City with no streets; Çatal Höyük

I like this. via www.deconcrete.org. It's a really interesting idea and I like the idea it brings up, that idea of an equal society can be projected through the formation of a city.

"In Çatal Höyük, there used to be no streets or pathways. Instead, façade walls touched each other without any gap in-between. With a single opening on the roof, each dwelling’s chimney functioned as lighting window as well as entrance door."


"Contiguous constructions made people use rooftops as a very lively public space. The city was an endless building. Dwellers should climb up a timber ladder to get onto the roofs topography; walk along and above their neighbours’ homes, until they found the hole from where to climb down through another ladder into their own...

"this society was balanced in terms of gender and wealth. Nonetheless, an increase in the amount of burial goddesses’ representations leads to think of a shift from an egalitarian community to a matriarchal society.

There was no public building with a higher hierarchy in the whole settlement, but basic homogenous domesticity."