BUILDING FOR BUSINESS : THE IMPACT OF COMMERCE ON THE CITY PLAN AND ARCHITECTURE OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA 1750-1800.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

SPERA, ELIZABETH GRAY KOGEN.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania.

Subjects (All):

Research.

United States--Research.

United States.

0323.

Local Subjects:

0323.

Physical Description:

264 pages

Contained In:

Dissertation Abstracts International 41-10A.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

Two of the many things for which the colonial and early national City of Philadelphia is noted are its founding and settlement on the Penn-Holmes grid plan and its rapid development into not only the largest North American city, but one of the largest English speaking cities in the world while yet a colonial city. Each of these features has been examined within its proper reach, yet the two have not been considered together to question the effect of unplanned growth on so carefully balanced a plan. The lack of attention to the correlation between these features leaves a sizeable gap in the understanding of the city in the eighteenth century which is reflected in studies of its social, political, economic or planning and architectural history. The major failing of these researches is their assumption that because the grid plan remained, as did a considerable amount of "green" space, that the "greene countrie town" continued to exist. These views are maintained despite the clear emergence within the confines of the eighteenth century of a vital commercial city. This completely ignores the existence of important commercial and "industrial" zones as it similarly negates important indicies of this zone creation in commercial building. Further in failing to consider these material affects of this growth to prominence in the English speaking world, these studies do not contain adequate measures of its cultural impact on the eighteenth century City of Philadelphia.

"Building for Business..." seeks to redress the deficiency at the base of these studies. It is my contention therein that the rapid economic development of Philadelphia in the second half of the eighteenth century metamorphosed the green country town of measured, balanced and counter-balanced physical and social attributes into a modern commercial city of specialized, interdependent yet equally balanced parts. This change was manifest in alternate patterns of building on the town plan, the development of disparate and specialized architectural forms and the rise of modern, commerical agents of urban regulation.

These problems are addressed through investigations of the use of the city plan, adaptations to traditional architecture, and impact of contemporary commercial institutions. To begin this study uses a sampling of contemporary advertisements to prove the existence of a central business district distinct from the residential city. The named businesses are located by block and the blocks plotted on a city map to discern intensive clustering a commercial activities and groups of similar commercial activities within the district. Continuing this a series of "functional" zones are studied in detail. The features studied are noted in plans created from documentary research in property history, contemporary views, history of physical development, land and building use, population, tenency/ownership relationship, and architectural standards.

To question the commercial architectural specialization accompanying the functional specialization of zones a catalog of modifications of plan and detail of domestic contiguous houses is made and analyzed. The result in a description of a class of commercial architecture with functional genera.

The commerical institution studied--fire insurance--also traces architectural adaptations. It does so by following structural standards and zoning regulations made and enforced by insurance companies during the eighteenth century. The result is to prove that insurance established a minimum building standard for security; that it performed a zoning function in the regulation of hazardous trades; and finally that insurance succeeded where political and governmental interests had failed in preserving the physical security of a modern, commercial city.

Notes:

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-10, Section: A, page: 4432.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1980.

Local Notes:

School code: 0175.

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.