Planning History • + • •••••+ • • •• + • • • • • •• + • • Bulletin of the International Planning History Society Vol. 15 No. 2 1993 Planning History Bulletin of the Contents International Planning History Society Guest Editorial 1 Contributors 2 Editor Or Robert Freestone School of Town Planning Articles 3 Or Stephen V Ward University of New South Wales PO Box 1 School of Plilnning International Transfers in Planning Ideas and Practice Oxford Brookes University Kensington NSW 2033 3 Gipsy L<me Campus Australia Gordon Cherry Headington Oxford OX3 013P Or Pieter Uyttenhove Parallel Paths: The Origins of Planning Education and Open City Co-ordinil to r the Planning Profession in South Africa (Urban Planning and Architecture) Telephone: 0865 483421 John Muller 5 Telex: C83147 VIA Antwerpen 1993 v.z.w. C ro te Markt 29 Fax: 0865 483559 An Appraisal of the Evolution of Tswana Settlement 13-2000 Antwerpen 1 12 Editorial Board 13elgium Faustin Kalabamu Professor Shun-ichi Watanabe Or Cerhard Fehl The Persistence of Plan: The Mogopa Experience Science University of Tokyo Lehrstuhl fLir Plilnungstheorie Cathering Laburn-Peart 19 Yamazaki, Noda-sru Technische Hochschule Ailchen Cruba-ken 278 SlOO Aachen japan Historical Continuity in Town Planning Schinkelstrilsse I Colin Tod Welch 27 Germilny Professor Cordon E Cherry Geogr<'phy Dept Or Kiki Kafkoula The Planning Origins of Bloemfontein: An Urban Design Critique University of Bi rmingham Dept Urban & Regional Planning Wallace Van Zyl 33 PO Box363 School of Architecture 13 irmingham 1315 21T Aristo tle University of Thessilloruki Pretoria: Genesis and the Successive Evolutionary Layers Thessaloniki 54006 Professor Michael Ebner Louw Van Biljon 37 Greece Dept of History Lake Forest College Professor Ceorgio Piccinil to Centralised Control: Historical Overviews of a Planning Pre-occupation 555 North Sheridan Road lsti tuto Universitari o di Architetturil di Venezia 45 Lake Forest Martin Drake Dip<H ti mento di Urbcmistica Illinois 30125 Veneziil Silntil Croce 1957 IL 60045-2399 The Witwatersrand Joint Town Planning Committee 1933-1945: ltil ly USA of Rigour and Mortis 45 Or Halin;t Ounin-Woyseth Alan Mabin Oslo School of Architecture Productio11 Dept of UrbM Pl;tnning Design: Rob Woodward r 0 13ox 271 Word Processing: Sue Bartlett 3001 Dmmmen Norw;ty Printing: Middlesex University Print Centre Professor John Muller Plilnning History is published three times a year Dept of Town ;tnd Region;tl Pl;tnning for distribution to members of the International University of Witwiltersr;tnd :l;tnning Hist? ry Society. The Society as a body IS and joh;tnnesburg not respons1ble for the views expressed ro Wits 2050 St;ttements made by individuals writing or of this South Afric;t reporting in Planning History. No part p~bl i ca ti on m~y be produced in ;tny form w1 thout perm1ssion from the editor. Pl.anning History Vol. 15 .No. 2. 1993 Editori~ root. The matter of settlement, or more accurately re-settlement under the pernicious policy of apart­ Guest heid, constitutes the subject matter of the next article by Kate Laburn-Peart. The plight of the Bakwena ba Mogopa people following their state-enforced removal from their land and the determination of the Editorial displaced community to return to their rightful territory provides a. telling chapter in the chronicle of South African history. The study of planning history in South Africa has, by and large, proceeded on a piece-meal basis. Signifi­ The three articles that follow present interpretations cant contributions have been made from time to of the planning and evolutionary growth of time, but these have generally occurred in isolation Stellenbosch, Bloemfontein and Pretoria -each of and have not been part of a structured body of considerable significance in the history of planning. knowledge. Nor have the contributions led to the In drawing upon theories of spatial coherence and development of a movement dedicated to the nur­ perception, Colin Tod Welch shows that the river turing of planning history. While the need to fill this and furrows permeating Stellenbosch provide intellectual void had been recognized for some time, intelligibility, imageability and continuity to the the visit to South Africa last year by Professor town-scape. Wallace van Zyl discusses the grid plan Cordon Cherry provided the impetus for action. He of Bloemfontein, placing emphasis on the historical was in the country as Visiting Professor in the significance of three urban design axes in the central Department of Town and Regional Planning at the area, and expressing the planning historian's peren­ University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and nial concern with the negative impact of recent the occasion was used to run a Workshop on Plan­ modifications and additions to the