The great thing about Altengrad is whatever the final result is, it's not the most important. It's the journey and evolution of the city which is all documented on this channel here. We saw the old blocks built then eventually demolished just as they would in real life.
This arc gives me a sense of historical avoidance. Here we have people who still remember the times of a war, the damages done and the mistakes that were made. Humankind as a 'relative' whole was exposed to truly horrifying events. Now that it all lies in the past, they want to look into the future and the future they see is as the videos have described (I won't repeat everything, all together you could turn it into a whole essay about 'modern' architecture) So what do they do? They demolish the buildings of old, they tear down practically anything that reminds them of the war, and they build new structures in its place. Towering skyscrapers, massive complexes, altogether different from the past and meant to bring a new sort of life and prosperity to the cities. And they forgot that they aren't actually living in that future yet. They don't have acces to all the funds needed, the construction takes longer than hoped, the people... don't really care for all these tall blocks of concrete and metal. Projects fall into the bins before they're completed because it just doesn't work. They invested too quickly in the first best future they were given, disregarding any alternatives. And now they have to deal with the consequences.
It is not only that people remembered the war. After WW2 a lot of cities in Europe and Asia had (large) parts of their inner cities destroyed. There was lots of room to build. So buildings could be build bigger. And after the war there was a sense of starting anew and do things different. That gave way to the new architecture described here.
This feels like an Altengrad/Asturis crossover episode. I can see the clear inspiration for the futuristic pedestrian networks that are so prevalent in the other series and honestly the best part
Definitely. I'm going to radically change the neighbourhood around my second train station to be based on the historical stuff he talked about in the beginning. It was fascinating, and would suit my city so much.
Again I had a love/hate feeling regarding the demolishing of old town blocks and building these monstrosities. Bravo Akruas, there's no other creator like yourself to really squeeze the game's engine to provide us with a realistic and beautiful history lesson of the ages thankfully gone in the past.
Oh i hate the inner city being deleted, and i hate how realistic it is. Good job! And to be completely honest, i do think that it chances the feel of the city, this also has to do with the scale.
Minor note, the kerning (spacing between the letters) on the "Altengrad" sign isn't quite right-you've made the letters an equal distance from each other, but type designers will always make an L underlap slightly with a T to look more natural. See for instance here: ALTENGRAD. Great work as always!
Woah! I've never paid attention to this detail before. I always assumed that the letters/glyphs have "hit boxes" and that they can't "clip". I wonder how this is working on computers...
Crazy how @ 12:14 when you switched back to google earth I thought it was Altengrad. You are a master of capturing the look, style, feel and detail of these cities!
So fascinating to see your historical series start running into some of the inspiration for your futuristic/sci-fi series. This is an architectural topic that I assumed was completely in the realm of fiction until now.
I've been watching these videos for a while, but this one has really stood out to me. As an (newly graduated) architect, I've heard of the concept of "streets in the sky" many times and it's been discussed quite a bit in my academic career. Yet, your explanations and commentary are probably the best I've ever heard about the topic. In architecture school, streets in the sky are mentioned on occasion just to either reference or avoid them. You, on the other hand, have contextualized them and explained how they came about, with the visuals really driving it home, and most importantly, you've shown how and why they often failed by presenting them in this particular way. I think these videos are genuinely valuable to designers and I dare say you are a better architectural-urban historian than most real historians (who seem hell bent on making their content as dry and uninteresting as possible or soil it with ideological rhetoric). And I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that perhaps places become neglected because people don't even like the place because of its poor design. I think that really contextualizes what architects' and planners' jobs should be. I just wanted to thank you for educating us and feeding our curiosity, and I hope you keep these videos going for a long time. As an example, I realized that Bunker Hill, in Los Angeles (where I studied), which we learned about in architecture school, is a another classic "streets in the sky" project. What's interesting is that the literature we learnt it from was ideologically biased, that we only ever knew it as a uniquely "Los Angeles" idea of separating people (office workers above from undesirables in the street below). But now I've finally connected it to this broader philosophy, which I think makes it all the more interesting.
A project that makes me think of when watching this is Hoog Caterijne in Utrecht. This was also a 1970 estate that had a shopping mall, a direct connection to the 'new' Utrecht Central station, (more specific this was the route people should take in the mind of the planners ). However this was mostly one big building. In the early plans you can see that it was way bigger, luckily the final build was smaller. Common problems were drug users and homeless people sleeping in its corridors, and most people thougt (and think) of it as an ugly monstrosity. Today it has been updated, and a new - not as connected - central station has been build. It is a bit sad what beautiful buildings were demolished.
I was thinking about Hoog Catharijne the whole time I watched this video :) it's very strange to see the brand new glitter and glamour entrance from the train station but if you see hoog catharijne from further away there's just these very old ugly flats sticking out of it :P
A similar concept is present at Hotel Belvedere in Olimp, Romania at the coast of the Black Sea. Known as the "Pearl of the romanian seaside" it was also built in 1970. It's really fascinating to see a network of stairs, ramps, and overpases that lead to the beach, through many open spaces with shops and even outdoor swimming pools. Really nice episode! A romanian subscriber.
This series is actually helpful as a soon-to-be city planner. I once had something like those designs in mind where the high traffic is banned one deck below the surface. It was just a train of thought and I never actually looked that up in any literature. Now when I see these (dystopian looking) projects I instantly get shocked about my initial thought
I do not envy you the challenges ahead, but at the same time I kind of do. The grade separation envisioned came from good intentions, but the costs were too high. Now we live in a world where we have to go back to localized living. We need walkable cities housing lots of people and supplying them with the need for quirt and calm, for outdoors, for food and shelter, for recreation and work. Can this even be accomplished? One thing I considered was that in East Asia these pedestrian walkways might work because these societies are (at least traditionally) highly collective. The individual is supposed to make significant sacrifices for the whole. In Canada they work simply because of the harsh winters. London? Nah, a rain shower is countered with an umbrella. I wish you the best of luck balancing environments, climate and human needs, and I hope you find better solutions than you predecessors. Or at least that you find the compromises that will work good enough.
