Planning History .• .. +. • . + + ••••• • • • • •• + • • • Bulletin of the Planning History Group
Vol. 14 No. 3 1992 Planning History
Bulletin of the Contents Planning History Group Editorial 1 ISSN 0959 - 5805 Chairman's Message 2 Editor 3 Or Stephen V. Ward Notices School of Planning Oxford Polytechnic Articles 4 Gipsy Lane Headington Oxford OX3 OBP The Sage of the 'Suburb Salubrious' Mervyn Miller 4 Telephone: 0865 819421 Telex: G83147 VIA Fax: 0865 819559 'Public Building': Sam Bunton and Scotland's Modern Housing Revolution 13 Associate Editor for the Americas Miles Glendinning Professor Marc A. Weiss Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and A British Proposal for American Settlement: Granville Sharp's Preservation Plan for A Town and Township Columbia University Elwin C. Robison 23 410H Avery Hall New York, NY 10027 USA 27 Associate Editor for the Pacific Research Or Robert Freestone The Finnish Neighbourhood Unit from Tapiola to Pihlajarnaki School of Town Planning 27 University of New South Wales Ritta Hurme P 0 Box 1 Kensington, NSW 2033 The Accidental City: Writing the history of planning in Sydney Australia Paul Ashton 30 Production Design: Rob Woodward Reports 34 Word Processing: Sue Bartlett Printing: Middlesex Polytechnic Print Centre Planning History Workshop, Johannesburg John Muller 34 Plan~in~ Hi~tory is published three times a year fo: d1stnbutJon to members of the Planning European Association of Urban Histories, Amsterdam H1story Group. The Group as a body is not responsible for the views expressed and Robert Home 35 statements made by individuals writing or reporting in Planning History. No part of this Visions Revisited: OOCOMOMO-SCOTLAND, Glasgow publication may be reproduced in any form without permission from the editor. David Whitham 36
Notes for Contributors Sources/Cartoons 2 41 The prime aim of Planning History is to increase an awareness of developments and ideas in Dacey's Dream: Up in the air and down to earth planning history in all parts of the world. In Rob Freestone 41 pursuit of this aim, contributions are invited from members and non-members alike for any section of the bulletin. Articles should normally Publications 46 not exceed 2500 words, and may well reflect work in progress. Photographs and other illustrations may be included. Contributions Treasurer's Report 49 submitted on a disc, with accompanying hard copy, are to be encouraged; please contact the editor for format details. Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Editorial
by modernism and Glaswegian municipal admira tion for New York. Again therefore there is an Editorial international (and divergent national) perspective. lhis article derives from a conference by a relatively In this issue, the Chairman, Gordon Cherry, con new organization that we hope to report more fully firms the shift that we have been considering over on in a forthcoming issue -OCX:OMOMO. the last 18 months, the change in the name and Headquartered in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, but character of the Planning History Group. Gordon with an international membership, it is concerned tells me that he has received many intimations of with the DOcumentation and COnservation of the support to the course of action signalled in the recent MOdem MOvement in architecture (and of course mail circulation to the Group membership. There planning). David Whitham's report in the present have apparently been no objections to the intended issue on the whole conference gives a little more changes. It would of course be surprising if there information on it, including contact addresses. were. We have long been aware of the international dimensions of our common activity. It is certainly Much of the rest of the issue has a much more firmly something which has been reflected in the pages of international flavour, however. Elwin Robison this magazine for many years and its more academic provides a valuable insight on early American and younger, relative, Planning Perspectives, since its colonial town planning in a long-delayed publication inception. from the 1991 Oxford AESOP Conference. And we have notices from the USA and Australia, conference In that sense the changes to Planning conse History reports from South Africa and the Netherlands and quent on the translation of the Planning History reports of research from Finland and Australia. Group to a new International Planning History There is also a fascinating piece on the Australian Society will not be dramatic. Perhaps the most planning cartoon by Rob Frees tone. (IncidentaJJy, noticeable immediate shift will be that its sub-title readers with access to the AustraliJin Plnnner maga will be changed to reflect the new organizational zine should also not miss Rob's fascinating recent name, and some of the internal cover details will also account of the rise and fall of the Sydney Green Belt be altered. In the slightly longer term though a new as told by cartoons. Planners have clearly been editorial board will appear to ensure a more system frequent targets for the cartoonist's pen in Australia, atic feeding through of non-UK material to the perhaps more than any other country. I wonder. present editor. lhis already occurs for Australia and Readers may wish to address this question by New Zealand, thanks to the great diligence of our bringing forward examples of planning cartoons Pacific editor, Rob Freestone, whose efforts can be from other countries. Planning History will of course seen in the present issue. The hope is that we can be glad to print the results). identify similarly committed individuals for other parts of the world, an idea which Rob himself has Meanwhile the editor of what is, for the moment long pressed. The editor would welcome suggestions at least, the Bulletin of the Planning History Group, of suitably enthusiastic and committed individuals. I wishes you a Happy New Year. want to create an active editorial team, so that ultimately the magazine will be truly international in Stephen V Ward its editing, not just its content.