historical fabric of ning History - in which he participated as keynote the city. In his article on Pretoria, Louw van Biljon speaker -and at which a Planning History Study reveals the planning and politics, the visions and Group was launched. vicissitudes, that underlie the grid structure of the capital city. He concludes.that the inherent con­ The Workshop took place on 24\25 August 1992 and servatism of the city compromises its ability to adjust papers covering a fairly wide range of topics were to the challenges of post-apartheid South Africa. read. The articles appearing in this edition of Plan­ ning History are drawn from, and are abridged The element of conservatism is also a key factor in versions of, papers delivered at the Workshop. Martin Drake's survey of the long-standing control­ oriented approach to planning in the Republic. The The opening article by Cordon Cherry places town historical fixation with control must, in his view, be planning within disciplinary and international supplanted by flexible planning procedures appro­ contexts and, importantly, highlights the impact of priate to the changed conditions now pertaining in international transfers of ideas and practices on the the country. The final article, written by Alan evolution of planning. His reference to colonial links Mabin, explores planning in the Transvaal in the and the adoption of British planning fashions by 1930s with particular reference to the Witwatersrand countries of the Empire is pursued in the second Joint Town Planning Committee -which functioned article, which outlines the.origins of planning educa­ under the leadership of Longstreth Thompson of tion and the planning profession in South Africa. Adams, Thompson and Fry. The experience of the The particular influence exercised by British prac­ Committee is seen as indicative of the material, tices and personalities (Lever, Howard, Unwin, political and personal forces prevailing at the time. Adams and others) on the development of the planning discipline in the Republic is discussed; as The articles in this edition of Planning History are the contributions made by local institutions and reflect, on one hand, the universality of planning individuals. issues; a commonality of concerns that characterise the historical growth processes of the planning · In the third article, Faustin Kalabamu provides an discipline in the western world. On the other hand, appraisal of the evolutionary stages of Tswana they mirror the circumstances surrounding planning settlements: from the early traditional phase, that are - and have been- particular to South Africa : through the period of British rule to the post-inde­ colonial legacy, third world lineaments, apartheid pendence era. The settlement system, which is ideology, socio-political transformation. While these shown to be a spatial expression of Tswana socio­ features give a peculiar richness to the melange that political structures, is currently under pressure as is South African planning history, it is a his.tory that post-independence societal transformations take is little known. It is thus gratifying that this collec- 1 Planning History Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Pbnning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Contributors Articles While still retaining a physical heart, geography tion of papers will reach the inter-national commu­ became unmistakably a social science in the second nity of planning historians - for which sincere half of the 20th century and in this process three appreciation is extended to Stephen Ward, consider­ Contributors Articles particular foci of study contributed to urban and. ate and co-operative editor of the Bulletin, and to regional questions. Historical geography recogruzed Cordon Cherry who was the inspiration for the that a settled landscape was a palimpsest, a layered whole endeavour. CORDON CHERRY. Emeritus Professor, School of International Transfers in record over time; the historical study of urban form Geography, University of Birmingham, UK. proved particularly helpful. Urban geography, stimulated by innovative work in the US in· the John Muller Planning Ideas and JOHN MULLER. Professor and Head, Department 1930s, offered models of city form to which planners Chairman: Planning History Study Group (South subscribed the world over. Regional geography also Africa) of Town and Regional Planning, ·u niversity of the Practice Witwatersrand, South Africa. influenced planning through its attempts to find rationality in space. FAUSTIN KALABAMU. Lecturer, Department of Gordon Cherry, University of Environmental Science, University of Botswana. Town planning took root in the conscious regulation Birmingham, UK of the urban environment by the State (in one institu­ CATHERINE LABURN-PEART. Lecturer, Depart­