As someone that loves vintage racing I’d love to see you return to the racing circuit eventually. Maybe Altengrad could host an F1 race for a few years in the 80’s as happened in Hungary. Upgrade the side walls with catch fences, new modernist buildings and garages as well as grand stands.
There was a plan by a Japanese architect Kenzo Tange like this but in much more dystopian style for the capital of North Macedonia - Skopje, after it was hit by a massive earthquake in 1963. The plan was supposed to spread through the whole center of the city, but only a couple of buildings were built.
Thanks a lot for this architectural and social presentation of the "streets in the sky" idea in middle europe - the examples you have shown I was not familiar with. In the GDR it was not that common, although the were examples of trying to implement it - in Halle-Neustadt there are some really huge blocks, running along a pedestrian multi level zone, connected by pavilion like shopping areas and bridges. Quite interesting. And there were plans to redesign the old centre of Erfurt - on thepicture you can spot "streets in the sky" and pedestrian zone bridges.
Well neither was I but the second part of this project will be much more GDR inspired featuring an large decorated open plaza with some neately arranged buildings all around. To give a hint Dresden was an big inspiration.
I just thought that it would be very cool if you used another type of train for that shorter platform in the Altengrads main railway station. It would serve as some light rail (something like WKD in Warsaw or HÉV in Budapest
Another amazing episode of gameplay but also an explanation of something I had never heard of. I can see how you've used this verticality and plaza approach to city design in Aruillia and Asturis,
It's a shame you didn't preserve that beautiful palace which stood in the construction area. Awesome episode, as a person from Poland I can't stress enough how accurate this is.
Another mazing video as always! On the topic of urban planning involving a multi-layered approach and separating uses, I found myself thinking about how this concept was taken to an extreme within the manga/anime "Akira" within the setting of Neo Tokyo. If you ever look at still images of Neo Tokyo, you'll see how the concept was used to create a rather dystopian urban environment, where the top levels of the city are kept rather clean and polished whereas the street-level suffers from widespread decay and neglect from the higher-ups who tend to stay on the higher levels. It really drives home the idea that those who have the means and wealth to live within the top levels of Neo Tokyo enjoy high-quality amenities and tend not to think about what lies below, while the vast majority of the city residents are left to squander on the streets being overran by criminal elements leading to a large disconnect between the two separate worlds that co-exist within the same city. In addition, the underground is basically treated as a "no-go" zone, reserved mainly for electrical and water infrastructure that only the truly despaired or those who are bold enough would venture into, and allow for the government to conduct its rather questionable experiments well out of view of both the elites at the top, and the desperate on the streets. This chaotic environment of Neo Tokyo helps to drive how the various inhabitants of Neo Tokyo perceive their world.
This is by far my favorite Cities series. I love Altengrad! Hope you'll be able to fully finish the city and take it to modern times! Maybe even a little bit into the future, who knows!
Another excellent video, thanks akruas. Love the inclusion of historical photos / drawings, and comparison to game and life. The crowned building really feels like the source material! That image of separated avenue with all the merging one way u-turns (Bratislava,(7)) was interesting, i want to try that.
Even if its a fictional city seeing you destroy older blocks to replace it with 70s shity buildings make me angry , but it's realistic , at the time people really tought this was improvement and believed in those moderniste ideas . Even tho now we all know it was an error and those ideas were stupid and not adapted it is nice to see the hard reality . Love your videos especially the educational part where i get to know new stuff.
Many of those "pretty old buildings" did not have indoor plumbing, you had a row of outhoses in the central yard. Just imagine the smell a hot summer day. Someone had to collect the waste and drive it away. Showers? Bath tubs? Running hot water? All of these things you got with the new and modern apartments. Of course people were happy, even if the exterior was ugly the interior had all of the amenities and a sleek, modern, design. Do not be too harsh on the people of those days.
@@57thorns Yes you are right for many things this was improvement . In europe we needed to build fast to rebuild the war damage and in the whole world the population was growing exponentialy so we needed to build ez and cheap to build building while also modernizing and improving standarts of living , as you said . All of this came at the cost of aesthetic , but yes i do think it was an improvement . What i do think was not an improvement was some of the new urbanist concepts of the time shown in the video , because not adapted to human and actually expensive (developement sur dalle and citées as we say in france were especially a failure but in america for example they got car centric design which also were and still is a failure to my opinion) . So to sum things up what i don't like about this era wasn't really the look of buildings or their numbers but some of the "revolutionary" urbanistic ideas of the time.
You should put a huge parking lot on that concrete area across from the station entrance, a kind of city square for the auto age. Naples historically did that with the Piazza del Plebiscito, used entirely for cars from 1963 to 1994
Fantastic Episode like always! Great mixture between interesting historical background and amazing citybuilding. I remember some time around episode 35 you mentioned in a video that what you were doing wasn't "Art". I respectfully disagree. I think what you are doing with this series matches every reasonble definition of the word. 26:35 I think you are correct that this is intended to be the modern (2007) glass fasade of what is today "Park Inn" hotel. The original 70s fasade was metal, not glass, and had an overall lighter color and more pronounced contrasts between vertical and horizontal structuring (window lines etc.).I lived in berlin for a few years around the turn of the millenium , and the very distinctive look of the 70s metal fasade represents this part of berlin in my mind even more than the more obvious tv tower and more historic (late 20s) Alexanderhaus and Berolinahaus. Sadly I find the refurbished look it has now quite common and interchangable.
