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20th century theoryBefore 1940

code 7W580

urban theory and design of public space

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Tony Garnier Une Cité Industrielle’ 1904 /1917

Tony Garnier 'An industrial city'Tony Garnier (1869- 1948) was the son of Pierre Garnier the architect of the famous Paris Opera house that

formed one of the focus points of the 19th century transformation of Paris.Garnier studied at the Ecole des Beaux arts that was so much associated with 19th century eclectic architecture.

His interest in town planning was sparked of during his stay in Rome after winning the prestigious Prix de Rome where he met other prize winners that had a lot of interest in town planning and design. Garniers development coincides with the revision of ideas at the Ecole des Beaux arts under the influence of growing criticism. Working in Rome and living from the stipendium Garnier developed his plan for an ideal industrial city. He got negative comments by the academy because he had deviated completely from the commission given to him under the Prix de Rome conditions. Despite this his work was exhibited in Paris in 1904. Although there were some negative reactions, the written press and the professional press did not react either in a positive nor in a negative sense. It looked as if his very unconventional work had sparked interest but no one could catagorize it. Also Garnier was modest, not a strong debater and he did not propagate strong opinions or make strong statements. This in contrast with the arrogance and out loud preaching of opinions by the modernist. So in history his work fell somewhere in between. It was only first publicized in 1917. Only later he was regarded as the fore runner of modernism, but this is only partly true. He shared the concern about social questions and the idea that the design of cities as a whole should be approached rational and that industry had te be seperated from living quarters. On the other hand he showed great sensibility to the symbolic meaning of buildings and the quality of urban space, something the modernists lacked. He also considered the city to be a 'rhizome' where citizens could circulate freely, whereas the modernists advocated strickt hierarchical road networks and separation of types of traffic. In hind sight Garnier was a 'stand alone' case in urban design. It is amazing to see the enormous number of drawings Garnier produced, describing the city in detail and designing every important building as well as numerous housing types. It is by far the most comprehensive ideal town ever designed.

The general design of Garniers city shows a seperation between living quarters and industry and also a seperate health centre outside the city. This is understandable as 'industry' in his case equals heavy industry with its associated pollution.

The main patterns are grids. However the part with living quarters is kept narrow to minimize distances to nature. This is also the reason why there is no explicit park within the city. In the centre of the town is a large civic centre.

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Tony Garnier‘Une Cité Industrielle’ 1904 /1917

The grid patterns are not 'stamped' all over the city. The design of the civic centre is based on a dispositon of buildings around a central axle. This shows elements of classic design. On the other hand all buildings are free standing and the open spaces are enormous. In the whole of the plan there are few squares, let alone enclosed squares.•The living quarters show an innovative new type of building block with free standing houses and 'urban villas' (although using this word in this respect is an anachronism) on an 'island' between streets. This type of building block had been taken up in recent urban design in the Netherlands.•The result is that there are no enclosed streets. •Trees form very much part of the design. Indicating the more important streets and losely planted within the blocks.•Garnier has a lot of drawings showing public space in living quarters, indicating that he cared about everyday living conditions. For the civic centre he only shows the buildings. This suggests that he did not consider the design of public space around public buildings to be a very important matter.

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Streetview in a living quarter with low rise buildings The car had only just been invented. In 1904 there were hardly any cars on the road, but even at

that time it has its appeal, in particular of course in a futuristic design.Garnier was criticized by the staff of the Ecole des Beuax arts for his 'clumsy and not precise

drawings'.

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Low rise housing with in between spaces

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Street view in an area with four story apartment buildings

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Main street

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HotelVast open public space

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StationA pavilion type architeture in a large space. The design is very futuristic for its time and the style

looks as if it foreshadows the architecture of the 1950's, especially the awning. Münchens main station has an awning from the 1950's that reminds of Garniers design.

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Burnham & Bennet‘Plan of Chicago’ 1909

Daniel Burnham & Edward Bennet Plan of Chicago, 1909This plan is an expression of the 'City beautiful movement' It was made on commission for The

Commercial Club of Chicago, who wanted there town that had exploded in size within a few decades to be more representative. It can be seen as an effort to reconcile modern city development with the qualities of classical public space. A lot of attention is devoted to economics and transport. Baroque diagonals are introduced with the double intention of improving traffic and making boulevards. Harbor facilities are arranged to form a classical ensemble. In the centre of the city there should be a big civic centre with a gigantic dome, about 200 meters high.

Burnham and Bennets plan does foresee much higher buildings than where common at the start of the 20th century (16 stories in the central area), but even at the moment the plan was compiled they were overtaken by the reality of a booming town that would become the birth place of the modern sky scraper.

An unrealistic aspect is also the idea that Chicago would ever see uniform building fronts over large areas, as the design drawings show. However this could also be interpreted as an ideal image. The text shows that Burnham and Bennet were well aware of the legal and financial difficulties of their proposals in a liberal country. In the end the American preference for 'no regulations' prevailed. The 'Plan of Chicago' has often be portrayed as a 'dinosaur' in an unfolding modern age, but that is only based on the aesthetics. The survey and research are modern. In stead of throwing away all old knowledge on urban design, as the modernists did, it tries to incorporate their virtues in a modern plan.

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Burnham & Bennet‘Plan of Chicago’ 1909

Images from the plan.Left: plan for the lake shore, right: design for an avenue.

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Burnham & Bennet‘Plan of Chicago’ 1909

New central railway station and surroundings.

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Raymond Unwin‘Town planning in practice’ 1909

Raymond Unwin 'Town Planning in Practice' 1909(illustration: cover of the book)

Despite its title it is above all a book on design.Unwins work gained its reputation because it contains the basis ideas of the garden suburbs of

the period between the two world wars. This is why many peaple associate this type of design with the book 'garden cities of tomorrow' by Ebenezer Howard, although Howard did not provide any clue about the concrete design of these cities, his book only contains a schematic diagram of the lay out of a complex of garden cities.

Unwins approach to design is picturesque. He builds upon the ideas of classic urban design and the work of Stübben and Sitte, but takes it a step further. Wheras the former theories concentrated on an enclosed urban environment and the image of the traditional city, Unwin takes the English village as a model with its more open character and rural parcellation. He also takes functional aspects in account like the sunlight in streets houses.

Public space plays a central role in his book. It is not without reason that the first chapter of his book is titled 'Civic art as the expression of civic life'.

Unwins book is still interesting for students of urban design today because it contains many clear drawings and suggestions.

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illustration from 'Town planning in practice' (the illustrations that follow are also from the book)

The idyllic English 'country life' as example. This has been a constant factor in the English mind set for over a hundred years up until now. Even today it is constantly referred to in literature on television, etc.

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Examples street profiles and sun dialThese street designs are anything but urban. Not the clear drawing technique.The sun dial diagram is a means of determining how many ours a day the sun will be able to shine

into a the living room of a house in a plan. It is meant to be a tool in determining the orientation of streets in a plan in such a way that all houses receive a fair amount of sunlight.

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A notable parcellationUsing the sun dial diagram Unwin arrives at the uppermost parcellation as being optimal for sun

admittance. This equals the extreme parcellation that was used in the modernistic city quarter 'Siedlung Westhausen' in Frankfurt 20 years later. Another example of things that look brand new on the surface but have been devised earlier. Unwin remarks that this form of parcellation should only be used in exeptional case because it does not make for a urban design.

The two blocks depicted below pre date the type of building block that was used extensively in prost war city extensions in The Netherlands.

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Close In his book Unwin introduces several new urban forms that have become very popular since, at

least in England. One of them is a modern type of close and half-close ('half' because it is open at one end). This serves several purposes: it provides community like public spaces that refer to a certain form of social life. The idea is also to provide wider public space, in contrast to the cramped terraced housing that was so common at the time. It also limits the number of through streets necessary in a plan. Large blocks can be made with sides 'folded inwards' to form closes.

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Street cornersUnwin is well aware that the corners of building blocks often are the key to a successful urban

design. He provides many examples of street corners that provide solutions for the problem that corners should be closed but that buildings on the corner itself cannot have a backyard. He tries to overcome this by developing street intersections as small public spaces. At the same time it emphasizes the green character of a neighborhood.

There is however a real danger. If the green surface becomes impoverished public space and if the buildings beside it have blind facades, it will lead to mediocre solutions. This is often the case in post war city extensions where these type of solutions result in 'left over space'.

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Example from Hampstead Garden City (design Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin, built 1911)Unwins ideas also caught on because he could demonstrate them in several designs that were

realized. Perhaps Hampstead is best known. Here we see the development of the length of a street. The street starts with a square like entrance. It widens in the middle. A gesture is made opposite a side street. What ever one may think of the architecture, the urban design is well thought of and in marked contrast to the abstract organizational schemas of either the 19th century or the modernists 'map plans'.

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20Otto Wagner ‘Die Großstadt’ 1911

Otto Wagner 'Die Großstadt' 1911(translation: 'The metropole‘)

In his book Wagner opposes the idea of thinning out and decentralizing cities that are propagated by the garden city movement. Being a citizen of Wien with its cultural life he is convinced that the advantages of a big city outweigh the disadvantages and that these disadvantages can be overcome. The city should be a metropole. Wagner assumes that the classical morphology can be used to create a new metropolis provided streets, squares and buildings are adapted to modern circumstances. Above all this means bigger dimensions. Wagner and his students also create numerous new building types. In literature Wagners ideas on urbanism are often portrayed as being as step towards modernism. It is hard to see why, because they are fundamentally traditional: purely esthetic and based on a bourgeois view of society. Burnham and Bennets Plan of Chicago, although it falls in the same category, contains much more modern considerations as regards demography, transport and economics, based on research. Still this plan is portrayed as being only being an anachronism.

Wagners ideas did not have much impact in western Europe. They did however have a lot of impact in the eastern part of Europe, influence that is reflected in the architecture and urban design of the communistic period.

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street view of Wagners designElongation of the Nashmarkt

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street view of Wagners designShowing the ideas for public space. Monumental building facades in a post-jugendstil style. The

street furniture is in line with common practice in Wien at the time.

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Present situationWagners famous 'Majolica Haus' is on the Nashmarkt.

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24Berlage Plan Zuid, Amsterdam 1915

Berlage Plan Zuid, Amsterdam, 1915

The plan is not a theory as such but a strong expression of ideas on urban design. It is generally considered as being of very successful and a good example of the virtues of good urban design on an artistic base. At the same time it was the last of its kind in The Netherlands. The fact that it is a popular living quarter in our present time speaks for itself. One of the reasons for its success was the attention given to architecture. A committee judged all plans that were submitted against Berlages intentions. The execution of the plan coincided with the expressionist movement in architecture known as the 'Amsterdam school' that paid a lot of attention to the design of facades leading to characteristic streets. The second factor was the fact that building blocks and streets were executed as a whole. This has to do with the Dutch system of housing at the time.

