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February 04, 2016

Great Fire: The Grid System for London That Never Happened

 

As we mark the 350th year of the Great Fire of London, BBC Magazine looks back at the ambitious plans that were submitted for the reconstruction of London, Portugal and Chicago after they were destroyed in large scale disasters. Plans for London ranged from Richard Newcourt's Religious Rectangles, "a series of public squares, and in the middle of each one a church and churchyard" which some architectural historians believe became the basis for the Philadelphia grid, to Valentine Knight's Toll Canal that had him arrested for suggesting that the King might charge a toll to help with the cost of reconstruction. 

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