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 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 tional guise or another). In Britain, parts of western ment of Town and Regional Planning, University of By way of inaugurating this first Planning History Europe and in some U.S. cities it began as a response the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Workshop in South Africa, it is pertinent to focus on to the legacy of 19th century industrialism and some aspects of international exchange in town problems associated with the management of urban COLIN TOO WELCH. Professor and Head, Depart planning in the 20th century. I will look first at the growth. Various models for the future city became ment of Town and Regional Planning, University of important changes in contributory disciplines which internationally available: linear, concentric and Stellenbosch, South Africa. were conducive to intellectual transfer; second, at functional, but in popular appeal typically the the breadth of world-wide exchange; and third, at Garden City (Howard) and the Radiant City WALLACE V AN ZYL. Professor and Head, De some consequences. (Corbusier). The adoption of forms of central plan partment of Town and Regional Planning, Univer ning, largely between 1930 and 1980, in which town sity of the Orange Free State, South Africa. planning was well represented, was again an inter Disciplines national feature. In the post-war world (1945 et seq) LOUW VAN BILJON. Senior Lecturer, Department the planner became a participant in a of Town and Regional Planning, University of Changes during the century in two established multidisciplinary, multiprofessional team engaged Pretoria, South Africa. disciplines {history and geography} and the emer in planning and welfare-related programmes, gence of a new one (town planning) proved highly relegating the former role of 'master designer' to one importance -again a feature reflected world MARTIN DRAKE. Senior Lecturer, Department of significant. of less Town and Regional Planning, University of the wide. Orange Free State, South Africa. History, as the study of the past, was traditionally the concern of political, constitutional and religious In short, disciplinary transformations worldwide ALAN MA BIN. Associate Professor, Department of events. It was often simply the history ofnation ensured that geography became something that Town and Regional Planning, University of the states and their rivalries: hence dynasties, warfare, geographers did, history something that historians Witwatersrand, South Africa. territorial change, world explorations, colonial wrote about, and planning something that planners expansion, and the like. In the 20th century, devel practised. opments in social and economic history (which at least touched on urban questions) helped to quicken an association with the social sciences. A field of Internationalism public history explored an interest in public and private action in environmental matters. Political Around the tu m of the last century the idea of history concerned itself with the exercise of power regulating the use of private land in towns acquired locally, as well as nationally, and urban history fed an unprecedented appeal. Reformist opinion argued on a range of phenomena which it became fashion that a healthy, pleasant environment could be able to study, such as riots, health, disease, housing obtained at little cost, while better housing promised and building development. In short, an interest in to relieve social tensions. Cross fertilization between cities became an acceptable trait of scholarship national states permitted an international leap among historians. forward in planning theory and practice. Urban conditions were conducive, the imperatives for Geography, a study of the manifestations which reform were well grounded arid an elite group of make up the earth's surface, has at its heart a con highly influential people held sway. cern with space and spatial relationships. Asynoptic Between 1900 and 1913 2,271 international con discipline has broken into specialisms, essentially gresses were held, compared with 853 in the previ physical and human, though with many subfields. ous 14 years. The garden city idea swept the world 3 2 Planning History Vol. 1S No. 2.1993 Planning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Articles Articles been primarily individuals and in stitutio~ s, and the after the first International Garden City Congress (2) mainstream, urban and regional The focus of this historical review will accordtngly be on 1904. The RIBA convened the lip service to Parallel Paths: was held in London in planning. This pays the personalities and professional.s~ie.ties th~t Planning in ldly futurist first International Conference on Town mildly reformist, mi exercised a major impact on the d tSCiph.ne as tt people. Pragmatic, it is con Origins of Planning 1910, attended by 1,250 perspectives. progressed towards maturity. cerned to find ways through power are fascinating to un relationships in order to institution Education and the International transferences nning and Principles ravel. They were substantial arid productive be alise planning practice and make Pla tween Britain and Germany, but France proved action more effective .. At its best it Planning Profession in ln 1911, but one year after the University of Liv~r resistant to the English suburban model. The USA can be imaginative and reasonably pool accepted Lever's endowment for the establtsh has relatively little to offer Europe, the City Beautiful successful; a t its worst it can be South Africa ment of what was to be called the Department of more measured to North American conditions. routine work with little impact. Civic Design, Sir Herbert Baker fired the first shots lhrough colonial links, Empire countries embraced for planning in the new Union of South Africa. British planning fashions. (3) planning as transactive and negoti John Muller Pretoria on July 11, 1911, the renowned able. This emphasises a 'bottom up' Speaking in onal architect said " .. .1 must add a few words on the art of The identification of patterns· of transfer invites approach to planning action, as Department of Town and Regi town planning. It is an art which has but lately come comparison between the supporters of planning in opposed to 'top down'. Experts' Planning, to the front, and been raised to the rank of the older the dominant countries. ln Germany the leaders visions are not imposed,. and long , arts. London and Liv.erpool have recently instituted were local government officials and academics. In range master plans are of reduces University of the Witwatersrand chairs of Civic Design in their universities. I hope the USA urban big business took the lead. In France significance. Planning is a commu Johannesburg. those are examples which Cape Town and Pretoria it was a small group of people with strong links with nity-based social learning activity. will some day follow. There is no art which, in the the Church and conservative institutions. In Britain Introduction ong run, is more profitable to a city, nor any field in l social reformers held sway. (4) social mobilisation. This form of l non-conformist, Libera will ultimately reap a planning is for those who seek to which good seed, well sown, There are periods in the life of any authentic disci richer harvest." Baker then summarized his senti Opportunities for research in international transfer transform the existing power rela pline which are distinguished by unusual levels of ments in a sentence: "Every large town, with any ence are legion. Taken almost at random obvious tions in society, asserting the pri vitality, productivity and creativity. During these civic pride, in the old and new world, is now regret ones would include: the varying take-up of a macy of direct, collective action from fertile times, new departures are introduced which ting past neglect, and considering schemes for decentralist planning model, the rise and fall of below. The key is community action open the way for the further development of the improvements; so it is full time we in South Africa ClAM, Corbusier's influence and the modem move for and by specific groups, notably discipline. In relation to planning, the first two bestirred ourselves.''3 ment, the influence of Sweden in post-war Europe, the disadvantaged, in the struggle decades of this century could be construed as repre transfers in methodology, the spread of design for the rights of the individual as sentative of such a period - the more so since it was The condemnation of past practices in the laying out fashions, the lure of Exhibition Cities, and studies of opposed to the power of the state. then that the foundations of the modem profession of cities and the call for a new planning approach particular nation states and their inheritance of of planning were laid. A host of seminal innovations capable of enhancing the shape and state of urban planning traditions. emanated from America, France, Germany and, in areas was to become commonplace and common particular, Great Britain, during this brief passage of professions in the The gradation in this four-fold typology is between cause among the established ssing the view that planning as scientific management and planning as a time. country at that time. In expre Consequences town planning, as practised in the past, left "much to device for opening up opportunities for ordinary 4 In Great Britain, the 1909 Housing, Town Planning, be desired", the Institute of Land Surveyors wa~ n people to exercise self-governance. This is almost As a result of century-long developments in tow etc., Act set the wheels of town and country plan· ipso facto directing criticism at itself since the survey world, duri ng which time there the story of the 20th century evolution of town planning across the ning legislation in motion; the incipient methodo ing profes~ion was largely responsible for the layout and planning, and the unravelling of international has been considerable interaction, transference logical model was passed down to planning from the of towns at that time. Inadequacies in layout were one common, transfers of ideas and practice helps us to explain the cross fertilization, we can now observe Outlook Tower by Patrick Geddes; the seeds of the however, in the eyes of the surveyor, a consequence and varied scene across the world. international, intellectual map for the discipline Garden City movement flowered in Letchworth; the of the avaricious attitude of developers who sought profession. planning profession achieved independence and to squeeze the last pecuniary drop out of the land identity with the founding of the Town Planning sub-division lemon. They questioned the architects' in planning Worldwide, a number of main streams Institutel, and William Hesketh Lever's £800 deed of somewhat capricious approach to the subject practice can be identified: gift to the University of Liverpool inaugurated the ("streets are laid out in curves without any apparent world's first school of town planning2. Activities reason other than architectural") and argued that large (1) policy analysis. This informs and achievements such as these became a spur, a utilitarian considerations should always supplant private) in organisations (public and stimulus, for planning in many countries around the the artistic. While concurring with the criticism of decision making in such rational globe - not least South Africa. urban planning over the preceding 25 to 30 years, the as capital investment, matters Association of Transvaal Architects put the view that allocation, l;md use, and so resource Various influences on the development of planning the destruction of the environment stemmed from It lies heavily on methods on. re education and professional planning in South Africa the introduction of questionable "improvements" cost benefit and such as have been operative over the years. Inspiration has which were "the offspring of an ignorant and un As a field of programevaluation. come from within the country and from without; trained mind". The solution lay in education; in the to public administration, dedicated most notably Great Britain in the latter instance. It is education of the public in the ways of town planning of state planning, its the functions interesting that in both cases the influences have as a constructive art and with the administrative and claim is to be politically neutral. 5 4 Pl.1nning History Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Pl.1nning History Vol. 15 No 2.1993. Articlu Articles legal regulation of that art.S The interest of the Sutcliffe14 has indicated, the foundation years of the course Ebenezer Howard's Garden City concept and planning activity in the Johannesburg region, also education. In the engineers in urban planning surfaced with the British planning profession were, after an initial the model was Letchworth - both of which had turned its attention to planning publication of a few articles on planning in the inter-disciplinary .tussle for pre-erninence, marked captivated Richard Stuttaford, a member of the vanguard of the lobby for specialized planning Journal of the South African Society of Civil Engi by a laudable measure of agreement. It is evident Union Cabinet. He perceived in the Garden City education was Professor Geoffrey Pearse, Head of neers in 1916. In concert with the surveyors, they that in South Africa, there was a consensus that the opportunities for the provision of improved h ousing the School of Architecture at the University of the felt more comfortable with a technicist than an basic attributes of town planning were different to, by local public authorities. In 1919 the Union House Witwatersrand and President of the Transvaal Town artistic approach to planning. The "elaborate and and extended beyond, those of the three established of Assembly approved the formation of the "Garden Planning Association in 1927. expensive architectural vistas" posited as intrinsic professions -and that this should be reflected in the Cities Trust" and donated some 400 hectares of the 2 elements in general planning practice by schools of character of any future planning institution. Uitvlught Forest Reserve on which to establish Pearse examined planning activities in America 9, civic design in England were (in the view of the Pine lands. "The main purpose of the Trust is to gave a series of talks on town planning for the President of the Society) misplaced: "Such grandiose At that time the need for a town planning body provide better housing and social conditions for the Johannesburg Broadcasting Company, wrote on the schemes frighten the ordinary ratepayer and set back capable of passing expert judgement on, inter alia people" said Stuttaford20. He invited the British subject, and delivered lectures on town planning to the adoption of true town planning principles"6. but in particular, legislative proposals relating to architect-planner, A.J. Thompson, to plan and co students of Architecture and Land Surveying at the While no explanation of the nature of those princi planning and development, was felt to be urgent. ordinate the development of the garden suburb. University of the Witwatersrand. Out of his School ples was offered, it is interesting that the Society This, coupled with disquiet felt about the "lack of Thompson brought to Pinelands the planning came the seminal congress on town planning in 1938, Le Corbusier and influ included an extract from a paper read by William forethought on the part of local authorities and, in philosophy and practical prowess of his former at which the inspiration of Hesketh Lever at the Sheffield Housing conference many cases .... to Jack of co-operation between mentor, Raymond Unwin, and in so doing intro ence of Rex Martiensen was everywhere evident. in 1905 in their journal. In that paper Lever set out a Government departments and local authorities" as duced a lucid design approach to planning in South Five years later, the equal!_y significant seminar on series of observations on health, finance and con well as concern relating to "vested interests, and Africa. The local planning community was at the Rebuilding South Africa30 was held. These gather struction in suburban areas, which could possibly be unscrupulous or uncontrolled speculation"15 pro time exposed to Unwin's erudition through the ings had a prescient quality in that issues relating to construed as statements of principle. vided the impetus for the establishment of such an publication of his written work in local joumals21 racial discrimination were seriously addressed - organization in 1919: the Transvaal Town Planning and also by disciples such as Thompson22 who set probably for the fi rst time -by the environmental The matter of planning principles occupied the Association.l6 For more than a decade the Associa out Unwin's approach to various issues including professions. While the 1938 congress had,fri~ily minds of many in the 1920's. Writing in 1923, tion promoted the cause of planning, drawing on land use zoning in their writings. Thompson's through Roy Kantorowich's contribution3 , constd the '43 symposium's Schoch earnestly referred to convenience, cost and Geddes in agitating for a civic survey of Johannes design proclivities were underscored in his state ered aspects of racial prejudice, climate, and suggested as a fundamental planning burg17, formulating a draft of town planning re~la ment that " .. .it is impossible to thoroughly under theme of social reconstruction open~ the doors of principle, the adoption of a "grid-iron pattern of tions for consideration by the Union government18 stand town planning without a basis of architectural planning to the socio-political concerns of justice and layout with additional diagonal streets"7 This was, and ultimately achieving a major goal with the training."23 His comment touches upon the matter equity. Hanson32 and Silberman33 both discussed predictably perhaps, to provoke a flurry of comment passing of the first Transvaal Town Planning and of professional training - of education in town the planning implications of segregation and integra and criticism. PorterS Gordon Leith9, Thompson10 Townships Ordinance. planning- which had inevitably and increasingly tion. and Com.ish-Bowdenf1 contributed to the debate on enjoyed attention as the interest in planning spread. principles (which tended to revolve about technical Legislation Geoffrey Pearse was a central figure in these and physical considerations) and in so doing, dem Education andothe r deliberations and his prolonged promotion of planning ("long before this was a fashionable onstrated the interest of diverse disciplines in the The pre-occupation with enabling legislation as a subject")M was to culminate in the establishment of new and fertile field of town planning. While means of controlling and directing urban growth Tuition in urban planning started as a subject course the first course in town planning in South Africa at established professional bodies were at the time was reflected in the programme of priorities of the in the curriculum for degrees in University of the Witwatersrand in 1946. jockeying for the leading position in the practice of fledgling community of planners- who propelled surveying,engineering and architecture. A historical the planning, it is to their credit that they generally the issue on to the political agenda. Addressing the study of the land surveying profession by Halliday acknowledged the importance of contributions from annual meeting of the S.A. National Society in March includes the comment that a "course in town plan Regulation other disciplines to planning activities. 1923, Mr. F.S. Malan, Minister of Mines and Indus ning has always been part of the land surveyor's tries said: "You cannot press too strongly for a academic training"24. While this claim might be At much the same time, the profes ~ i on was to attain Associations proper Jaw which would regulate the laying out of open to question, it is true that as far back as 1913, autonomy with the launching of the South African townships throughout the length and breadth of the town planning was introduced as an examinable Institute of Town Planners. This professional body As early as 1916, E.J. Hamlin, a leading figure in country"19. Speaking at Pinelands in May of the component of Part II of the survey course at the was preceded by a number of earlier organizations civil engineering circles, stressed the need for· profes same year, General Jan Smuts expressed the hope Cape Town University25. By 1927, courses in notably the Transvaal Town Planning Association, to sional co-operation in the planning of a town; the that the provincial and central governments would, architecture at Cape Town and Johannesburg in which reference has previously been made. The inter-locking of the joint efforts of the surveyor, the in consultation, promote and pass legislation which cluded town planning and landscape design as a Association worked assiduously for the introduction architect, the engineer, the landscape architect, the would protect the public from the "hap-hazard subject in the fifth year of study26 and the Royal of regulatory planning legislation in the Transvaal sociologist, the antiquarian and the legal expert with conditions" then pertaining in unplanned townships. Institute of British Architects extended access to its which was realised in 1931 with the passing of the the work of the planner12. In 1924, the Society of As Colonial Secretary in the Transvaal some years Diploma in Town Planning to candidates from South Town Planning Ordinance. Thereafter, the Associa Civil Engineers spoke of united action by the engi previously, Smuts had been responsible for the Africa27. tion "withered away"35 and the planning commu neers', architects' and surveyors' institutes on . introduction of a Townships Act; an example not nity was left mute for a number of years. The matters of mutual concern- town planning being followed by the other provinces. ln 1931, the Town Planning Association of the Cape Transvaal Ordinance, which was followed by similar cited as the first of such matters. There is in this an Province was established, the first objective of which ordinances in the other three provinces, had as its echo of the inter-professional grouping of architects, Smuts spoke also of the "beautiful idea" of the was to promote education and interest in the princi primary purpose control over urban development engineers and surveyors that met in London in July Garden City since the occasion of his address was ples of town and regional planning28. The Trans through the medium of local authority town plan 1913 and which preceded the launchi'W of the Town the opening of Cape Town's garden suburb, vaal Town Planning Association, well established by ning schemes and township approval procedures. Planning Institute the following year1 . As Pinelands . The inspiration for Pinelands was of the mid-1920's and occupied in numerous areas of The correlation of planning legislation with regula- 6 7 Planning H istory Vol. 1S No. 2. 