Akruas, your work is tremendous and I really enjoy studying along you the modernist era of soviet planning, with a special interest as I am myself a urban planning student. Now to ask something trivial and not really that relevant, I would LOVE to know how you manage to resize decals at the 31:40 timestamp..I've been ripping my hair off for this small thing that I still can't figure out how to do or what mod allows it. Thanks in advance!
I'm somewhat facinated by this kind of pedestrian infrastructure. I've always thought it was super futuristic, I wasn't aware it is such an old concept in city design. By the way, I don't know if it served as inspiration for you, but by pure chance I saw the area around Sendai Station in a video, and it really reminded me of your video of your pedestrican "valley" in Asturis, especially the rounded holes looking down at the street.
Hey Akruas, I’m in Prague right now for the first time and I know so much about the history and architecture of the city just from these videos. When I arrived at Hlavní nádraži already knew that there was a huge avenue in front and that you had to go underground! Thanks for your informative and entertaining videos.
FYI I think that at this time this part of Europe moved on from steam engines to first mass produced electric locomotives and disel engines (many from the USSR). Only in the 90s did early DC electric locomotives start to get replaced with new locomotives with the induction motor (after the fall of the USSR). 90s and 00s also marks the period of degradation of railways with services on branch lines being cut, old rolling stock and unprofitable railways.
When you are talking and showing the real life examples of those (awful) megablocks and streets in the sky I thought that it looks like a Night City from Cyberpunk 2077 - when I was playing it I was noticing it how horrible that city is for an average pedestrian. I think that in region of Central Europe/West of the Warsaw Pact there are places that are resembling it, but they are mostly hidden underground
This episode really reminds me of the area around Central Station in Stockholm! A huge part of the housing in Sweden was built following modernist ideas (Miljonprogram or The Million Homes Program) and the center of Stockholm was redeveloped both to fit highways throught and to separate traffic and pedestrians in different levels. Also, in the UK there's an entire city built on this principle! Milton Keynes
Akruas I love your stuff man big ups from Australia you really inspire me with your ability to weave education on city planning and history into the story of Altengrad
Yes,blocks were destroyed for the hotel Kyjev-prior mall. Amazing work as always. Looks so authentic. I find the place behind the tower closest to the train station to be perfect for a new highrise tower in 2020s. That would be cool I think
Great video, great project! Personally I really like the look of this - must be a really nice place to be around when it was still new (or well maintained). Everything is just so well balanced and thought out. On the roads in the sky concept: maybe it would have been better for the surrounding areas to just drop major roads one level down so they are sunken or even tunnels. The preference for putting all the pedestrian stuff a level up instead might just be an artistic choice of the architects since then the plazas could be much more designed as opposed to just having everything flat at ground levels. Of course this isn’t a bad approach in its self but as always a balanced has to be struck.
One of the reasons Calgary's skyway was successful is that it's damn cold in Calgary in the winter. Toronto and Montreal both have extensive underground pedestrian networks in their downtowns for similar reasons, but not as extensive as Calgary.
As a people in Hong Kong, I suggest you to go to Tsuen Wan, this cities have many footbridge and get nickname as “Cities in the sky” because you can go to most places by footbridge.
I find the Jižní Město shopping complex pretty cool from the road, it looks like a train and I don't think that was accidental. Looking at the place from the car was desired and the whole place evokes motion.
Not for a Socialist city in the 1970s. Visual smog in the form of advertising was a product of the Neo-liberal 90s. Before then the most lucrative visual areas would be plastered in Socialist /USSS brotherhood ideological propaganda
I wonder if some of the ideas clashed with the car mentality. Imagine these complexes in a city where not "everyone" own a personal car. We have the same limits to mobility as when workers had to live in cycling (or walking) distance to the factory they worked in. They might work then. But this was a solution for an era that had already passed. Affordable cars offered the ability to get away from the city not just on the weekends, but for a growing middle class to live outside these apartment complexes. Then they had to be able to come back in, for work, for shopping, for recreation (despite "living next to nature, all the recreation you actually need"). This puts stress on the streets and roads of the brutalist/modernist architecture, and you see whole plazas given up for car parking, reducing the liveability of the complex. And then came suburbia, where you have these same kind of ugly apartment complexes spread out into a dystopian hellscape of same-looking artificial looking lawns. With roads rather than streets connecting the individual freestanding apartment. As we grow ever more mobile, as we expect to be able to travel hundreds of kilometers per day, the (quite literally) pedestrian distances of a walkable city block start to feel confined, even if we just move from one building to another inside an even more confined steel coffin.
You could argue that a proper megablock was built in my city of Hannover. The ihme Zentrum is a huge apartment and office complex that had a shopping centre inside in the past. There where also plans and partial construction of a tram station under the complex, so you'd be right inside the building when exiting the train. But funding stopped for the project, the station was never completed and all shops went away, now it's a place you really don't wanna be in alone or at night.
I lived in Bordeaux for a year and I would shop in the commercial complex you showed. Since the tram is on the street level I don't think I ever saw many people walking up top. I certainly never did.
Amazing work as always! These historical/architectural episodes are among my favorites. I love how they make us revisit our own experiences with modernist architecture: even though it's in a relatively smaller scale, the city hall complex of Santo André in Brazil really ticks many of these boxes: rich modernist architecture, terraced spaces with pedestrian paths and unreasonably prominent road infrastructure that undermines the pedestrian infrastructure completely (I remember trying to cross those urban highways as a kid to visit the library or bike around the terraces). I'm not sure if it isn't that common for eastern european modernist architecture, but if you want some ideas for modernist-yet-disruptive details, there are a couple of buildings and rooftop pieces in that complex which you could try to replicate with procedural objects as well. They aren't huge nor overly complex, but they really elevate what would be otherwise a boring concrete-heavy complex: www.google.com/maps/@-23.6547989,-46.5330081,246a,35y,165.23h,48.21t/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu
It's s very good progres and city development for sure, but you maybe can consider other eastern countries and cities. Belgrade has a very good example of modernist and brut architecture that will fit.
