The grid system for London that never happened

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35418272

by sambeau • 10 years ago

94 48 10 years ago

bbc.co.uk

legulere• 10 years ago

"All images subject to copyright."

You shouldn't be allowed to claim copyright for works in the public domain.

true_religion• 10 years ago

I don't think they're claiming copyright; that's just a boilerplate statement alluding to the fact that just because you see it here on the public internet doesn't mean you shouldn't do your own research to find out whom if anyone has copyright.

lmm2• 10 years ago

British copyright law is relatively strict. Given that these were submissions to a royal competition it's entirely possible they're subject to perpetual crown copyright.

samwillis• 10 years ago

I believe in the UK you can hold the copyright to the scan/photo of an artwork or image that is out of copyright. So the digital versions of these images are relatively new and the copywrite would be held by the person making the copy.

yitchelle• 10 years ago

That is an interesting concept. So is it possible to create multiple copyrighted versions of an artwork or image that is out of copyright?

shellac• 10 years ago

You can, but see https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...

Are digitised copies of older images protected by copyright?

Simply creating a copy of an image won’t result in a new copyright in the new item. However, there is a degree of uncertainty regarding whether copyright can exist in digitised copies of older images for which copyright has expired. Some people argue that a new copyright may arise in such copies if specialist skills have been used to optimise detail, and/or the original image has been touched up to remove blemishes, stains or creases.

However, according to the Court of Justice of the European Union which has effect in UK law, copyright can only subsist in subject matter that is original in the sense that it is the author’s own ‘intellectual creation’. Given this criteria, it seems unlikely that what is merely a retouched, digitised image of an older work can be considered as ‘original’.

rmc• 10 years ago

You can claim whatever you want. You can claim the sky is made of cheese. Don't make it true.

It's debatable whether, under UK law, you can claim copyright on an image that's just a straight scan of a public-domain/out-of-copyright image. Usually you need to do some sort of work to get the "sweat of the brow" copyright protection. Though it's quite common for places that scan images (like libraries) to claim copyright.

This is a big problem when OpenStreetMap mappers want to trace from an old map.

dvirsky• 10 years ago

What amazes me is how small London was then compared to the huge thing it is today. What constituted "London" in Wren's plan is like a small bit of one part of the city today. I mean, it makes sense when you think about it, but it was just surprising to see it visualized.

oneeyedpigeon• 10 years ago

It's the 'city' proper, i.e. the City of London [1] (sometimes known as the Square Mile) as opposed to the city, London, or the Greater London area. It gets very confusing but, yes, London as most people think of it has got much, much bigger in the last 350 years.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London

jeffwass3• 10 years ago

London itself, as in the City of London, is still only a square mile, it's even called 'The Square Mile'. And the City of London is more-or-less based on the borders of the old Roman city of Londinium. Parts of the Roman city walls are still around today.

Greater London is an amalgamation of the neighbouring boroughs that grew and merged into the London metropolis today. Eg, Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, Camden, etc.

You can see which borough you're in by looking at the street signs.

sambeau• 10 years ago

CGP Grey has a good explanation of London vs The City of London:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc

orf2• 10 years ago

Funnily enough Westminster is it's own city as well, so London consists of 3 cities really.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Westminster

TheOtherHobbes• 10 years ago

There are historical maps at the aptly named:

https://www.old-maps.co.uk

A lot of the growth happened from 1900 onwards, when Camden was a few streets away from the rural outskirts, and Hammersmith was on the outskirts.

After that the suburbs exploded. In some areas they stretch all the way out to the M25.

pjc502• 10 years ago

Just think how small New York was at that time..

liotier2• 10 years ago

"A series of public squares, and in the middle of each one a church and churchyard. It can be extended over and over again - it's a perfect grid plan"

Wow - I have been extensively mapping Senegal on Openstreetmap and this is a typical pattern there - only with mosque !

joshwd• 10 years ago

What brings you to Senegal? I did notice over the past few years that OSM improved significantly in Dakar, although I didn't get to contribute much.

liotier2• 10 years ago

I just like Senegal and I have quite a few Senegalese friends in Paris. My Openstreetmap activity there started with cycling there with no usable maps at all in 2008... Some time after coming back I discovered OSM and began making the maps I would have liked to have - also it was a way to remain connected to Senegal. A few years later, with almost 400k changes in 750 commits, Senegal has turned into the main nexus of my mapping activity and I'm now in touch with some of the local mappers. Open JOSM and look at the changelog of just about every object in the Dakar region and you'll likely find my name in half of them !