1993 Planning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Articles Articles This course was submitted by the Southern Africa golden and matter. The Cape Conunittee eventually submitted a tion of development runs like the proverbial dormant Transvaal Town Planning Association Branch to the Town Planning Institute which de orical fabric of town and iation of Notice of Motion to the Annual General Meeting of thread through the hist a new Town and Country Planning Assoc cided against accreditation. The University then d36 put his the Branch held in the Johannesburg Public Library regional planning in South Africa. Floy the Transvaal was inaugurated at a meeting at applied directly to the Town Planning Institute for r 1944. on 30 January 1953. After considerable hand wring une_quivo c~,l ~iew that in town planning in South Kelvin House, Johannesburg, on 6 Septembe recognition in August 1946. One year later, Pearse guiding and ing and head scratching, it was resolved that the Afnca, the btas has been towards the The Association felt itself competent to advise the reported that the TPI had stated that " ... they wel than towards on time was appropriate for the formation of an inde controlling of new development rather local and national governmental authorities come the provision of courses of instruction on the objec by the pendent South African Institute of Planners and that r~onstruct.ion". Having little regard for planning matters -a view publicly contested Town Planning at the University. Subject to the s of civic Africa steps be taken to form a new Town Planning Insti tives of soctal planning or the principle chairman (Col. Bowling) of the Southern agreement as to conditions, the Institute is prepared an offer of two seats on tute in South Africa. To that end members were desi!?': Flo~d fav~u ~ed t~e notion of planning as an Branch. The Branch declined to envisage the inclusion of the School of Town t.n heap onse which the elected to discuss the matter with the Institution of admmJstrative acttvtty - which context the Council of the Association; a resp Planning of the University of the Witwatersrand Adams. ing"39. The rivalry Town and Regional Planners. plauded the work of Thomas Association found "surpris within its System of Recognised Schools."44 To that er with the demise of the Town ended a few years lat end, the Diploma course was enlarged and extended Fry were this, the A joint Executive Committee meeting of the Branch The British firm Adams, Thompson and and Country Planning Association. With to three years of part-time study. A few years later, and re in the and Institution took place in the Central Block of the engaged as consultants by the Witwatersrand possibility of do~ance of architectu the TPI's stamp of recognition marked the com Committee in 1935. in South Africa disappeared. University of the Witwatersrand on 15 February Pretoria Joint Town Planning profession of planning mencement of internationally acknowledged town the partner responsible for 1954, at 5.15p.m., at which it was agreed that the two Longstreth Thompson, planning education in South Africa. the commission, was assisted by P.J. Bowling and The Southern Africa Branch of the TPI moved into bodies would coalesce to form the South African schemes planning affairs in the Institute of Town Planners. In late 1958, "after Floyd in the preparation of town planning the mainstream of national The decade of the 1940s in South Africa, like that of who and conunents prolonged but most cordial negotiations, an Agree for the reef towns and Pretoria. Thompson, mid-1940's, making representations 1910-1920 in Europe, represents a high water mark in for the Cape for the newly proclaimed Free ment of Affiliation was entered into between the was also engaged to prepare a scheme on "proper planning" planning endeavour. With the formal institutional $ analysis of the educational on the acclaimed Report No. 5 on Town Planning Institute and the South African Town foreshore, gave hi State Goldfields, establishment of the planning profession and the pertaining to planning in and Town Planning by the Government's Institute of Town Planners.. :·41. (This affiliation and professional needs Regional commencement of tertiary education in planning, the training, he Council, and on other was severed 20 years later by the Council of the RTPI South Africa in 1940. Town Planning Social and Economic Planning springboard to the further development and consoli f planning moment. In 1946, professional following the destruction of squatter settlements in submitted, should take the form of a post-graduate issues o dation of the discipline was set in place. The Di went on to at issue with the formation the Cape and the death of Steve Biko). course of a least two years duration, and pre-eminence was again ploma course at the University of the Witwatersrand that the professional body- the South Africa Institute of Town say"... it is most desirable of a new grew in stature and rigour under the scholarly Plartners should be firmly Planners -which then apparently faded out"40 and Planning Courses status of qualified Town stewardship of Wilfrid Mallows, who brought the ultimate objective should be a cceeded in 1951 by the South African Town established. While the was su social doctrine of Geddes, the didactics of Jacqueline of South Africa, I think that, and Regional Planning Institution. The Southern The Southern Africa Branch finally drew its activities Town Planning Institute Tyrwhitt and the positivist discipline of Maurice the best and most Branch of the TPI (which had thought to bring a close in 1959. In advancing the interests of the in the present circumstances, Africa to Rotival to South African planning education.45 That ld be to form a South African Tanganyika and Nyasaland into its fold) felt line, it had actively promoted the cause of practicable course wou Kenya, discip course was the model for the Diploma progranune of Great le an independent South African institute as far back as 1945. During that year the Branch of the Town Planning Institute that whi education instituted at the University of Natal in the late 1950s s on education must, with the efflux ion of time emerge, that time Branch drew to the attention of the Universities of Britain" 37. These recommendation which was the second, and only other course, to pursued by South Africa, Cape Town and Witwatersrand, town and the profession were precisely those receive TPI recognition. Following the momentous community. planning courses run by British universities which the local conference on planning education arranged by the enjoyed recognition of the TPI and thus exemption South African InstituteofTown Planners in 1962, the the associate membership examination. The The Institute from country's first full time Bachelor's degree course was Council of the Institute of South African Central University of the Witwatersrand. to the established at the The first move to establish a branch of the British Architects had, in the previous year, suggested Universities of the Witwatersrand, Pretoria and Cape Town Planning Institute in South Africa was made On the professional side of the pla.nning coin, the Town that a post graduate course in town planning by the Cape architect, John Parry, in 1935. His South African Institute of Town Planners was be introduced42. In the event, Professor Pearse had request that a small chapter of the TPI be formed in renamed the South African Institute of Town and anticipated the demand by placing before the meet Cape Town was refused by the parent body. Follow Regional Planners in the early 1970s. In 1986, the ing of the Board of the Faculty of Architecture at the ing a second approach by Parry in 1940, the Council planning community moved under the mantle of University of the Witwatersrand on 22 October 1943, of the TPI approved the formation of a South African statutory control with the passing of Act No. 19, a proposal that a post-graduate Diploma in Town Branch. The matter was then placed on the back which carries with it provisions relating to profes Planning course be established as expeditiously as burner during the early years of the second world sional registration and educational procedures. war, but was re-activated by A.J. Cutten and carried possible at the University. In Pearse's judgement Town forward by Floyd and V.J.Penso. This culminated in Figure 1: Central Block, University of the there was a " ...need for a proper course in African conditions. Conclusion a meeting in 'the Johannesburg City Hall, on 19 Witwatersrand. Locale of the establishment of the Planning as applicable to South Planning Institute of January 1944, at which the "Southern Africa Branch" South African Institute of Town Planners and the The course offered by the Town in so far as South Much of the credit for the founding of the planning was formed. Its area of jurisdiction covered the first town planning course in the country. Great Britain is unsatisfactory year later, the regulations discipline in South Africa must be accorded a few Union of South Africa, the two Rhodesias, South Africa is concerned"43. A open to architec sagacious individuals and the pivotal role performed West Africa, Basutoland, Swaziland and British for a two year part-time course, had not yet arrived. However, a lobby led by Floyd tural, civil engineering and land surveying gradu by various professional societies - those of the Bechuanaland38. te developed and Anderson favouring a local institu ates, was approved. surveyors, engineers and architects as well as the within the Branch, and during 1951 and 1952 much Town Planning Institute -in supporting the disci- of Archi At the same time the Transvaal Institute energy was expended in the Branch in debate on the tects had been agitating for the resuscitation of the 9 8 Planning History Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Pl~nning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Articles Articles 43. University of the Witwatersrand, Minutes of . must also be ac in 26. South African Architectural Record, March 1927, pline's progression to maturity 10. A.J. Thompson, "Practical Town Planning Meeting, Faculty of Architecture. 22 October 1943. progression, the activities African Survey Journal, Vol.1 p.13. knowledged. In that South Africa". The South Minute3. leading to the emergence of professional planning No.4, October 1924, p.183. logical 27 South African Architectural Record, June 1925, p.46. and planning education ran, in both chrono 44. University of the Witwatersrand, Minutes of . and developmental senses, along parallel paths 11. A.H. Comish-Bowden, "Site Planning". The Meeting. Faculty of Architecture. 15 August 1947. Survey journal. Vol.l No.6, April1925, 28. South African Survet; journal, "New Societies : South African Minute6. The significance of the establishment of educational pp.312-314. Town-Planning Association of the Cape Province". been well summa No.26, July 1931, p.158. and professional institutions has 45. John Muller, "Roots and Routes: twenty five last "Notes on Town rised by a political and social thinker of the 12. E.J. Hamlin, comments on years of planning theory", Town and Regional Plan can form communi African Society of Civil Engineers. 29. G.E. Pearse, Reminiscences. University of the century, who said "individuals Planning", South ning Journal, No.31, September 1991. p.l. ties but only institutions can form a nation"46. The Minutes of Proceedings. Vol. XIV, 1916. P.186. Witwatersrand Archives. Undated. the soil of planning profession, now firmly rooted in 46. Quoted by E.W.N. Mallows, address, "The South of cit. (1) 30. University of the Witwatersrand, Symposium on South African society, must at this crucial time 13. Cordon E. Cherry, 1974, op. African Institute of Town and Regional Planners contri "Rebuilding South Africa" held on 24-26 August change in the history of the country make its 1954-1975", commemorating the 21st birthday built and a Changing 1943. Proceedings published in the South African bution to the establishment of a new nation 14. Anthony Sutcliffe, "Planning anniversary of the S.A.I.T.R.P., November, 1975. democracy, tolerance and justice. Society: Britain since 1900". The Planner, lOth Architectural Record, September 1943. around precepts of Figures November, 1989. References 31. R. Kantorowich, A Model Native Township for 15. G.E. Pearse, Introduction, Town Planning, Trans 20 000 Inhabitants:, South African Architectural Record, 1938, pp.344-355. 1. Cordon E. Cherry, The Evolution of British Town vaal Town Planning Association, September 1931, September Planning, Leonard Hill Books, Leighton Buzzard, p.3. Hanson, "Community Planning", South 1974. 32. N.L. 16. Transvaal Town Planning Association, Town African Architectural Record, October 1943. p.227-235. 2. Myles Wright, Lord Leverhulme's Unknown Venture: Planning, September 1931, pp.55-56. "Social Postulates of Planning", the Lever chair and the beginnings of town and regional 33. L. Silberman, African Architectural Record, September 1943. planning, 1908-1948. Hutchinson Benham, London, 17. A. Stanley Fumer, "Johannesburg and the South 1982. needfor a Civic Survey", The South African Architec pp.215-220. tural Record, VoLXI No.42, June 1926. 34. ibid. 3. Herbert Baker, "Architecture and Town Plan ning". Lecture delivered on 11 July 1911 in Pretoria. 18. Council of the Town Planning Association for Town 35. N.L. Hanson, Presidential address, South African Reproduced in The South African Architectural Record, (Transvaal), "Draft Model Regulations Vol.l No.2, Architectural Record, April Vol. 24 No. 3, March 1939. Planning", South African Survey journal, March 1924. p.95. 1944. p.l04. 4. The Journal of the Institute of Land Surveyors of the Floyd, Town Planning in South Africa, Shuter Transvaal. Vol.III No. 1, September 1912. pp.45-48. 19. S.F. Malan, address: annual meeting of the South 36. T.B. African National Society. Published in the South and Shooter, Pietermaritzburg, 1960. p.9. p.121. 5. The Journal of the Association of Transvaal Architects. African Survey journal, VoL1 No.3, June 1924. 37. f. Longstreth Thompson, "Some Comments on "Town Planning in South Africa". Vol.l No. 2. June approach to the Town Planning Problem", The South African 1916 pp.ll-12. 20. S.B. Myers, "Garden Cities :a new our housing difficulties". South African Architectural Survey journal, No. 38, May 1940. pp.63-64. 6. South African Society of Civil Engineers. Minutes of Record, March 1953, p.26. 38. N.T.Cooper, "The History of the Southern Africa Proceedings, "Notes on Town Planning". Vol.XlV. her Building in Relation Branch of the Town Planning Institute", report Fourteenth Session, 1916, P.186. 21. Raymond Unwin, "Hig to Town Planning". Building, March and June 1924. prepared for the South African Institute of Town and Regional Planners, May 1980. 7. H.E. Schoch, "Principles ofTown Planning". The South African Survey Journal. Vol.l No.l. December 22. A.J. Thompson, 1924, op. cit. (10), refers to a Institute 39. D.M. Cowin and J. Fassler, "The Transvaal 1923. pp.25-28. paper by Unwin read at the Town Planning in May 1922. Provincial Institute. A commentary on the work of the Provincial Committee", South African Architec 8. Charles Porter, "Town Planning: its historic and , cit. (10), p.l83. tural Record, October 1944, p.269. public health aspects". Address delivered on 9 23. A.]. Thompson, 1924 op. December 1922. Reproduced in Town Planning, Johannes 40. N.T. Cooper, 1980, op. cit. (38) p.5. Transvaal Town Planning Association. September 24. G.H. Halliday, "The Surveyor and Vol.l4, 1960-61, 1931 . burg", Africana Notes and News, p.244. 41 . ibid. p.13. 9. Cordon Leith, "Memorandum of Suggested of Land Surveyors of 42. N.L. Hanson, 1944, op. cit. (35) p.125. Regulations and Town Planning Aims for the Union 25. The Journal of the Institute of South Africa". Building, September 1924. the Transvaal, 1912, op. cit. (4), p.4. 11 10 Planning History Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Planning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Articles Articles major tasks (eg building houses, clearing fields and An Appraisal of the harvesting crops) together under the leadership of "mogolwane" who was a senior male descendant of Evolution of Tswana the common ancestor by whose name the family Settlement group was known. The other important unit was the ward or "kgotla". A ward was composed of several closely related family-groups living together in a village or part of a Faustin Kalabamu, University large village under the leadership or authority of an of Botswana. hereditary headman with "well-defined administra tive and judicial powers and functions"6. The ward headman was either royal (male descendant of the Introduction founding ancestor) or a person who was loyal to the chief if the ward was composed of alien~ who had Tswana settlements, especially chiefs' capitais, are been assimilated into the tribe. A number of wards large and nucleated villages. They were called towns or sections or villages constituted a tribe whose by the early explorers and are similar to the indig membership was defined "not so much in terms of enous towns found in West Africa. Despite western birth as of allegiance to the chief. People becan:e influences, Tswana settlements have retained their members of a tribe by submitting to the rule of the basic structures for over one hundred years "the chief; and it [was] primarily through their allegiance influence of western acculturation being restricted to to the same chief that the different communities and government buildings and a few private houses. The individuals making up a tribe (gave] expression to rectilinear pattern of development so commonly their unity"7. The chief represented a civil-military associated with large agglomerations of dwellings is bureaucracy together with its military, judicial, absent, and when seen from the air ... (they present] a legislative and other powers 8. confused distribution of homesteads to which there appears to be little rhyme or reason" 1 (See Figure 1). Other units included kindred (people related by blood or marriage), regiments (people of same sex The main objective of the present paper is to identify and equal ages) and others that are not critical in the factors which have enabled this seemingly confu sed following d iscussion. distribution of homesteads to survive for so long. The paper first examines the social-political structure The Traditional Tswana Settlement of Tswana tribes; then looks at forms, land tenure and development control in these settlements fol lowed by a description of changes which have taken Tswana settlement forms and patterns were also place over the last 100 years and conclusions. well defined. Each tribe lived in one village (eg Batlokwa in Tlokweng) or one central village with The Tswana several smaller satellite villages (eg the Bamalete lived in Ramotswa plus Mogobane and Ootse). The Tswana are sub-groups of Sotho-Bantu speaking peoples who migrated from the Transvaal region of Form South Africa into Botswana between A.D 1500 and 1800 2 3 and split into eight major tribes each headed Each household occupied a compound enclosed by a by a chief. The tribes were politically and adminis wall of dried mud with a height of 1.2 to 2 metres tratively independent of each other. They, however, above ground. All enclosures had only one opening LEGE N D had identical social-political structures. which was big enough to allow entrance or exit of one person at a time. In each compound were several Lot boundary Ward kgotla Within each tribe, the smallest unit was the household structures serving either as bedroom, store or 0 300mefres which consisted of a man, his wife or wives, unmar granary; and outdoor spaces for cooking, bathing Traditional house Track ried or recently married children, and other depend and a fireplace around which visitors were Scale Modern house Footpath ants that lived in the same compound. The size of receivedand meals taken 9. the household "depended largely on rank, wealth SO 12 Planning History Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Pbnning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Articles Articles hout the year, older boys remained at the kept over night. The lekgotlana was used to discuss land was taken by the chief after which each ward before the ploughing season. Throug matters that concerned the family-group as a was allocated huge blocks according to population Women, regardless of their marital status, age or cattle-posts (grazing areas) looking after li~estock . wholelO. size and in the same direction as its residential area. otherwise, could in no way acquire land of their Excepting draught oxen and donkeys, .no livestock was permitted in the village. Cattle-posts were often Household allocations, from the ward's share, were own. Several family-groups constituted a ward. Each ward rather generous and surpassed each household's visited by other household members and the boys had a larger meeting place or kgotla at its centre and immediate needs. Tswana Settlement under the British Rule came to the villages occasionally. adjacent to the headman's compound . The various wards in a village were ranked according Land reserved for grazing was allocated in blocks to Post Independence Tswana Settlements wards and all "members of the ward had the right to Through a series of legislations, ordinances and "to their historical status and seniority of keep their cattle in this region, and grazing and proclamations, the British adrrurustration introduced Two key post-independence legislations- the Tribal descent. The general rule [was] that the water rights within it belonged to them" a1119. new social, administrative and economic structures Land Act and the Local Government (District Coun Chief's own ward heads the tribal hierarchy. Grazing areas were traditionally situated at consid which had several effects on Tswana settlement. cils) Act- have further stripped chiefs of their main The other royal wards rank according to the erable distances from the residential part of the First, the British curtailed chiefs powers and author duties as they "lost control over resources and, with Chief from whom their headman is de village. Areas for hunting, woodlot and other natural ity by subjecting their election to office (and their it, the power to order the use of space" and have scended. The more recent this Chief, the resources were never subdivided according to wards stay thereafter) to the approval of the High Commis been reduced "almost to nothing" 28. The Tribal higher the status of the wards to which"hi s and were accessible to all 20. sion. They were also stripped