This vertical separation is also found in the Vienna International center, which has a pedestrian top covering roads and parking garages. There is an urban highway that runs underground by the Danube, a partially underground interchange followed by a stacked bridge and several new high rises were built in the last few years, with some more to come. Tbh I really dislike the area and I wouldn't live there, but urbanisticly it's really interesting and fascinating
Whoa I did not expect to see Calgary mentioned in a cities skylines video, I'm from that area! I didnt know that was the idea with all those bridges connecting buildings downtown, I did notice that there was a lot though, now I see why.
Check out Cumbernauld in Scotland, I think you’d find it an interesting place. The Town Centre building is a great example of the vertical separation of people and cars.
Although this is very interesting and is useful for the separation, this makes me super depressed. I study at an University, which is build with this concept in mind. It is all concrete - rarely seeing a tree or green area because nothing grows up there.
One walk in the sky project which was actually realised is the High Deck quarter in Berlin-Neukölln. It doesn‘t enjoy a good reputation though. But if you want to see mad 1970s projects, look at West Berlin. Look at the motorway house Schlangenbader Straße, the insane plans for the motorway network and much more crazy stuff people (wanted to) build back then
I love how Altengrad started out as this beautiful Medieval City and now you arrived in the dark ages of urban planning and we have to watch you delete the beautiful city. This is so much more informational and graphical than just learning about how planning "changed". No, it didnt just change, they made backwards progress
"No, it didnt just change, they made backwards progress" Eh, it wasn't backwards, they were designing for the cities of their time. Those pretty late 19th century buildings he demolished in this video were exactly as old as the panel estate buildings we consider ugly today. Planners back then deemed them decrepit and out-of-date, not worth renovating, so they were torn down for new buildings. But this era also saw the first massive implementations of monument preservation schemes and to those planners "voiding" the older city blocks to make new squares and parks to improve ventilation and light as important - public space we today take for granted, but which was very rare before modernism. It is easy for us to say that they made mistakes in hindsight, but the cities we build today also have different problems that require other solutions. Who knows that the people of 60 years from now will complain about what we wantonly destroyed, messed up, or "regressed"? Maybe the plate glass facades and laminated timber buildings are huge mistakes. Maybe the green roofs that are now popular will be too difficult to maintain and cause far more damage than we expect.
Ngl I’d much rather walk near the busy highway/ parkway with the cars doing 60 mph than the sad dull grass less and treeless plaza. There’s something so nice about walking near trees and cars. I love cars and trees and grass. Sometimes the cars give u a good gust of wind too if they’re speeding fast enough meaning you cool down on a hot summer day. And street trees definitely help make walking outside more bearable. Concrete plazas aren’t the vibe Imo. They have neither cars nor plants which makes them horrible. Ideal places have both many cars and greenery like suburbia. The suburbs have pretty houses and plants and many cars making them much more pleasant to walk through than 12:39
I really hope they update PO soon, its a horrible tool. We need to be able to create corner point everywhere along the axis' of the PO blocks. We need more precise measurements, and most importantly to be able to get the same customizing tools when copying something and placing it. Only having the free hand place tool after constructing and copying large complicated parts is horrible to use. We're also in dire need of a sphere PO object.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Lots of people have done lots of things in this game, but I think you’re the first person to really do architecture like this. Incredible work.
And the joke thats a half truth is that this is an easternEU and later version of franklin
The amount of work and details you put in this series is truly impressive.
that feeling when the market building was the scope of ONE whole episode, and now you delete it without a second thought 😢awesome build as always
like a true modernist scumbag lol. I love what he is doing, we need to educate people so that past mistakes are not repeated.
Even though I know that the final result will be amazing, seeing old city blocks being demolished still makes me anxious lmao
The great thing about Altengrad is whatever the final result is, it's not the most important. It's the journey and evolution of the city which is all documented on this channel here. We saw the old blocks built then eventually demolished just as they would in real life.
The final result will be "amazing" so to say
I also felt so sad when the old city blocks got demolished 😢 However, I guess it is for progress
This arc gives me a sense of historical avoidance. Here we have people who still remember the times of a war, the damages done and the mistakes that were made. Humankind as a 'relative' whole was exposed to truly horrifying events. Now that it all lies in the past, they want to look into the future and the future they see is as the videos have described (I won't repeat everything, all together you could turn it into a whole essay about 'modern' architecture)
So what do they do? They demolish the buildings of old, they tear down practically anything that reminds them of the war, and they build new structures in its place. Towering skyscrapers, massive complexes, altogether different from the past and meant to bring a new sort of life and prosperity to the cities.
And they forgot that they aren't actually living in that future yet. They don't have acces to all the funds needed, the construction takes longer than hoped, the people... don't really care for all these tall blocks of concrete and metal. Projects fall into the bins before they're completed because it just doesn't work.
They invested too quickly in the first best future they were given, disregarding any alternatives. And now they have to deal with the consequences.
It is not only that people remembered the war. After WW2 a lot of cities in Europe and Asia had (large) parts of their inner cities destroyed. There was lots of room to build. So buildings could be build bigger. And after the war there was a sense of starting anew and do things different. That gave way to the new architecture described here.
This feels like an Altengrad/Asturis crossover episode. I can see the clear inspiration for the futuristic pedestrian networks that are so prevalent in the other series and honestly the best part
The verticality is definitely making me consider redesigning some areas of my city. I really like the layers.
