hilberseimer: DISTRIBUTED SETTLEMENTS

EFFECT OF H - BOMB ON THE SIZE AND DISTRIBUTION OF CITIES

HILBERSEIMER. Ludwig Hilberseimer drew a 20 mile grid over the region surrounding Chicago. The grid dimension is based on the radius of the Hydrogen bomb blast area. This spacing assured that only a single settlement of 30,000 people would suffer a direct hit. The "nuclear shadow" is shown by Hilberseimer in the petal shaped configuration with a 50 mile radius. Given the distribution, the evacuation zone would be limited to 13 settlements.  Depopulating Metropolitan areas and redistributing their inhabitants to small population centers at twenty mile intervals was presented in The Nature of Cities as a strictly defensive posture but the existential ethos of the Cold War has never been so powerfully rendered. (after Hilberseimer, The Nature of Cities, p. 283.)

In the context of Hilberseimer's project, the diagram combines a defensive strategy with an urbanism of increased mobility, a return to nature and self-determination (individuation) all suspended within the medium of open urban space.