive.''

''Camillo Sitte and the Art of Placemaking.'' Theo Mackey Pollack, ''The American Conservative''
*
The Camillo Sitte Lehranstalt



Internationally acclaimed cityplan for the Swedish housing area Bagaregården by Albert Lilienberg who was inspired by Camillo Sitte


{{DEFAULTSORT:Sitte, Camillo Austrian architects Austrian urban planners Urban theorists 1843 births 1903 deaths