Definitely. I'm going to radically change the neighbourhood around my second train station to be based on the historical stuff he talked about in the beginning. It was fascinating, and would suit my city so much.
Again I had a love/hate feeling regarding the demolishing of old town blocks and building these monstrosities. Bravo Akruas, there's no other creator like yourself to really squeeze the game's engine to provide us with a realistic and beautiful history lesson of the ages thankfully gone in the past.
Oh i hate the inner city being deleted, and i hate how realistic it is. Good job! And to be completely honest, i do think that it chances the feel of the city, this also has to do with the scale.
Bro has absolutely no mercy destroying those housing blocks.
As an architecture student, I like these informative series, thanks and👍
Minor note, the kerning (spacing between the letters) on the "Altengrad" sign isn't quite right-you've made the letters an equal distance from each other, but type designers will always make an L underlap slightly with a T to look more natural. See for instance here: ALTENGRAD.
Great work as always!
Woah! I've never paid attention to this detail before. I always assumed that the letters/glyphs have "hit boxes" and that they can't "clip". I wonder how this is working on computers...
Crazy how @ 12:14 when you switched back to google earth I thought it was Altengrad. You are a master of capturing the look, style, feel and detail of these cities!
So fascinating to see your historical series start running into some of the inspiration for your futuristic/sci-fi series. This is an architectural topic that I assumed was completely in the realm of fiction until now.
I've been watching these videos for a while, but this one has really stood out to me. As an (newly graduated) architect, I've heard of the concept of "streets in the sky" many times and it's been discussed quite a bit in my academic career. Yet, your explanations and commentary are probably the best I've ever heard about the topic. In architecture school, streets in the sky are mentioned on occasion just to either reference or avoid them. You, on the other hand, have contextualized them and explained how they came about, with the visuals really driving it home, and most importantly, you've shown how and why they often failed by presenting them in this particular way. I think these videos are genuinely valuable to designers and I dare say you are a better architectural-urban historian than most real historians (who seem hell bent on making their content as dry and uninteresting as possible or soil it with ideological rhetoric). And I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that perhaps places become neglected because people don't even like the place because of its poor design. I think that really contextualizes what architects' and planners' jobs should be. I just wanted to thank you for educating us and feeding our curiosity, and I hope you keep these videos going for a long time.
As an example, I realized that Bunker Hill, in Los Angeles (where I studied), which we learned about in architecture school, is a another classic "streets in the sky" project. What's interesting is that the literature we learnt it from was ideologically biased, that we only ever knew it as a uniquely "Los Angeles" idea of separating people (office workers above from undesirables in the street below). But now I've finally connected it to this broader philosophy, which I think makes it all the more interesting.
A project that makes me think of when watching this is Hoog Caterijne in Utrecht. This was also a 1970 estate that had a shopping mall, a direct connection to the 'new' Utrecht Central station, (more specific this was the route people should take in the mind of the planners ). However this was mostly one big building. In the early plans you can see that it was way bigger, luckily the final build was smaller. Common problems were drug users and homeless people sleeping in its corridors, and most people thougt (and think) of it as an ugly monstrosity. Today it has been updated, and a new - not as connected - central station has been build. It is a bit sad what beautiful buildings were demolished.
I was thinking about Hoog Catharijne the whole time I watched this video :) it's very strange to see the brand new glitter and glamour entrance from the train station but if you see hoog catharijne from further away there's just these very old ugly flats sticking out of it :P
A similar concept is present at Hotel Belvedere in Olimp, Romania at the coast of the Black Sea. Known as the "Pearl of the romanian seaside" it was also built in 1970. It's really fascinating to see a network of stairs, ramps, and overpases that lead to the beach, through many open spaces with shops and even outdoor swimming pools.
Really nice episode! A romanian subscriber.
This series is actually helpful as a soon-to-be city planner. I once had something like those designs in mind where the high traffic is banned one deck below the surface. It was just a train of thought and I never actually looked that up in any literature. Now when I see these (dystopian looking) projects I instantly get shocked about my initial thought
What do you think of Asturis?
I do not envy you the challenges ahead, but at the same time I kind of do.
The grade separation envisioned came from good intentions, but the costs were too high.
Now we live in a world where we have to go back to localized living. We need walkable cities housing lots of people and supplying them with the need for quirt and calm, for outdoors, for food and shelter, for recreation and work.
Can this even be accomplished?
One thing I considered was that in East Asia these pedestrian walkways might work because these societies are (at least traditionally) highly collective. The individual is supposed to make significant sacrifices for the whole. In Canada they work simply because of the harsh winters. London? Nah, a rain shower is countered with an umbrella.
I wish you the best of luck balancing environments, climate and human needs, and I hope you find better solutions than you predecessors. Or at least that you find the compromises that will work good enough.
As someone that loves vintage racing I’d love to see you return to the racing circuit eventually. Maybe Altengrad could host an F1 race for a few years in the 80’s as happened in Hungary. Upgrade the side walls with catch fences, new modernist buildings and garages as well as grand stands.
Man I find this series just so incredibly fascinating. Thank you Akraus :) I think this is the most impressive episode yet
2:05 oh god that was cruel
1970s planers would have loved that
There was a plan by a Japanese architect Kenzo Tange like this but in much more dystopian style for the capital of North Macedonia - Skopje, after it was hit by a massive earthquake in 1963. The plan was supposed to spread through the whole center of the city, but only a couple of buildings were built.
Thanks a lot for this architectural and social presentation of the "streets in the sky" idea in middle europe - the examples you have shown I was not familiar with. In the GDR it was not that common, although the were examples of trying to implement it - in Halle-Neustadt there are some really huge blocks, running along a pedestrian multi level zone, connected by pavilion like shopping areas and bridges. Quite interesting. And there were plans to redesign the old centre of Erfurt - on thepicture you can spot "streets in the sky" and pedestrian zone bridges.
