Hippodamus of Miletus
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Hippodamus of Miletus (sometimes also called Hippodamos, Greek: Ἱππόδαμος), was a Greek town planner of the 5th century BC. He created city plans that featured order and regularity, in contrast to the more common intricacy and confusion common to cities such as Athens, and he is seen as the originator of the idea that a town plan might formally embody and clarify a rational social order. According to Aristotle (in Politics), he originated the art of Town Planning, and devised an ideal city to be inhabited by 10,000 citizens, divided into three classess (soldiers, artisans and 'husbandmen'), with the land also divided into three (sacred, public and private).
For Pericles he planned the arrangement of the harbour-town Peiraeus at Athens in the middle of the fifth century BC. When the Athenians founded Thurii in Italy in 443 BC he accompanied the colony as architect - although he was not actually an architect in the sense of a building designer. He is credited with, in 408 BC, the building of the new city of Rhodes, however as he was involved in 479 BC with helping the reconstruction of Miletus he would have been very old when this project took place.
His grid plans consisted of series of broad, straight streets, cutting one another at forty-five and one hundred thirty-five degree angles.
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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.de:Hippodamos es:Hipodamo de Mileto fr:Hippodamos nl:Hippodamus van Milete ja:ヒッポダモス pl:Hippodamos z Miletu pt:Hipódamo de Mileto sv:Hippodamos