of their supreme Land Act, 1968 (as amended) transferred all powers descendants belong. The most inferior royal judicial and taxation powers and became salaried to allocate and administer land from chiefs to Land wards therefore embrace the collateral de Land Tenure employees of the colonial government 25. Second, Boards established under the same Act. Although scendants of the most ancient Chiefs. Next in they determined territorial boundaries and fixed every chief is represented on the respective board, land boards are dominated by central government the tribal hierarchy are the wards of the Every adult male, married or unmarried, was enti amount of land reserved for each tribe. Third, they 2 commoners of the ruling community, those tled to two pieces of land: for his homestead and outlawed shifting of main villages without due representatives and ministerial appointees 9. more recently formed being inferior to their ploughing. Normally the two pieces would be permission from the High Commission and limited predecessors. Then [came] the wards of the carved out of his father's holdings. To adjudicate, the the moving of smaller ones to within the fixed tribal Under the Local Government (District Councils) Act, affiliated communities, ranking also according transfer was carried out in the presence of the land. The chiefs and their assistants were only left 1965, the indirect rule of tribal chiefs was replaced to the order in which they were incorporated "headman and other members of th~ ward, who with powers to allocate and administer land within with District Councils composed of representatives into the tribe. The more recent their incorpora [had to] be satisfied that it [belonged] to the family, their tribal reserves. elected on political party lines. The councils depend tion, the lower their status" 11. and [that it did~ not encroach upon the holding of mainly on central government grants and functional someone else" 1. Any objections raised were re The creation of fixed tribal reserves and immobility officers controlled by central government agencies. The chief's ward, together with the tribal kgotla and solved at the ward meeting (kgotla). of settlements led to the congestion of villages in the chief's kraal, occupied the centre of the village terms of population and housing densities. With the With erosion of chiefs' powers some households and was surrounded by other royal wards. Then, passage of time, some wards were forced to shift to shifted from villages and settled permanently near radiating out in a circular form were located wards If a father had no land to spare, then his son would the periphery in part or as a whole depending on the their fields or cattle posts thereby changing the of the less royal community such that wards of the l?e allocated land from the ward reserves or from status of the ward. Royal wards would normally tripartite-homes lifestyle into one-home only by con aliens and least royal units occupied sites on the other heads within the family-group provided they split into two groups with one half shifting to the centrating the three land use activities (housing, periphery of the village. Wards were separated by were willinf to grant it on their own accord and free periphery and the other remaining in situ in order to ploughing and grazing) into one area. The one lanes or roads or open spaces of various sizes. of charge 2 . If no land was available within the retain their status within the tribe as exemplified by home system is said to have been preferred because Inhabitants of satellite villages were considered part ward, the headman obtained additional allocations the case of Mmadinare (see Figure 2). it enabled households to manage their livestock and the chief's village. Sections, whenever formed did from the chief. Once granted a piece of land, the farms better besides cutting down on transport costs not have clearly defined physical boundaries. owner would demarcate the extent of his compound Second, with population increases but static food to and from the villages. The permanent shifting to or farm by physically identifiable means or objects production techniques, the traditional practice of the fields was encouraged and supported by the In the pre-colonial era villages were frequently such as thorn bushes or trenches. people owning fields in the same direction andclose government through its provision of boreholes, shifted either due to loss of fertility in cultivable land to their homes became disturbed resulting into long mobile clinics and other facilities in the new settle or famine or shortage of water supply or outbreak of Allocated land remained the exclusive property of distances to the fields and grazing areas. By the ments 3031. serious disease or defeat in a battle or simply due to the household occupying it and could be inherited as 1950s fields were generally located 8 to 40 kilometres fear of sorcery 12 13 14 15. Although villages moved long as the owners continued to belong to the tribe. from villages while grazing lands were available 32 Of late some Tswana villages are now attracting fai rly fr~uently their general plan remained the Land rights to arable land were, however,usufruct to over 56 kilometres away 26. people either back from the lands and cattle-posts or same 16 except that "the continual movement of the for purposes of cultivation since other people were from other rural areas. Large villages and villages capital [read village] allowed for the settlement entitled to hunt or graze on stalks once crops had Due to long distances to the fi elds and grazing areas, around Gaborone appear to have the highest attrac pattern to be dynamic, accommodating changes in been harvested 23. there evolved a system of three-homes under which tions. Thus, as Hesselberg notes there are population the internal organisation as they became necessary" most households maintained three homesteads: one movements from smaller to large villages which are 17 Arable land could be leased out for an indefinite or each in the village, fields and grazing areas. This paralleled by movements from viUa!2es to towns fixed period. No payments were made for leasing pattern of tripartite homes was quite "different from mainly Gaborone and Francistown . Hesselberg Wherever the location, land in each village was virgin or uncleared land because unimproved land that followed by most other southern Bantu [tribes]" believes the population movements are a reflection divided into five zones: residential, cultivation, could never be sold 24. If land was cleared ready for 27. Households, or part of households, would of uncertainty and indecision on the part of the grazing, hunting and forestry. Residential activities cultivation, then the lessee gave an heifer to the temporarily shift homes to their respective fields Tswana population: whethe.r to live at the lands were confined to hill tops and infertile areas because owner as compensation for his labour. Persons during the wet and crop growing season and return without adequate water supplies and facilities but be hill tops were relatively eas1 to defend besides being leasing land for unspecified periods, were entitled to to the village after harvesting. They stayed in the able to look after their crops and livestock more cooler than low lying areas 8. The best of the arable notices of intentions to repossess them a few months village permanently during the dry season. meaningfully, or to stay in villages with satisfactory 15 14 Planning History Vol. 1S No. 2.. 1993 Planning History Vol. 15 No 2.1993. Articles Articles so" 56 even though such routine activities do not facilities but insufficient food supplies, or to aban laments over this when he writes as follows: The defence theorists 51 52 53 cite the selection of don rural life altogether and migrate to urban hills for homes and the construction of walls around require chiefly wisdom. centres? "No longer does the kgosi (chief) have the some villages (eg Kanye) as defensive requirements authority to contain or direct people as to which determined the structure of Tswana settle Conclusions The uncertainty has resulted into yet another life where they should live. No longer is the status ment. The horse-shoe pattern of homesteads in each style for many families: quadripartite homes- one of ward or individual reflected in a person's family-group or ward, and the fencing of com Tswana settlement system was a spatial expression home in town (where some family members work in residential location in the town (Mochudi). No pounds with narrow entrances are given to substan of Tswana political and social structures which were the modem economy), another one in the village longer is security and protection tiate their thesis. Silitshena discounts the defence themselves determined by the environmental fragil (where the majority live during the dry season), required ... The control of land has moved from theory as inadequate because "cattle, which were the ity and political instability that characterised the lands (where part of the family migrates to during a centralised authority to a democratically most valuable property of the Tswana, were kept not geopolitical region. The settlements were able to the wet season), and at the cattle-post (where Jive elected one and the former rules of status and in the towns but in the vulnerable distant cattleposts. acculturate themselves to colonial domination stock is kept). The various homes are visited by most precedence, reflected in the SP.atial expression, If defence was the main consideration,logic would because the ruling class was desirous of salvaging family members fairly frequently. Those in towns have now been swept aside"«. dictate that they be kept at or near settlements" 54. the status quo to ensure its political power base. appear to visit the villages and cattle-posts more Since the 1970s, Tswana settlement system has, often presumably to ensure adequate money and The building styles have disintegrated as well; more Silitshena argues that chiefs derived their authority however, been subjected to tremendous pressure by food supplies. so in the peripheral zone where wire fences have from their subjects. That power was felt through the the post-independence cultural, social, political replaced mud walls, metal sheets grass thatch, and social structures and achieved through absolute andeconomic dispensation resulting in "new' land Other changes pertain to the internal structure of self-contained western style houses have taken control of land administration, aJiocation and devel values, uses and problems. The transformations are Tsawna settlements. Since the coming of La nd precedence over one roomed structures and outdoor opment procedures. That the ruling class was re seriously threatening traditional principles, customs Boards, villages have tended to expand boundaries living within compounds as adequately discussed by sponsible for the compact and nucleated structureof and laws. outward thereb6 encompassing fields and grazing Larsson 45 46 and Hardie 47. Tswana villages is demonstrated by the permanent areas 33 34 35 3 37. Hardie and Grant attribute the migration to the lands and cattle-posts which As far as the future of Tswana settlement is con outward growth to increased demand for residential Many large villages have experienced a proliferation evolved soon after the erosion of chiefs' powers. He cerned, it "is imperative that social structures be plots which is itself a result of the breakdown of the of commercial, industrial and institutional land use argues that" for as long as the chief held sway, closely examined in the formulation of [village traditional housing norms. Unlike chiefs', Land activities formerly not found in traditional Tswana buttressed by the colonial regime, dispersion of plans] and that ample opportunity be provided for Boards allocate land individually rather than settlements (see Figure 2 again). The new businesses population to lands and cattlepost areas was impos the continued geographic expression of the ward through the ward head. Besides land is freely avail and industries are,unfortunately, being located sible or a very remote possibility" 55. (system]'57 in order to conserve their unique charac able to male and female, married or unmarried 38. haphazardly within the villages. Kraals, garages, ter and, more importantly, to recreate stable and Today each household is acquiring its own plot shops, bars, workshops, butcheries, wholesalers etc It seems all the theories are valid and, in combina sustainable communities. instead of the whole family or ward. are unconsciously mixed with residential houses, tion, have invariably influenced the structure of schools, clinics and so on. Indeed, traditional Tswana Tswana villages. Ecological factors are important Notes Most households are shifting to the peripherywhere settlements are increasingly assuming a picture of because they determine survival hence the separa new developments are being concentrated which has "squatter settlements" when they are just villages. tion of homes, lands and grazing areas. With in 1. Gardner, R. 1974 "Some Sociological and Physi led to the dilapidation of the centre as evidenced by Conditions are worse in villages closest to Gaborone creased distances during colonial days the advan ological Factors Affecting the Growth of Serowe" in poorer structures and derelict sites. The dilapidation, and Francistown. tages of land use separation were outweighed by the Botswana Notes and Records Volume 6 pp.77-88. 77 according to Hardie 39, is compounded by infiltra travel time and monetary costs to and from the tion of commercial and some industrial activities Causes of Nucleation and Dispersion lands. Hence the desire to live permanently at the 2. Campbell, A.C. 1982 "Notes on the Prehistoric and by lack of adequate water supplies, and services lands or cattle-posts. Defence considerations were Background to 1940" in Botswana Society, 1982 for removing litter generated by the later activities. Theories on nucleation and, later, dispersion of important in protecting tribal territory and property Settlement in Botswana, Heinemann, Gaborone. 18-19 Tswana settlement may be grouped into three hence hill top locations, boundary walls, narrow The new developments at the periphery are also in categories: ecological, defence and political. The first entrances and strict social structures which encour 3. Sc.hapera, 1. 1943 Native Land Tenure in the disarray because Land Boards allocated the initial two theories are well discussed and discounted by aged cohesion and easy identification of intruders. Bechualand Protectorate, Lovedale Press, Cape Town. plots without a plan resulting in "extremely random Silitshena who advanced the political theory. The allocation of land according to wards was also pattern of settlement with roads meandering around designed to enhance territorial integrity. The alloca 4. Tlou, T. 1974 "The Nature of Tswana States" in the plots and with open spaces remaining, often too The ecological theorists believe that the Tswana tion of grazing areas by wards was designed to Botswana Notes and Records Volume 6 pp.57-75. small to be used as a house site" 40. Physical plans people settled in compact and nucleated villages in ensure fast enlistment of assistance from closer have since been prepared for all major villages but order to have equal access to water sources because relatives while elders back in the village were being 5. Sc.hapera, 1. 1955 A Handbook ofTswana Law and Land Boards hardly adhere to them. The disregard the "semi-arid environment, restricting water informed. Custom. Frank Cass, London. 15 of plans has been attributed to lack of qualified sources to a limited number of places, defines the personnel and on the advisory status of the plans 41. ieographical locati_on of .settlements in Botswana" 48 The chiefs, having surrendered their supreme 6. Ibid. 19 Land Boards are also unable to monitor housing 9. Besides the compactness ensured that good fertile powers to the British government, retained the developments which has given room to unscrupu soils were utilised solely for crop production. The traditional social structures well after they were no 7. Ibid. 5 lous individuals who have taken advantage of the ecological theories are criticised for failing to account longer required in order to salvage their social situation to allocate additional land to themselves for the frequent shifting of villages given that there standing . To ensure their continued power base, 8. Hardie, G.J. 1980 Tswana House and Settlement and/or sell it to non-tribesmen 42 43. were usually more than one spring in each village. they started controlling the cycle of agricultural Contintlity and Change in Expressive Space. Unpub Furthermore, "concentration results in long queues activities to the extent that no "planting, weeding, lished Thesis, Boston University. 20 The ward system which held Tswana settlement of women waiting for water at the wells, a problem reaping, threshing or letting the cattle into the fields forms intact is also disintegrating. Hardie almost which might be obviated if settlements split. up" 50. to eat the stubble could be done until he [chief] said 17 16 Planning History Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Planning History Vol. 15 No 2.1993. Articlu Articles 9. Larsson, A. and V. Larsson 1984 Traditional 31. Silitshena, R.M.K. 1982 "Migration and Perma 53. Tambula, 1977 op.cit. Mogopa: Tswana Housing Swedish Council for Building nent Settlement at the Lands Areas" in Botswana Research, Stockholm, DOCUMENT D7:1984. Society, 1982 op.cit. 54. Silitshena, 1979 op.cit. 57 The Persistence of Plan 10. Schapera, 1955 op.cit. 90 32. Hesselberg, J. 1982 "Living at the Lands or the 55. Ibid. 55 Tap: A Dilema for the Peasants in Botswana" in 56. Ibid. 62-63 11. Ibid. 23 Botswana Notes and Records Volume 14 pp. 46-50 . .47 Catherine Laburn-Peart, 57. Gardner, 1974 op.cit. 87 12. Ibid. 33. Grant, S. 1973 "Mochudi- The Transition University of the from Village to Town" in Botswana Notes and Records Witwatersrand, South Africa 13. Hardie, 1980 op.cit. Volume 5 pp. 2 -11 . 14. Tambula, S.B. 1977 Pre-industrial Urbanisationwith 34. Gardner, 1974 op. cit. Introduction Special Reference to Botswana Unpublished Thesis, University College of Botswana. 35. Hardie, 1980 op.cit. In 1983, the forced removal of the Bakwena ba Mogopa from their tribal land in the heart of con 15. Thekiso, E. 1978 Botswana: The Development of Big 36. Hardie, 1982 op.cit. servative Afrikaner territory in South Africa, briefly Villages into Pre-Industrinl Towns. Unpublished drew world attention. Mogopa is the name used to Thesis, University of Botswana and Swaziland. 37. Government of Botswana, 1992 Report of the describe two farms in the Ventersdorp district in the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Land Problems western part of the Transvaal Province (see Fig.1), 16. Schapera, 1943 op.cit. 65-66 in Mogoditshane and other Peri-urban Villages. Govern and the removal of the people of Mogopa was to be ment Printer, Gaborone. the culmination of state apartheid planning for the 17. Hardie, G.}. 1982 "The Dynamics of the Internal tribe, whose land had been designated a ''black spot" Organisation of the Traditional Tribal Capital, 38. Hardie, 1982 op.cit. 208 in an otherwise "white" rural farming district. This Mochudi" in Botswana Society, 1982 op.cit. 205 paper will briefly examine the history of the plan 39. Ibid. 210 ning which affected the people of Mogopa, both the 18. Hardie, 1980 op.cit. 35 processes involved and the experiences of the 40. Ibid. 209 community. Plans for the land at Mogopa were 19. Schapera, 1955 op.cit. 208 made both by the state and the Mogopa community, 41. Ministry of Local Government, Lands and but as will be shown, always in opposition and in 20. Ibid. 210-213 Housing, 1992 Report of the Proceedings of the Physical reaction to each other. It is the persistence of the Planners' Seminar on Plan Implementation Department plans, and the resistance to them, which will be 21. Ibid. 197 of Town and Regional Planning, Gaborone. traced. 22. Ibid. 198 42. Ibid. WESTERN TR AN SVAA L 23. Ibid. 199-205 43. Hardie, 1980 op.cit. 8oph~ho!,..n o ~ 24. Ibid. 203 44. Hardie, 1982 op.cit. 210 25. Ibid. xxi 45. Larsson, A 1985 "Traditional Tswana Housing" I in Botswana Notes and Records Volume 17 pp. 37-45. lf 26. Ibid. 11 46. Larsson, A. 1988 From Outdoor to Indoor Living, University of Lund, REPORT r4:1988 27. Ibid. 11 47. Hardie, 1980 op.cit. 28. Silitshena, R.M.K 1979 "Chiefly Authority and the Organisation of Space in Botswana: Towards an 48. Moyo quoted in Silitshena, 1979 op.cit. 56 exploration of Nucleated Settlements among Tswana" in Botswana Notes and Records Volume 11 49. See also Tambula, 1977 op.cit. pp. 55-67 67 50. Monica Wilson quoted in Silitshena, 1979 op.cit. 29. Ibid. 66 56 30. Silitshena, R.M.K. 1978 "Notes on some charac 51. Schapera, 1943 op.cit. and 1955 op.cit. of South teristics of Population that has Migrated Perma Figure 1: The Western Transvaal district Africa nently to the Lands in the Kweneng District" in 52. Hardie, 1980 op.cit. Botswana Notes and Records Volume 10 (no pages). 