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Werner Hegemann & Elbert Peets‘The American Vitruvius’ 1922

Werner Hegemann & Elbert Peets 'The American Vitruvius' 1922'An architects handbook of Civic Art' It is also know simply as the 'Civic Art'.The name refers to older books on architecture, most notably the 'British Vitruvius' from 1719. The title

symbolizes the idea that America can produce great architecture and urban design as well as its former colonial ruler.

Werner Hegemann (1881-1936) was a Gernan Urban designer/planner who was at the roots of urban design as an established discipline. From an early age he was determined to work in the field of stedebouw. This was fueled by social involvement in the housing problematics of his time. He saw the new discipline of 'Städtebau' (Dutch 'stedebouw') as an amalgemate of aethetics, engineering, sanitation. politics, economics, and planning. This is still the idea behind 'Städtebau'/'stedebouw' and 'stedebouw' is still the correct word for it, because 'urban design' or 'urban planning' reflect a different culture.

Because of his view on stedebouw he had difficulties in finding the right education. Eventually he studied economics in Paris, München and Philadelphia specializing in housing problematics and worked in that sector in America during the early days of his career. In 1909 he organized the firts exhibiton on urban design in Boston, followed by the first European exhibition on urban design in 1910 in Berlin. He made a publication of the results of this exhibiton. From 1913 on he again worked in America. He further developed his skills in stedebouw This was greatly helped by his cooperation with Elbert Peets. Gradually, starting 1916. Together they made numerous plans and developed the idea about what combination of practical, technical and economic aspects could form the core of the discipline.

Elbert Peets, (1886-1968) was an American landscape architect that earned the highest appreciations for his designs during his studies at American universities. During the first world war he worked as a civil engineer in the Army Camp planning section. In 1917 he gained a Charles Elliot Traveling Fellowship to travel in Europe. Because of the war this was postponed to 1920. He then traveled extensively in Europe to deepen his knowledge on urban design and garden design using his drawing skills to record what he saw.

This brought Heremann and Peets to the idea to make a handbook on urban design. It took them less than two years to compile the book. An enormous effort keeping in mind the huge volume of illustrations and the fact that they did this beside their normal work.

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Page from the book: saures. Historic and recent examples

In America the book was well received. Europe was a different matter.Many European architects considered it to be 'nothing new'. At the time the book was published modernists

where over screaming all discussions. With their usual 'subtlety' thy portrayed the book as 'reactionary' and being only about esthetics. Perhaps the arrogance was needed to conceal the fact that most modernists only had expertise in the field of architecture while especially Heegeman and Peets had extensive knowledge in the field of economics, engineering, landscape design, politics, etc. So they really know what role esthetics could play in relation to other aspects and did not need to fall back to spasmodic esthetics that was supposed to represent rationality and stead of having founded rational considerations behind it.

The ideas behind 'Civic Art':• Stedebouw is the basis for architecture. Hegemann and Peets are of the opinion that urban design is

NOT just the grouping of streets to form parcels for architects (or others) to build any way they like, nor is it about arranging structures and spaces to achieve grand architecture and urban design in bourgeois and dictatorial geometrical plans, like the Hausmannian plans for Paris.

• The city is a living and growing organism that cannot be forced into a picturesque or a geometrical corset.

• The physical pattern of the city should evolve from the patterns of thoughts -the good ones as well as the bad ones- that determines an governs the life of inhabitants

• Architecture is an art form that finds its conditions in social science• Architecture and Urban design should be place specific (comment: modernists claim it should be

universal and not place specific).

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Example from the book: Vistas, disposition of buildings

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Example from the book: streets, building blocksThe book also contains chapters about• The grouping of buildings• Design of parks• Parcellation• The ground plan of a city as an integrated design

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The New Civic Art , 2003Andrés Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Robert Alminana, : ‘The new civic art: Elements of town planning’,

New York, 2003.

The title is a tribute to the original book. As its predecessor the 'New Civic Art' is a handbook about urban design. It does not replace it but can be seen as an amendment with modern examples. Its writers are part of the 'New Urbanism' movement. Again they turn to Europe for many examples. Despite the fact that the original Vitruvius gained attention in America, post war urban design embraced modernistic principles (though not necessarily modernistic modern architectural esthetics) leading to desolate and often derelict environments. This sparked the New Urbanism movement that believes architecture and urban design that is based on 'enlightend' artistic principles can contribute to better environments

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Pages from the new civic artThe general concept of the book clearly differs from the original Civic Art. There are more

concrete examples for urban design and design of public space. There are also new typologies such as the shopping mall and attention for urban patterns and everyday environments. The original Civic Art focused more on exceptional spaces.

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Bruno Taut ‘Die Stadtkrone’ 1919Wenzel Hablik

Expressionistic utopiesUpper left: Bruno Taut 'Die Stadtkrone' 1919. Tauts illustration is well known, but it is almost

identical to an illustration in 'Plan for Chicago' from 1909. In the latter the centre piece is the suggested new giant dome that would form the centre of Chicago. Taut suggests a city should have a 'crown' formed by a 'shining building', this would exemplify the city as a community. Although his elaboration is expressionistic and related to a utopian idea about society, in fact it can be seen as a variation on the 19th century American idea of a Civic Centre.

Upper right: 'Die auflösung der Städte', 1920Tauts tendency towards phantasm is also reflected in the name of the settlements he designed for

Berlin 'Onkel Toms Hütte' and 'Hufeisensiedlung' (Translation: 'Uncle Toms Cabin' and 'Horse shoe settlement').

Lower: Wenzel Hablik, Ideal city, 1921 As is the case with Taut, Habliks utopean ideas were based on the idea of community thinking as

it was supposed to have existed in the middle ages. The ideas are highly metaphysic. Private and public will disappear as seperate realms and will be replaced by an architectural space that will encompass all life.

The vision is highly social-deterministic. Social determinism believes that good human behavior can be achieved by good architectural and urban design. It did not only form the basis of expressionistic utopies but formed one of the core prepositions of modernism. It is so appealing because it is simplistic and places designers in a 'god like' position. Therefore it resurfaces time and again although it has been proved completely wrong.

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Berlin, Hufeisensiedlung, Bruno Taut, 1925Central area with the appartment building in the form of a horse shoeThe shining cristal 'Stadtkrone' from theory has been reduced to a piece of grass and a pond......

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33Constant Nieuwenhuis ‘Nieuw Babylon’ 1960 - 1972

Constant Nieuwenhuis: New BabylonConstant Nieuwenhuis (artist name 'Constant') was a Dutch artist that formed part of the

international art movement of the so called 'situationistst'. He made a series of ideal city designs that are in the tradition of the works of Taut and Hablik. The city is treated literally as a 'work of art'. Constants vision was that of a playful society also with high communal content, just as in the ideas of Taut and Hablik. This concurred with the ideas of a new society that evolved during the 1960's all over the world. In consequence his ideas attracted international attention.

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Modernistic theoretical projects

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CoverSientific American

1913

Cover of the Scientific American, 1913Caption in the magazine: "Elevated sidewalks: How it will solve City Transport Problems. If the

real capacity of power-propelled machinery is to be gained in city transportation, foot and vehicular traffic must be segregated. Each type of transport will be free to develop itself along its own lines"

Leonardo da Vinci with his city on two levels (see the lecture about the renascence) may be given the honour of starting the tradition of technocratic futuristic phantasies. The advent of modern means of transportation with underground, overhead railways, the motor car and the elevator combined with new building techniques led to a wave of phantasies like the one depicted. Technocratic phantasies are still highly popular. They always suggest to be realistic and based on feasible technique, but they are just as utopian as esthetic utopies on the simple ground that they also leave out social reality and often are based on unrealistic presumptions about a new society.

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36FuturismAntonio Sant’Elia 1914 Virgilio Marchi 1919

FuturistmLeft: Antonia Sant'Elia, 1914 'The new town' immense buildings with liftst on the outside, traffic

on multiple levels. Right: Virgilio Marchi, 1919 'Town'Futurism was a movement in Italian art and later also in architecture that glorified modern

technique. The members were especially fascinated by dynamics and speed.

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37Le Corbusier ‘Une ville contemporaire’ 1922

Le Corbusier, 'Une ville contemporaire‘, 1922(Translation: 'A contemporary city').

Also referred to as the 'City for 3 million inhabitants'. The design was shown on the Paris autumn salon of 1933 with a diorama measuring 100 m2.

The model shown in the photograph is in the 'Museum for utopian cities' in Arc et Senan (France), most appropriately housed in the famous salt factory part designed by Ledoux with the idea that it would become part of a utopian city according his ideas.

The city as a 3-D diagram. Although the much criticized 19th century plans also were diagrams (an 2-D at that), these had the advantage of building upon a proven typology that had a certain amount of flexibility and durability over time. Le Corbusier's plan has almost no flexibility. It is a technocratic vision of the future, worse: a eshtetisized technocratic vision by a technical amateur. Symbolism, experiencing the environment, attachment to a place, etc play no role at all. The theoretical inhabitants are design by Le Corbusier as well, as a matter of speaking.

This is not specific for Le Corbusier. How often are so called 'functional' or 'technical' developments in fact driven by esthetic (including kinesthetic) considerations?

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38v.Doesburg & v.Eesteren ‘Circulation city’ 1924

Theo van Doesburg & Cornelis van Eesteren, 'Circulation city' ,1924Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren cooperated within the Stijl movement.Ideal design showing a firm believe in the virtues of traffic circulation. One should remember that

in the 1920's in Europe almost nobody owned a car while in the United States the phenominun was just starting with the invention of the mass production of cars by Henry Ford. Architects belonging to the higher classes could afford cars and began promoting it in their designs. This was of course well received by their rich principals who where also early car owners. People tend to forget that the 'car' is not an object, although it is presented as such. Fundamentally the 'car' is a system. Saying 'a car can do 200 kilometers per hour' really means: there is a system that allows it to do that: fast roads with bridges and tunnels and an industry that produces these roads, petrol stations, garages, traffic regulations, research facilities to develop materials, parts, etc. Urban design, even utopian design, seriously contributed to the rise of the motor car. This eventualy led to erosion of a lot public space.

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39Hilberseimer ‘Hochhausstadt’ 1924

Hilberseimer, 'Hochhausstadt‘, 192415 story apartments on a 6 story plinth with shops and work shops. !0 meter wide pedestrian

areas on the roof of the plinth, bridges between the seperate buildings. 60 meter wide streets for cars on the ground level.