Paradoxically the present issue might seem to have much more of a UK flavour than of late. We take the o~portunity to celebrate the publication of Mervyn Mtller and Stuart Gray's book on Hampstead Gar den ~uburb, o~e of the great achievements of early Enghsh planrung. There was not enough time to prepare a review of the book itself for the present tssue. As Mervyn reminds us, however, the suburb's impact was international. And non-UK readers will receive an important lesson in important cultural and national distinctions within the United Kingdom in Miles Glendinning's article on Sam Bunton. In a fascinating account he portrays the battle betweenan English-~spired ~ecentralist strategy for Glasgow and the high denstty big city solution, inspired both
1 Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Planning History Vol. U No. 3 Chalnnans Message Notices
Shun-ich.i Watanabe, School of Architecture, the history of urban, regional, or community plan ScienceUniversity of Tokyo. ning. Proposals may be submitted for either indi Chairmans's Notices vidual papers or for thematic sessions with two or SACRPH representative: Larry Gerckens, three presenters. In recognition of the Centennial Cindnnati. Celebration of the World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893, sessions focusing on the HISTORY ASSOCIATION Message UHA representative: Michael Ebner, Department of THE URBAN turn-of-the-century origins of planning or on plan History, Lake Forest College, Ulinois. Department of History ning in Chicago are especially welcome. (Sessions do Lake Forest College will be 1.5 or 2.0 hours in length.) Members of the Planning History Group will recall 555 N Sheridan Road that I wrote to all on 30 October to intimate a Welcome to the International Planning History Society! Lake Forest, IL 60045-2399 Those submitting proposals should send five (5) number of recommendations of the Interim Board of page abstract with a title and a one USA copies of a one- Management with regard to certain institutional page author vita for each participant by MARCH 1, Cordon Cherry Phone: 708-735-5135 changes for the future. I have received some letters 1993 to: of unqualified support; I have received no ob December 1992. Fax: 708-735-6291 jections. This cheers the Interim Board because the Professor Patricia Burgess, Program Chair tory Association is conducting its way forward for an important departure in our The Urban His Planning History Conference organisation is now clear. fourth annual round of prize competitions for Dept of Community and Regional Planning scholarly distinction. Room 126, Design On 1 January 1993 the Planning History Group will Iowa State University become the lntematiional Planning History Society 1. Best doctoral dissertation in urban history, (IPHS). without geographic restriction, completed during Ames 1992. Iowa 50011 USA The Secretary / Treasurer will shortly be arranging for the election of a Council, by and from paid-up 2. Best book, non-North American urban history, Phone: (515) 294-7759 members of the Society. The Council will then published during 1991 or 1992 (edited volumes Fax: (515) 294-9755 proceed to elect a Board of Management, when the ineligible). stand down. By the summer of Interim Board will Notification of final acceptance (contingent on 1993 these steps should have been completed. 3. Best book, North American urban history, published during 1992 (edited volumes ineligible. receipt of the one-page author vita) will be early The Editor of Planning History will set up and chair May of1993. an Editorial Board. 4. Best journal article in urban history, without geographic restriction, published during 1992. Organisational eo-sponsors of the conference in clude: The Conference Convenor will be making arrange ments for an International Conference: the first is Deadline for receipt of submissions is June 15, 1993. The Urban History Association expected to be held in Hong Kong in late June 1994. To obtain further information about the 1993 round The Public Works Historical Society The Chicago Historical Society To remind you, your Interim Board is: of competitions, please write to: Professor Margaret Marsh, Department of History, 913 Gladfelter Hall, President: Cordon Cherry, School of Geography, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122. Do not University of Birmingham. send any submissions to Professor Marsh. CALL FOR PAPERS
Secretary / Treasurer: David Massey, Department of PLANNING HISTORY SEMINAR Civic Design, University of Liverpool. CALL FOR PAPERS School of Town Planning Conference Convenor: Robert Home, Department of The Society for American City and Regional University of New South Wales Estate Management, University of East London. Planning History Sydney, Australia
Planning History Editor: Stephen V Ward, School of THE FIFTH NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON Saturday, 13 March 1993 Planning, Oxford Polytechnic AMERICAN PLANNING HISTORY Maurits van Rooijen, European Centre, Erasmus THE AUSTRALIAN PLANNER: Critical per University, Rotterdam. The Chicago Historical Society spectives on the contributions of individuals to Chicago, Illinois, USA the development of urban, regional and environ Anthony Sutcliffe, Department of Economic and mental planning theory and practice. Social History, University of Leicester. November 18-21, 1993 Keynote address by Professor Gordon Cherry, Papers are most cordially solicited on all aspects of University of Birmingham