19 18 Planning History Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Planning History Vol. 15 No 2.1993. Articles Articles Physical planning in South Africa is largely about planning approach as one designed to control, and access to land and about control over the use of land. more specifically to deny black people access to land. It has been characterised more particularly by state control, and nowhere is this more evident than in the The people of Mogopa, however, must have had designation of some areas in the country for owner some sense of security in possessing freehold title to ship and occupation by one particular group, and their land, for by 1931, they had raised sufficient the subsequent removal of members of another funds through their farming on Zwartrand to pur group from that land. Colin Bundy, writing about chase a second farm, Hartebeeslagte, providing land and forced removals in·South Africa, has themselves with additional land for both ploughing described the relationship between land and power and grazing, and thereby gaining self-sufficiency in in the following way: agriculture. Aware of their vulnerability in terms of the law, they made plans for perpetual ownership of "certain forms of land ownership confer and the farms by registering the land in the name of the concentrate economic and social power in the Minister of Native Affairs, to be held in trust for hands of one group or class of people, giving them - a move which would alsoprevent individual them the ability to subordinate and exploit chiefs or headmen from selling off the farms for another group or class" .I personal gain. For the next four or five decades the community continued to farm the land: a modest village was built on one of the farms and schools, So it is that the Jaw with respect to land can define churches, shops and water reservoirs were built. and perpetuate power relations, as indeed it has Surplus crops were sold to the local (white) farmers' throughout much of the history of this country: cooperative. access to land has underpinned political domination in South Africa, and has therefore become a focus of political struggle. For land has also been the means through which communities have organised them The community was organised along traditional selves. A threat to the land has been more than just a communal lines: all who were members of the their threat to land ownership and livelihood: it has been community were granted the right to land for included the right to the resources the regarded as a threat to community and to commu needs - which Figure 2: Mogopa Home before the Removal (Photo: Gi lle de Vlieg) y nity coherence. family needed to live - in exchange for which the contributed to the community funds, managed by use of s were Early Years at Mogopa the headman, who was accountable for the " ... If you have the power to remove (blacks) from Accordingly, the state's planning policie these funds. For the corrununity, it was a period of one place where they do mischief to a place implemented, in the course of which at least three prosperity and tentative security on their land, but million black people were moved into the increas For both the state and the community of Mogopa, where they do not do mischief, what a useful the s.tate's planning policy was now unfolding. ingly impoverished reserves. In the early 1980s the the planning process, in the sense of planning being provision that would be ... Imagine taking a farm policy makers became more image conscious as usness of and preparation for the future, and placing upon that farm all the agitators who a conscio That planning policy, particulary after the accession pressure to end their heavy handed removals began in the period 1912 and 1913. The Bakwena ba are going about the country and letting them to power of·the National Party in 1948, was a form of mounted: state planners officially adopted a more pa had originally come to the area from the hold meetings with each other on that farm. [n Mogo "social engineering"- the systematic social and "development-oriented" approach, and the term Orange Free State, and it was in 1912 that they three months time how many of them would economic restructuring of society according to be of "removal" became officially replaced by "resettle purchased the farm Zwartrand, raising the necessary survive? Just think what the result would politically defined objectives. These objectives, in ment". It was publicly emphasised that corrununi funds through the sale of cattle. that sociological experiment. .. I believe that turn, embodied one of the principles of Apartheid: powers of this kind are essential in South Africa, ties would be voluntarily removed only after due the planned concentration of power (and land) in the consultation and participation in the planning of Shortly after this the state established one of the first and that they are going to do more good to the hands of the white minority. Numerous Acts of their removal, and Minister Piet Koomhof was pillars of what was to become apartheid, in the natives than any other portion of the corrunu legal parliament legally entrenched these policies, one of reported as saying that no more forced removals of form of the 1913 Black Land Act2, which aimed to nity ... It is quite obvious, I think, that these which involved the forced removal of black people of the people from their homes would take place.S In an power through the restriction of ownership powers would be used for the benefit exercise from the cities, white farms and black spots, to the attempt to give credibility to the new approach, of land by black people in South Africa. The 1913 natives".6 rural reserves. planning committees were established in corrununi Land Act had been preceded by a number of land . ties which were targeted for "resettlement". The Jaws in both the British colonies and Boer republics The state claimed that all removals were voluntary Another of the many laws which were used in the in 1969, the state planners publicly insisted that planning was Union in 1910, but the 1913 Law went much At the height of black spot removals before removal of corrununities during this period was the not to be a top-down, one-sided exercise, but that the further for it provided "the statutory basis of territo- Minister of Ban tu Administration and Development Black Administration Act.S While this Act was stated: community would also be involved. However, as n. al ation· ... u3 segreg passed in 1927, it embodied some of the principles of will be illustrated in the case of the Mogopa corrunu social engineering which were to be seen in Apart voluntarily. nity, the real .plan was one of eo-option, not consulta In 1936, the Development Trust and Land Act4 was "We get their co-operation in all cases heid planning in the years which followed. In the to do tion, and of deliberate manipulation to confuse and promulgated, releasing more land for occupation by As a matter of fact, sometimes it is necessary parliamentary debate preceding the passage of the divide communities. The question to be resolved by black people while at the same time further restrict quite a lot of persuasion, but we do get them Act, the then Minister of Justice made the following the planning committees was in fact not whether the ing access to land in white areas. Together, the two away"? observations: Land Acts, as they became known, set the state's 21 20 Planning History Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Planning H istory Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Articles Articles community would be moved, but when and how this In consequence, in June 1983, state bulldozers international outcry. The community decided to And so the Mogopa community seemed to be would happen. destroyed the community's schools and churches defy the state's plans, and to rebuild their village, defeated by the state's plans for their future. In late and some of the houses. Engines for water pumps their schools and install new water pumps. The state 1987, demoralised and under increasing pressure The Removal were taken, essential services were cut off, shop could not accept this resistance to it's plan, and had from their hosts at Bethanie, they decided that they owner's licences were not renewed, and the commu to act: had no option but to return to their land, even if it At Mogopa the pressures from the state for removal nity was issued with an ultimatum to leave the farms meant putting the community at risk, and possibly began to be felt. In 1981, the community had de by November 1983. These were all tried and tested " In the early hours of February 14 1984, Mogopa even the final disintegration of the tribe. At a meet posed their traditional headman, Jacob More, on the tactics which had been used in other communities in was surrounded by armed police. At 4am the ing of the community the following resolution was grounds that he had misused tribal funds, was order to obtain their co-operation to move 'voluntar people were informed through loud hailers that taken: corrupt, and had failed to respond to tribal disci ily': they must load their possessions into trucks and pline. However, the local white commissioner go to Pachsdraai. Nobody was allowed to leave "AJI our plans have been destroyed ... Our first refused to accept this move: instead, he notified the "What does the state do once they have smashed their houses. Jacob More took the police and the aim is to undo the expropriation. If that fails each community of their planned removal and set up a the schools, stopped the transport, cut off the officials to the houses of all the leaders first. They group must struggle forward according to its planning committee with the deposed Jacob More water, threatened force- and people still refuse to were handcuffed and put into police vans. Their means, and to its history... We believe that the and his cohorts as community representatives. The move? One of the most effective things it does is families refused to pack their possessions government's reason for expropriating the farm people of Mogopa unsuccessfully tried to force to do nothing. It waits. There is a limit to how government labourers did so... People tried to was to defeat our plans for the future. However, meetings of the planning committee to beconducted long people can Jive without schools, without run away and children were loaded with the we will go on struggling for land and for a future openly, and early in 1983 Jacob More was able to pensions( without migrant labour contracts and furniture and dispatched to Pachsdraai. All of for our child ren and our grand-children. We agree, supposedly on behalf of the community, to be with daily uncertainty about their future. If it is a this happened in the presence of armed police tried to achieve our just aims in a peaceful way moved to Pachsdraai, some 150 km away. While he matter of who can sit it out, the state is the more men who had dogs at their disposal... Parents by buying a new farm. The government has now and ten families made the move, and were compen likely winner".9 became desperate to find their children, and got closed this door to peaceful action, as it has sated (at R8000 per household), the rest of the onto the buses to Pachsdraai to go and look for closed all the other doors we tried to use... Now community adopted a strategy of resistance by But the people of Mogopa had other plans. With the them there .. .'' 10 we have nochoice but to go and claim our own remaining at Mogopa. help of church and other service organisations, their farms. We know that the government will treat plight was publicised, and became the focus of an But the people of Mogopa refused to accept theirfate us as criminals for this whereas we are just South at Pachsdraai, and immediately fled to Bethanie, Africans fighting for our birthright... We will home of their paramount chief. While their tenure at never give up our efforts to realise our right to Bethanie was insecure and basic amenities such as live decent lives".ll water, housing and schooling were entirely inad equate, at least they were not complying with the The Return state's plans. They challenged the legality of their removal in the Supreme Court, a case which they A week before the planned return to Mogopa, in won in September 1985, and immediately made September 1987, the state agreed to a meeting with plans to return to Mogopa. But the state had, in the community representatives, making an offer of a meantime, expropriated the farms, and the commu temporary place for the community to settle until nity would have been guilty of trespass if it such time as a mutually acceptable site could be reoccupied the land. The people were informed that found. At this meeting it was agreed that while at the state would not allow them to return to Mogopa, the temporary site, the community would draw up but that as a compromise, it was prepared to make a its own plans regarding its resettlement, and that new piece of land available. However, conditions these plans should be submitted to the state. And so attaching to this 'offer' were soon found to be unac the people of Mogopa moved once more, this time to ceptable. These were, inter alia, that the community Onderstepoort, near Rustenburg, where at least there would have to accept incorporation into the so-called would be adequate water and fuel supplies. independent state of Bophuthatswana, and that they would have no security of tenure, but would remain The plans which were drawn up by the community tenants on the land which they were to occupy. centred on the settlement of the community back at Mogopa, or on land adjoining nearby Mothopestad. Another plan had to be formulated by the commu But this plan was not acceptable to the state plan nity. With the support of church and service organi ners, for two reasons. Firstly, it was not state policy sations, it was decided that the people would partici to allow black people to live in areas earmarked (as pate in a church project to buy land for dispossessed Mogopa was) for white occupation, and secondly, a communities. A large farm, Holgat, in the d~gerou s precedent would be set in that other Ventersdorp district was identified, and the money resettled communities might also demand to be was raised for its purchase. But only days before the resettled on their original land if the state were to official registration of the transfer of ownership, the allow this for the people of Mogopa. The community state expropriated Holgat, on the basis that the land and the state entered another waiting game. was needed for the establishment of an agricultural Figure 3: The Ruins of the School at Mogopa, December 1983 (Photo: Gille de Vlieg) college. 22 23 Planning History Vol. 15 No. 2.1993 Planning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Articles Articles Conclusion marginalised from this second planning process. Where they were involved, planners became serv ants of state policy and accountable to the state and It has been shown elsewhere13 that the history of not the communities involved. As a result, a large lanning in South Africa has been characterised by p section of the South African population has come to ethnically based processes: one for the white minor distrust the very concept of planning- they are those ity, and another for all other groups in the popula for whom 'planning' has for so long had only nega tion. Planners in this country have traditionally tive connotations. tended to target their professional responsibility, accountability and service to a limited white elite Future history will show that planners, as a profes - - group only. 1n doing so they have placed them sional group, were not actively involved in the ~ selves in a position of passive compliance with state planning processes which so deeply affected the -- policy, which has meant that no other planning lives of rural black communities. Professional activity could take place without it having profound planning involvement in Mogopa, for example, political overtones. began only in 1991 with the compilation of the village plan by the author and students of the On the other hand, planning for black people in Department of Town and Regional Planning at the South Africa has been carried out almost entirely by University of the Witwatersrand. The approach the state, which, as has been illustrated by the taken in this planning process attempted to be Mogopa case, adopted an control-oriented, top democratic and participatory, in keeping wiUt the down approach in its pursuance of the utopian process which the community itself had followed. apartheid ideology. One of the essential features of this normative approach was that it attempted to There has, therefore, been a third process at work in perpetuate existing power relations in the country planning in South Africa, to which insufficient through control over land and access to land. More credence has been given. It has not been a formal often than not, professional planners were Figure 4: Daniel Molefe (64 years) at Onderstepoort, Relating the History of Mogopa (Photo: Gille de Vlieg) Late in 1988, about 60 people, led by tribal elders, the community arrived during the course of 1991, decided to return to Mogopa, with the intention of and settled on the site of the original village, al maintaining the ancestral graveyard. In March 1989, though in temporary structures only. a Supreme Court interdict was brought against them seeking their urgent eviction from the farm. The On 24th July 1991, permission to plough and to build community defended this action, on the grounds permanent houses was finally given to the commu • that the land belonged to it, arguing that the expro nity of Mogopa, which was ironically encouraged at priation had been invalid. The case was lost on a the time by the Minister of Development Aid to technicality, but the community lodged an appeal "think about how they would organise themselves in early in 1989. In the meantime, more members of the future, and to start planning for development".12 community drifted back to Mogopa from The significance of this however, was that the state Onderstepoort. The state reacted by warning that no had finally come to terms with the persistence of the further increase in the community would be al people of Mogopa, and had accepted the perma lowed, and that no permanent structures should be nence of the community on its land. erected. Today, the community continues to rebuild itself. In February 1990, State President de Klerk an Water pumps have been repaired or new ones nounced a series of reforms for the country, leading purchased and installed. The school has been rebuilt to the repeal of a number of repressive laws, the and its staff are funded by the state Black Administration Act and the LandActs being among them. In August 1990, the people of Mogopa Department of Education and Training. Community were given permission to start rebuilding their structures are in place, and a plarining committee school on the farm Zwartrand. To them this was this time democratically elected by the community - indeed a victory, and an acknowledgement by the is actively involved with state agricultural planners Figure 5: The Rebuilt School at Mogopa, November 1990 (Photo: Gille de Vlieg) state of their return to Mogopa. More members of in drawing up a development plan for the farm. 24 25 Planning History Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Article. Pl.tnning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Articles The recognition of those attributes, which m ay in ~d has not involved professional planners. 7. Quoted by Laurine Platsky and Cheryl Walker process, many instances only be present as 'relic features', is , •.t has been the antithesis of state planning: a (for the Surplus People Project) 1985 The Surplus Historical Continuity Instead fundamental to our understanding of the processes process, the impetus People: Forces Removals in South Africa Raven Press comm~.mty-bas~, bottom-up of change and renders our concept of a 'desirable for whtch tS mantfest in its opposition to and defi p.128. in Town Planning future image', coherent. ance of the formal state planning process. It has been counter-planning,-and as such, it is difficult to 8. Platsky and Walker, op. cit. (7) p.152. oherence And Context define in traditional planning terms. But the case of C Tod Welch, University of Spatial C the Bakwena ba Mogopa illustrates that the commu 9. Transvaal Rural Action Committee (TRAC), ign struc nity did plan, and did have a plan in the sense of a undated Mogopa: And Now We Have No LAnd p.7. Stellenbosch, South Africa According to Dober3 the objective of des vision of the future for themselves. This plan was ture "is the establishment of visual order in response ments of developing the adaptive, and was centred around the land and its 10. TRAC, op. cit. (9) p.7. The scale and rate of change commensurate with to the technical require life and in a manner symbolic significance to the tribe. current urbanization has necessitated that planning physical forms of community allows, over time, accommodation to diversity, 11. TRAC, op. cit. (9) p.IO. assume a more proactive role in the sense of actively that maintaining coherence in The importance of land to the state and to communi seeking ways to initiate, direct and manage change1 . increase, and change while the whole". ti~s has been a feature of the history of planning in 12. National Land Committee, 1991 l.And Update 10 this country. The state made its plans, but in the p.n In practice planners seem to have little problem in Accordingly, one is not seeking a kind of fossilised c~e illustrated above, the people of Mogopa reacted coming to grips with the technical aspects of devel but rather an wtth counter-plans. Theirs is a success story of 13. John Muller, 1983, Theory and Practice: The ]anus opment but often pay scant, if any attention, to a past- a dogmatic conservationism- place persistence and passive resistance. That the commu Face of Planning. Department of Town and Regional range of non-technical factors which should inform approach which allows for change to take and which nity was able to survive years of planned removal Planning, University of Witwatersrand, the process. To many planners the historical devel commensurate with contemporary living, destroy what went before by and counterplanning, is tribute to their capacity to Witwatersrand University Press. opment of towns, for example, and the reasons for does not thoughtlessly or through blind ignorance. maintain cohesion, a sense of purpose and a sense of their being as they are seem to be of little relevance kicking over the traces plan. or at best of academic interest. Conzen4 holds that there exists a state of tension and Clearly an understanding of the origins, growth, between dynamic function and static form often development and processes of change over time of although periods of economic prosperity have replace both natural and built environments is fundamental resulted in a considerable degree of building underly to planning decisions concerning 'desirable futures': ment (i.e. change) this rarely obliterates the from one needs to know what it was and what it is, before ing structural elements and hence relic forms survive in large parts of the decid ing what it should be. different periods often Acknowledgement: original town plan. The presence of relic forms may well bring to light conflicts between modem func illustrations for this article were Pursuant to this there is therefore a need for plan Photographic tional requirements and the extant design frame supplied by Gille de Vlieg. ners to pay attention to aspects such as urban struc ture, townscape, imagibility, environmental mean work or town plan. ing, perception and cognition, as essential form of giving elements in man's cultural environment, in The identification of the essential characteristics References r, and addition to the purely technological. urban structure as noted for example by Dobe of understanding the factors that have influenced 1. Bundy 1990 'Land, Law and Power: Forced townscape Town Plans Tell a Story and are influencing present and future Removals in Historical Context' in Murray, C and configurations, as highlighted by Conzen, are indis O'Regan, C (eds) No Place to Rest: Forced Removals pensable to effective urban management and plan Town plans reflect the social, political, economic and and the lAw in South Africa Oxford University Press, ning. p.3. technological forces at play in societies at any time. As noted by Martin2, the urban fabric records events In Olden's5 study of Stellenbosch, for example, in town's history in a way similar to that of a 2. Republic of South Africa, Act No 27 of 1913. in a which Conzen's analytical framework is used, Olden sest: "beneath the characters that we first palimp concludes that the major weakness of current plan trace, there are other words and phrases to be read". 