, showing the grid plan of the city
The "Best State" According to Aristotle (in
Politics ii.8), Hippodamus was a pioneer of
urban planning, and he devised an ideal city to be inhabited by 10,000 men Aristotle's own concept of
polity included a large
middle class in which each citizen fulfilled all three functions of self-legislation, arms bearing, and working." and built the refounded city of
Rhodes in the form of a theater. In 440 BC he went out among the Athenian colonists and planned the new city of Thurium (later
Thurii), in
Magna Graecia, with streets crossing at right angles; as a consequence he is sometimes referred to as Hippodamus of Thurium. His principles were later adopted in many important cities, such as
Halicarnassus,
Alexandria and
Antioch.
Strabo credited the architect of Piraeus with the layout of the new city of
Rhodes in 408 BC; however, as Hippodamus was involved in 479 BC with helping the reconstruction of Miletus he would have been very old when this project took place. The grid plans attributed to him consisted of series of broad, straight streets, cutting one another at right angles. In Miletus we can find the prototype plan of Hippodamus. What is most impressive in his plan is a wide central area, which was kept unsettled according to his macro-scale urban prediction/estimation and in time evolved to the "
Agora", the centre of both the city and the society.
Writings The
Urban Planning Study for Piraeus (451 BC), which is considered to be a work of Hippodamus, formed the planning standards of that era and was used in many cities of the classical epoch. According to this study, neighbourhoods of around 2,400 m2 blocks were constructed where small groups of 2-floor houses were built. The houses were lined up with walls separating them while the main facets were towards the south. The same study uses polynomial formulas for the pumping infrastructure manufacture. ==Philosophy==