Well neither was I but the second part of this project will be much more GDR inspired featuring an large decorated open plaza with some neately arranged buildings all around. To give a hint Dresden was an big inspiration.
I just thought that it would be very cool if you used another type of train for that shorter platform in the Altengrads main railway station. It would serve as some light rail (something like WKD in Warsaw or HÉV in Budapest
Yes, I exactly got Jopy's HÉV trains for future projects.
It’s nice to see the contrast between the old city centre and the new modernist buildings. Well done!
Another amazing episode of gameplay but also an explanation of something I had never heard of. I can see how you've used this verticality and plaza approach to city design in Aruillia and Asturis,
It's a shame you didn't preserve that beautiful palace which stood in the construction area. Awesome episode, as a person from Poland I can't stress enough how accurate this is.
Another mazing video as always! On the topic of urban planning involving a multi-layered approach and separating uses, I found myself thinking about how this concept was taken to an extreme within the manga/anime "Akira" within the setting of Neo Tokyo. If you ever look at still images of Neo Tokyo, you'll see how the concept was used to create a rather dystopian urban environment, where the top levels of the city are kept rather clean and polished whereas the street-level suffers from widespread decay and neglect from the higher-ups who tend to stay on the higher levels. It really drives home the idea that those who have the means and wealth to live within the top levels of Neo Tokyo enjoy high-quality amenities and tend not to think about what lies below, while the vast majority of the city residents are left to squander on the streets being overran by criminal elements leading to a large disconnect between the two separate worlds that co-exist within the same city. In addition, the underground is basically treated as a "no-go" zone, reserved mainly for electrical and water infrastructure that only the truly despaired or those who are bold enough would venture into, and allow for the government to conduct its rather questionable experiments well out of view of both the elites at the top, and the desperate on the streets. This chaotic environment of Neo Tokyo helps to drive how the various inhabitants of Neo Tokyo perceive their world.
This is by far my favorite Cities series. I love Altengrad! Hope you'll be able to fully finish the city and take it to modern times! Maybe even a little bit into the future, who knows!
Pro mě jako Pražáka toto nabírá jinej rozměr. Rošiřuješ obzory. Big Up a dělej to dál :)
Amazing build. I am speachless. Procedural Objects is really one of the best mods out there and you are master in it :D keep up the good work
This episode hurts more than the last. But the outcome is so matching.
I love these videos so damn much. Please give more background literature as well, eastern block city design is fascinating.
Dude props for real life lore!
Another excellent video, thanks akruas. Love the inclusion of historical photos / drawings, and comparison to game and life. The crowned building really feels like the source material!
That image of separated avenue with all the merging one way u-turns (Bratislava,(7)) was interesting, i want to try that.
Even if its a fictional city seeing you destroy older blocks to replace it with 70s shity buildings make me angry , but it's realistic , at the time people really tought this was improvement and believed in those moderniste ideas . Even tho now we all know it was an error and those ideas were stupid and not adapted it is nice to see the hard reality . Love your videos especially the educational part where i get to know new stuff.
Many of those "pretty old buildings" did not have indoor plumbing, you had a row of outhoses in the central yard. Just imagine the smell a hot summer day.
Someone had to collect the waste and drive it away.
Showers? Bath tubs? Running hot water?
All of these things you got with the new and modern apartments.
Of course people were happy, even if the exterior was ugly the interior had all of the amenities and a sleek, modern, design.
Do not be too harsh on the people of those days.
Yeah, while you have to absolutely hate the large stroads, the blocky and bland brutalist buildings from back then were an upgrade
@@57thorns Yes you are right for many things this was improvement . In europe we needed to build fast to rebuild the war damage and in the whole world the population was growing exponentialy so we needed to build ez and cheap to build building while also modernizing and improving standarts of living , as you said . All of this came at the cost of aesthetic , but yes i do think it was an improvement . What i do think was not an improvement was some of the new urbanist concepts of the time shown in the video , because not adapted to human and actually expensive (developement sur dalle and citées as we say in france were especially a failure but in america for example they got car centric design which also were and still is a failure to my opinion) . So to sum things up what i don't like about this era wasn't really the look of buildings or their numbers but some of the "revolutionary" urbanistic ideas of the time.
Something like that actually build in Dubai (google Blue Waters) but instead of putting people to bridges, they put most of the cars underground
You should put a huge parking lot on that concrete area across from the station entrance, a kind of city square for the auto age. Naples historically did that with the Piazza del Plebiscito, used entirely for cars from 1963 to 1994
Fantastic Episode like always! Great mixture between interesting historical background and amazing citybuilding. I remember some time around episode 35 you mentioned in a video that what you were doing wasn't "Art". I respectfully disagree. I think what you are doing with this series matches every reasonble definition of the word.
26:35 I think you are correct that this is intended to be the modern (2007) glass fasade of what is today "Park Inn" hotel. The original 70s fasade was metal, not glass, and had an overall lighter color and more pronounced contrasts between vertical and horizontal structuring (window lines etc.).I lived in berlin for a few years around the turn of the millenium , and the very distinctive look of the 70s metal fasade represents this part of berlin in my mind even more than the more obvious tv tower and more historic (late 20s) Alexanderhaus and Berolinahaus. Sadly I find the refurbished look it has now quite common and interchangable.
I gritted my teeth when you destroy the market. This is an awesome and informative video!
Akruas, your work is tremendous and I really enjoy studying along you the modernist era of soviet planning, with a special interest as I am myself a urban planning student.