3. Bundy, op. cit. (1) p.S. ning action is its lack of coherence or sense of con text. This he contends results from the fact that Town plans are the embodiment not only of a 4. Republic of South Africa, Act No 18 of 1936. whilst planners may well be aware of and be sensi community's cultural past but of its cultural present tive to historical elements, the treatment of these as and its cultural future. The understanding of these 5. Republic of South Africa, Act No 38 of 1927. loose assemblages of bits and pieces has led to processes is central to the notion of historical conti planning "recommendations directly at odds with nuity in town planning. Whilst it is of value to 6. Quoted by Gilbert Marcus, 1990 'Section 5 of the the features of the town plan". establish commonalities (nomothetic attributes) it is Black Administration Act: The Case of the Bakwena Although the influence or impact of change is possibly of greater value to reveal the idiographic ba Mogopa' in Murray and O'Regan, op. cit/. {1) p.17- possibly more noticeable and dramatic in smaller characteristics of each town - for herein lies 18. historic towns, it is probably true that a lack of a themeans to discover those unique attributes of the understanding of urban processes and genius loci. thorough 27 26 Planning History Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Planning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Articles Articles how these influence urban form over time also results in incongruities between expectation and environmental experience of the spirit of place or of account for the poor planning and urban manage reality. the genius loci. . ' . -~ ment evident in our larger cities as well. -·- Perception is therefore a function of learning and Understanding the meaning of a particular built '~ In addition to the previously noted concepts of according to Srnith9 " ... Environment is physically environment is the key to its interpretation and design structure and townscape, one should note, negotiated by reference to what is already known. provides the basis for evaluating the appropriateness albeit somewhat cursorily, the importance of legibil Past experience enables the mind to establish prob of its elements and their disposition in relation to the ity and environmental meanings, what constitutes a abilities about the visual array". function they fulfil. good environment, the role of environmental percep tion, and the acquisition of environmental schemas. If our schemas lack correspondence with reality, our The Case of Stellenbosch ability to predict future action is impaired: confusion Intelligibility and Environmental Mean results in an inability to cope and conflict and stress The purpose of this brief historical overview is not to ings become evident. provide a comprehensive historical account of Stellenbosch -but rather to highlight the role and Toffler's10 'future shock' is evidenced in the lack of significance of three unique 'ingredients', which Lynch's6 contribution to our understanding of the congruence between fixed, well established, known of urban 'legibility' as too the work of influenced the establishment of the village and its Figure 1: Stellenbosch in 1710, based on drawing by importance and secure frames of reference and an environment on environmental meaning as a form of subsequent growth: the mountains, the river and the M.C. Stander (Smuts, pSO) Rapoport7 which is undergoing rapid change. The individual's serves to underscore the signifi mill furrows. communication, locus of control shifts from internal control to exter of the built environment in facilitating interalia cance nal control, with a concomitant sense of helplessness. the establishment of self-identity, place identity and Origins school and a small number of houses for " ...a minis ter, beadle, schoolmaster, smith and wagon- in reducing feelings of alienation and cognitive According to Kelly's 11 personal construct theory we dissonance. What is built reflects the needs of a In the founding of the village of Stellenbosch (the builder... ", situated between the church and Drostdy, view the world "through transparent patterns of first settlement beyond the Cape) in the same year of formed the core of the new community. Because of society, its values and its technology and is imbued templates" of our own creation. The interpretation with meanings which are culture bound. The his arrival in the Cape, van der Stel not only made the frequent flooding of the island it subsequently of an event or construct allows us to anticipate his presence felt, but created: a focus for the growing became necessary to fill the northern arm of the river intelligibility of the built environment is bound to future events and to take steps to meet demands. the ease with which the environmental meanings are agricultural community; a decentralized seat of local and through excavations to deepen the southern arm The way in which the individual anticipates future government- in terms of administrative, legal and and thereby canalize the flow of water along the understood and the ease in which it is negotiated: i.e. events is crucial to his or her behaviour or responses clarity of mental images which facilitate way military matters; a spiritual centre in the church; and river course as we know it today (Fig 2). the to environmental events. finding. the first embryonic commercial service and trading node outside the Cape. As Walkerl3 notes, he Townscapes Environmental Preferences " .. .leaped the sandy Flats which cut off the Cape from' Africa' ... ". The relevance of Lynch's imagibility, Rapoport's The way in which the environment is cognitively environmental meanings, Kaplan and Kaplan's From accounts it is clear that the general setting, and organised influences our environmental preferences. environmental preferences, Smith's environmental According to Kaplan and Kaplan8 " ... preference for particularly the river, captured the imagination of schemas and Kelly's personal constructs are rather van der Stel, when on November 6, 1679 he spent the a scene is a function of the need to make sense of the elegantly reflected in Conzen'sl2 concept of night on the banks of the river14: 'Through the scene and the need to be involved in it". Further to Townscape: valley flows a very impressive fresh-water river with coherence and legibility, through which we satisfy its banks fringed by beautiful tall trees and these the need for making sense, two further components Firstly, it has utility, in that it facilitates our orienta trees are very suitable both for timber and fuel. In are important: that of complexity, in the sense that tion within, and our negotiation of, the built environ the river a small island was discovered around the environment should hold one's attention without ment. which the water streams and which is densely being boring or confusing, and mystery or surprise overgrown with beautiful high trees .. .'. and interest, in that a range of events and vistas Secondly, the townscape has aesthetic value in terms should unfold as one moves through the setting. In of the visual and emotional responses. By the end of the year the first farmer had settled on addition to these a good environment should ~fford Figure 2: Stellenbosch today. Approx. to the same the banks of the river on the farm Welgevallen and opportunities in that it should allow users to become scale as Fig 1 (Planning and Mapping (Pty) Ltd.) Thirdly, it has intellectual value in that it helps us to by 1685 the whole settlement comprised acircle of involved at a variety of levels. orientate ourselves with respect to time: it allows us farms around Stellenbosch island. Stellenbosch was to gain perspective of ourselves within a in practice therefore, an agricultural colony, 'without From its inception the Eerste River has been an Environmental Perception widerevolving society, affording historical compari a village at its centre' (Fig 1). integral part of Stellenbosch's history. It served as a sons and hence a more informed basis for decision source of potable water, was used for irrigation of According to Smith one classifies visual input making. By April 1687, the Drostdy which was located on the gardens, functioned as a sewer and provided power according to its conformity with particular experien eastern end of the island, was completed and the for the flour mills. It was the latter need which led to tial schemas. The individual develops separate In totality the environmental experience imparted by church was inaugurated in October. By this time a the construction of water furrows to drive the mills schemas (images) of what elements (houses~ the townscape as reflected in the above, in addition mill for the making of flour- a commodity sorely and which, like a silver thread became woven into churches, shopping centres, etc) are expected to look to the influence of geology, topography, setting and needed by the locals and the Company's ships- was the urban fabric. like. A disruption of the expected correlation be climate serve to impart and reinforce that important in operation and these structures together with the tween established schemas and experiential events 28 29 Planning History Vol. 1S No. 2.. 1993 Planning History Vol. 1S No 1.1993. Articles Articles Mental Images and Environmental Mean The River and its Mill Furrows ings Clearly the river and its mill furrows form a vital link with the past and a unique and indispensable For most, the image one has of Stellenbosch is part of the town's cultural history (Fig 7). confined to those things the name connotes and which reflect in practice, only a part of the total Figure 4: Traditional architecture in Dorp Street. can In practice, the area comprising the historic core Figure 6: Proposed residential development on the be conceived as comprising two lobes (Fig 5): the environmentally sensitive western slopes of present well known area with its rich architectural Stellenboschb~rg. and cultural heritage- concentrated between the old Strand Road and Market street to the west, around Figure 3: Traditional architecture in van Riebeeck the Braak to the n01:th; the Village Museum to the It is indeed strange that the element that impressed Figure 9: The northern branch of the mill furrow. Street. Note the mill furrow at right. east and flanking the length of Dorp Street to the van der Stel the most is the one that features only one the south-and the other lobe stretching from Dorp marginally in the urban structure and is the The way in which the recognition of the quality of Street to the river. In practice the latter is totally visitor never sees. design,is picture; the historic core, oak lined streets -hence the the mill furrow can enhance environmental disregarded as forming part of the designated northern and name the "Eikestad" (Village of Oaks)- the univer clearly reflected in a comparison of its historic and conservation area of the town. southern branches, where it bifurcates at the corner sity, the Eerste River, the surrounding winelands the with their Cape Dutch homesteads all neatly framed of Plein and Andringa Streets (Fig 8). Although What is needed is to recognize this area as an inte northern branch is open to pedestrians it is seldom, against the background of its majestic mountains gral part of the historic core and to draw the north if ever, used (Fig 9). Its sou them branch has how (Fig 3 and 4). em an9 sou them lobes together into a coherent ever been capitalized on and has been instrumental whole. in opening up the mid-block core and contributes To some extent these images do not accurately reflect this impor reality. As noted in a recent study of the Eerste greatly to the environmental quality of tant pedestrian area (Fig 10). River for example, whilst the river enjoys some prominence with respect to how people think about opening up and articula it, this is not always congruent with how the act There is no reason why the tion of activities along the course of the northern towards it. People think about it as a front garden the mills Figure 7: The Eerste River, the position of branch should not be as successful as the Dorpsteeg but treat it as a backyard 15. and mill furrows. precinct and would even further enhance, by adding a new dimension of variety in urban experience, the The River and the Town urban quality of the whole village centre. The area designated in the town planning scheme as Figure 5: The northern and southem lobes of the It should be noted that the course followed by these a conservation area clearly reflects a preoccupation historic core. two branches probably dates back to before the first with historic buildings as the criterion for designat mill or shortly after the establishment of the town; a ing this type of area. In consequence scant attention residual feature of considerable historic significance Were consideration to be given to encouraging is paid to urban structure or other significant urban (Fig 1). formgiving elements, for example the river. residential development within this lobe, this could, through higher densities and repletionary processes, Conclusion The river is a unique and integral part of the urban reduce the pressure on land and curtail further context. Its water furrows, as they weave their way unbridled sprawl on the western slopes of While it may be contended that ambiguity generates through the very heart of the village, serve as a Stellenboschberg, with its concomitant despoilation a richness in the environment, it is the lack of intelli reminder of its presence. The potential this water of the still largely intact unique mountain scenery gibility and the lack of congruence between mental system in combination offers is inestimable to the (Fig 6). In addition to providing a strong residential Figure 8: The northern and southern branches of the image and reality which is disruptive. To design or maintenance and enhancement of the quality of life component within the historic centre of the village, it mill furrow where it bifurcates and cuts diagonally plan is an act of will, it has purpose and an end in of the community at large. would improve safety and increase the usage and through the street blocks (centre of photo). pleasure to be derived from the river. view; it is not wilful, i.e. it is not an act of deliberate perversity. 30 31 Planning H istory Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Planning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Articles Articlu (ii) what makes a place unique with respect to 10. A.Toffler, Future Shock, Pan Books, London and The Planning Origins 'content' and 'context'- i.e. design structure, Sydney 1971. townscape and the spirit of place or the genius loci; 11. L.A. Hjelle and D.J. Ziegler, Personality Theories, of Bloemfontein: An McGraw-Hill, 1981, p327. (iii) and to grasp the processes whereby we learn Urban Design Critique to understand and negotiate our environ 12. M.R.G. Conzen, op cit, p84. ment; how images are formed; how the built environment can be made more intelligible; 13. E.A. Walker, A History of Southern Africa, Wa llace van Zyl, University how congruence between how we think Longmans, 1962, p48. about and how we act towards our environ of the Orange Free State, ment can be achieved and how environmen 14. F. Smuts (ed), Stellenbosch Three Centuries, tal quality can be reinforced. Stellenbosch Town Council in collaboration with the South Africa Oude Meester Group, Stellenbosch 1979, ppSl-65. In this way urban planning may achieve a sense of Introduction continuity over time and avoid the pitfalls of 15. C.T. Welch, Eerste River Park System, Department scapes being treated as mere spatial congeries of Town and Regional Planning, University of town This paper will examine selected aspects of the a loose assemblage of remarkable bits and pieces Stellenbosch, 19~, ppl-23. or physical planning origins of Bloemfontein with without spatial coherence or context. emphasis on three urban design axes in the central area. References Particular characteristics of the gridiron plan such as 1. J.W.R. Whitehand, The Changing Face of Cities. A order, orientation, simplicity, speed and adaptability study of development cycles and urban form. Basil explain why it was frequently used in history. There Blackwell, Oxford 1987, p144. are two grid types, which may explain the planning pedigree of Bloernfontein, namely military and 2. G.H. Martin, 'The Town as Palimpsest', in H.J. trade. The author has discussed some characteristics Dyos (ed) The Study of Urban History, Edward of grid planning elsewhere.l Amold, London 1968, plSS. The speed and simplicity of a grid plan were also 3. R.P. Dober, Environmental Design, van Nostrand important in laying out colonial towns and cities. Reinhold Company, 1969, p70. Figure 10: The southern branch of the mill furrow Throughout history there have been practical new along the Dorpsteeg pedestrian precinct. towns founded to spread surplus population from 4. M.R.G. Conzen, 'G!'!ography and Townscape the older, established centres, strangled by wars, Conservation', in J.W.R. Whitehand (ed) The Urban famine or unemployment. There were also motives For design and planning to have purpose we must Landscape: Historical Development and Management, of trade, defence and resource development. When examine and understand our needs, what we want, Papers by M.R.G. Conzen, Institute of British Geog new colonial towns were built rapidly, they were how these can best be achieved and how to express raphers, Special Publication, No 13, Academic Press, laid out in rectangular blocks along straight streets.2 them within the context of our unique culture -we 1981,p80. should not only recognise that we have a cultural Origins heritage, but that we also have a cultural present and 5. P.O. Olden, Towards a morphological understanding a cultural future. It is the reflection of this continuity of the Stellenbosch townscape: An analysis of the histori During the early 19th Century, Bloemfontein merely Unpublished M.aster's dissertation, in the built environment which gives meaning to the cal town plan, marked the crossing of a rough trail and convenient world around us, imbues it with a sense of place in Department of Town and Regional Planning, Uni place for hunters, soldiers and traders to outspan on 1990. time and allows us to understand who we are and versity of Stellenbosch, the Highveld of South Africa due to the presence of a what we stand for. fountain. A shallow east-west dolerite ridge helped 6. K. Lynch, The ImageoftheCity, The M.l.T. Press, to dam up the water (Bloemspruit), which attracted The design professionals - planners, urban designers, 1960. huge herds of wild animals. It is therefore not architects and engineers -need to gain a clearer surprising that Blacks used the name Mangaung A. Rapoport, of the Built Environment, understanding of the processes through which 7. The Meaning meaning 'place of the big cats or leopards'? appropriate environments can be achieved. They Sage Publication, 1982. need to understand: In 1846, Mayor Warden moved his British troops 8. R.G. Gifford, Environmental Psychology, Principles beyond the Orange River from Philippolis to and Practice, Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1987 pSS. (i) urban development processes in their Bloemfontein and immediately erected a frontier appropriate time frames - past, present and fort. The farm called 'Bloemfontein' (fountain P.F. Smith, of Urban ism, Hutchinson future; 9. The Dynamics offlowers) was ceded to the British Government by Educational, London 1974, p25. an emigrant named Brits. Warden chose 33 32 Planning History Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Pl~nning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Articles Articles Bloemfontein as his station for practical reasons such creating a multiplier effect in the economy.5 as its centrali ty, water supply, good communica tions, military potential and freedom from horse Three Historic Axes (Figure 1) sickness!! In March 1848 Sir Harry Smith established a Sovereignty, and fixed Bloemfontein as the seat of Three major axes will now be singled out for atten the government. Taking topography into account, in tion/ namely the east-west watercourse 1851 the surveyor Andrew Bain, then laid out long (Bloemspruit), the east-west axis Maitland Street and east-west streets parallel to Bloemspruit with one the north-south boulevard of President Brand Street. north-south axis, Olurch Street.4 It was a gridiron plan in the military tradition with many historic 1. Bloemspruit antecedents such as Greece and Rome. The part of the town comprising the 'water erven' was the Bloemfontein's city core is hemmed in by hills to the earliest occupied, lying on the south side of the north, the railways in the east, sports facilities in the Bloemspruit. The major east-west axis and main west and Bloemspruit in the south. Since the city is roadway St. George's Street on the south, connected situated in a basin, the Spruit is a natural drain. This the Residency with the Fort. A few church cottages linear reserve of public open space is 40 metres wide clustered round the Dutch Reformed Church at the and one kilometer long as an east-west axis, present upper end of Church Street, to the north. Following ing both a unique chance for redevelopment and a historic tradition, three open spaces or 'squares' visual edge in the heart of the city. were provided within the gridiron namely the Resident's Square, Church Square and Market. Very After a fatal flood in 1904, the banks of the Spruit soon most major business and trade moved n orth of were disciplined with sandstone walls and a series of the Spruit. graceful humpback stone bridges were thrown. . across it. The western part near the rugby stadiUm ts One of the few buildings of the original settlement to a stark concrete drain, starting with vertical sides be preserved in St. George's Street, is the First and leading to the typical dish-shaped cross-section. Raadzaal. In the central portion, there is the long Nobody ever uses the bottom or sides of the Spruit, low barn-like room, where the Bloemfontein Con nor have steps or pathways ever been provided. vention of 1854 was signed, granting independence This is a far cry from the natural landscape of reeds, to the Orange Free State. Here Hoffman, the first willows and pools which greeted Major Warden in President, was sworn in, and he·re for the first three 1846. years of the Republic the Volksraad held their debates. The building was also used as the offices of East of the stadium one finds the vital visual inter the town board, as a school, and as a church. section of two axes, namely President Brand Street and the Spruit. In this historic area is the restored Further east along the 'weak' St. George's Street Presidency on the south bank and the Fire Station east-west axis is the English Cathedral, of St. and High Court on the north bank. Lack of imagina Andrew and St. Michael. In 1863 the Bishopric of tion has prevented a monumental celebration of this Bloemfontein was created and the vast diocese ' urban room', and failed to employ the hard-soft included Basutoland, Griqualand West, contrast of a water's edge. Bechuanaland, and the OFS. The chancel and choir 0 METRES L. of the present Cathedral formed the original church, Spontaneous growth of peppercorn trees and shrubs built in 1866. At the top of Church Street Hill and to along some parts of the bank, suggests a landscape Figure 1: Plan of Central Bloemfontein showing Major Historic Buildings and Three Axes: (1) Bloemspruit, (2) the east is the Old Fort commenced in 1848 and now theme for urban design. Further east towards the Maitland Street and (3) President Brand Street a military museum. Most historic views of Station there is a mixed bag of flats, parking garage, Bloemfontein were recorded from here and almost light industry and shopping. The sandstone bl~~ the whole town can be seen sloping treatment of the banks with tufts of grass, the ongt has already been a premature scheme to build a which displaced St. George's Street as the town down from the ridge. nal wrought-iron railing and the typical CYP.ress trees parking garage ov~ r the Spruit, which amounts to spread northwards. Close to the Station there is a al.J help to make the concrete dish bearable.6 giving away public land. Unfortunately this lack of large r~ brick building forming the Central Railway The coming of the railway in 1890 brought rapid respect for history on the part of the City Engineer is Offices, which housed a conference in 1899 between growth, a housing shortage and a bout of land Under pressure however the City Council has also shared by a preoccupied public. President Kruger and Lord Milner to stave off the speculation on the eastern side of the business centre decided that its historic 'stormwater' ditch is in need Anglo-Boer War. Maitland Street was always the in an undeveloped area. Thus the so-called ' railway of a face-lift with a suggestion that the business 2. Maitland Street choice for important parades' until about 1920 when camp' came into being, jobs were createdand the district be extended towards it. The Council held a President Brand Street took over. new station to the east dosed the Maitland Street competition which was won in 1986 by a On leaving the Railway Station, one enters the axis and reinforced its importance. Until about ten highly-sensitive neo-Classical scheme featuring east-west axis Maitland Street, the main business About halfway down the street one finds the 'forum' years ago the railway works were among the largest water gardens in the manner of Italy or Spain. There thoroughfare and 'decumanus' of Bloemfontein, of Bloemfontein, Hoffmann Square at the intersec- in South Africa employing about 2000 people and 34 35 Pl;anning H istory Vol. 1S No. 2. 