Who would not want to live in an ideal environment like this...? Only in unworldly elitarian avant garde circles these type of fantasies are taken serious, or if they fit some type of ideology. A constancy in 20th century art is that 'real artists' (or architects) make things nobody understands or likes except for a happy few. These than claim the art is universal (meaning: for everybody). The subsequent populist counter reaction (bad taste, but for understandable reasons) strengthens them in their believes they are the self proclaimed guardians of culture. It would be funny if the consequences where not possibly severe. In the end the important role art can play as an experimental ground for applied disciplines can be in danger.

A metaphore is the extremely bad taste television show 'Big Brother'. The cultural elite always proclaims that the average citizen should be stirred or shocked for their good. ‘Joe six pack’ hit back with something still more shocking. In the end this forced public television into making more empty and populist programs.

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Hilberseimer: project Friederichstrasse, Berlin, 1928West of the Gendarmenmarkt (visible in the illustration).

Modernists firmly believed old cities should be demolished because they did not fir modern times. This is based on fundamental inflexibility in thinking. Modernists concluded the classic urban forms were unfit for modern city life, in particular not for the motor car. They did no research in the possibilities to adapt the traditional forms but only pursued solutions in one direction. Recent urban design and architecture has shown many solutions are possible that combine more traditions forms like the closed building block with modern demands. Drawing this conclusion is not so much to put modernists in a bad daylight (there fore runners in many respects were also inflexible, so it is more a sign of the times in general) but it shows fundamentals of urban design: 1. look for the problem before you come up with an answer, 2. Always step back, think over what you really want and if there are other means of achieving it (structural thinking), 3. Use design as a means to investigate problems and ways of thinking in stead as a one way street from demand to solution.

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41Farkas Molnár ‘KURI-stad’ 1925

Farkas Molnár, Magyar (Hungary), 1923KURI-town. The word KURI stands for:• Kunstruktiv (Constructive)• Utilitär (Utilitarian)• Rationell (Rational)• International (International)A modular socialist workers city as ant thesis of le Corbusiers 'Ville contemporaire' that in the

eyes of Molnár was a capitalistic city. Looking at both designs as a recipe for ideal life, one could say that apparently capitalists where

deep fried and socialists where grilled.

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42Farkas Molnár ‘KURI-stad’ 1925

Section of a street

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43Richard Neutra ‘Rush city reformed’ 1925

Richard Neutra, 'Rush City Reformed, 1923 - 1927Neutra was a Viennanese architct that emigrated to America in 1923. His ideas are related to

those of LeCorbusier, Hilberseimer, Soria y Mata en Sant'Elia.

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44Cornelis van Eesteren ‘Zakenwijk’ 1926

Cornelis van Eesteren,'Zakenwijk', 1926In the words of van Eesteren: 'Part of a bussiness district in a contemporary city'In 1927 Hannes Meyer, director of the Bauhaus writes in the 'Bauhaus' magazine: 'Building is a

biological occurance, building is not an esthetic proces'. In fact the designs of the modernist refer to the non living nature with its mathematical order, not to biology, but the quote demonstrates the way the designers saw them selves: as natural leaders. Bad tongues would say as 'mini absolute rulers' replacing the 'big absolute rulers' of the centuries gone by that claimed divine justification.

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Modernistic street in Berlin, 1928Wohn- und Geschäftskomplx (WOGA) on the Kurfürstendamm. Design by Erich Mendelssohn.

Showing the cleanness of public space in line with modernistic ideas. Still a street, soon modernists abandoned the street completely in favor of the path and the road.

On the left some shop fronts have been changed later by shop owners that now that clean streets also mean empty shops.

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Le Corbusier ‘La ville radieuse’ 1933

“The present idea of the street must be abandoned: KILL THE STREET!”

La Ville radieuse (the radiant city)Photograph and quote from ' The radiant city '.

Other quotes also from 'The radiant city', unless stated otherwise.

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Why 'Kill the street? Reason 1: LeisureLe Corbusier asumes that in future we will only work 5 or 6 hours a day as a result of

mechanization."This is one of the most disturbing problems facing modern sociology. The necessity for

transforming this still vague notion of "leisure time" as quickly as possible into a disciplined function is therefore immediately evident. We cannot leave millions of men, woman and young people to spend seven or eight hours a day in the streets"

So we have to make living quarters that not only contain people but also keep them in the quarter. This means: facilities in the vicinity of the homes, the most important sports facilities. These must be directly near the houses and that means open space.

In a caption for this drawing in The Radiant City le Corbusier writes: "NOTE - This illustration contains an error of design: a rudiment of 'corridor-street' ( ..... ) .has

been allowed to remain". Most sectarians try to show how faithful they are to their religion...

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Reason 2: safety for the pedestrian Cross section of roads in The Radiant CityLe Corbusier reasons that now the age of the car has come. We must build cities that are tailored

to the car. The past poses obstructs the making of the city in the age of the car. He suggest to seperate the different types of traffic, in his eyes a logical evolution from the side

walks of the 19th century. Safety for the pedestrians is the main argument for the separation.He is against exiling the pedestrian to the sky as Hilberseimer and others suggest. The roads for

cars must be elevated to 5 meters above ground level. The space under the roads can be used for tramways.

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Reason 3: safety for carsTo ensure safety for cars level crossings and intersections must be avoided. Also 'strange' forms

must be avoided. In the city of tomorrow there should only be orthogonal crossings. Combined with the demand that there should not be to many crossings le Corbusier arrives at an orthogonal grid with an 400 meter interval.

The paths on the ground however can be designed according to the principle of the shortest distance. By making them slightly sinuous they can acquire a certain charm. There should be awnings in the middle so inhabitants will no longer need an umbrella which according to Le Corbusier as a bourgeois accessory.

Le Corbusier makes a lyrical description of the park that will form the ground floor. According to him the elevated roads will have the effect of the fences of traditional parks with now and then a car that passes without noise because the roads will have a rubber substrate.

To complete the idea of a continuous green park the buildings as well as the roads will be on columns.

Looking at the design one doubts if Le Corbusier ever tested the way his design would be experienced on a ground level. Later examples of comparable situations show that the effect of a park is seriously compromised by the buildings. Only the dense planting of trees can give the illusion that it is a park. The columns under buildings have to be spaced wide apart to achieve the illusion of a space that flows under it. Le Corbusiers own apartment buildings have very heavy columns that do not allow for much looking through.

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Illustration from Plan Voisin, 1922 [pag 204] A plan to eradicate a large part of Paris and replace it with a 'contemporary city'.Caption: "...... The end of the corridor street. In praise of the home. The home rules over the city.

There are no more pariahs deprives of sun and space. Equipment worthy of machine-age civilization"

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Views from the centre of new cityUpper: 'Ville Contemporaire', 1922 afb Eaton pag 201Lower: the "Corso" (word used by Le Corbusier) of Le Corbusiers plan for Antwerpen, 1933

(Comment: it could be that he used the word 'Corso' -that refers to the baroque streets of Rome- to evoke trust with the Belgians, who had always been in favor of artfullness.)

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Telltale caption for this illustration in The Radiant City:"Anywhere in the residential city" Placelessness as a virtue.

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From theory to practiceLe Corbusier tries to sell his Radiant City all over the world, he positions it in every possible

location from Antwerpen to Rio de Janeiro. The idea is rejected everywhere. Rem Koolhaas in his book 'Delirious New York' descirbes how inherently different Le Corbusiers high rise buildings and ideas about a good city are from the New York sky scrapers and the dynamic reality. However somehow post war city planners and architects embraced the idea and the so called 'council housing' in New York and other cities was built according to modernistic principles with disastrous consequences (Upper. Theory left, housing in New York right). The only town in the world that tried to make a new city according to the ideas of the Radiant City, with an continuous green space, high apartment buildings on columns and elevated roads was Amsterdam. (Lower. Theory left, Housing in Amsterdam Bijlmermeer right) This proved to be a failure too, the name of the quarter 'Bijlmer' became synonymous with misery. The original buildings were almost all destroyed in the beginning of the 21st century and were replaced by low rise building and apartments that were more appealing to the inhabitants. Some claim that the failure in Amsterdam was due to bad execution of the ideas. Who would take the risk of testing them again?

One of the reason Le Corbusiers plans did not work is his unrealistic ideas of society (as we have seen a hallmark of all utopies). Talking about 'Man' (as he does constantly) he implicitly means the docile and law obeying citizen of the 19th century.

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Corridor in Le Corbusiers 'Unité 'd habitation', BerlinThe 'Unité 'd Habitation' (dwelling unit) was another of Le Corbusiers generic ideas. A building that

is a living quarter in itself. The metaphore being the ocean liners of the time.The photograph shows one of the interior streets were people were supposed to meet each other,

which would strengthen the communal atmosphere. Very low, very small doors, very depressed feeling (figure in the background is a small woman). This is because Le Corbusier based his measures on a theoretical model of the human body - called the 'Modulor'. This was related to the famous model of the supposed mathematical geometry of the human body by Leonardo da Vinci. Both models assumed proportions that are not physical correct. In da Vincis time people were smaller, perhaps that is why Le Corbusier also chose a length that is shorter than the average length of modern north Europeans.

Anyway, there are more case of theories that did not match reality, whereby the inventors tried to adapt reality to the theory. A notable example being Goethes color theory.

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Plan Port Mailliot,1930Original caption by Le Corbusier: "A big platform for pedestrians, a real forum". Apparently Le

Corbusier counted on the fact that by 1933 his readers did not know any more what the predispositions where for a good public space. He himself must have known because he had a classical architectural education.

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Algiers projectPublic space has been reduced to a highway on top of the buidlings. In the accompanying text

foot paths on the ground are mentioned, but theay are completely out of the picture in the design drawings. This type of urban design leads to compete individualizing.

Le Corbusier calls his project a vertical garden city, which is a bit akin to a sun lit night. He calculates that this vertical town would be much cheaper than a horizontal garden city. But he forgets that outside the buildings there are enormous areas of public green that also have to be paid for and that need a lot of maintenance.

In his plan he introduces the idea to build an empty concrete super structure. Potential inhabitants could than buy a compartment to build their individual home. The structure would have to be so dominating that the style of the individual houses would not matter for the overall view. The idea of a separation between structure and filling in was later taken over by several theorists, notably the Dutch architect Nicolaas Habraken who with a team of architects worked for many years on his concept of 'bearer and infill' in combination with the industrial production of building parts. The idea never caught up for some understandable reasons, omoung which was an unrealistic view of society, the hallmark of utopies.

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Illustration of the street on the rooftops in the Algiers projectsLe Corbusier sees this image as a convincing answer to those who claim his projects are ugly.