Now to ask something trivial and not really that relevant, I would LOVE to know how you manage to resize decals at the 31:40 timestamp..I've been ripping my hair off for this small thing that I still can't figure out how to do or what mod allows it. Thanks in advance!
It's possible through the Prop Control mod, there are shortcuts in settings.
This project is ctually amazing
Those buildings are incredible! Big fan of this project.
i think alterngrad needs some modernist stadium or conference center
I'm somewhat facinated by this kind of pedestrian infrastructure.
I've always thought it was super futuristic, I wasn't aware it is such an old concept in city design.
By the way, I don't know if it served as inspiration for you, but by pure chance I saw the area around Sendai Station in a video, and it really reminded me of your video of your pedestrican "valley" in Asturis, especially the rounded holes looking down at the street.
Love seeing Altengrad taking this direction, I came as soon as I got home to watch this amazing educational content
The literal definition of awesome; your work never fails to make my jaw drop.
The change is huge and ruthless, but super realistic! Great job as always!
these get better and better. thank you
I love everything about this! Thank you
Hey Akruas, I’m in Prague right now for the first time and I know so much about the history and architecture of the city just from these videos. When I arrived at Hlavní nádraži already knew that there was a huge avenue in front and that you had to go underground! Thanks for your informative and entertaining videos.
Came to see some nice citybuilder gameplay, leaving as a fully qualified urban planner...
FYI I think that at this time this part of Europe moved on from steam engines to first mass produced electric locomotives and disel engines (many from the USSR). Only in the 90s did early DC electric locomotives start to get replaced with new locomotives with the induction motor (after the fall of the USSR). 90s and 00s also marks the period of degradation of railways with services on branch lines being cut, old rolling stock and unprofitable railways.
When you are talking and showing the real life examples of those (awful) megablocks and streets in the sky I thought that it looks like a Night City from Cyberpunk 2077 - when I was playing it I was noticing it how horrible that city is for an average pedestrian. I think that in region of Central Europe/West of the Warsaw Pact there are places that are resembling it, but they are mostly hidden underground
This episode really reminds me of the area around Central Station in Stockholm! A huge part of the housing in Sweden was built following modernist ideas (Miljonprogram or The Million Homes Program) and the center of Stockholm was redeveloped both to fit highways throught and to separate traffic and pedestrians in different levels. Also, in the UK there's an entire city built on this principle! Milton Keynes
Akruas I love your stuff man big ups from Australia you really inspire me with your ability to weave education on city planning and history into the story of Altengrad
I very much love how you're telling urban design and planning history!! And obviously, your' PO-skills are impressive!
Watching the huge mess of props and decals being turned into beautiful buildings is so relaxing
Yes,blocks were destroyed for the hotel Kyjev-prior mall.
Amazing work as always. Looks so authentic.
I find the place behind the tower closest to the train station to be perfect for a new highrise tower in 2020s. That would be cool I think
Great video, great project!
Personally I really like the look of this - must be a really nice place to be around when it was still new (or well maintained). Everything is just so well balanced and thought out.
On the roads in the sky concept: maybe it would have been better for the surrounding areas to just drop major roads one level down so they are sunken or even tunnels. The preference for putting all the pedestrian stuff a level up instead might just be an artistic choice of the architects since then the plazas could be much more designed as opposed to just having everything flat at ground levels. Of course this isn’t a bad approach in its self but as always a balanced has to be struck.
One of the reasons Calgary's skyway was successful is that it's damn cold in Calgary in the winter. Toronto and Montreal both have extensive underground pedestrian networks in their downtowns for similar reasons, but not as extensive as Calgary.
As a people in Hong Kong, I suggest you to go to Tsuen Wan, this cities have many footbridge and get nickname as “Cities in the sky” because you can go to most places by footbridge.
I find the Jižní Město shopping complex pretty cool from the road, it looks like a train and I don't think that was accidental. Looking at the place from the car was desired and the whole place evokes motion.
Can't wait for the next tram tour!!
I think it's time to introduce advertising into city in next years. Billboards, adverts on big blocks etc
Not for a Socialist city in the 1970s. Visual smog in the form of advertising was a product of the Neo-liberal 90s. Before then the most lucrative visual areas would be plastered in Socialist /USSS brotherhood ideological propaganda
I wonder if some of the ideas clashed with the car mentality. Imagine these complexes in a city where not "everyone" own a personal car. We have the same limits to mobility as when workers had to live in cycling (or walking) distance to the factory they worked in. They might work then. But this was a solution for an era that had already passed.
Affordable cars offered the ability to get away from the city not just on the weekends, but for a growing middle class to live outside these apartment complexes. Then they had to be able to come back in, for work, for shopping, for recreation (despite "living next to nature, all the recreation you actually need"). This puts stress on the streets and roads of the brutalist/modernist architecture, and you see whole plazas given up for car parking, reducing the liveability of the complex.
And then came suburbia, where you have these same kind of ugly apartment complexes spread out into a dystopian hellscape of same-looking artificial looking lawns. With roads rather than streets connecting the individual freestanding apartment.
As we grow ever more mobile, as we expect to be able to travel hundreds of kilometers per day, the (quite literally) pedestrian distances of a walkable city block start to feel confined, even if we just move from one building to another inside an even more confined steel coffin.
Amazing as always. The true successor to the Franklin series!
wow! the amount of research that must have gone into this is very impressive! keep up the great work : )
i was always a fan of the highly connected, overstacked, cyberpunk-like infrastructure
Viewing this from Dresden (Titan city): I noticed so much of everything you teached us about city development since the war!
