Camillo Sitte // City Planning According to Artistic Principles

Camillo Sitte (1843-1903) was a noted Austrian architect, painter, and city planning theoretician who had great influence on the development of urban construction, planning, and regulation in Europe. In his City Planning According to Artistic Principles (1889), Sitte criticized modern city planning of his time, as was embodied in Hausmann's all too formal and monumental boulevard approach. Wide, straight boulevards cut through the city without regard for the parts of the city which were being cut through (ex. Paris), and public squares were built according to the convenience of traffic. While much has been achieved technically, almost nothing has been achieved artistically. He called for the Picturesque, characterized by irregularity and asymmetry in planning, using the medieval Italian city as a reference for a great example of such. Sitte conceived of the Picturesque as follows:
"...stronger architectural projections, more frequent interruptions of the building line, zig-zag and winding streets, uneven street widths, different heights of houses, flights of stairs, loggias, balconies, gables..."

Through an examination of what he considered to be lovely old European plazas and entire urban layouts, he attempted to extract principles for the designs of plazas, streets, and squares which, when followed, "would lead to similar admirable effects". He hoped to provide study materials and theoretical deductions for the expert, but his challenge lay in finding a balance between the Picturesque he so desired and the practical demands of modern life - such as sanitation, comfort standards, transportation systems.

Could those new demands possibly be reconciled with the delights and irregularities of the true Picturesque? The answer he came to was no - although architectural features of the Picturesque may be imitated and reconstructed, the spontaneity and accidents of history over the centuries cannot be invented and constructed anew in plan. "Modern living and modern building techniques no longer permit the faithful imitation of old townscapes (p. 119)".