Mohan Pant

The Grid and Modular Measures in The Town Planning of Mohenjodaro and Kathmandu Valley

Abstract This paper studies the street and block plans of Mohenjodaro and Sirkap of Pakistan, and Thimi of Kathmandu Valley. Mohenjodaro was a reknowned city of Indus civilization, while Sirkap of Taxila, was an important cultural center in later half of first millennium BC. While both of the cities are archaeological remains, Thimi is still a living town. The three cities, apparently separated by enormous time span and geographic space, exhibit certain features that is striking to draw the attention of archaeologists and urban historians. This study finds that all the three settlements employ exactly the same grid dimension in making the division of urban blocks. The standard modules conform to ′danda′ and ′rajju′, which are stated in Arthasastra, the work of Kautilya who lived during the later quarter of 4th century BC. This paper makes a morphological analysis of the revealed plans of Mohenjodaro, Sirkap and Thimi, and demonstrates a relationship in their town plan, the division of quarter blocks and the plot divisions as shown by the built clusters and street boundaries. This is the first direct evidence to link the urban civilization of Indus with the living settlements that continue to exist up to modern times.

Space Formation of Jaipur City, Rajastan, India:An Analysis on City Maps (1925-28) made by Survey of India

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to study the principles of space formation of Jaipur City which is known as the so called grid iron city. Jaipur City, designed by Jai Singh II is thought to have been constructed according to Hindu cosmology. This paper discusses the planning theory in terms of measurement systems employed in the widths and lengths of streets, division of the urban blocks (chowkri) and the distribution of the dwelling units through the analysis of 43 sheets of the City Map (1925-28). The reason why we chose Jaipur is to compare it with Cakranegara (Lombok, Indonesia), which was founded as a colonial city of the Balinese Hindu kingdom in the same period of the early 18th century. This paper makes clear that in reality the sizes of the urban blocks are different place by place while simple measurement systems were introduced in the beginning. It also shows the process of city development with respect to changes in the form of the street pattern.The latter part of the paper focuses on the form of neighbourhood structures and, on types of residential buildings that are the cellular units of the residential quarters.

A Study on the Pattern of Plot Divisions of Courtyard Residential Blocks of Patan, Kathmandu Valley

This study analyses the ground plans and frontage widths of selected residential quadrangles of the historic core of Patan and shows that the dwelling plots were divided according to a standard method that applied to varying sizes of the courtyard settlement blocks. The size of the plots and frontages is determined by the size of the open courtyards, and their layout follows the swastika pattern, an ancient symbol sacred to both Buddhist and Hindu traditions, and which the paper finds as one of the rational ways of division to get the uniform distribution of the plots within a courtyard system of settlement. The study further shows the relationship of this pattern of division and plot planning to the layout of Buddhist monastery architecture, indicating that the form of the monastery could have been the model to inspire the planning idea of the larger residential courtyard settlements of Patan.