I truly love this series..the history of Architecture is fascinating. Thank you so much for the quality content :)
You could argue that a proper megablock was built in my city of Hannover. The ihme Zentrum is a huge apartment and office complex that had a shopping centre inside in the past. There where also plans and partial construction of a tram station under the complex, so you'd be right inside the building when exiting the train. But funding stopped for the project, the station was never completed and all shops went away, now it's a place you really don't wanna be in alone or at night.
Amzing video!!! anyways you could add in the future a bus terminal next to the train station, like for example in Belgrade
I lived in Bordeaux for a year and I would shop in the commercial complex you showed. Since the tram is on the street level I don't think I ever saw many people walking up top. I certainly never did.
Amazing work as always! These historical/architectural episodes are among my favorites.
I love how they make us revisit our own experiences with modernist architecture: even though it's in a relatively smaller scale, the city hall complex of Santo André in Brazil really ticks many of these boxes: rich modernist architecture, terraced spaces with pedestrian paths and unreasonably prominent road infrastructure that undermines the pedestrian infrastructure completely (I remember trying to cross those urban highways as a kid to visit the library or bike around the terraces).
I'm not sure if it isn't that common for eastern european modernist architecture, but if you want some ideas for modernist-yet-disruptive details, there are a couple of buildings and rooftop pieces in that complex which you could try to replicate with procedural objects as well. They aren't huge nor overly complex, but they really elevate what would be otherwise a boring concrete-heavy complex: www.google.com/maps/@-23.6547989,-46.5330081,246a,35y,165.23h,48.21t/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu
It's s very good progres and city development for sure, but you maybe can consider other eastern countries and cities. Belgrade has a very good example of modernist and brut architecture that will fit.
This vertical separation is also found in the Vienna International center, which has a pedestrian top covering roads and parking garages. There is an urban highway that runs underground by the Danube, a partially underground interchange followed by a stacked bridge and several new high rises were built in the last few years, with some more to come. Tbh I really dislike the area and I wouldn't live there, but urbanisticly it's really interesting and fascinating
Whoa I did not expect to see Calgary mentioned in a cities skylines video, I'm from that area! I didnt know that was the idea with all those bridges connecting buildings downtown, I did notice that there was a lot though, now I see why.
I am really really loving your Altengrad build and all the information you give. 👍🏻
Check out Cumbernauld in Scotland, I think you’d find it an interesting place. The Town Centre building is a great example of the vertical separation of people and cars.
Dear akruas: this video taught me more about modernist planning than 3 years of architecture school has tganks
Although this is very interesting and is useful for the separation, this makes me super depressed. I study at an University, which is build with this concept in mind. It is all concrete - rarely seeing a tree or green area because nothing grows up there.
Akruas you've outdone yourself again. Every Episode I marvel at your creation.
That 1913 New York illustration and Barbican Estate gave me funny feelings! 🤭
One walk in the sky project which was actually realised is the High Deck quarter in Berlin-Neukölln. It doesn‘t enjoy a good reputation though. But if you want to see mad 1970s projects, look at West Berlin.
Look at the motorway house Schlangenbader Straße, the insane plans for the motorway network and much more crazy stuff people (wanted to) build back then
This is the new level of construction. Wow!
An incredible transformation of the city. As if I were in Prague.
I love how Altengrad started out as this beautiful Medieval City and now you arrived in the dark ages of urban planning and we have to watch you delete the beautiful city. This is so much more informational and graphical than just learning about how planning "changed". No, it didnt just change, they made backwards progress
"No, it didnt just change, they made backwards progress" Eh, it wasn't backwards, they were designing for the cities of their time. Those pretty late 19th century buildings he demolished in this video were exactly as old as the panel estate buildings we consider ugly today. Planners back then deemed them decrepit and out-of-date, not worth renovating, so they were torn down for new buildings. But this era also saw the first massive implementations of monument preservation schemes and to those planners "voiding" the older city blocks to make new squares and parks to improve ventilation and light as important - public space we today take for granted, but which was very rare before modernism. It is easy for us to say that they made mistakes in hindsight, but the cities we build today also have different problems that require other solutions. Who knows that the people of 60 years from now will complain about what we wantonly destroyed, messed up, or "regressed"? Maybe the plate glass facades and laminated timber buildings are huge mistakes. Maybe the green roofs that are now popular will be too difficult to maintain and cause far more damage than we expect.
Damn you gave Altengrad the Ústí nad labem treatment 😰😰
1:26 Is that a depiction of what New York City could look like or a shopping mall 😂
Loving the amount of educational content in the videos! Keep up the great work!
I love how much I learn every time I watch your vids
Ngl I’d much rather walk near the busy highway/ parkway with the cars doing 60 mph than the sad dull grass less and treeless plaza. There’s something so nice about walking near trees and cars. I love cars and trees and grass. Sometimes the cars give u a good gust of wind too if they’re speeding fast enough meaning you cool down on a hot summer day. And street trees definitely help make walking outside more bearable. Concrete plazas aren’t the vibe Imo. They have neither cars nor plants which makes them horrible. Ideal places have both many cars and greenery like suburbia. The suburbs have pretty houses and plants and many cars making them much more pleasant to walk through than 12:39
Im sad even tho, it was another great episode and now im scared/exited for the next one :D
Yay, Altengrad!
It reminds me of the Netflix Movie Athena, which is a very similar structure
I really appreciated your videos! always great to watch! keep up the good work!!!🗣🗣🗣
Honey wake up! Altengrad update is here🎉 yeaa babyyy
34:15
I shall call it ALTENGRAD CENTRAL station (from the bottom left).
I really hope they update PO soon, its a horrible tool. We need to be able to create corner point everywhere along the axis' of the PO blocks. We need more precise measurements, and most importantly to be able to get the same customizing tools when copying something and placing it. Only having the free hand place tool after constructing and copying large complicated parts is horrible to use. We're also in dire need of a sphere PO object.