1993 Pl;anning History Vol. 1S No 2.1993. Articles Articles tion of the Church Street axis. Unti\1970 the layout longing for a former Council policy 'to beauti!S this References of the square was both functional and symbolic but thoroughfare making it the pride of the town'. Pretoria: Genesis and 'beautification' efforts have since turned it into a 1. F. D. Wallace van Zyl, Adelaide and the Gridiron mere bus station and traffic island? The inspiration for the street might well have been Plan in History. Architecture Australia, June 1963, the Successive Layers indirectly based on the boulevard concept of 98-99. At the end of 0\urch Street (north-south axis) the Haussmann. Gustav Baumann the surveyor, gave it of its Evolution two spires of the Dutch Reformed 0\urch a large width for those times namely 32 metres or 2. Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Towns and Buildings, (Tweetoringkerk), built in 1878, close the vista in a 103 feet. However it was rather unfortunate that it Liverpool University, 1951. truly European manner. A pedestrian mall has been was later 4::ut by four east-west road s carrying Louw van Biljon, University of created in front of the church and it has become a growing motor traffic between the commercial core 3. Karel Schoeman, Bloemfontein: die Ontstaan van 'n tradition to conduct burial services for all State and destinations on the west. Stad, Human and Rousseau, Cape Town, 1980; 6. Pretoria, South Africa Presidents in modem South Africa in the Tweetoringkerk. Japha9 ascribes the fine design quality of the boul 4. E. L. Calverley, A Guide to Bloemfontein with a short evard to the consistent use of materials and the Histon; Argus, Bloemfontein, 1905; 34-39. Introduction At the west end of Maitland Street were the Govern employment of similar design elements. There are ment Offices built in 1878, now the National Litera eight towers along the street, the entrance bays are 5. Tbid., Schoeman, 1980; 101. This paper aims to describe and assess the planning ture Museum. Originally only one storey, an upper articulated with columns and pediments, and the history of Pretoria. Pretoria's evolution is discussed portion was added to close the vista with Maitland main materials are sandstone walls and columnartd 6. F. D. Wallace van Zyl, Bloemspruit as an Urban in chonological order, with emphasis on the plan Street, which goes due east one kilometer to the red tile roofs. The buildings are set back from the Design Challenge, Architecture SA, March 1987; 21. ning inputs in the city's evolutionary process. The Station. The new part was designed by Sir Herbert street edge with formal gardens in front, and a account is accompanied by a running commentary, Baker architect of the Union Buildings, Pretoria and double row of trees. Victorian landscaping features 7. F. D. Wallace van Zyl, Stadsontwerp vir die and a general conclusion about the nature of plan the Parliament, New Delhi. Behind the Literature create the impression of monuments carefu lly Voetganger, Research Report no. 9, Department ning as practised in Pretoria, is made. Museum is a highly unsympathetic newcomer, the positioned in a unique park, but neither ends of the Urban and Regional Planning, Free State University, Provincial Administration which is defiantly off boulevard are terminated by a strong urban 1987; 21. Genesis centre from the Maitland Axis and out of scale with designelement like an obelisk. However its histori its historic surroundings. It was theforerunner of cal significance extends beyond urban design. 8. The Friend, Bloemfontein, 17 Apri\1929. Pre-history several such official buildings which have all ig nored matters of context, history, height, scale and 'This boulevard tells us 'where and when' we 9. Vivienne Japha, President Brand Street, Archeological evidence shows that the place where civic design. are and describes the unique personality of Bloemfontein, Architecture SA, May 1991; 18. Pretoria is today, located, had been inhabited by Bloemfontein like a fingerprint. It has Senti people from the Middle Stone ~ge. It is also known 3. President Brand Street ment, Symbolism and a Sense of Place:10 10. F. D. WaUace van Zyl, The Bloemfontein Civic that the place had been frequented by Bushmen. Centre Competition, Architecture SA, September tely in 1989 the whole 'environmental area' Maitland Street forms aT-junction with the historic Fortuna 1986; 33. Pretoria and its district is, on the whole, Sotho as an Historic District by the National boulevard of President Brand Street, now an impor was declared country. In spite of this, it appears that the first tant north-south axis, which did not exist until the Monuments Council. As recently as 1991 the City permanent settlers were Ndebele. "They appear all... belatedly held a national ideas competition turn of the century. Originally it was a short street Council to derive from a single paren t tribe which was living on the north side of the Spruit with three important to rejuvenate the Boulevard. However crucial urban around the present site of Pretoria several centuries criteria of scale, materials, colour and land buildings sited in isolation, i.e. the Presidency, old design (about three, to four hundred years) ago, under a have already been jeopardised by the new Government Building (Literature Museum) and scape chief named Ms i, or Musi". Fourth Raadzaal. After the Fourth Raadzaal was Civic Centre of 1992. This ice-blue glass and steel is behind the cosy neo-Classical sandstone opened, (1893) development extended over the river building Sotho people of the baKwena tribe settled the area at and is defended by its architect as 'har to connect it with the Presidency (1888). Only after City Hall, a later stage. This apparently peaceful state of affairs by contrast'. the building of the Supreme Court, in 1906 when mony continued until the arrival of Mzilikaze and his rebel unsightly gaps were filled did President Brand Street Zulu group in 1825. He routed the baKwena but achieve significant administrative and cultural status Postscript allowed the local Ndebele to stay, absorbing some of at a national level. At the time of Union in 1910 them into his tribe. Mzilikaze established his royal Bloemfontein became the Judicial Capital as a This paper has shown that Bloemfontein started life kraal at, or close to Meintjeskop (according to de 'consolation prize'. as a military grid, became a provincial and legisla scriptions given by the missionary Robert Moffat tive capital, and now aspires to be a 'Total City'. The when he visited Mzilikaze in 1826), the present site Although the boulevard did not originate from a evolutionary and adaptive nature of its plan has of the Union Building!. However, Mzilikaze's stay conscious blueprint of 'uniqueness', the first key produced several unique urban design elements. In was short-lived for, after 0\aka's death, Dingaan buildings exerted a powerful influence on its future, 1877 Anthony Trollope saw it as 'a pretty smiling embarked on the warpath with Mzilikaze, and the e.g. the Presidency, old Government Building and village' but perhaps "city of the veld" describes it latter was defeated. This prompted him to move his Fourth Raadzaal in spite of their suburban setting. best, as something of a cinderella and a victim of kraal to Zeerust in the western Transvaal during However in 1922 a conscious attempt was made to 'private affluence and public squalor' which threaten 1832. dignify the boulevard by widening the pavement the coherence of its unique and historic urban design and planting a double row of fir trees on either side. elements. Some contemporary planners, have a nostalgic 36 37 Planning History Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Planning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Articles Articles loci. According to Jordaan's9 interpretation of The physical impact of human habitation on the populated, albeit very sparsely. Norberg-Schultzl , Pretoria has a cosmic landscape: land, up to this point, was negligible. As such, the ridges form elongated city containers, corre novisible evidence of human habitation was to be The Volksraad4 of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek sponding to the cosmic directions for birth (east) and found when white settlers arrived in the area. (ZAR)5, decided in 1852, to seek a place more cen trally located in the republic than Potchefstroom or death (west). Perhaps it is no coincidence that the Natural place Lydenburg, for the siting of the capital. M W traditional funeral procession of a head of state Pretorius proposed the site of Pretoria. This was begins at Libertas or the Union Building (east of Pretoria is characterised by, and derives its sense of eventually accepted and permission was given to Church square), proceeds westward along Church street to terminate at Heroes Acre cemetery, which is place mainly from, it's ridges and rivers. The ridges establish a town. Pretoria was established in 1855 consist of three ranges which run parallel in a east and named after its founder's father, A W Pretorius. situated to the west of the square. west direction: the Magaliesberg in the north, the The town was only formally laid out in 1857, shortly Overlaid over this natural cosmic order is a man Daspoort range to the south and the Timeball Hill after the first church had been built. The initial made classical order of the grid with Church square range to the south of the latter. These ridges define functions of the town were to serve as a religious Figure 2a: The Original Grid Layout (Source situated on a slight rise in the valley at the intersec two well-watered valleys, drained by the Apies river and social centre and as seat for the administration Jordaan, 1987). tion of the two axes. The church's spire symbolised and its tributary streams. The river originates from a of justice6. The Volksraad declared Pretoria its the vertical axis, linking man to God. To complete spring in the Fountains valley, which in itself, is a capital in 1860. In 1903 Pretoria received municipal the Mandala, the natural eastern and western cleft in the Timeball Hill range. It flows in a north status, in 1910 it became the seat of government of erly direction, bisects the Daspoort range at the Union of South Africa. In 1931 it was declared a boundaries of the original latout were the A pies river and Steenhoven 1. Thus it seems that the Daspoort2 and, further north, bisects the city, in 1961 it retained its position as the seat of ~p ruit initial planning resulted in a harmonious marriage of Magaliesberg at Wonderboompoort. According to government for the Republic of Soultl Africa (the cosmic and functional order. This sensitivity to spirit early settlers, the river was fairly strong-flowing, population at this time was around 500,000) and providing a constant supply of crystal-clear water. today it is estimated that the population within the of place was unfortunately not repeated in conse municipal boundary is approximately one rrullion7. quent planning actions. Birth The nucleus of Pretoria arose where the main wagon Hibernation The brothers Bronkhorst settled here in 1839, build trails of the ZAR intersected8. The first church was ing their homestead in the Fountains valley, close to built on this intersection and formed the focal point Du Toit (who was also the magistrate of early the spring itself. Other Voortrekkers3 also settled in of the town. When du Toit measured and pegged the Pretoria) formulated regulations whereby the or the valleys of Pretoria, so that the area became first street layout, he took the church as his starting derly construction and hygiene of the town could be Figure 2b: Extension of the Grid; Cosmic and ensured. According to the Land Act of 1858, it was Classical Landscape Combined (source: Jordaan, the responsibility of the magistrate to ensure orderly 1987). development in the district and towns under his jurisdiction. Town councils which came into being, were to be accountable to the magistrate. Because of point. From there, he set out three streets to the west, a massive workload, du Toit petitioned the four to the east, five to the north and four to the Volksraad to delegate his town management respon uth, in a grid pattern. The area thus formed was so sibilities to the residents of Pretoria. The residents bounded by Potgieter, Bloed, du Toit and Minnaar were quite unwilling to take on the responsibility. streets. The grid's axial streets were Church and Up to 1897 the Volksraad tried in vain to install Market streets, named after the principal functions effective local government in Pretoria. Pretoria was, of the central square. in effect, managed and financed by the state. In 1898 a temporary council was installed but it was only The layout was typical of the pioneers' practice of after the ZAR became a British colony that a proper town planning: the grid was employed because of and working town council came into being. the ease whereby it could be measured and subdi vided into erven, and the streets were oriented in Between 1857 and the early 1940s, Pretoria had no such a way as to allow for natural drainage so that form of concerted planning at all. Growth occurred water furrows could be aligned along the streets. In by accretion of suburbs (some completely isolated Pretoria's case, water was diverted from the Apies from the main urban body) and was controlled by river into the furrows, to be used for irrigation and building and health regulations. domestic purposes. However, conditions on the western front, goaded A comparative analysis of theories on city building the city council into action- at least where the black leads one to wonder if the purely functional aspects population was concerned. Up to 1939, the black as stated above, were the only considerations during population of Pretoria was mainly housed in three the initial planning of the town. Archetypal symbol areas: Marabastad (consisting of Marabastad proper, ism seems to have played an important (if not Asiatic Bazaar, Cape Boys Location and subconscious) role in determining Pretoria's genius the Figure 1: The Second Church on Church Square, c 1865 (source unknown). Skoolplaats) adjoining the central area on its north- 39 38 Planning H istory Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Pl~nning History Vol. 15 No 2.1993. Articles Articles Figure 3: fretoria c 1897 (source: compiled by British Military Intelligence, 1880). Figure 4: The Third Church on Church Square, Built in 1883 and demolished in 1906 (source unknown). ated for the CBD, west; Banthule, further to the north-west, on the unchanged. The removal was effected ... (in) ... 1958 in Grandiose Visions In 1956 a traffic plan was formul loosely based on the Holford proposals but with southern slope of Daspoortridge and Lady which... Lady Selboume was declared an area for direct access. This Selbourne, on the southern slope of the Magaliesberg future occupation by members of the White Perhaps the action on the western front made the more grade separation and less similar plan, again in (at this time, Lady Selbourne and Alexandra in group"13. The residents of the suburb were moved authorities (both the council and the state are Preto was followed up in 1960 with a 1965 with the Telford commission's proposals, the Johannesburg were the only townships where Blacks to Mabopane/Soshanguve, some 30 kilometres ria's planning authorities, even today) realise that city engineers' in 1967, again in the seventies, again had title to their erven). Conditions in Marabastad northwards. The suburb was razed and the land lay some form of concerted planning was needed to in the eighties and again in 1991. The main differ had been bad for the better part of 30 years and were fallow untill the mid 80's, when the city council guide the development of the fast-growing capital. ence between the succession of plans is that the deteriorating; it was a physical and social slum. developed the land as an economic housing scheme terminology has changed: from highways, to Although smaller than Marabastad, Banthule was for whites. Up to the present day, less than half of The council appointed sir William Holford in 1948 to routes, to main roads to super streets {the not much better. The council then put the wheels in the erven have been developed. formulate proposals for the city's central business through name). In each successive case, the previous motion to provide living conditions "worthy of district (CBD). Holford's proposals consisted mainly latest were scaled down a little. Apart from buman habitation" for its black population. Eersterust, the group area for the coloured popula of two sets of recommendations, the first with regard proposals expropriation of land for road-building purposes Atteridgeville was proclaimed in 1939 and Saulsville tion and Laudium, for the Indian population, were to building setbacks, density zoning and the group the demolition of buildings, a start has only (adjoining it) in 1949. Mamelodi was proclaimed in both proclaimed in 1958. At this stage, the largest ing of government offices; all with the aim of and been made (during 1992) on the southern leg of the 1953. It would seem as if the move to Atteridgeville part of Pretoria's Coloured, Indian, Malay and strengthening Pretoria's visual image as that befit proposed ring road. was a happy one for all concerned . The township Chinese people, interspersed with a number of ting a capital city. He also proposed that Struben was not spared expenses; proper housing and whites, lived and worked or had businesses in street be widened and developed as a government In the sixties, the state appointed a consortium of adequate community facilities were provided. The Marabastad and its vicinity. With the forced re boulevard, to eventually link up with the Union architects and planners to plan the much-lamented council even appointed full -time staff to advise the moval of the Indian and Coloured people to their Building in the east16. Secondly, he proposed that hoop area. The resulting proposals provided residents on anything from health, to sport to social respective roup areas this was Pretoria's the CBD be physically defined. This,was to be done Goede for high-rise, high-density flats, in the form of activities12. Pageview1 . The land was expropriated by the state by a limited access ring road around the CBD, which and most of the housing, demolished. In total, was also to accommodate through traffic. As a result encapsulated living-shopping-playing complexes in the modernist tradition. Two of these complexes The story of Lady Selbourne is a much less happy development on 22 city blocks were frozen, pending some government buildings were built in Struben Schubart Park and K.ruger Park- have been built. one. "Some dissatisfaction was expressed at the a redevelopment scheme. The area was renamed street and the building setback and density zoning remainder of Goedehoop is still awaiting new hearing of the committee of the Group Areas Board "Goedehoop"15. If ever there was a misnomer, this proposals were accepted. Nothing more of the The development. in June, 1956, that any change should be made to was it. The city council had, and still has, no say over Holford plan came to fruition, although the idea of Lady Selboume as, as late as 1954, the Native Affairs the planning or use of this land as it remains in the the ring road persists to this day. of the above were ad hoc schemes; there was no Department had openly stated that it would remain 'custody' of the state. All 40 41 Articles Planning History Vol. 1S No. 2. 