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In early March 1993 the School of Town Planning at sively rejected the intimacy of Camillo Sitte's tech ties of the Co-partners' subsidiary, Hampstead the University of NSW will host the first Australian nique for enclosing urban space, so strikingly shown Tenants Ltd, was criticised in a report prepared for conference devoted exclusively to planning history. Articles in Unwin's layout for Hampstead Garden Suburb, as the Ministry of Reconstruction during the First The general theme will be The Australian Planner. The he strove towards the technocratic La World War as having failed to meet the need for openness of 7 aim is to explore the roles of influential theorists and Cite Contemporaine. However, at the same time he social housing, despite the opportunity . Through practitioners on the Australian planning landscape was engaged in designing a small garden suburb of out the interwar period housing subsidies operated from the colonial to the postrnodem era. The semi The Saga of the Pessac on the western outskirts of BordeauxS, where in favour of local authorities rather than privately nar will provide a forum to explore influences and the house types updated the li nked groups of Head financed cottage societies, and the Co-partners impacts, ideas and institutions, concepts and con 'Suburb Salubrious' Close or Reynolds Close to the machine age. The restructured their activities to concentrate on the texts, success and failure. Special guests will be eclipse of the Arts and Crafts, and neo-Georgian virtually uniform middle-class development of the Gordon Cherry from England, chairperson of the architecture of Hampstead Garden Suburb by 412 acre 'New Suburb', which had been added to the International Planning History Society. original landholding in 19128. Since Mervyn Miller, Architect Modernism proved to be only transitory, and from the Second and Town the 1960s onwards it received greater recognition. World War, Hampstead Garden Suburb has, Papers are now invited from academics, Planner, Baldock, Herts, UK. through the workings of the property market, practitioners and research students. Presenta The Social Dimension inevitably become a wealthy community, with many tions of approximately 20 minutes are envis of the smaller artisans' cottages now supporting Introduction: Opinions of Hampstead ownership of two or three cars. The larger houses in aged. Contributors will be asked to contrib Socially, the achievement of Hampstead Garden Garden Suburb Suburb has always been recognised as a partial lngram Avenue and Winnington Road have passed ute a short paper for post-conference publica success. Notwithstanding Henrietta Barnett's aims into the ownership of the diplomatic corps, and tion. The historian who would compile an account of Hampstead Garden Suburb very soon comes across Conference fees will be modestly priced to cover strongly held, and sometimes divergent assessments. lunch, morning and afternoon teas, printing, and That doyen of architectural historians, Sir Nikolaus distribution of the proceedings. Pevsner, called it 'the most nearly perfect of that unique English invention and speciality, the Garden Commitments, expressions of interest, preliminary Suburb'1, taking his cue from HE von Berlepsch registrations and enquiries by 30 December 1992 Valendas, observer of the Englische to: Gartenstadtbewegung, who wrote in 1912 'everywhere is an agreeable simplicity of architectural expression. Rob Freestone Mass and silhouette play the essential part, not a Town Planning crowding of decorative motifs ... The highest places University of New South Wales are receiving public buildings so that they can P 0 Box 1, Kensington dominate the whole composition ... Monotony of the NSW 2033 building line is avoided by staggering ... by courtyard Australia grouping with only the entrance side left open and by the most careful treatment of places where streets fork ... '2. Phone: (02) 697-4837; 697-4836. Fax: (02) 663-4278. The influence of Camillo Sitte on the planning of Hampstead is evident from Berlepsch-Valendas' A second circular will be distributed in February account. Yet at the same time, C B Purdom, English 1993. chronicler of the Garden City Movement wrote disparagingly of 'the fearful exactness, the almost painful sense of tidiness, and the self-conscious aestheticism that one encounters in the new suburb at Hampstead.'3, But then, to Purdom, the Garden Suburb was an absurdity, a fatal weakening of the wine of the Garden City with the water of town Figure 1: Wyldes Farm, c1914. The wing added by Unwin in 1910 can be glimpsed behind the converted barn. planning.
Sometimes initial adulation turned to contempt. of 'a Garden Suburb for all classes', it was accepted applications for massive extensions, detached Charles Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier) traced that it was the skilled artisan and his family, rather servants' quarters and underground leisure com photographs and drawings of Hampstead Garden than the lower paid labourer, who would occupy the plexes are not uncommon. The social dynamics of Suburb from an illustrated article by Berlepsch smaller cottages in the 70 acres set aside for 'the the past 85 years must be viewed against the physi Valendas, and even designed several garden sub industrial classes'6. Henrietta Bamett saw co cal framework of buildings and spaces, private and urbs, with layouts and house types derived from existence on the basis of 'a place for everyone', with, public realms. Parker and Unwin•. Yet in the early 1920s he deci- as a corollary, 'everyone in their place'. The activi-
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Figure 4: Unwin's definative layout plan of 1911, incorporating Lutyen's layout of Central Square w ith its twin churches.