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A city with a bombarded centreAfter the war LeCorbusier tries to sell his ideas again, after all now there is enough empty space

in inner cities, especially in Germany, ideal for the modernist! He publicizes a book in German 'Grundfragen des Städtebaus' (1945). ('Fundamental questions of stedebouw'. Because his was born and raised in Switzerland he will have had basic knowledge of German).

His credo: replace narrow streets by a big plane with highrise buildings. "Es herrscht nur ein Prinzip: überall dort, wo die Bomben zerstörten, zieht Grün ein, erheben sich

Gebäude aus der freien Natur. Strassenzüge und Hinterhöfe werden abgeschafft." (Quote from 'Grundfragen'. Translation: "Only one principle rules: in all places destructed by

bombs green moves in and buildings rise from free nature. Arrays of streets and back yards are abandoned")

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At the same time private ground property can be abaondoned.

Illustration on the right (from ( 'Grundfragen'):Additions to the ‘The Radiant City'.B. two types of pedestrian paths: main paths and secundary paths.C. A shopping road with low rise shops.D. Lowered car roads.E. The ground surface for lorries (because they are heavy). Pedestrians must go underground to

facilitate transportation by lorrie.

Another remarkable turn around in his book: in the 1930's he was fiercely opposed against the 'rejectable and stupid' American skyscrapers. His own high rise buildings where 'absolutely superior'. Now his tone has changed, he praises the skyscraper and only 'recommends' his own designs, clearly trying to flatter potential American principals. He eventually got to build the United Nations building (but built it across a street, showing he did not understand New Yorks urban constellation).

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J.M. de Casseres ‘Algemeen Uitbreidingsplan Eindhoven’1930

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Cornelis van Eesteren ‘Algemeen Uitbreidingsplan Amsterdam’ 1934

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• Urbanism =

• effective city images

• functional and intuitive

• creating order

• Urban Design:

• form precedes style

• unity of life and form

Cornelis van Eesteren

Van Eesteren on stedebouwWe do know about van Eesterens theoretical ideas by transcriptions of his lectures and one short

paper he wrote.About urbanism he says: "Stedebouw, and I must emphasize this point, consists of the ability to

design effect full city images with more or less skill"and:"Urban design is primarily functional and intuitive"* These quotes show that Van Eesteren had very different ideas from Le Corbusier as regards the

relation between research and design. Not the idea that design would be derived linearly from 'rational principles', but the designer as an intermediate.

Van Eesteren sees stedebouw above all as creating order. The designer has to create order from chaos. That chaos can be the original landscape or an amorphous see of houses; the house is the basis for the urban design (we recognize Brinckmans 'house as material of urban design').

On urban design itselfStedebouw must occupy it self with the fundamental aspects of the environment, with structures in

stead of esthetic fashion. In van Eesterens words "From precedes style"**. An urban designer cannot sylize and polish, he must accept chaotic life as it is.

Urban design must pursue unity of life and form. With 'form' Van Eesteren also literally means 'material'. He remarks that on the Place de 'l Etoile in Paris cras, asphalt and other modern materials are in contradiction With the19th century design of the square.

* Originele Nederlandse tekst:"Stedebouw, en hierop moet ik de nadruk leggen, bestaat uit met meer of minder handigheid effectvolle stadsbeelden

ontwerpen" en: "Stedebouwkundige vormgeving is primair functioneel en intuïtief" ** Originele Nederlandse tekst:"Vorm gaat voor stijl"

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• Design

• “urban elements”

• balance

• movement, dynamics, details

DesignAccording to Van Eesteren a city is constructed from 'urban elements', such as stations, houses,

factories, viaducts, etc. It is the assignment of the urban designer to establish there mutaal relations and proportions and to form the image of the city in doing so. Here we see the modernist idea of an 'empty' space filled with buildings with public space as a resultant as opposed to the idea of designing public space with the building blocks and buildings as a resultant. However Van Eesteren was not dogmatic in this respect he also talked about the design of public space. This should be based on balance. It is not without reason thet Van Eesteren called his submission for the design competition for Berlin Unter den Linden 'Gleichgewicht von Kontrasten' ('Balance in contrasts'). This 'balance' is based on the idea of dynamic visual balance as used by artists and graphic designers. In classic urban design 'balance' equaled symmetry.

According to Van Eesteren Photography and aerial photography lead to a completely different view of the world. The tradition image of the city is replaced by a different vision in which movement, dynamics and surprising details catch the attention.

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• Design

• “urban elements”

• balance

• movement, dynamics, details

• Public space

• no map plan but a program/brief

• no recipes (such as ‘high rise’)

• no traditional streets (‘décor’)

• unity in the image of the street (building-strips)

Public spaceUrban design should not be 'map plans': figures on paper. The elements of the modern city

contradict the classical city with its elegance and order. The form of the city should be based on a program of demands, based on the demand that individual elements pose for urban design. The form of a city cannot be designed or predicted in advance, there is no recipe for the modern city. In this respect also Van Eesteren differs form Le Corbusier or Hilberseimer. A problem with Van Eesterens view is the relation between preformulated demands and form. This relation in practice is often very weak.

As regards the per subject of modernists: high rise buildings, Van Eesteren is of the opinion that it is likely that modern cities will be characterized by high rise buildings in a lot of green spaces, but for him it is not a system. Unlike Le Corbusier, Hilberseimer, Neutra and others, Van Eesterens approach is pragmatic, he would only use high rise buildings as housing for specific parts of the population. For the rest it is a matter of how a city develops, high rise building needs not to be pushed by planners.

According to Van Eesteren traditional streets and squares are 'décor'. He agrees with the advocates of artistic urban design that 19th century cities are ugly, but he blames them for researching the past as a reaction in stead of researching the modern city. The scenes they build in now way represents modern life, they conceal the chaos behind it. Van Eesterens point of view of coarse is based on the idea that design should represent modern life (whatever that me be), it sounds logic but there is no real rational (!) reason why this should be the case, it is just a matter of taste (modern functionality is of course a different matter). Looking at his own designs for Berlin and Amsterdam one wonders why he thinks this is not 'decor' building.

Van Eesteren sees the Champs Elysees as an example of the lack of balance between life and form. The general plan is o.k. but the collection of individual buildings is a chaos. He is in favor of unity in the image of a street. This can be achieved by uniform strip buildings. One wonders where the 'dynamics' of the modern city are in that. Symbolic values, tactility and affectivity seem to play no role in Van Eesterens ideas.

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Van Eesteren submission for the design contest, Rokin, Amsterdam, 1924 Red = new buildingsGrey = existing buildings

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Van Eesteren submission for the design contest , Unter den Linden, Berlin, 1925Motto: 'Balance and contrasts', the contrast being the difference between the Friederichstrasse

and the Forum Fridericianum.

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birds eye perspective from the AUP The plan in fact only covers public space at an abstract level and not on a perceptual level. This is

reflected in the drawing that accompany the plan. The only exception are parks, these get a lot of attention.

There are some noticeable statements in the plan. For instance it cocludes that the beauty of the grachten is an important aspect of the Amsterdam city image, not only in th eold city but also in the new quarters that will be added. If it is possible new grachten should be executed as singels (Dutch word for wide urban spaces with urban waterways, green banks). But if there is no room for these the old type of gracht should be preferred even in new quarters. A number of profiles indicate how these could look.

Nowhere streets are discussed, only roads. These for a road network that has the function of bringing coherence to the city.

The plan has had considerable influence on Amsterdam public space.

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Amsterdam, Bos en Lommer, 1935Design: architects Merkelbach and KarstenThi is one of the clearest examples of the impact of the thoughts behind the AUPon pulic space.

There is considerably more open space, strip buildings (As van Eesteren advocated) and the classical street as disappears.

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Frank Lloyd Wright ‘Broadacre City’ 1934

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model showing the general ideaA model of the idea of Broadacre city.Loyd Wrights ideas also reflect the spirit of the American pioneer: a combination of individualism

and conquering nature. The city dissolves into the land, public space becomes transportation space. No urban centres, just some communal buildings. Lloyd Wright was also explicitly antiurban.

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Ernst Neufert‘Bauentwurfslehre’

1940

Ernst Neufert, 'Bauentwurfslehre', 1934'Architects data'

This book is still reissued today. Since its first issue it has been revised and expanded regulary.Neufert was an architect in the Bauhaus tradition. His book is examplary for modernistic thinking

about scientification, normation, researching minimum requirements, ergonomics (although the word was invented later). Although handbooks with concrete suggestions for norms and solutions are very useful, they also tend to have a negative influence on design. This is two fold: 1. they strenghten the tendency to apply general solutions to specific situations, without knowing if this is justified (of course this is one of the characteristics of modernistic thinking); 2. For non-professionals and less gifted designers they tend to lead to a false idea of what design is. In the wrong hands handbooks reduce 'design' to combining solutions from handbooks.

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The ‘other’ theory

The 'other' theoryFor a long time the general idea about theory in the pre war period has been that this was the

period of modernism. It is true that they dominated the discussion in avant garde circles that in turn monopolized this vision as the only true one. This was done so forcefully that other theories were marginalized in the architectural debate. However they are at least as interesting, and probably more relevant for present day urban design than the canonized visions of the 1920's an 30's. The general tendency of the 'other' theories is that most of the time in their functional approach they are just as modern as modernists, but the esthetics are more based on classical insights. Also the perception of space and symbolic and affective values play a role.

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The ‘other’ theory

1923 Fritz Schumacher

“Köln: Entwicklungsfragen einer Groszstadt”

1919 Paul Wolf

“Städtebau: das formproblem der Stadt n Vergangenheit und Zukunft”

1933 Patric Abercrombie

“Town and country planning”

(1944 “Greater London Plan”)

Three important works.

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1923 Fritz Schumacher

“Köln: Entwicklungsfragen einer Groszstadt”

(Generalsiedlungsplan Köln)

Fritz SchumacherIn the 1920's Fritz Schumacher was considered to be the foremost urban designer in Europe.

Originally he was trained as a landscape architect and he made a name with designs for parks, notably in Hamburg. His background is reflected in the attention to green in his plans. But he also devotes a lot of attention to public space and architecture. For Schumacher there must be a relation between the plan as a whole and the way it is elaborated in detail.

Not surprising Schumacher used metaphors of nature for the city. For him a city should be an organism and making plans is a kind of 'gardening' brining harmony. For his 1923 plan for Köln he uses the metaphor of a plan for the relation between the core city and the region. This goes back to an old tradition of depicting the world in an metaphoric diagram. The idea to use these type of diagrams in planning is picked up in later urban plans.