I'll be in Dakar at the end of the month by the way, for a couple of week with four of my daughters and I intend to join some OSM meetups there.

mgr86• 10 years ago

That feels like many a new England town. But with Churches.

Steltek2• 10 years ago

Did you mean "New England", like the US Northeast? Because as a lifelong New Englander, I find that a terrible inaccurate statement. There's a Town Common (if it hasn't been converted into a parking lot!) and then cow paths radiating out from there.

Steltek2• 10 years ago

You should look at Savannah! It's almost a picture perfect copy of the London plan here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squares_of_Savannah,_Georgia

Compare:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SchematicSavannahSquare.j...

vs.

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/EF6C/production/_...

radarsat1• 10 years ago

But Charles II was not keen. He had Knight arrested for suggesting that the king might benefit financially from such a calamity.

..aaand this kind of thing reminds me why democracy, for all its imperfections, ain't so bad...

elthran• 10 years ago

Counter point, from the wiki article on Charles 2

Charles attempted to introduce religious freedom for Catholics and Protestant dissenters with his 1672 Royal Declaration of Indulgence, but the English Parliament forced him to withdraw it

If you want examples of monarchy being worse than democracy, you certainly have plenty of examples with the 2 Charles (There wasn't a civil war for no reason), but there are plenty of examples of democracy being worse than an autocratic system

TazeTSchnitzel• 10 years ago

I wouldn't say the Parliament of the 1600s was very democratic.

Nr7• 10 years ago

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others." - Winston Churchill

ant6n• 10 years ago

If only there were more actual democracies. I'm tired of a certain bizarro misdirection circus.

pjc502• 10 years ago

It was a turbulent time. England(+) had just emerged from a period of Puritan military dictatorship following the overthrow of Charles I. We went from an absolute monarch to a dictator to an absolute monarch to a limited monarchy in 1688. Arguably the UK wasn't a fully parliamentary democracy until the Parliament Act 1911.

(+) Not the UK at this time!

ZeroGravitas3• 10 years ago

Possibly more correct to say that "We went from a dictator who was also an absolute monarch, to a dictator who wasn't, to a dictator who was".

But we do love a bit of heriditary military dictatorship here in the UK.

clock_tower2• 10 years ago

There are some thoughts that an aspiring absolute monarch should be very careful not to think; and wanting to make money off a natural disaster is pretty sleazy thinking anyways. I agree, though, that imprisonment probably isn't the right response...

jdpedrie• 10 years ago

A similar thing happened in Detroit, after the fire of 1805. Augustus Woodward designed a plan for the city which was partially implemented, especially in the large avenues leading out of the city center. [1]

[1] http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/archives/2015/06/01/the-detr...

danans• 10 years ago

The future-looking photos of the architecturally designed floating houses in Nigeria (bottom of the page) are really interesting.

I imagine that people build floating shantytowns because there is no where else to live, not because they prefer to live on water.

But given those constraints it's neat to think about what engineering and design can do to improve the housing available in those circumstances.

cpeterso• 10 years ago

The floating houses remind me of China Miéville's novel The Scar, with a floating movable city constructed from thousands of ships lashed together.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scar

Scarblac• 10 years ago

These floating houses are in Amsterdam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oacdHI83DNI

cylinder• 10 years ago

If you are interested in grids / city planning check out the new book "City on a Grid" about NYC.

disordinary• 10 years ago

Surprised they don't have anything about the rebuilding of Christchurch. 45% of the CBD was destroyed and the rebuild is interesting.

The grid system for London that never happened

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