Figure 2: Golders Green Underground Station shortly after opening. (Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust.) owned by Eton College, Henrietta Bamett's first announced her grand strategy for a s uburb to pro campaign sought to preserve an 80 acre Hampstead vide housing for all classes on the remaining 240 Origins of the Garden Suburb a viable transportation infrastructure and the Heath Extension, to be presented to a reluctant acres of the land 11. She gathered together a 'veritable protecion of amenity, initially on a personally London County CouncillO. In November 1903 she showman's happy family' of trustees - 'two Earls, motivated basis, which acted as a catalyst for the To begin at the beginnin~ it was the development of concept of Hampstead Garden Suburb. The first of the 'deep tube' underground railways, the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway had been sanctioned in 1893, but only became a viable propo sition with the adition of an extension to Golders Green, and ultimately Edgeware, approved in 19029. It was financed by a syndicate led by the American, Charles Tyson Yerkes.
Henrietta Bamett (1851-1936) and her husband, Samuel Augustus Bamett, later a Canon of Bristol and Westminster, had worked untiringly since the 1870s to bring spiritual and moral enlightenment to the Parish of St Jude's, Whitechapel, a district notorious for the outrages of Jack the Ripper. They had aquired a weekend cottage near Hampstead Heath which provided temporary respite for them Figure 5: Asmuns Hill from Hampstead Way, c1912. Figure 6: Reynolds Close, c1912. Designed by Parker selves and their parishioners. The sanction of the The pair of cottages to the left of the junction marked and Unwin, this close shows the care taken with the Hampstead Tube revealed the development poten the inauguration of the suburb in 1907. The central design of grouped housing for middle-class resi tial of the land to the north of "The Spaniards'. garden, with its proposed reflecting pool, was dents. (Unwin Collection, Manchester University.) Fearing the worst onslaught by the speculative regrettably built over in 1928 for Queens Court. Figure 3: Preliminary layout for "The Artisans builder on the idyllic pastures of the Wyldes Estate, (Unwin Collection, Manchester University) Quarter", March 1907.
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Architectural and Planning Elements plain tile roof, punctuated by dormers and a lively rhythm of chimney stacks. Most of the elements wruch were realised through The middle-classes also found homes in corporate the building of the suburb pre-1914 we.re present in developments such as Reynolds Close or Heath embryo on the earliest plan, but the self-conscious Close (both by Parker and Unwin), or Waterlow informality of an overgrown feudal village was Court (a Baillie Scott design intended for 'the work modified by a tightening up of the overall frame ing lady'). There were also indjviduaJ houses by C work. Nowhere was trus more strikingly apparent M Crickmer, Michael Bunney, Herbert Welch, than in the Central Square, for which Edwin Lutyens Geoffry Lucas, C H James and C Cowles Voysey, (1869-1944) was appointed consultant in 190617. His each designed to fit into a harmonious overall street twin masterpieces- St Jude's Church and the Free picture. Henrietta Bamett encouraged the develop Church- have downward sweeping barn-like roofs, ment by cottage housing societies of flats for the whilst their steeple and dome dominate the skyline elderly ('The Orchard', a magnificent Parker and and distant views, and they in tu m frame the impos Unwin quadrangle of 1909 was demolished, sadly, ing institute whose Queen Anne detailing is devel chil oped with a Baroque inten sity. The linked houses of 20 years ago), and also housing for destitute Figure 8: 'Gentility in our Garden Suburb'. This dren, retired servants and, later, war widows. cartoon by C F Townsend is set in the gardens at the North and South Squares, Erskine Hill and Figure 7: Sunshine Corner, looking along the Heathgate were included in Lutyens' concept, but junction of Hoop Land and Mead way. Like others in The first Unwin plan included a plethora of commu Heathgate axis to the spire of St Judes Church, only a small portion was completed to his detailed the series it gently deflates middle-class petty nity buildings and shops lining the approaches to designed by Lutyens. design18. snobery. Central Square. The shops were subsequently swept away to the Finchley Road where they were incorpo The architecture of the Suburb has long been recog rated into two imposing blocks, with flats above, two lawyers, two Free churchmen, a Bishop and a Unwin had originally attacked the suburban devel nised as providing a 'Who's Who' of Edwardian crowned by an eclectic mixture of half hipped roofs, woman' to lend credibility to negotiations for an opment following Morris16, rus experience of the domestic architecture. Among those who have exposed timber stud work and wrought iron balco option on the land, and sought an architect to pre Garden City Movement enabled rum to redeem its provided detailed accounts, Pevsner wasa notable nies, multiple shafted crumneys, and a tower based pare a plan which incorporated her specific require environment through the breaking up of the rigid pioneer19, followed by Nicholas Taylor, who con on the Markusthurm at Rothenburg, one of Unwin's ment of providing