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The system of green spaces.Schumachers approach to planning is novel and really modern, it can still be found in modern

plans. The plan for Köln is probably the first urban plan to have a special design for an integrated green structure (so familiar today) and for a hierarchy of green spaces ranging from play fields in neighborhoods to a communal forest.

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Elaboration of a part of the green structureA big omission in many later green structure plans is that they limit themselves to an abstract

level. This often means that a nice idea on paper fails completely in its execution in practice. This is exactly what Schumacher does not do, he makes designs in detail to ensure the abstract idea will have substance when it is elaborated.

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Sections of a street (Neusser Strasse).Showing how the street will be articulated along its length in relation to the structure of the city. In

contrary to modernistst Schumacher sees a future for streets with a classical pedigree. For him this means that they have no uniform design, as for instance in Le Corbusiers plans, but that the fulfill a role in the image of the city.

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Design for the new bridge head in the old inner city.A 'heavy' type of architecture, fairly common in 1920's Germany, but not to every bodies taste.

Keep in mind this is an urban design, it is an indication of how the bridge head could look. The essence for the plan is the symbolic function as a gate to the city. This could also be realized with other types of architecture. The virtue of Schumachers plan is that his does not confine it to abstract intentions but tries to involve the way urban space will be experienced.

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Study of the relation between the new bridge and the old city.Showing concern about the way new elements should be integrated with the historic appearance

of the town.

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Studies for the design of living quarters for lower incomesFour alternatives by Schumacher himself and by three architects. These are compared as regards

their morphology, use and costs. A totally differenet approach to just posing one solution, like Le Corbusier does. Schumacher saw himself as an urban designer/planner that had to weight the best solutions, not only promoting his own ideas. The designs for living quarters can not be called traditional. Although they show a believe in the classical street and more traditional forms of housing, they are more modern in concept.

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Theory 20th centuryafter 1945

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1959

Paul Zucker, town and square, 1959Paul Zucker (1881 - 1971) was a German architect who worked on several commissions in

the1920's and 1930'At the same time he publicized on historical architecture and urban design. In 1937 he immigrated to the United States because of the political developments in Germany. In 1944 he became a teacher at the prestigious Cooper Union Art School in New York city.

In 1959 he publicized ‘Town and Square: From the Agora to the Village Green’. This interesting book is in the tradition of the Sitte and Brinckmann and brought theory about classical squares to the modern world (Brinckmann has never been translated). His book is affected by modern developments. He tries categorize non enclosed public spaces that might still be seen as squares as well. The book came at a 'totally wrong time' when the theories of modernism finally stamped their mark on the new post war city extensions. Still in many places among designers the seeds of a counter movement were sewn.

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1960

Kevin Lynch 'The image of the city' 1960One of the most read books in urban design and planning, it is still reissued over and over. But looking at urban

designs in practice the fact that a theory is well known (at least by the name) is no guarantee that its lessons are incorporated in urban design.

Lynch introduced the concept of the 'mental map' - developed in biologic and psychologic science - to the professions of architecture, urban design and planning. Moreover he combined and a the theories in such a way that they could be made operative in design practice. An important aspect is that Lynch introduces the concept of the cognitive image of the city. up until then and even today, many equal the 'image' of an urban environment to the things we see at street level. Lynch points out that the way we remember space is just as important, and perhaps even more important in urban design. It is not the place to discuss the virtues and shortcomings of Lynches ideas but the notion of the mental map is a very important one. It can give more depth to ideas like that of Van Eesteren that there is a level 'behind' form. It also emphasizes the importance of designers looking at the environment with the eyes of the user.

'Theory' and 'Theory'This is perhaps the place to point out the difference between 'theory' and 'theory'. In common language the word is

often used as a synonym for 'speculation' or 'opinion'. In contrast a scientific theory is a rational construct based on evidence, solid reference and cross relations with other theories. Also it must be verifiable and repeatable. As a consequence there are not as many theories in science as one might expect, a lot of conditions have to be fulfilled. Almost all 'theories' covered in the course a certainly no scientific theories, but they are also more than pure speculation because they are based on experience and insights many people share and on work by predecessors. In principle they are also open to 'falsification' in the form of evaluation of the way they worked out in practice, although many theorists are not that flexible them selves, declaring their ideas to be the norm. That is why the word 'normative' is used for these type of theories: they provide 'prescriptions' based on the norms of the theorist. Ofcours this can also be graduated. People like Brinckmann emphasize that their ideas are not 'absolute' within certain limits. Perhaps the ideas of Lynch and Newman (later to be discussed) come closest to scientific theory of all theories on the design of public space.

Does this mean that design theories are useless. People working strickly to the principles of Natural Science would say so and often claim design would become better if it were more 'scientific'. The reality is that none of the research conducted according to these principles has ever produced a significant convincing and usable theory on spatial urban design. To conceal this fact they often refer to design as being 'unimportant', or whatever equivalent of that word can be found. As regards the design of public space this means we have to make do with the theory we have, enlightened rationality and as much knowledge and skills as possible.

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Gordon Cullen ‘Townscape’ 1961

Gordon Cullen 'Townscape' 1961Illustration from one of Cullens designs.

Cullen was trained as a modernistic architect. During the 1950's he got convinced that strict modernism was on the wrong path as far as urban design was concerned. He started to develop his own theory that he called 'Towncape'. A book with the same name was publicized in 1961, later followed by a consized edition.

Main characterisics of Cullens ideas:• Urban design should be place specific. Research of the place specific properties of public

space should form the basis for new designs. These properties are form, the way space is used and the way inhabitants interact with space. Cullen calls this interaction 'the rational tradition' as opposed to the artificial rationality of mathematics and the drawing board of' modernists and many of their predescessors.

• The spatial experience in the real urban space should be taken as a starting point of the design. In doing so the experience of the pedestrian must prevail, cities are meant for peoples not cars. Cullen made the first plan for a car free public space in the world and is arguably the inventor if the car free city centre.

• It is not sufficient to just provide space for pedestrians. Spatial experiences are linked to more or less enclosed space sequences should form an important part of a design.

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A sequence of spacesDesign for a sequence in a new town. Presented as a kind of 'comic' or 'story board for a film' by

Cullen. Drawing is one of the mainstays of Cullens work.

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1962

Ivor de Wolfe

Ivor de Wolfe, The Italian Townscape, 1963A 'rogue' book from the 1960's showing an undercurrent that is still present in urban design. It is

explicitly anti-modernistic (to be differentiated from anti-modern, which is something else) and i doing so is about as forceful and exaggerated as the rhetoric's used by the modernists themselves. Besides that is still an interesting book today because of its analysis of urban spaces in historic Italian cities.

The word 'townscape' in the title is not a coincidence, De Wolfe explicitly refers to Cullens ideas. He sees his book as a contribution to this art. This may explain the attention paid in the book to spatial sequences. De Wolfe mainly uses medieval examples of closed city spaces and in so doing follows the in the footsteps of Sitte.

A more recent book following the same pattern of demonstrating principles of the design of public space by using medieval examples and discussing their fundamental properties is ‘Auftritte/Scenes, Interactionen met dem architektonischen Raum: die Campi Venedigs / Interaction with Architectural Space: the Canoi of Venice’, by Alban Jonson and Thorsten Bürklin (German and Enlish text).

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Illustrations from 'The Italian Townscape'

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Allison & Peter Smithson‘Ordinarines and light’

1960 / 1970

The book with the title 'Ordinarines and light' dates from 1970, but the first part was written in 1952/1953. The rest of the theory is from the 1958 to 1960 period. It was publicized in magazines. The ideas of the Smithson’s caught on because they were novel and painted a promising perspective of new urban forms for a new society. As is often the case with architectural and urban theories, the story was convincing because at appealed to feelings held by many intellectuals in society, including fellow professionals. The elaboration in a specific type of architecture and urban design also was appealing in an optimistic age, rebuilding after the war, embracing futuristic ideas. Trains would go 200 kilometers per hour, the car would become available to everyone as would be aerial transport. Soon passenger aircraft would fly supersonic, we would conquer space, wear synthetic clothes and eat industrial produced food. Besides this there was a strong movement promoting social coherence and 'community', the Smithson’s exactly promised that. In this respect their theories were a form of social determinism.

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Smithson ‘Ordinariness and light’

• Society = network of human relations

• Key words: ‘Human associations’‘Identification’

• The house is the basis

• Modern city = car city

‘Enlightened modernism’

Core issuesThe Smithson's propagate an 'enlightened modernism' . A new type of built environment should

facilitate modern society. In their eyes this society has the following charcteristics• It is primarily a network (comment: this is not anachronism, they really use this word in their

texts) of human relations• A key word is 'Human associations'. These are reflected in building styles, traditional building

styles are a good example of these associations. At the same time social patterns are shifting as a result of mechanization and automation "It is as easy to sit in a Cumberland farm kitchen watching TV as in a Surbiton one" (Quote from Ordinariness and light). We must welcome these changes and keep pace with them.

• Identification is another key notion. The living environment should be recognizable. However if we look at the Smithson's designs this is not translated into individual recognizable houses but in giant structures that perhaps could be recognizable and units within these structures, perhaps recognizable by colored front doors. A very curious translation of 'identification'.

• The house is the basis of the form of the city. The 'street' and the 'neighborhood come next. • This may not lead to the conclusion that we should make self containing neighborhoods. An a

modern city social life is not restricted to the neighborhood. A modern city is made up of patterns of relations, many social and intellectual contacts occur on the level of the city and not in the neighborhood. This means social cohesion (again: not an anachronism, they use the word in their text) is advanced by a lose grouping and easy communication rather than by neighborhood units.

• This line of arguments leads to the conclusion: the modern city = a car city.

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Characteristic iIllustrations from the book: Human associationsSketch Skyros in Greece Photograph: El Qued in the SaharaTypes of traditions structures related to certain forms of social life. The idea is that the newly

designed structures in the same way will have a relation to present day social life.

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The house as basic unit, identification

Backyards (in Islington, North Londen). People feel the need to have a piece of environment for them self, something to identify with. Note the tone: not 'piece of land' but 'piece of environment', the idea is that this is more structural. Thus it could also be translated as 'piece of a large built structure'.

Old high rise building in London, London Bridge approx. 1616To demonstrate that high rise buildings do not have to mean the Cartesian* high rise buildings of

Le Corbusier. Here we see the idea of a mega structure demonstrated with a built over bridge (see the lecture about the middle ages). This is a popular metaphore among avant garde architects in the 19060's.

* Cartesian: In the line of thoughts of the philosopher Descartes: mathematical, rational, orthogonal.

