How would winged mounts affect the architecture and layout of cities?

Question

So, the setting I am building for a story has gryphons, which are used as the primary mounts by the people of the main country. I am trying to figure out the implications of this, and how it would affect the culture and society of the setting. For now, I will focus on the layout of cities and architecture.

A gryphon in this setting is around the size of a horse, not counting wingspan, of course. A typical gryphon can hold up to two people, but most of the time, only one person is riding it. I have seen discussions where the existence of dragons would affect how cities were built (walls would be useless, you would probably want to build underground or at least partially underground) and wonder if the same would apply to gryphons?

Would there need to be platforms for them to land on similar to helipads? I was thinking maybe these platforms are built into the walls, and the rider descends to the ground level of the city either by taking a staircase or some mechanism similar to an elevator.

Also, where would you put a gryphon when it's not being used? I would imagine there would be stables of some kind, but still different from horse stables. I picture something like a cliff or mountain with hollowed out caves for gryphons to take shelter in.

I haven't decided how gryphons really act beyond them preferring a solitary lifestyle when it comes to other gryphons, as you won't see a pack of them, instead preferring to hunt alone.

Maybe I am overthinking all of this?

Do you have any resources I could use for inspiration?

Answer 1

Designated landing areas on the ground

Planes of course do this and it's really effective, of course yours would have to be smaller and more numerous to be more useful. Maybe once the gryphons drop them off, they fly into the nearest stall (depending on how intelligent you have gryphons are) they would fly back to the call of a horn. The horn would make a different sound depending on the build (maybe gryphons have very good ears?) and maybe this would be a way someone would be able to get a gryphon, if their able to make a unique horn to call one. Sorry if I misunderstood your world and I hope this helps a little.

Answer 2

What is state of nations?

For this answer I was assuming more city states then huge empires. With tech level pre-1700 post iron. I make this assumption based upon question discussing walls. Walls for cities in post industrial with accurate large guns are not worth it.

What will cities need to defend against?

Capturing of cities is key to hold territory. This means cities will be put to siege.

Cities will face opposing Air units. So cities swill need to be able to defend against air attacks.

Walls for ground siege:

Walls are required to increase capture cost. Therefor tall thick walls will still be present. Given that the attackers can have air force, they will bring an air force. Presumably enough air force to overwhelm the defenders.

But the bulk of any siege will be ground based because ground is cheaper then air. Also supply trains. Air units can't fly all their food, munitions, shelter, etc for months long campaigns.

Gryphons as sole attackers

No doubt a raiding force of gryphon could capture a city. But how large is that force and how expensive is it to maintain that force? On the ground a gryphon rider then is not much better then any other ground unit. That is, gryphon units alone do not make resilient army.

Gryphons will be an extremely high priority for defending ranged. With limited weight capacity gryphons will never have heavy armor while flying. So they will always be vulnerable to ranged opponents.

Towers to slow air attacks:

Since city spanning domes would be difficult to impossible to build. Towers would be the next best defense against airborne units attempting to infiltrate to capture key buildings such as gate houses. This would also to a limited degree protect against harassing air raids.

Multiple tall towers spread out to allow multiple towers being able to target airborne attackers, and to have some defense in depth as towers are captured. These will not prevent aerial bombardment but a tall tower means that attacking bombers have to fly higher, which will take more effort, reduce time between attacks.

Landing pads:

Would be near and below towers so that they have covering fire both to protect defenders and to prevent attackers from having easy to use welcome mats. Due to speed of travel once in the air, minimal landing spots near the walls would exist, since they would likely be more useful to attackers then defenders.

Gryphon stables:

Presumably defenders on duty would have stables that were positioned fairly high so that there is less effort to gain height for defense or attack. While buik of the gryphon stables would be closer to ground level due to cheaper construction.

There would still significant ground mounts due to differing costs and tradeoffs.

Trade

For certain routes/tasks gryphons would be the go to transport. Messengers for military or larger businesses would use gryphon transport for time sensitive informaiton and or lighter high value goods.

So in larger cities it would be likely for security reasons there would be the royal tower, multiple guard towers and then a few business/guild towers. All visitors must go to specific marked towers. Similar to inspections of people entering gates on foot.