accommodation for 'all kinds and by-law grid pattern streets and the injection of tributed to the Shankland-Cox Conservation Study favourite Bavarian hill towns24. Detailed des i ~ conditions of men'. greenery based on a careful survey of existing trees, commissioned by the New Hampstead Garden was entrusted to Arthur Penty, a gujld socialistLS hedges and field boundaries. He was assisted in Suburb Trust Ltd20. A Stuart Gray, a retired archi and one of a talented group of assistants, (including On May 21907 a gathering of leading figures in the achieving these improvements through the passing tect turned historian21, has long been a resident of city housing reform movement and in politics witnessed the Suburb, and has compiled inimitable 'vignettes' Ernst May, later the internationally famous Henrietta Barnett cutting the first sod for the founda of the principal roads and groups of buildings, architect of Frankfurt). tions of Nos 140-142 Hampstead Way, the first pair together with concise biographies of the architects of artisans' cottages to be develo:fed by the Hamp involved, for trus present book. The early residents included many liberal free rden Suburb' stead Tenants Housing Society1 . Appropriately trunkers and artists26. ' Life in our Ga enough it was Raymond Unwin, who had worked The Central Square provides an ideal starting point was captured to perfection by C F Townsend, Art for two years to translate her social ideals into the for a walk around the present day Suburb. It still Editor of Punch, who built a home and studio in practical reality of the layout plan, who handed her bears w itness to the change of taste in British archi Hampstead Way in 1911. His cartoons, which the spade with which to perform the ceremony. tecture as a new formality eclipsed the Arts and appeared regularly until his death in 1920 showed meticu Crafts picturesque of much of the housing of the the social minutiae of the middle-classes with The Role of Raymond Unwin Artisans' Quarter, the most celebrated Parker and lous accuracy. In the pre-1914 era, social life flour on Unwin contribution to the early 20th century revolu ished and a handsome clubhouse was built Willifield Green (destroyed in the Second World Her choice of Raymond Unwin (1863-1940) had tion in the design and layout of mass housing. Set War). The Institute in Central Square, which aring of the inevitable: he had some 20 years previ between Willifield Way, Hampstead Way and the proudly hosted international summer schools of ously asked Samuel Barnett's advice as to whether Figure 9: Nothing gained by overcrowding, 1912. Finchley Road, the plan of the 70 acre tract exploited architecture and town planning alongside Suburb he should take Holy Orders, and had subsequently The contrast between the lush Arcadia of Hamstead setbacks of building lines, short terrace groupings, into pursued rus ideal of democratising design with Garden Suburb and the serried monotony of the by half quadrangles, stopped vistas and the cui-de-sac events, found its accommodation incorporated 1930s. evangelical fervour, fired by the gospel of William law suburb was used by Unwin to underscore rus elements illustrated at length in Unwin's classic the Henrietta Barnett Girls School in the Morris's Socialist League. Together with his partner, campaign for low density housing. book, Town Planning in Practice {1909)22. They give Barry Parker, Unwin had designed the layout and evidence of his dose study of the analytical work on Later History housing for New Earswick, the Rowntree-sponsored of the Hampstead Garden Suburb Act, 1906, the first historic townscapes by the Austrian, Camillo Sitte23. model village outside York (1902 onwards) and town-planning legislation on the British Statute Asmuns Place (1907-1908) remains a classic exemplar Under J CS Sou tar, Unwin's successor as consultant Letchworth Garden City (1904 onwards)13. Unwin's Book. In 1906, even before the option on the land of grouping around aT-shaped cui-de-sac, flanked architect from 1914, the interwar development of the first Hampstead layout was prepared in February had been finalised, Unwin moved to 'Wyldes', the by houses which reflect the informality of Garden New Suburb proceeded uneventfully, if tastefully, 190514, and can be regarded as an illustration to 17th century farmhouse nestling below the heights of City pebble-dash, or the richness of dark stock brick enlivened by a few closes of Welch, Lander and Henrietta Barnett's article on her ideal community in ' The Spaniards'. It remained his home for the rest of with immaculately detailed tile-creasing, simple Cachmeille Day's flat-roofed, streamform sunspan the Contemporary Review15 the same month. While rus life. cottage casements and handsome 50-degree pitch houses. Expediency triumphed with the Ministry of
8 9 Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Articles Articles