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Smithson ‘Ordinariness and light’

‘Community’ demands physical contact

High density

High rise building

The idea of the street is more important than the form

‘Streets in the air’

Public space

Ideas about public spaceThe most important aspect of a city is 'community'. The city is a community and needs

community. This requires easy physical contact between people. To achieve this on the level of the city (the new social level) requires a high building density. To get enough sunlight, air and space in the living environment it is unavoidable to build high. Tradition high rise building obstructs contacts by not allowing enough horizontal communication while the few streets on the ground level cannot fulfill that function. The Unite 'd Habitation by Le Corbusier with its Victorian lifts and obscure corridors cannot fulfill a social function either. However: "It is the idea of street not the reality of street that is important - the creation of effective group-spaces fulfilling the vital function of identification and enclosure, making the social vital life-of-the-streets possible." (quote from Ordinariness and light). Thus ; streets could just as well be galleries high up in the air 'decks' (the word refers to ships) interconnected with a mulitude of stairs, the 'street in the air'.

This is a nice example of an 'iron' line of reasoning reminiscent of the logical reasoning of scientists and philosophers of the enlightment, but without the critical reflection demanded by this type of science. It supposes for instance that the social, symbolic and physical function of a street is independent of its form and that in turn all of these functions are independent of each other. It also supposes the relating of a street to other streets and to the city as a whole is of no importance. This might seem nit-picking but the fact is that the projects that were realized showed the streets in the air did not work.

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Looking outward

Looking inward

‘Gold

en L

ane’

pro

ject

Project 'Golden Lane': the two story houseGolden lane was a design project by the Smithson's, demonstrating their ideas.According to the Smithsons a house should look inward towards the family and outward towards

society. This duality should be reflected in the groundplan of the house. The question is of course why should it? Second question: does planning a stair across the facade equal a relation to the outside world, i.c. the gallery?

The disadvantages of building in high density will be compensated by technical progress: "As tempo quickens....amenities must increase, as territorial assets diminish....convenience must replace.

There must be.• insulation against noise• air conditioning against dirt• refrigerator against lack of space• usable extra space against lack of outdoor space• height (view) against lack of scenic background• district identification against lack of atmosphere"(quote from Ordinariness and light)

High rise building with adequate isolation and facilities proves to be much more expensive than low rise building, so well equipped high rise building is not suited for low income housing. Propagating high rise building as a solution for low income housing inevitably meant the necessary technical quality was compromised, contributing to the failure of this form of housing. Since the 1990's numerous relatively young cheap high rise buildings have been demolished all over Europe and America.

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Project 'Golden Lane' : view of a 'Deck'The 'street in the air'

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96‘Gold

en L

ane’

pro

ject

Project 'Golden Lane' : 'the city'The city will be a network of 'decks' with a hierarchical structure with a lot of 'dead ends'. 'Identity'

is translated in the fact that the superstructures are nowhere the same (comment: on the map that is). The idea is that inhabitants via the decks will go to their cars to take part in the social network on a larger level. A motorway forms a central element in the city, symbolizing its importance.

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'fully identified quarters'No functional zoning the way early modernists saw it. The city should have quarters with a clear

identity related to the functions in the area, but people should be able to live in the vicinity of their work.

In this way the house can be the centre of all activities in a differentiated and interesting city

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geometrie

‘flow’

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A quarter in 'Cluster city'.A hierarchical road network and a system of dead end streets. The Smithsons mention Rotterdam

Alexanderpolder (design: Bakema, 1956) as a good example of a modern district.In this theoretical design: a hierarchical road system and a system of car free living streets, called

'close house system', but this is an improper use of the word 'close'. Of course to cover there architectural tracks these house may not be conventional low rise houses on normal streets. "For genuinely suburban development the houses are distributed along pedestrian ways that they enclose and partly cover".

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Fascinated by the carIn their book the Smithsons sing praise of the car. And the beauty and virtues of the motorway.

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• ‘Flow’, dynamic

• Coherency best form: Parkway

Motorways

• Permanence

• Freedom choice, social, intellectual, psychological

Characteristics of the motorway according to the Smithson'sFlow. "People and objects in motion and change are both the stuff and the decoration of the urban

scene" In future people will meet in points along the motorway just as the meet now a days in points in the city. These meeting point could be large platforms overlooking the motorway and the traffic on it. People could meet in the same way villagers gather on sunday on motorway bridges to look at the traffic below (apparently they did in England in the late 1950's). Round the platforms houses could be built

Motorways bring coherence to a city. As a result of their dimensions motorways can unify a city visually and make is comprehensible.

Motorways bring permanence to a city. Anything may change, not the motorways an in particular not the traffic junctions. These become reference points in the city.

Motorways facilitate freedom: Choice; you can choose where you live, work, recreate freely; Social and intellectual freedom: it is possible to maintain contacts over large distances. Psychological: it provides the feeling of freedom.

According to the Smithson's a system of urban motor ways is a social and psychological necessity for a city.

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Motorways

City form:

An open town with varying densities and multiple centres

Link ‘places to do things’ to communal services

City formThe cluster town does not have one centre but multiple points with high density. 'An open society

needs an open city. The freedom to move and a place to go to, inside as well as outside the city"

The architecture of communal buildings could be used to make recognizable spots in the city, this could become spots for activities.

Fitting out of public spaceThe Smithsons say nothing about the fitting out of public space. The only remark about public

space on the ground level is that in our northern climate we need covered connections between buildings. This is a real omission as there are vast open spaces on the ground level. Moreover it is essential for the success of galleries as had been proven over time. The use of 'brutal' materials and bad finishing leads to less care by the inhabitants for their living environment.

PracticeThe Smithsons were able to realize a housing project that was built according to the ideas of the

Golden Lane project: Robin Hood Lane. It proved to be a complete failure, at a certain moment in time it was considered to be the worst housing complex in London, derelict and criminal.

Does this mean all their ideas were a failure?Those who find the theory of mega structures and 'streets in the sky' appealing will point out that

Robin Hood failed because of cost cuts, bad execution and bad management. The same argument has been used to explain the failure of the Amsterdam Bijlmermeer quarter. Probably there is an element of truth in it but this cannot explain the complete failure.

What remains is the fact that Ordinariness and light signifies big changes in society. In this respect the authors where on the right track. If the developments ore reactions to the developments are the right track is a different matter and of course this is dependent on what one sees as 'right'.

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1966

The architecture of the city

Aldo Rossi 'The architecture of the city' 1966Cover of the Dutch print 2002Rossi's title had a double meaning: 'the way the city form is constructed' and 'architecture

(buildings) in relation to the city'. Brinckmann in his book already pointed out the architecture and urban design are closely related. Rossi's book is a manifest against the modernistic idea that urban design and architecture could and should be separated, urban design producing zoning plans and plans that only establish general building masses without taking architecture into account, on the other hand architecture that makes preferably free standing buildings with no connection to their surroundings, starting from a supposed 'tabula rasa'. Rossi's statement is 'no architecture without the city'. In his argumentation he shows how architecture and urban design are closely related, among others because buildings and related spaces act like 'urban facts', providing continuity and permanence in an ever changing city. Rossi's ideas also build on the morphological theories developed by Italian architects in the 1950's, most notably the works of Salverio Muratori. These theories link urban form with the social structure of a city but from the proposition that neither is dominant: social behavior is not determined by form (as modernists claimed) but form is also not a resultant of the social structure (as many social scientists claimed) or independent of the social environment (as many architects claimed). The only thing we can say for certain is that form and social structure influence each other. People like Rossi point out that to a certain extend form is an independent factor in the development of a city. So form should have a rightful place in urban design. It cannot be based on functional briefs or demands alone and it cannot only be the 'rounding off' of a planning proces or its 'icing on the cake' as planners tend to portray it.

His fore runners remained obscure outside Italy, but because Rossi by his works and writings was an internationally well known architect his book caught a lot of attention in was influential.

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Aldo Rossi ‘The architecture of the city’

Independece of form (NOT Autonomous!)Mutual relation form - use

Permanence:city structure, morphologyspecial elements, ‘urban facts’

In other words:‘artisticallity ’ is not only esthetic but essential for the city

Core points• Independence of form Form and social structure (including use) are related but are no

abreviations of each other.• The idea of continuity in the development of cities. The importance of permanence in the city

structure and the role morphology plays in permanence. The importance of 'urban facts': special elements that represent continuity, have a special meaning and are part of the 'collective memory' of a city.

• In other words: 'Artistic urban design', monuments and monumental spaces are not only esthetical elements, they fulfill an essential function in the city. It is a wrong idea that a city should only be an 'image of modern society' as modernists and others (a.o. the Smithson's) claim .

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Edmund Bacon‘Design of cities’

1967

Edmund Bacon, Design of cities, 1967Bacon considers the city to be a work of art of its inhabitants and, as far as the work of designers

is concerned, for its inhabitants. For Bacon there is a relation between the spirit of a society and the urban design it produces. A second important factor is that there are universal human principles that govern the way we are involved with our urban environment. He refers to psychological insights and uses the semi-scientific theory of the artist Paul Klee to demonstrate these principles. This brings him to a main point of his book: behind every good urban design there is a main principle he calls the 'design structure'. This may have been unconsciously introduced in a city but the best ones are designed deliberately as an 'act of will' as Bacon formulates it. The design structure is what makes a design convincing and stand out over time. He show this principle using historical examples. In many cases the 'design structure' is a 'shaft of space'. In principle this is a conceptual space that is materialized by design over time. Of the core of a design is very good over time it can also exhibit an 'outward thrust', extending its powerful influence. An example could be the extension of the Champs Elysees towards the new Grand Ensemble La Defence.

Illustrations. Left: design principles illustrated by work of Paul Klee. Right the 'shaft of space' at Greenwich.

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1972

Oscar Newman, 'Defensible space', 1972This book signifies the end of innocence as regards public space, the idealistic idea of public

space as a joyful communal space where decent law obeying citizens would meet and would show the model behavior that designers with their middle or upper class background phantasized about.

In public space in large cities there have always been dangerous places (such as London East end in the 19th century), often related to dork alleys and derelict area's, but in the United Stated in the 1960's things are getting out of hand. In large areas of big cities public space is becoming derelict and outright unsafe, most notably in living quarters built to modernistic principles. These designs were supposed to provide the opposite of the 'dark damp and sinful city': large green spaces, light and air, modern buildings that would make a better 'new' man.

At the end of the 1960's Oskar Newman, director of the institute of planning and housing of New York University started an extensive research program aimed at identifying causes for the alarming situation in public housing estates. The program studied numerous different types of recently built estates taking all kind of factors that could be of importance into account. The main conclusion was that the failure of these estates could be conclusively linked to the modernistic architecture and urban design. Newman then develops ideas about how the environment could be improved to have safe urban spacer again. His work is not restricted to research and theory, he also had the opportunity to test his ideas in practice as a kind of 1:1 scale experiment.