1993 Planning History Vol. 15 No 2.1993. Articles attempt to integrate planning proposals nor to tailor print, functionalist and comprehensive in spirit. It tive one. But this was a conservatism tempered by a 11. Norberg-Schultz, C. 1980. Genius Loci: Towards a the grandiosity to the city's means. also accepted that the future would be an Apartheid sensitivity to p lace and the social nature of people. A Phenomenology of Architecture. Academy Editions: future. . good start then, as the first step on the evolutionary London. Non-Visions ladder. For nearly a century after du Toit, Pretoria The Pretoria Structure Plan has recently been re did not plan: its people were simply disinterested. 12. "Spruit": Afrikaans word, meaning 'stream'. vised20. A draft report was circulated for comment. On the other hand, growth was so slow that perhaps Pretoria aquired its first town planning scheme in planning was not necessary. 13. Ball, B W B 1968. Planning for seperate racial 1944 and it remained the only planning instrument The document outlines the process followed: groups in Pretoria. Unpublished MSC (TRP) -dis up to 1973. In 1970 the council appointed consult When Pretoria did start to plan again, the scale of the course. University of Pretoria: Pretoria. ants to draw up a Policy plan 17, as the first phase in - problem statements; -general vision and formulation of objectives; intended interventions was large. Planning tended to the' formulation of a Master Plan for the city as a -socio-economic aspects (analysis); be prohibitive, rather than pro-active. Its rationality 14. Ibid. whole. The aim of the plan was to formulate a policy was (and still is) positivist, rather than normative: it framework wherein further planning of Pretoria -urban structure: only deals with 'thing-issues', not with 'people 15. Pageview: .A former residential area in Johan could take place. The plan was approved in 1973. issues. Planning in Pretoria had (and still has) an nesburg, similar to Marabastad (and to District Six in The Policy Plan report follows the traditional analy policy; anti-urban bias; this is evident from the Garden City Cape Town), and also "cleared" under the Group sis-synthesis-plan approach and its (unstated) application of policy in the cells; and Modernist-functionalist concepts currently Areas Act. normative position was blueprint, functionalist and 0 being touted in various planning documents. Moreo comprehensive. A strong Garden City influence implementation. ver, Pretoria is still being seen as a first-world city - 16. "Goedehoop": Afrikaans word, meaning 'Good underlay the planning thinking. The plan viewed The following aspects are addressed by the plan: the realities of Africa are ignored. Hope'. the future through the extrapolation of existing trends, within an Apartheid framework. · - policy and control; References 17. Bryant, 1963. op cit: 22. In 1976 the council appointed consultants for the - city image; 18. Pretoria City Council. 1972 .. Mllster Plan for called the Structure - the residential component; 1. Engelbrecht, S Petal (editors). Pretoria: 1855- second phase of the master plan, Pretoria: first report regarding policy. Pretoria. plan18. The proposed plan was approved by council - retail; 1955. Pretoria City Council: Pretoria. in 1982. The document outlined the process which -offices; -open space and recreation; 19. Pretoria City Council. 1982. Pretoria Structure was followed: 2. Ibid. (The Union Building-designed by Sir -industry; Herbert Baker - is the main office of government in Plan. Pretoria. - transport. Pretoria). - collection of information; 20. South Africa. Dept. of Constitutional Develop - analysis and projections; The Structure Plan report is detailed to the extent 3. "poort'': Afrikaans for a cleft through a mountain ment and Planning. 1984. Gre11ter Pretoria Guide - land use simulation; that it is in fact an updating of the town planning range. Plan. State Printer: Pretoria. - alternative structure plans; scheme. It accommodates the land use trends that - action plans (which focussed on problem areas have emerged since the first structure plan was 21. Pretoria City Council. 1992. Pretoria Structure and made proposals for short-term implementa 4. "Voortrekkers": what the original white settlers approved. Its (too generally stated) normative caJled themselves; the word has meaning similar to Plan: Revision. Draft Report. Pretoria. tion). position differs from the actual content. While it ' pioneers'. purports to be process oriented, normative and The thrust of the planning proposals was the optimi accepting of the new South African condition, the 5. "Volksraad": Dutch/ Afrikaans word meaning zation of private vehicle movement and the minimi proposals are of a blueprint and functionalist nature zation of conflict between land uses. Its (again House of Assembly. and ignore the challenges of the new South Africa. It unstated) normative position was similar to that of does not address issues such as poverty, informal 6. ZAR: The Boer Republic, constituting the Trans the Policy Plan. settlement, sustainability or participation. vaal. It became a British colony after the treaty of In 1984 the (then) Department of Constitutional Vereeniging in 1902. Development and Planning prepared the Greater Conclusion 7. Bryant, J D R 1963. The consideration of a pum for Pretoria Guide Plan19. Its aim was to provide guidelines for development. These 'guidelines' were, Pretoria's original functions were religious and central Pretoria within the framework of the Pretoria Unpublished Dip. (TRP) discourse. however, statutory and thus binding on local au administrative. The church and the state are not traffic plan. University of Pretoria: Pretoria. thorities. All town planning schemes and structure known to be liberal or progressive by nature. They plans within the Guide plan's jurisdiction had to be usually operate in a high-handed way. The same 8. Pretoria City Council. 1992. ·Pretoria Stn1eture in accordance with it. The process followed, was: applies to the people who man these insti tutions. In a city w here more than 50 per cent of its workforce Plan: Revision. Draft Report: Pretoria. derives its livelihood from working for institutions -analysis; 9. Bryant, 1963: op. cit: 8 -objectives and scenario; such as these, one would expect the place to have a conservative nature. Combine this with the politicaJ - spatiaJ needs; and bureaucratic power vested in the city, one 10. Jordaan, G J 1987. An Urban Design Strategy - guidelines. would aJso expect to find an arrogant nature. Preto forPlacemnking in City Centres. Unpublished MEP (Urban Design) discourse. University of the Although the document claimed that planning ria does not disappoint, on both accounts. Witwatersrand: Johannesburg. should be process-oriented, the guide plan is blue- Du Toit's original layout of the town was a conserva- 43 42 Pl.anning History Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Pl.anning History Vol. 15 No 2.1993. Articles Articlu 2. control-centred where: The Act of Union in 1910 embodied a unitary consti The 1930's had seen a growing interest in town and Centralised Control: tution with the State as the central and supreme regional planning issues. This is exemplified by the ·(a) Partial control is exercised and controlling power. A second tier of administration increasing number of concerned bodies which Historical Overview of "planning is the identification of was centred on elected provincial councils with evolved during this period. For example the Trans developments which need to be legislative powers over local authorities. The admin vaal Town Planning Association was active and a Planning Pre-occu checkered" and "where sound spe istrative structure of the country was therefore three suppo_rted by a number of practising professionals cific powers of intervention are tiered with various legislative powers granted to and academics, including G.E. Pearse, Professor of needed" each level of government. Architecture and lecturer in Town Planning at the pation. University of the Witwatersrand. By the end of the OR Administrative Bod,y Type of Legislation decade the first three local candidates had w ritten the British Town Planning Institute examinations at M.F. Drake, University of the (b) Total control is exercised and "plan 1. Parliament (supreme Acts of the University of the Witwatersrand and qualified8. ning cannot occur before total control sovereign body) Parliament Witwatersrand, South Africa is established" (i.e. Marxist or Fas As in Britain, the Second World War had an influ cist) 2. Provincial Councils Ordinances ence on the government's attitude towards planning. Introduction In 1944, the South African government's Social and 3. decision-centred where "planning is the 3. Local Authorities Municipal Bye-Laws Economic Planning Council published its fifth report, which dealt with town and regional planning Modem Town Planning in South Africa, which has formulation of acceptable proposals From this hierarchial structure one must note:- issues. It was obviously influenced by the Barlow evolved relatively recently, took root during the using available - uncertain, limited Report and refers on a number of occasions to the early part of the twentieth century. In this the knowledge and - limited powers of (a) that the Ordinances and Bye-Laws are subordi Barlow, Scott and Uthwatt Reports dealing with country differed little from other ex-colonies and, control. Experts are but one party of the nate to the provisions of Parliament and various aspects of land use in Britain. By the end of like those other colonies, followed Britain's lead game."" (b) an Ordinance or Bye-Law which "purports to World War Two it appeared that South Africa would closely. The 1930s saw a growing interest in, and a confer powers repugnant to the laws of the again follow Britain's lead in town and regional concern for town and regional planning, which As Faludi has shown, the control centred approach State is ' ultra vires' and not enforceable in a planning; but this was not to be. developed further in the early 1940s. to planning is favoured by both Marxist and Fascist ideologies:-z It is applicable where radical transfor court of taw4· mation of society is desired. These ideologies are Post-1948 Policies However, the post war growth in both the theory The Provincial Councils are in no way sovereign and practice of planning in the western world, traditionally found within strongly centralised administrations, where planning is used as an bodies and their activities are limited to certain The National Party gained control of the South largely passed South Africa by. Innovative planning specifically defined areas. developments did not suit the radical social engi instrument to implement state policy down to the African government in 1948, and immediately began neering policies of the new post war Nationalist local government level. to exercise and extend its central control, the major The earliest land use control mechanisms pre-date objective being to radically transform South African government. A fixation with the control of the the formation of Union and occurred in the form of physical, social and economic components of plan Planning Control in South Africa society. The new Government began its policy of "restrictive covenants" or conditions of title which formalizing and extending racial segregation, the ning precluded experimentation in the procedural restricted the land u se of a property in terms of racial The history of planning control in South Africa has first manifestation of which appears with the intro and theoretical fields. Central control was necessary occupation, use and densit}-5. Further, the control of its origins in the colonial background of the Cape. duction of racial zoning in 1950. The Group Areas for the successful implementation of apartheid surface rights in mining areas was provided for in With regard to local government, this history eveals Act (41 of 1950) followed the principles of the Asiatic policies. The recent demise of this policy has left the the Gold Law, whereby the right to control and a gradual change from centralized bureaucratic Land Tenure Act of 1946 but was amended several country with a rigid, control centred planning administer mining land was given to the mining colonial control to the present form of elected mu times and finally superseded by the consolidated structure, ill suited to the changing conditions of the commissioner and provision made for him to desig nicipalities. The burghers under Dutch rule were Group Areas Act (77 of 1957)9. ln terms of this Act a new South Africa. nate land for trading, industrial, residential, recrea content to allow central control of local affairs with special Board was established to investigate all racial tional and afforestation as well as mining purposes6. limited representation through appointments to local zoning throughout the country and report directly to Theoretical framework ln 1919 the Public Health Act gave local authorities courts. This was as much a legacy from the Dutch the Minister concerned. This Board heard objections the right to control the siting of noxious trades, in and representations prior to the proclamation of a In following the historical development of modem East India Company (V.O.C.) structure of adminis addition to rights of land use control granted to group area. A separate Group Areas Development town planning in South Africa, and in order to tration as from an indifference to being formally them by the Provinces. "Town planning schemes Board was empowered to acquire and develop understand its role in implementing apartheid, it is governed at all. The concept of a strong centralised therefore arose in South Africa from the background property, lay out townships, subdivide land, reticu useful to examine the concept of "control" in terms governmental system, gained popularity amongst of the control of land-subdivision, building bye-laws late townships with services, build houses and grant of Faludi's definition1. He classifies planning into the indigenous peoples, with the increasingly auto and restrictive covenants"7. loans for building (for Mulatto and Asian communi three paradigms:- cratic tribal structures which evolved, particularly after the turmoil of the mfecane3. The increased ties). Except in the case of the "Bantugroups" (native An Act of Parliament (Act 46) in 1925 gave the British immigration which followed the annexation Africans) all township proposals were submitted to "1. Objected centre, where "planning is the Provinces powers to control and make provision for of the Cape, (1806) resulted in growing demands for the Townships Board of the Province concerned for study of an object by experts i.e. From a the preparation of town planning schemes, but it self government. These pressures resul.ted in the approvallO. In the case of African townships, the thorough understanding of that object, was not until the 1930s that the Transvaal took introduction in the Cape of the Municipal Ordinance site as well as the detailed layout were subject to the including tendencies for change, direc thelead and passed an Ordinance requiring the of 1836, which was largely based on the system in approval of the Minister of Bantu Administration i.e. tives for action are expected to flow preparation of town planning schemes. By 1947 all use in Britain. The influence of the ordinance with its this was directly controlled by central government. immediately." four Provinces had ordinances with provisions for British antecedence spread with British colonial town planning schemes. rulethroughout Southern Africa. 45 44 Pl~nning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Articles Articles Pl~nning History Vol. tS No. 2. 1993 In the Transvaal further developments followed with the functions of local authorities, and the degree to and in order to make the Plan binding on constituent retained and extended across four levels. However, the "Local Government Control Ordinance No. 21 of which these functions are national policy orientated bodies the Physical Planning and Utilization of there is to be a shift in emphasis from physical 1958" which provided for a Local Government and obligatory has been undertakenll. The results Resources Amendment Act (1975) was passed which planning to policy planning, in order to set "broad Advisory Board consisting of three members ap show clearly that although in many respects local accorded legal status to the Guide Plan, "through guide lines for the future physical development of pointed by the Adrninjstrator of the Province. The authorities in South Africa perform functions which which the central government intimated its intention the area"16. The current four tier structure is shown function of the board was to advise the Administra are similar to those in other western countries, they to become more actively involved in urban develop below:- tor on local government matters and on any matters do differ in a number of areas. Firstly, in several ment. The resultant procedure was, and still is, that the Adrninjstrator may refer to them. The same countries primary and secondary education and markedly more centralized and restrictive than the Leyel of Planning Area Covered Ordinance also created a separate Local Government hospitals are local government functions, whereas approaches in countries such as the U.K., the U.S.A., Plaoojog Au- Deparbnent with a Director of Local Government in they are provincial functions in South Africa. Sec Canada and Holland, but this is deemed appropriate ~ charge. ondly, public assistance, social welfare and police and expedient by the govemment".13 services are undertaken by local authorities in 1. National Plans. The primary function of the Department of Local several countries, whereas the central State under In terms of the Act, a Guide Plan Committee was Republic. Government was the control of urban development. takes these services in South Africa (with the excep appointed by the Minister of Planning for each Minister of The Director of Local Government had control over: tion of traffic control). Thirdly, the control of large region. He could determine the exact size and Planning. and spatially separated sections of the urban areas of composition of each Guide Plan Committee (Section 1. An Advisory Board for Local Authorities South Africa, i.e., the Bantu townships, is under 6A (2) (ii) (b)) and so ensure adherence to the gov 2. Regional taken by local authorities as agents of central govern ernment ideology of the principles of racial segrega Development 2. The Townships Board ment or directly by central government. tion and separate development within the Guide Plans. Plan area. Development 3. The Local Government Advisory Board It can be seen from this that major areas of social Regions. concern directly related to town planning fail out Public partjcipation was limited to written submis Minister of 4. The Provincial Planners side the control of local authorities and even the sions (within 60 days) by interested parties, which Planning. control of the appointed provincial Administrator. may or may not be investigated by the Committee. More direct control over local authorities was af Centralization of control over major proportions of Generally planners in South Africa were not inter 3. Regional Struc fected by the Local Government (Administration and the urban and rural environment are clearly evident. ested at the time in promoting public participation ture. Elections) Ordinance (No. 40 of 1960) which intro This top down, control centred approach was neces within the planning process as it was considered to Sub-regional. duced three major changes to local authority struc sary for the implementation of racial segregation on waste time and interfere with the completion of the Administrator. ture. a uniform basis throughout the country. plan, thus threatening control by central govern ment. Opposition to public participation by South As a radical form of social engineering, the imple African planners both within private ~ractice and 4. Urban Structure 1. a general election for all town councillors had to mentation of apartheid required a physical separa the public service is well documented 4. Thus Plans. be held every five years tion of races. The success or failure of the policy was Guide Plans were to serve as a framework, with Metropolitan. 2. the multiple committee system was replaced by measured by the degree to which physical separa which physical urban planning had to accord. At Provincial one appointed management committee tion had been achieved on the ground. Socio both urban and regional scales planning was to be in Administrator. 