Underground Suburbs, London, Bloomsbury Books, Transport's 1928 upgrading of Falloden Way as a Bamett published her own account of its foundation, References link road from the Bamet By Pass tot he Great North and early development in 192829. The late Archivist 1988. Road through Highgate. The severance of the of the Suburb, Brigid Grafton Green, was working 1. Writing in the Souvenir Brochure of the Golden 10. Henrietta Barnett described her campaign in northern portion of the Suburb has been exacerbated on a biography of Henrietta Barnett for several years Jubilee of Hampstead Garden Suburb, London HGS Canon Barnett - His life, work and friends, London, John since the 1950s by Department of Transport poli before her death in 1991. Most of Unwin's personal Trust 1957. 'The most nearly perfect' designation Murray, 1918, U, pp 312-313, and in The story of the cies27 but an untried scheme of tidal flow traffic papers were lost when an incendiary bomb hit an ncy in an article in The Times, 15 received wider curre growth of Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, HGS management using 'runway' Lights was fortunately outbuilding in the grounds of 'Wyldes' where his January 1962, during the campaign to restructure the Trust, n.d . c1928. rejected by the Inspector at one of the many Public papers were stored during his absence in the United 'old' Trust. Inquiries. States -he died in June 1940, having been unable to 11. 'Garden Suburb for the Working Classes', Hamp return to England as planned. However, there is 2. HE von Berlepsch-Valendas, Die Gartenstadt It was left to the Conservation groundswell of the useful material on the Suburb in the Architecture stead and Highgate Express, 28 November 1~~ - The bewegung in Eng/Jmd, Munich, Old_enb_urg, 1912, p cutting was pasted into the Garden AssoCiation press 1960s to rediscover the unique character of the and Town Planning Library at the University of 163. The translation of the quotation IS by Pevsner, books by Thomas Adams. Suburb, at a time when the original Trust was Manchester, including a fine set of glass plate nega who cited it in his foreword to A W Lester, Hamp embroiled in a takeover battle in which Charles tives of views of the Suburb taken shortly before the The care and appreciation of its stead Garden Suburb. 12. The most detailed account of the inauguration of Clore was involved. Eventually a New Trust was First World War. The First Garden City Heritage London, Hampstead Garden architectural heritage, the Suburb was contained in Hampstead Garden constituted to act as landlord with control over Museum at Letchworth office, including some not Suburb Design Study Group, 1977. Suburb Tenants Ltd, Cottages with Gardens for London alterations to Suburb properties28. In addition to built. There is also a battered photoprint containing four elected members, the Trust Council includes one of the transitional layouts of the Central Square 3. CB Purdom, The Garden City, London, Dent, 1913, ers. n.d . c1907. appointees by the RlBA, RTPI, Law Society and recording the first influence of Lutyens following his p61. Victorian Society. In 1969 the London Borough of appointment as Consultant for the central area. The 13. For a detailed appraisal of Unwin's career see M Miller, Raymond Unwin: Garden Cities and Town . Bamet designated the Suburb as a Conservation RlBA Library houses the correspondence between 4.The illustrations, which also appeared in Berlepsch Planning, Leicester University Press, 1992. Adetailed Area, later assessed by the Secretary of State for the Lutyens and Lady Em.ily, his wife-'30. Theletters Valendas's book (vide 2 supra), includedLucas account of the planning and development of Department of the Environment as of contain his frank assessment of Henrietta Barnett, Square, Hampstead Way, and projected courtyard Letchworth is contained in M Miller, Letchworth, the 'outstandingarchitectural or historic interest'. The and later confirm that his relationship with her was housing for Meadway, as well as the site plan. _They First Garden City, Chichester, Phillimore, 1989. New Trust appointed Shankland-Cox in 1970 to often stormy- as in 1908 when she engineered his were included in Brian Bruce Taylor, Le Corbus1er et prepare a major conservation study which touched dismissal by the Co-partners after he had triumphed Pessac 1914-1928, Paris, Foundation Le Corbusier, 14. Unwin's first plan was prepared in his Baldock upon all aspects of Suburb We, including the already over her about the design of St Jude's. The RlBA n.d . acute problems of traffic circulation and parking. Drawings Collection contains several preliminary office and was dated 22 February 1905. Copies are held by the Hampstead Garden Suburb Archives Residents are highly articulate and keenly critical of designs for St Jude's and the surrounding housing in 5. The classic account of Pessac is given in P Boudon, and First Garden City Heritage Museum, Trust and Local Authority through the Residents' North and South Squares. Living-in architecture (translated by Gerald Onn), . Association and Conservation Area Advisory Com London, Lund Humphries, 1972. For a recent rev1ew Letchworth. mittee- a salutary reminder that the quality of life in The recent history of the Suburb includes the takeo of Pessac and its relationship to the Garden City 15. H Bamett, 'A Garden Suburb at Hampstead', 'the Suburb salubrious' is still a live issue to the ver battle and reconstitution of the Trust. Accounts Movement see M Miller, 'The First Machines for rary Review, February 1905, pp 231-237. residents 85 years on. have been written by Brigid Grafton Green and Living in', World Architecture 19 (September 1992), pp Contempo Christopher Ikin, who were both involved31. The 48-53. Writing the History of Hampstead Garden Archive coverage of Hampstead Garden Suburb is 16. R Unwin, ' Building and Natural Beauty', in B Parker and R Unwin, The Art of Building a Home, extensive enough to cover most aspects of its devel 6. Henrietta Bamett's comments were handwritten Suburb London, Longmans Green, 1901, p 84. opment and social history, although there is scope on an early printed copy of Unwin's 19051ayout for supplementing the documentary records through plan. It is held by the Hampstead Garden Suburb The compilation of the history of any community is 17. Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust Ltd, Board dependent upon the quality of archival material. The oral history, and other recent techniques. However, Archives. archive material acts as a point of departure, and is Minute 74, 28 May 1906, Hampstead Garden Suburb archives of the Suburb are administered by the Archives. A typewritten copy 'Mr Unwin's appoint capable of interpretation in many ways. In prepar 7. Bryce Leicester, Public utility services and housing, Hampstead Garden Suburb Archives Trust. The ment' is in the Unwin Collection, Library of Archi ing this history of 'the Suburb Salubrious', Stuart RECO 1/482, Public Record Office, London, p 42. Minute Books and papers of the Hampstead Garden tecture and Town Planning, Manchester University. Suburb Trust record the role of the Trust as devel Gray and I have inevitably focused on the richness of its architecture and planning, as it is these aspects 8. Unwin had actually prepared a preliminary oper. Plans of each building were deposited, to be 18. The standard works on Lutyens include a discus which made Hampstead Garden Suburb internation version of the 'New Suburb layout at sea, en route to approved by Unwin in his capacity as Consultant sion on his works at Hampstead Garden Suburb, see ally acclaimed, virtuaUy from its inception. I hope the Philadelphia City Planning Conference in May Architect. These form a comprehensive account of especially A S G Butler, The Architecture of Sir Edwin how the Suburb was build, and who designed it. that I have tapped enough of its rich vein of social 1911. His plan was first published in The Record history, and of its varied institutional basis to pro (HSG) I (1), August 1912. The plan was subse Lutyens, London, Country Life, 1950; C Hus~ey, The The Suburb Archives also include numerous docu Sir Lutyens, London, Country Life, 1950; vide a context for its design significance. quently altered and adapted by the Co-partners in Life of Edwin ments, photographs and ephemera detailing social L Weaver, Houses and Gardens of Sir Edwin Lutyens, life, and the Hampstead Garden Suburb Record, pub the interwar period. [Hampstead Garden Suburb (by Mervyn Miller and A London, Country Life, 1913. Early sketches for lished during the early years. Papers relating to Central Square and its buildings are described in M Henrietta Bamett and Raymond Unwin are not Stuart Gray) is published by Phillimore, Shopwyke 9. The relationship between the development of the Hall, Chichester, Sussex P020 6BQ UK.) underground railway, and its surface extensions, Richardson, Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the extensively represented. The two volume life of RIBA: Lutyens, Farnborough, 1973. Canon Bamett 'by his wife' contained an extended and suburban development is discussed in A A chapter on Hampstead Garden Suburb, and Mrs Jackson, Semi-detached London, London, AJlen and Unwin 1973, and D Edwards and R Pigram, London's 19. N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Middlesex, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1951. A revision by B
10 11 Pl anning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Phanning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Articles Articles
ever and for ever', so present-day English architec Cherry, incorporated in London: North East, is under 31. B Grafton Green op cit; C W Ikin op cit. way. 'Public Building': Sam tural commentators have lambasted the 'dumb monumentalism' (Williamson, Riches and Higgs), Further Information 'nightmare sublimity' (Nicholas Taylor), 'barrenness' 20. Shankland Cox and Associates, Hampstead Garden Bunton and Scotland's (Gavin Stamp), or 'deadness' (Alan Powers) of Subu rb Plan for Conservation, London, 1917. urb Archives are open 1 The Hampstead Garden Sub Modem b uild ings in Scotland or by Scots architects . uld be made to: by appointment. Enquiries sho Modern Housing The only w ay out of this 'vicious circle' is painstak 21. AS Gray, Edwardian Architecture, London, ing investigation of the work, and the values, of the Duckworth, 1985. HarryCobb Revolution arc.hitects of the time. Hampstead Garden Suburb Archivist 22. R Unwin, Town Planning in Practice. An Introduc 1 ChildsWay In this article I want to investigate the work of the tion to the Art of Designing Cities and Suburbs, London, London NW11 6XU architect Sam Bunton, who, although today little T Fisher Unwin, 1909. The book remained in print Miles Glendinning, University of Tel: 081 458 3688 known, was Scotland's most forceful innovator in until1932. Edinburgh, Scotland the field of Modem housing design and construc tead Garden Suburb Trust For information on Hamps tion. So varied and hectic was Bunton's career that 23. The classic study of the influence of Camillo Sitte contact: Introduction: A Scottish Perspective on all I can do, today, is put down a few markers for is 0 and CC Collins's Camillo Sitte and the birth of further research (Figure 1). modern city planning, London, Phaidon, 1965. The Christopher Kellerman Modernism influence of Sitte on Unwin is discussed in M Miller, Manager In