In Europe in most places comparable problems arose much later. This meant Newmans theory was overlooked at the time it was published. Later it was declared 'political incorrect' by many. In The Netherland only relatively recent Newmans ideas have been taken serious and perhaps in the end even too serious because they should not become a simple recipe.

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Traditional situationA clear demarcation of the private realm. In this example with a stoop and a fence.Social control. In this example: the living room with big windows directly looking out over the

street, a confined public space that can be clearly overviewed.

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Problem with modernistic living quarters: empty space Big open spaces that do not appear to belong to anybody. The largest part is a parking space.

The visual and physical distance between houses and public space is much too large.

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Common spaces in appartment buildingsWithout somebody being clear responsible. The design did not induce use and the planned social

contacts never materialized.Upper: a common space on the drawing of the architectsLower: the space in realityThe advocates of new contemporary cities did not realize that the transformation of the city would

also transform human behavior. They also did not realized that the traditional urban design and architecture they detested implicitly contained knowledge and was not just about esthetics.

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ResearchNewman's research shows that there is a clear relation between the form of public space and

criminality.In this example he compares two adjacent living quarters with an almost identical population, type

of houses and density. The difference in urban design remains the only feasible explanation for the difference in crime rate.

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Case: refurnishing of an existing public spaceCalson Point Gardens, New York.In his 1972 Newman describes the research of this low income neighborhood and the

modifications carried out in practice based on his recommendations. In a later publication (Creating defensible space, 1996) he evaluates the results.

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Fear mapThe dark areas are the areas that are percieved to be most dangerous by the inhabitatnts. This is

based on interviews.

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ImprovementsThe existing situation (left) and proposed improvements. These are: clear demarcation of areas.

Less space that is completely public. More space that 'belongs to something', this means: space that is in principle public but by its fitting out and furnishing it is clearly indicated that it is related to certain buildings and their inhabitants and that it is not intended for 'any use'. People not living near the space should feel guests. The more problems there are with a space the clearer the demarcations need to be. In some modernistic living quarters of Amsterdam (Westelijke tuinsteden) fences of 1,80 meters high have been placed (Over 30 years after the publication of 'Defensible space').

In practice it turned out to work well. Residents started to appropriate public grounds in front of their houses caring for the grass and adding more demarcations of their own in the form of low fences of shrubs.

The improvements were not just about the form of space, a system of joint maintenance of common space around buildings by its inhabitants was also introduced. This system did not work because people that did not want to participate deterred people who did want to care for common space.

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Improvements of the central areaClearly demarcated spots for three age categories. From left to right: elderly people, children

between 3 and 10 years of age, teenagers.In a more recent publication Newman says that the type of separation he suggested in his book in

practice did not work because one group (teenagers) overwhelmed all areas effectively driving out the little children and elderly that felt threatened. Another problem was that the residents living alongside the central area implicitly considered to have more rights in using the space, making more distant residents feel more or less excluded. As a consequence they started vandalizing the equipment according to the idea 'if we cannot use it, then nobody should use it'. Evaluating this aspect of the project Newman concludes that it is better to have more smaller recreation areas than a single big one.

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Entrances of appartment buildingsThe entrances of apartment buildings are also critical in achieving safe space that people care for.

In this example from Bronxdale New York Newman suggests improvements by fencing of an area between three buildings.

Newman also points out that the use of material can be critical to create affection by the residents for their environment. He describes how in modernistic high rise social housing all kinds of technical materials have been used from the viewpoint of easy maintenance, giving communal spaces the appearance of a factory or slaughter house with its clean hard tiles. This signalizes the message 'you are poor and not important' to the residents. The form of internal space in an apartment building can also make a difference. A communal space becomes more 'uneasy' and unsafe if there are many dark corners and if the spaces are so large that they become anonymous, for instance 10 or more apartments using the same narrow corridor.

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Principles Defensible Space

• Territoriality

• Social control

• Image and spatial environment

The principes van Defensible Space

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Principles Defensible Space

• Territoriality

• Social control

• Image and spatial environment

Clear spheres of influence

Boundaries

Hierarchy of zones

Designing a plan as a whole

Participation of residents

Territoriality-It must be clear which formal of informal spheres of influence exist in public space. Theis must

find its expression in the design of the environment, not only in general but also in the details ( for instance furnishing)

-Public space must be divided into spheres of influence. Boundaries are important in achieving this. There must be a hierarchy of zones from completely public to completely private.

-The unitis inot which an environment is decided may not be to big. Big apartment buildings and large scale living environments show markedly more criminality than small ones.

- An urban plan must be designed as a whole: buildings and space together. Most plans are designed exclusively with the buildings in mind, with public space as a left over.

-Residents must participate in the living environment so they feel responsible for it.

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TerritorialityUpper left: There must be clear territorial with clear possibilities to guard the surroundings

(symbolized by the arrows). This stimulates social control.Upper right: There must be a hierarchy in spaces from public to private. These must be clearly

demarcated and have clear but limited acces (indicated by the arrows).Lower right: The same principle can be applied in high rise building.

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Principles Defensible Space

• Territoriality

• Social control

• Image and spatial environmentView from the homes

No dead corners or desolate places

Social control, 'Natural surveilance'• Direct view from houses onto communal spaces and public space. • No dead corners and desolate places without social control.

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ExampleThe possibility to view entrances of buildings depends on the form of the building.

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Principles Defensible Space

Activity

Scale must not be to great

Use of material

Variation in functions

Clarity

• Territoriality

• Social control

• Image and spatial environment

Imago and spatial environment• There must be activity in public space: people, traffic• Projects must not be to big or anonymous. The scale of the environment should not be to big.• The environment must convey a message of care in its use of material and detailing.

Vandalism proof materials evoke the atmosphere of an asylum. If all 'decoration' is left out it evokes the sphere that the environment is not important. The dimensions of spaces also must convey a positive atmosphere.

• Environments must not be monotonous in their use. There must be a variation in functions and use. According to many theorists locations with a lot of activity evoke a feeling of safety even if statistics show that in absolute numbers there is an increase in criminality. This is because the number of crimes per user is less. Newman does not completely agree with this preposition. He points that in places with many youth hanging around the feeling is that of less safety and there is a lot more crime.

• There must be clarity in the urban design. Public spaces must be evidently public spaces by their design and not just because they are indicated as such on paper. Residents often perceive clear public space to be safer than 'unclear public space' between apartment buildings.

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ExamplesLeft: from Newmans book. Appaertment building with the appearance of a factory. Harsh

materials.Right: Residential street (!) in the centre of Dublin (2007). Closed facades, dirt containers. Evoking

the feeling of a backyard and of unsafety at night

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In the same Dublin streetA fenced housing complex with CCTV camera's. Keeping the unsafety evoked by the street out.

Newman has been blamed for being a protagonist of segregation, seen by many urbanists and sociologists as a wrong spatial development undermining the openness of society. In his book Defensible Space and later publications Newton actually emphasizes that he sees his proposals as the 'last stand' for an open and non segregated urban society. If we fail to make our modern cities safe places that are cared for segregation will inevitably follow because those who can afford it will leave the city.

But he does not believe in social determinism. Architecture and urban design do not have a causal effect on social behavior. They operate more in the realm of influence than that of control. Architecture is only able to create situations that enable the potential of common care to be realized.

Newman also points out that urban design is not solely responsible for the problems. Social groups have been forced to live in certain environments that are totally alien to them. This is especially true for immigrants that stem from small rural environments. Research has shown that if middle class people are housed in high rise buildings comparable with low cost housing there are much less problems (but still more than in well designed living quarters). As a general recommendation low income groups with children should never be housed in high rise buildings unless a permanent house master can be financed and under the condition the high rise buildings fulfils the demands formulated in 'Defensible space'. The overview a house master can have determines the maximum number of apartments.

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Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown‘Learning from Las Vegas’ 1972

• Public space = space for the car

• ‘Strip’ as type binding element = furnishing

• Inside space is also public space

• Building = sign & symbol

Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Steven Izenour, 'Learning from Las Vegas', 1972As is Newmans work, this is a ground breaking research into modern public space. Whereas

Newman concentrates on living environments, this study concentrates on public space in a recreation area. It shows how space developed from the more or less traditional urban street (Fremont street in central Las Vegas) to a totally new form of public space in a peripheral setting and geared to the motor car: The Strip. This new space has its own spatial and building typology.

The study is also ground breaking in its research method. It is a clear move away from the 'clinical' modernist approach with abstract 'data', ground use maps, etc. Much emphasize is placed on the actual use of space, instead of its supposed function, and on the symbolic meaning of it.

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Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown‘Learning from Las Vegas’ 1972

• Public space = space for the car

• ‘Strip’ as type binding element = furnishing

• Inside space is also public space

• Building = sign & symbol

The Strip

Main conclusions• The new public space is a space for the car. It is a jump in scale from traditional public

space.• A 'Strip' is a new urban type. The binding element is not enclosed space, as in traditional

urban types, but the division of the ground surface and the furnishing.• Inside space on the strip is also a form of public space. There is a gradation of the amount of

publicness of spaces (however the researchers seem to forget that these inside spaces are not really public, unwanted persons are kept out at will by the owners).

• The essence of architecture is not space, as modern architecture believes but that buildings are signs and a symbols.

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Rob Krier‘Stadtraum in

theorie und praxis’

1975

Rob Krier, 'Stadraum in theory und praxis', 1975'Urban space in theory and practice'.

Krier's work marks a new interest in the formal aspects of public space. Up until criticism of modernistic urban design had largely focused on its social shortcomings. The few alternatives referred to medieval examples and a picturesque approach or were purely theoretic like Rossi's work. In contrast Krier concentrates on the concrete form of space. He tries to develop a typology of urban spaces and uses concrete designs to show the possibilities of a formal approach. In principle this is based on the same proposition as the ideas of Rossi and the other Italian 'morphological' architects that the form of the environment to a certain extend is independent of the social context. It is not a good idea to design buildings and environments from the idea that there should be a 1:1 relation between form and function. An environment that allows for different types of use is much more durable over time an can provide the permanence - as described by Rossi - that enables people to feel attached to their environment and thus to care.