3. the town clerk was to be the chief executive and economic factors were of secondary consideration. accordance with central government policy on administrative officer. In fact it was the social and economic costs which apartheid, industrial decentralization and the em In all cases the "Planning Authority" will appoint a finally forced central government to abandon the ployment of blacks. planning committee, which will concentrate "on In all four Provinces the legislative control of local apartheid policy, but it has not yet relinquished its policy issues, so that a flexible interpretation of the government was vested in the provincial councils attachment to central control. This reinforces the notion that planning in South plans can be made in the implementation phase"17. which since 1985 were no longer elected (not even by Africa fulfilled the requirements of Faludi's second The committee will also be responsible for public the white minority). The appointed Administrator By the early 1970s the need for greater planning paradigm of a control centred system. Apartheid participation, by allowing the general public greater and his committee of M.P.'s determined provincial control was envisaged at both the national and was a revolutionary doctrine aimed at transforming access to it, and in the production of plans and expenditure and policy. Thus the controlling power regional levels. The Physical Planning and Utiliza South African society. To implement this policy a reports. centred on the state appointed post of Administrator tion of Resources Act (of 1967) placed central gov control centred view of planning was necessary in has steadily increased, especially since 1960. ernment controls over the ratio of black towhite order to "transform society, expropriate the expro Conclusion employees in manufacturing in designated urban priators, (or original owners) and establish the Local authorities have powers, functions and duties areas -as well as the location of all industrial estab dictatorship of the proletariat- or of the Aryan race, It appears that although apartheid and racial zoning assigned to them by both the Provinces and lishments throughout the country12. As a result of as the case might be"15. are no longer part of central government policy, the centralgovernment. Many of these functions were this Act a National Physical Development Plan was state has been unable to relinquish the principle of compulsory, such as the protection of public health finally produced in 1975, which excluded the metro Current Developments the central control of planning. This renders both and the separation of races; others were optional politan and black homeland regions. It was however planning processes and plans inflexible, and plan such as slum clearance and atmospheric pollution to set the framework for Guide Plans which were to The drastic changes which have taken place in South ning will be unable to respond to the rapidly chang control. follow and fill in the details of the apartheid policy at Africa since the 2nd February, 1990., have meant, ing norms and values within the new South Africa. urban and regional scales. The first Guide Plan was among other things, a review of current planning The top down exclusionary planning practices of the In this way central government controls local gov produced in 1971, which was non-statutory in that it legislation and the introduction of a new Physical past can no longer be tolerated, and as South African ernment activities and ensures a uniformity of policy was done with cabinet approval, but without Parlia Planning Act (Act No.l125 of 1991). In terms of this planners cannot ignore the pressures for change, implementation nationwide. A complete analysis of mentary legislation. This was seen as a weakness Act the basic principles of Guide Plans are to be there is a need todevise a robust and flexible set of 46 47 Planning Hi.story Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Planning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Adides Articles compelled under the new Town Planning Ordinance planning procedures to suit the unique conditions 16. The South African Institute of Town and Re The Witwatersrand to compile townplanning schemes. The now pertaining in the country. gional Planning (S.A.I.T.R.P.) Newsletter. June 1991 se circum stan ces could readily be compared to a number of British urban regions, References 17. Deputy Minister of Planning, Tweedelesing Joint Town Planning and the device adopted to Toespraak van die Adjunk Minister van Beplanning foster planning in those cases - the joint town plan ning committee -was eagerly promoted by some of 1. Faludi, A. "Three Paradigms of Planning Theory" oor die Wetsontwerp op Fisiese Beplanning, Cape Committee 1932-1940: the key individuals involved in planning-related in Planning Theory: Prospects for the 1980s P Healey, Town. Hansard 1991. G McDougall, M Thomas (eds), Oxford: Pergamon of rigour and mortis spheres on the Witwatersrand. Press 1982. p.84, p.88, p.91, p.96 In England, joint town planning committees were criticised for their tendency to confront immediate 2. Faludi, A. 1982 op. cit Alan Mabin, University of the problems and ignore the longer view.4 But some attempted a wider, more comprehensive approach, 3. The Mfecane or difaqane (also fetcani, lifqane) Witwatersrand, South Africa among them that covering greater London. From refers to the internecine wars and diaspora that 1929 its technical adviser was Raymond Unwin, who followed the rise to power of the Ama-Zulu in the In some national cases the practice of planning has argued that 1820s. adopted a wider view of what its concerns might be and 'began to flirt with wider issues'2; while in Regional planning schemes 4. Cowden, J.W. Holmes' Local Government Finance in should others town planning has tended to become a fairly be made effective ... without depriv South Africa, (2nd edition) Durban: Butterworth, narrow, technical matter, to varying degrees di ing the local authorities within their 1969. vorced from the broader political, economic and areas of their freedom to make social processes shaping the city. It has previously Town Planning schemes for their 5. Floyd, T.B. Town Planning in South Africa been argued that urban planning in South Africa areas.S Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and Shooter, 1960 p.41 tended to develop a dual form, one part cqncerned with planning for segregated black areas under This mixed experience in Britain had some bearing 6. Floyd, T.B. op. cit. p.62 strong state control and the other, 'town planning' on the South African attempts to generate coordi concerned with the form and functioning of the nated approaches to planning, particularly in the 7. Floyd, T.B. op. cit. p.42 urban rump.3 A key question for planning history Witwate.rsrand area. Borrowed models and derived must be whether this separation or other factors led experience, however, were not alone in shaping the 8. The author's father, having qualified as an archi to a narrowing of the concept of planning in South problems and the practice of planning. tect, was one of the first three candidates permitted Africa, and an urgent task- especially in the present to write the British Town Planning Institute's exami climate of change - must surely be to understand the Economic conditions in South Africa deteriorated nations at the University of tf1e Witwatersrand, successes and failures of the many attempts to along with those elsewhere from 1929 onwards. By Johannesburg . broaden and to integrate planning's vision of its role 1931, severe d epression gripped the country, as the in shaping urban South Africa. export prices of two major staples -diamonds and 9. Floyd, T.B. op. cit. p.202 wool- dipped dramatically, and severe unemploy The practice of South African planning began to be ment developed. Nevertheless, the period was 10. Floyd, T.B. op. cit. p.204 shaped in some detail in the southern Transvaal perhaps not as intense a depression as experienced province from the early thirties, under the Town in some other countries. Among other elements, 11. Cowden, J.W. op. cit. ships and Town Planning Ordinance of 1931. A new state investments such as the ISCOR steel works major early endeavour came with the formation of in Pretoria and leaving the gold standard laid the 12. South Africa: Planning Advisory Council, the Witwatersrand Joint Town Planning Committee basis for rapid growth of industry, industrial em Subsidiary Committee, Chairman: Pretorius, P.J.V.E. in 1932. The purpose of this paper is to explore this ployment and population in the later thirties.6 Report and recommendations on the relations between the experience in the light of the concerns outlined Government, Provincial and Local Authorities in the above. Thus, as the thirties passed, many of the urban Field of Physical Planning. Pretoria: Dept. of Planning. problems of the 'Reef' municipalities grew more Dec. 1970. The context of urban planning in the significant. A general lack of through transport thirties routes particularly co 13. Muller, J. Procedural Planning Theory and Practical nnecting newer areas repre sented one urgent physical issue? Development Planning Procedure. H.S.R.C. Research Report. Most Transvaal towns were small in the thirties, but both of what today might be called informal settle Pretoria 1990. p.95 on the Witwatersrand - the area surrounding Johan ment, and of new uncoordinated formal township nesburg- potential planning confronted a complex development outside municipal areas, led to an 14. Muller, J. Ethics: Theory and Practice in South urban region. This conurbation, sometimes called increasingly fragmented, sprawling and problematic African Planning. Town and Regional Planning 'the Reef', comprised a mining belt some fifty miles urban environment. It was in this context that the Journal. No. 31 September 1991. long and a great variety of urban activity stretching Witwaters rand Joint Town Planning Committee to varying distances on either side of this belt. It fell operated. 15. Faludi, A. op. cit. (1) p.90 under a substantial number of local authorities, most 49 48 Planning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Articles Articlu Planning History Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 Planning the Witwatersrand in the early friend', the Committee lost no time in agreeing to Reade's views, in short, would appear to accord planning officer.' Thompson and Rejd began a thirties advertise a senior position, and appointed George closely with the ambitions spelled out for the WJTPC process of consulting each of the constituent authori Pepler and Raymond Unwin to report on applicants by Administrator Smit. ties individually, suggesting improvements to their from London. Unwin and Pepler produced a short areas, and a tendency to see the major objective of The idea of establishing a Joint Town Planning list headed by Charles Reade, and on 26 July 1933 the planning process as the production of discrete Committee almost certainly came from EH Waugh, By the time Reade reached Johannesburg, the prepa the WJTPC approved the appointment of 11 surveys and plans for each authority began to City Engineer of Johannesburg from 1927 to 1932. ~eade. rations for regional planning were well advanced. emerge. Waugh, who also played a central role in the Trans Attending his first meeting of the WJTPC a few days Born in New Zealand on 4 May 1880, Reade had after his arrival, Reade received the vaal Town Planning Association, sat on the Trans title 'Regional worked as a journalist and long served the Garden Thompson's general approach22 provides an excel vaal Town Planning Commission of 1929, helped to Town Planner.'17 The planning of 'Randopolis' was Cities Association as an effective propagandist, set to commence in the hands of someone lent illustration of Adams's practical method in draft the Ordinance of 1931, and may have contrib of who amongst other things lecturing throughout B~tain which the two main stages were simply comprehen uted its clause (section 37) providing for the creation knew well what it meant to plan 'under trying and Australia between 1912 and 1915. Appomted as conditions, and often against sive survey followed by plan preparation. Practical of joint town planning committees. a distinct hostility Government Town Planner in South Australia, he towards Town Planning in local official quarters', a exigency as Thompson perceived it seems to have showed himself no mere propagandist12 and spent man of 'delightful personality with a stro driven the process adopted into an exceedingly At a conference of Witwatersrand town councils ng sense of the period from 1916 to 1920 developing plans .for a humour and a rich fund of anecdotes.' 1 practical mould -indeed, even the separation be convened in June 1932, Waugh pointed both to the 8 host of projects, many implemented. He orgarused tween survey and plan preparation disappeared in common interest of adjacent municipalities in the the 1917 and 1918 Australian town planning confer But, at the age of 53, Reade died at practice, as 'the regional planning office has been economy which joint planning work could entail, the Langham ences and exhibitions, and campaigned - to the Hotel, within weeks of arriving in Johannesburg engaged upon (scheme preparation) concurrently and to the prospects of coordination under a single to dismay of some interests in Adelaide - for housing take up his appointment.19 with work upon the Civic Surveys:23 'chief town planning officer'.8 After discussion, the reform and stronger town planning. Unable to conference unanimously agreed to recommend to overcome provisions which gave inordinate power Reade's death threw the work of the Thompson returned to England in July 1934. He left the councils involved the appointment of a WJTPC into to land owners, Reade had to watch his attempt to some confusion. Data collection and aerial survey the WJTPC to cope with many difficulties. For 'Witwatersrand Joint Town Planning Committee' construct a 'creative relationship between planners, work continued - the latter being flown in November example, the accceleration new development just as (WJTPC) which would plan for Johannesburg, local authorities and public bodies' reduced to a (prints line the entrance to the Town Planning the planners began their work led the WJTPC into Pretoria, Randfontein, Krugersdorp, Roodepoort, shadow of its intended sei£.13 Department of Johannesburg today). Dr EJ Hamlin, conflict with provincial authorities, which was not Germiston, Boksburg, Benoni, Brakpan and who had been appointed to succeed Waugh as City resolved until1938. That conflict tended to entrench Springs.9 In 1920, Reade was invited to lecture in Malaya, and Engineer in Johannesburg, took on much of the the inclination of local authorities to deal with their he took up a position in the Federated Malay States essential coordinating work. Within weeks of own schemes independently. Reid seems to have After some delay, the first meeting of the WJTPC in 1922. There he drafted plans for Kuala Lumpur Reade's death, very keen to see help provided with been fairly ineffectual, despite Thompson's promise took place on 2 February 1933. In an opening ad and other towns and was confirmed in his position the onerous workload, and despairing of finding an that the assistant based in Johannesburg would be dress, the Provincial Administrator, JS Srnit, told the as Governmen t Town Planner in 1925. In 1930, individual able to replace Reade, Hamlin formed the 'thoroughly qualified (and) experienced·24, and his Committee having been passed over two yea r~ earlier f~r the view that the Joint Committee should appoint appointment with Adams, Thompson and Fry- and newly created post of Town Plannmg ~upermtend London-based consultants who, in the obvious therefore his work on the W]TPC- ceased in mid You are gathered here today to inaugurate a ent, he moved on to Northern Rhodesia (now Zam absence of experienced planners inside the country, February 1935, almost as soon as Thompson began "Greater Witwatersrand" scheme. bia) as Director of Planning and Development; he would supply the only way to 'have a first class job his second visit.25 Just over a month later worked on improvements to copperbelt towns and even if at additional cost.' He sought Pepler's advice Thompson wrote to inform the constituent local He compared the planning of the Witwatersrand to Livingstone and a model housing ~heme as well a~ on whether Raymond Unwin or Thomas Adams authorities that 'Mr PJ Bowling ... Fellow of the 'regional movements' in 'the Greater Ruhr', 'large preliminary plans for the new capital at Lusaka. His might be available for a few months every year Surveyors Institution ... and an Associate Member of areas in and about London' and 'the huge scheme appointment ended in 1932 or early in 193314 and he while placing a direct representative in Johannes the Town Planning Institute' would arrive in Johan for the environs of New York'. Calling on the returned at last to Britain. It was there that he burg. Pepler replied that Unwin was old and Adams nesburg early in Apri11935 to take up duties as the Committee to examine such diverse matters as rapid accepted the offer of appointment to the positi~n of too busy in the United States, but that F Longstreth firms's representative.26 transit lines, highways, adequate facilities for a~l Chief Town Planning Officer from the W]TPC m July Thompson, of Adams's firm, was 'almost equally forms of industry, recreation 'on a comprehensive 1933; he sailed for Cape Town in September and distinguished' and 'really does the many regional scale', remodelling of central areas and preservation The Bowling period arrived in Johannesburg in rnid-October. and other schemes which his firm have in hand.' The of historical amenity, Smit noted To.WO Clerk of Pretoria saw Thompson in London Since Bowling became perhaps the most influential What view of planning did Reade bring with him to and supported Pepler's recommendation.20 In The local authorities would therefore appear figure in South African town planning from the late South Africa? In South Australia·his planning work January 1934 the position of Regional Planner was to be well advised at the start to hold back the thirties until the fifties, his career may prove of had always been cast within a view of metrapol~tan. abolished, and Adams Thompson and Fry were interest. He was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, planning of the final statutory Townplanning opportunity.15 Another pointer can be found m h1s appointed consultants. maps and schemes ... until sufficient informa England, on 5 April 1889. Starting a career as a c.ivil own remarks when he visited Johannesburg on servant, he had trained in the Royal Engineers Corps tion and means have been found for consider holiday from northern Rhodesia in January 1933- Thompson, an engineer and surveyor who had been ing the problems of planning and develop and risen to Lieutenant Colonel during World War 1. probably on his way back to England. in partnership with Adams since 192221, thus Thereafter he set up in private practice as a surveyor. ment as a whole of the Witwatersrand gener became 'regional planner' for the municipalities of ally ... 10 Building on this role, he became a planning consult It is good business to spend on largeplanning, the Witwatersrand and Pretoria, spending about two ant to Chelmsford Rural District Council in the and visualise the time when there would be a months each year in South Africa between 1934 and Encouraged by the Administrator to think of the twenties, and seems to have enjoyed this e11erience, great city stretching from one end of the reef 1937. The first of those visits began in May 1934. He for he became a planner first and foremost. 7 appointment of a planner with 'actual experience in to the other - a city stretching on the golden appointed one William Miller Reid as his representa planning large schemes' as a 'guide, philosopher and reef that would be called 'Randopolis'.16 tive in Johannesburg- 'assistant regional town 50 51 Planning History Vol. 1S No 2. 1993. Articles Articles Planning History Vol. 15 No. 2. 1993 The onset of depression saw him seeking service and character'.33 Such a view of the Witwatersrand there were many who seemed to have a wide con 2. G E Cherry, Cities and Plans: the Shaping of Urban with the Colonial Office, which posted him to was, of course, strongly at odds with the original ception of planning and of the need for positive and Britain in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Northern Rhodesia in about 1932. In the latter arguments which underpinned the establishment of creative change in urban areas. (London: Edward Amold, 1988), pp. 103-107. territory he became Government Town Planning the Joint Committee and the hiring of consultants. Engineer, where by June 1933 he had drafted a p lan All that was left of 'joint' action was an occasional Yet the die of planning practice had been cast along 3. A Mabin, Origins of segregatory urban planning for the new capital, Lusaka. Strangely enough, meeting of the Committee and the pooling of re narrower lines, and no new approaches were to have in South Africa 19()()-1940, Planning History 13 {3) Reade, together with SO Adshead, first professor of sources to facilitate meeting statutory requirements. much direct effect in changing it for decades to 1991, pp. 8-16; A Mabin and D Smit, Reconstructing town planning at the University of London, had With the preparation of each and every local plan come. The combination of many factors -segregation South Africa's cities 19()()-2000: a prospectus, paper identified the site for Lusaka in 1931; but 'it was not taking place in Bowling's office, few regional issues policy, pandering to the propertied and a narrow presented to African Studies Institute Seminar, Univ to be Reade's crowning achievement to build an ever coming before the WJTPC and a great deal of kind of profession 52 53 Planning History Vol. 15 No 2. 1993. Articles Notes for Contributors 45-60; and W.C.D. Veale, Charles Compton Reade: Nicholson to Hamlin, 15.12.1933. first town planner, South Australia, in Australian Town Planning jubilee Conference 1967 (Australian 25. TA, MGT 247, 92 'W}TPC Part 2 1932-36', F L Planning Institute, 1967), pp. 75-80. Thompson to Town Clerk, 15.02.1935. It would The prime aim of Planning His tory is to inc rease awareness o f develo pme nts a nd ideas in appear that Reid left the firm under a doud. He pla~ning his to ry in all parts of the world. In purs uit of this aim, contributions ( in Englis h) a re 14. R K Home has it that Reade's appointment died within the next two months. rnv1t~d from me mbe rs or non-membe rs alike for any section o f Pla nning His tory. Non-native terminated 'presumably because of his usual differ Engh.s h speake rs, please do not worry if your Englis h is not p e rfect. The e ditor will be happy to ences of opinion with officialdom'. SHome, op cit. p. 26. TA, MGT247,92 'W)TPC Part21932-36', F L help 1mprove its readability and compre he ns ion, but cannot unfortuna te ly undertake trans la 29. Thompson to Town Clerk, 27.03.1935. tions. 15. cf. A 27. Floyd, Town Planning, p. 47. Hutchings, Comprehensive town planning The text for PH is prepared us ing Wordpe rfect 5.1 and Pngemake r. Contributions on dis k comes to South Australia, in A Hutchings and R comp 24. TA, MGT 247, 92 'WJTPC Vol 2 1932-36', 39. Cherry, op. cit. p. 103. 54 International Planning History Society (IPHS) The Society was inaugurated in January 1993asa successor body to the Planning History Society, founded in 1974. Its aims are to advance interrelated studies in history, planning and the environment, particularly with regard to the industrial and post-industrial city. Its membership is drawn from several disciplines: planning, architecture, economic and social history, geogra phy, sociology, politics and related fields. Membership is open to all who have a working interest in planning hjstory. The Society for American Ci ty and Regional Planning History (SACRPH) and the Urban History Association (UHA) are US affiliates of IPHS Members of IPHSelect a governing council every two years. in turn the council elects an executive Board of Management, complemented by representatives ofSACRPH and UHA. The President chairs the Board and Council. Preside11t Professor Cordon E. Cherry School of Geography University of Birmingham Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. Phone: 021 414 5538 Mcm/1erslti Jl Applications are welcome from individuals and institutions The annual subscription is: Australii'l 24.50 $ Aus Canada 21.50 $Can France 90.00 FF Germany 27.00 OM Italy 23,500.00 Lira Japan Yen Netherlands 30.00 Fl USA 17.00 $ US UK 10.00£ Further alternative currencies available on request from: Or David W. Massey Secretary /Treasurer IPHS Department of Civic Design University of Liverpool Liverpool L69 3BX, UK. Phone: 051 794 3112 Applications for membership shou Id be sent to Or Massey. Cheques, drafts, orders etc should be made payable to the 'INTERNATIONAL PLANNING HISTORY SOCIETY'.