Jaqueline Tyrwhitt’s Contribution: From the 7th C.I.A.M. Grid to the Ekistics Grid

Natalia Felekoura; Kostas Tsiambaos

doi:10.53910/26531313-E2022821651

Authors

Natalia Felekoura Diploma Student at the National Technical University in Athens (NTUA) https://orcid.org/0009-0008-0343-3035
Kostas Tsiambaos Architect and Associate Professor in History & Theory of Architecture at the School of Architecture of the National Technical University in Athens (NTUA) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0421-3383

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53910/26531313-E2022821651

Keywords:

urban planning, 7th C.I.A.M., Organicism, urban grid

Abstract

In this essay we are discussing a turning point in the urban thinking of the 20th century related to the transition from a static view of the city to a view of the city as an evolving living organism. We are exploring the paradigm shift from the urban grid of the 7th C.I.A.M. to the urban grid of the last phase of the science of Ekistics (C. A. Doxiadis) by focusing on the contribution of Jaqueline Tyrwhitt. First, we analyze the urban grid as a result of the considerations of the post war functionalist urbanism of the 7th C.I.A.M. Then we present the basic characteristics of the science of the human settlements called Ekistics and analyze its grid accordingly. Comparing the two grids, we highlight the introduction of the concepts of ‘change’ and ‘system’ as distinctive of the above-mentioned paradigm shift. Third, we explain Jaqueline Tyrwhitt’s contribution in this paradigm shift. Finally, we explain how Tyrwhitt formulated her own humanistic and ecological conception of urban planning having been influenced by the biologist and urban planner Patrick Geddes and his conception of the city as a living organism, which was part of the wider interaction between concepts in biology and the social sciences.

Author Biographies

Natalia Felekoura, Diploma Student at the National Technical University in Athens (NTUA)

An undergraduate student at the School of Architecture of the National Technical University in Athens (NTUA), Vasiliki - Natalia Felekoura is currently completing her Diploma Project. She was part of the team of the Greek participation in the Venice Biennale of Architecture (2021). Her maps have been included in the interdisciplinary research project 'Revolutionary Palimpsest'.

Kostas Tsiambaos, Architect and Associate Professor in History & Theory of Architecture at the School of Architecture of the National Technical University in Athens (NTUA)

Architect and Associate Professor in History & Theory of Architecture at the School of Architecture of the National Technical University in Athens (NTUA), Kostas Tsiambaos is Chair of do.co.mo.mo. Greece. His recent books include “From Doxiadis' Theory to Pikionis' Work: Reflections of Antiquity in Modern Architecture” (London & New York: Routledge, 2018 and 2020). In the fall semester of the academic year 2019-2020, he was a Stanley J. Seeger Visiting Research Fellow at Princeton University.