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RemKoolhaas1978

Rem Koolhaas 'Delirious New York, 1978Pro-urban manifest as a contrast with the essential anti-urban posture of most modernist

architects and the resulting 'functional garden cities' with buildings in green settings. It is also a manifest against the idea of designing a city in detail and of normalizing and beautifying urban space, be it in a traditional or a modernistic style. Koolhaas sees congestion as a positive aspect of the metropolis and not as something that has to be done away with. He writes a compelling history of the development of New York up until the age of the modern sky scraper, reasoning that desire has ruled its development, whatever justification - such as economics of functionality - has bee brought forward over time to conceal this fact. New Yorks urban vitality stems from its idiosyncrasies and the fact that congestion is secretly applauded. The foundation of its urban form is that there are only a few rules on urban design, but these are very strict. Urban design in New York can be charactarized by; 'groundplan plus building enevelope' and the building block as strict fundamental unit. The seperation between the private space of the building blocks and the public space between them is absolute. In this way the public space forms the absolute framework of the city allowing for any type of architectural design within it without resulting in a chaotic city. The block is neither sub devided nor are blocks fused together. The only exception is the UN-building by Le Corbusier who, in the opinion of Koolhaas, did not understand New York at all.

Koolhaas also favorizes large buildings that act like cities themselves, the 'city within a building'. He sees this as a natural development in the metropolis of the future. He does not discus the drawbacks of this idea: big buildings suck up public life from the streets and worlds within buildings become 'placeless places' in the words of Manuel Castells. Portagonistst of 'high tech urban' visions such as Koolhaas either do not see this as a disadvantage or proclaim their own type of architecture will overcome this problem. As in the case of the failure of modernist architecture in living quarters one should ask oneself: do architects try to design new people in stead of looking at fundamental human wishes and desires. On the other had it is hard to imagine that classic urban design could provide an answer for the new age.

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William H.Whyte

1980

Donald Appleyard‘Livable streets’

1981

William H. Whyte, 'The social life of small Urban Spaces', 1980Starting in 1971 Whyte directed a research program called 'The street life project' into the way

people behaved in public space. Why do they use certain spaces and why other not, how do they use spaces, what elements influence their behavior. As was the case with Newmans research on safety issues in modern environments the research wanted to get away from the abstract functional approach to urban space and designs that did not take real behavior into account. On the other hand it aimed at relating the research to real design issues avoiding the 'laboratory' approach of so called 'environmental psychology' that was also developing at the end of the 1960's and the beginning of the 1970's. In hindsight environmental psychology contributed very little to urban design. The problem with this kind of research, in principle based on an approach derived form the approach of natural science, is that in general it can only provide insight into very limited aspects of the way people interact with the environment and under very restricted conditions. The argument that eventually enough research would give enough scientific insight to be able to base designs on them with 'scientific precision' is a false one: in practice nobody will ever fund it.

People like Whyte started a tradition of taking observation as a basis for analyzing the way humans interact with their environment and deriving conclusions from it that are useful in design.

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Jan Gehl

1971 > 1987

Jan Gehl, 'Life between buildings'First publication 1971 in Danish. First publication in English 1987.

This is an example that it is sometimes difficult to give a chronology of theory. Jan Gehl is a Danish architect who publicized the first version of this book in 1971. So he is certainly among the pioneers that brought to attention that the design of public space is about more than function and that the way it is really perceived and used needs to be taken into account. However the book only reached the rest of the world after the publication of its English translation in 1987. Also this translation was a lot more extensive than the first version, drawing on the ideas of Oskar Newman, Donald Appleyard and William H. Whyte, that had been publicized in the mean time and on research Gehl had performed in the time since the first print. This lead to a book that was very much to the point and at the same time concise, making it a classic in the field of urban design theory.

As was the case with the work of Kevin Lynch, the biggest merit is that Gehl presents a clear and comprehensible vision based on extensive research evidence and theories that are not always easily accessible for everyday designers. He pints out how urban design and the use of space are related and shows that the relation is not a direct one but that the factors design and planning that contribute to a successful urban environment can be identified.

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Project for Public Spaces, Inc.

‘How to turn a place around’

2000

'How to turn a place around'Inspired by the work of Whyte, Appleyard, Gehl and others the private organization 'Project for

Public Spaces' was founded with the aim of promoting good design for public space. The organization employed a team of researchers and designers to come up with a handbook with recommendations how the planning and design of a good urban space could be handled. The book is process oriented, the recommendations are not about concrete dimensions and technical aspects but are about the way survey, research can be conducted and how the design process could be structures in such a way that it facilitates designs leading to good public spaces.

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2004

Mark Childs, 'Squares', 2004In contrast to the previous publication this book tries to cover the concrete form of the urban

space. It provides concrete recommendations on design aspects. A down side is that this is done in the form of rhetorical questions. The good intention behind this is that it is meant to emphasize that there are no definitive answers in design and that simple recipes in the end would probably result in mediocre designs, however it becomes tiring in the end.

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Dieter Prinz‘Städtebau’

1980

Prinz: handbook for urban designDieter Prinz ‘Städtebau’,1980. Two parts, German language only.This is the opposite: a book full of typological solutions for the design of urban space. Very much

in the German tradition of thorough handbooks with 'Architects data' by Neuffert as the prime example.

A book like this can provide a lot of knowledge and a lot of ideas. The problem for designers is that a collection of seperate solutions and ideas does not make a good design, there has to be something that ties seperate solutions together and makes it possible to evaluate each part of the project against the aim of the design and against each other. the 'neutrality' with which the solutions are presented offers no clue in this respect. Certain solutions or suggestions might as well be applied to a more classic environments as to modernistic designs that in practice have proven to be the wrong idea. This means handbooks of this type can only be really useful in combination with other essential knowledge, a lesson that is forgotten all to often when the ideas arises that using this type of knwoledge would enable 'anybody' to make designs. This danger is even greater with computer systems with 'standard libraries' or so called 'knowledge systems'. People who don't know what they are talking about (non-designers, ICT technicians, etc.) claim these could bring design within the reach of persons that are not really qualified for it.

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Henry F. Arnold, 'Trees in urban design', 1993Curiously although for over one and a half century trees are seen as very important elements in

urban design, almost no specialized book has been written about the use of trees in urban design. In most projects by architects and urban designers they are treated is objects, just as other pieces of non living street furniture, although more important because trees can have a very defining spatial impact. On the other side it seems as if landscape designers and tree specialists keep knowledge about trees for them selves. This has something to do with the fact that the care for urban trees is almost always the responsibility of a department of public works that is seperate from other departments. However even these specialized departments often lack specialist knowledge about trees in urban environments. This is shown by failures in the urban environment when trees are hampered in their growth of die. The trouble with trees is that it is not immediately apparent that things go wrong, on the face of it they can adapt to all kinds of circumstances and this is also the wishfull thinking of many designers of public space.

One of the few books that covers the subject is 'Trees in urban design' by Henry Arnold (1993) and a good one at that because it offers a coherent theory and not only seperate and fragmented examples. On top of that there is also information on the biological aspects and the technical aspects associated with it.

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1991

Johanna Gibbons & Bernard Oberholzer, 'Urban Streetscapes', 1991Cover and an example of a page.Not exactly a handbook like the books by Prinz but a comprehensive overview of street pavement

and furnishing combined with inspiring examples from all over the world.

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13620032003 2007Light for cities

LightIn the 1990's there was a renewed interest for the furnishing of public space. As so often in the

history of the design of public space this was fueled by compelling examples. In this case these where the designs for public space in Barcelona. This city introduced the concept of using the fitting out and furnishing of selected parts of public space as strategic means of improving the image of the city as a whole. The idea was that these type of 'strategic interventions' would stimulate the rehabilitation of neglected areas and stimulate investment in the environment. Many cities followed this example and furnishing no longer was seen as the last and least important element of an urban design. Project developers also recognized the extra value an attractive streetscape could bring.

In the wake of this development a lot of new street furniture was designed and an ever growing number of industrial designers started to be interested in designing for public space. Among them was a new breed of 'light designers' that specialized in designing light plans for cities. This movement first caught on in France. Especially the example of Nice raised interest from all over. The idea of using light to improve the image of a city is compelling because it promises to be a relatively cheap 'trick'. In the dark by means of theatrical light even an ugly stepmother of a city can be turned into fairy princess. But of course it is justified that attention is given to lighting as we live in a 24 hour society. Light in the dark already was an important issue in 19th century public space. Op until recently light in cities was almost solely considered from the viewpoints of technique, health and safety: enough daylight, enough sunlight, enough visibility on roads at night, etc. It is surprising that only now it has become a subject of special attention. It is understandable that artificial light is in the focus of attention. It has to do with the interest of producers of light fixtures and lamps, it is more spectacular and can be manipulated at will, but natural light should also be taken into consideration.

Left: Ariella Masbounghi, 'Penser la Ville par la lumière', 2003 ('Thinking about the city through light')

One of the first publications on the subject. Interestig for those able to read FrenchRight: A page from Ulrike Brandi and Christioph Geissmar-Brandi, 'Light for Cities: Lighting design

for urban spaces, a handbook', 2007

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Allan B Jacobs 1993

Spiro Kostof 1992

Spiro Kostof and Allan B. Jaobs. Base knowledgeSpiro Kostof publicized two successive books on urban design. One on city design and one on

public space. These in particular cover the symbolic meaning of urban space. ‘The City Shaped: Urban patterns and meanings through history’, 1991‘The City Assembled: The elements of urban form through history’, 1992

Allan B. Jacobs produced two books on streets:'Great streets’, 1993.And together with other authors:'The boulevard book: history, evolution, design of multiway boulevards', 2003Both books offer valuable information on the cross section and plan of many streets all over the

world. The accompanying descriptions are narrative and not directly to the point as regards design considerations.

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SchalhornSchmalscheidt

‘Raum, Haus, Stadt’1997

Gerhard Curdes‘Stadtstrukturellesentwerfen’1995‘Stadtstruktur und Stadtgestaltung’1997

Schalhorn, CurdesFor those able to read German there are several interesting publications on urban design.

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Publications on projectsFor those interested in examples of modern public spaces there are several recent publications.

The problem is that many of them only contain photographs and no ground plans and sections that are essential to design professionals. As is the case with many publications on architecture some publications on urban projects often confine themselves to descriptions without comment, mostly because the material has been provided by the designers to advertise their offices.

Specialized informationLastly there are all kind of brochures and publications that cover aspects of the design of public

space. Often these originate from governmental or civic organizations, specialized branches of industry, etc. and try to draw attention to specific fields of interest. In the Dutch context for instance 'De watertoets', 'Politiekeurmerk veilig wonen', 'Aanbevelingen Stedelijke Verkeersvoorzieningen'.

The problem with all this specialized information is exactly that. The originators always consider their information of great importance in it should absolutely be incorporated in design. But in reality it is only one of the many considerations in a design that have to be weighed. A collection of demands and rules of the thumb do not make a design.