Scotland, there emerged, during the 20th century, ve Infl uences Pre-1939 Raymond Unwin: Garden Cities and Town Planning. New Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust Ltd Bunton's Formati severe problems of architectural evaluation in those 862 Finchley Road areas where 'British' cultural norms conflicted 24. Discussed in Miller, op cit; 23 supra. Hampstead Garden Suburb First, a little about his early upbringing in Glasgow. national patterns. London NWll 6AB significantly with our established He was born in 1905 into a skilled working-class The area of Modem architecture where this discrep 25. The significance of Penty is assessed in M Tel: 081 455 1066. family in Govan: his father was an engineer, and Swenarton, Artisans and Architects, London, ancy was at its most acute was urban housing. Here subsequently a senior trade-union official. He to be the, in European Macmillan, 1989. the ali-British n orm was taken showed no early inclination to become an architect. terms, unusual pattern of the small-scale, Pictur Instead, with typical impetuosity, he entered the esque ' urban cottage'. This led to obvious problems 26. Suburb celebrities are numerous. Those w ho are profession by chance, leaving Bellahouston Acad in the evaluation of this country's housing patterns, deceased have been entered by K Slack in 'The book emy on the SP. ur of the moment to become a of repute and renown' held by the Hampstead draughtsman2. Eventually, he went into architec Garden Suburb Archives. A roster of the best tural practice as an LRIBA. Early work in the 30s known is included in the Phillimore publication. See was straight Art Deco, including various striking also K Slack, Henrietta Barnett. bar-fronts. But before long, Bunton began to be fascinated by International Modem architecture, and 27. The complex history of the upgrading of Falloden to be drawn towards the focus of that movement's Way and its consequences is contained in the forth Utopian theories: mass housing. coming Phillimore publication. The best account to 1980 is found in J Rutland, 'The lorry route: an Now all lively young architects at that time needed a updated account', pp 45-55 in Suburb 1981, the year world view on which to build their visions. Bunton book of the HGS Residents Association . was no exception - but, as a largely self-trained architect, he was not conditioned by the world-view 28. The battle for the reconstitution of the Trust is of avant-garde 'social-reforming, artist-scientists' recounted in B Grafton Green, Hampstead Garden such as Tecton or the MARS Group. Instead, like Suburb 1907-1977, London HGS Residents Associa many European architects of the time, he looked tion; C W lkin, Hampstead Garden Suburb. Dreams and across the Atlantic, and there found his own endur Realities, London, New Hampstead Garden Suburb Figure 1: Sam Bunton (on left) seen setting off in the ing utopian ideal: not 'Gemeinschaft', but Trust Ltd and HGS Residents Association, 1990. late 1950s with a party of young gollers on an 'Gesellschaft'; not 'Community', but 'Big Business'. exchange trip .(sponsored by him) to Chicago. One might think this, for a stalwart of the Labour 29. H Bamett, The Story of the growth of the Hampstead Party, even the Labour Party right wing, was slightly strange. But what Bunton understood by 'Big Garden Suburb, London Hampstead Garden Suburb closely affiliated as they have traditionally been to Business' was very far from today's ideas of unfet the European high-density urban mainstream -an Trust, n.d . cl928. tered, speculative capitalism, of '80s City of London affiliation which continued into the postwar years. yuppieism. 30. A comprehensive section of letters was published The result has been a vicious circle of 'devaluation' of Edwin of our Modem architecture, on grounds that it does in C Percy and J Ridley (eds), The letters We have to recall the atmosphere of Glasgow, in the ) not conform to English values of individualism, but Lutyens, London, Collins, 1985. '30s. Those were the years when not only were relates rather to the 'Hard Modem ' of mainstream ordinary citi.zens fascinated by the cinema-borne ClAM. Just as Ruskin in 1853 blasted the Edinburgh imagery of America, but when the new Labour New Town as 'a w ilderness of square-cut stone, for municipal leaders (in a paradoxical reversal of
13 12 Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Planning H istory Vol. 14 No. 3 Articles Articles
united in support of the Garden Suburb ideal, into Glasgow's previous role, before 1914, as mecca of he designed a prefabricated house for Blackbum Ltd, who built 5000 throughout Scotland; he devised, two opposed factions. On the one hand was a municipal socialism) looked to Mayor La Guardia's planning-minded grouping, including Dollan, Tom New York as a model of charismatic big-city govern with Lawrence, a way of using gypsum panels as internal walling (the so-called 'Bellrock' panels); he Johnston, Robert Grieve (who later recalled that he ment. The climax of this process was the visit, or 'adored' Osbom), James McGuinness, Peter rather pilgrimage, to New York in 1939 by Patrick helped in designing a thin-leaf concrete blockwork constructional method, the Wilson block (which Meldrum, and Mrs Jean Mann, who, writing in Dollan and the Corporation leadership3. And for the Town and Country Planning in 1949, blasted the Labour Party at municipal level, the focus of their could be used by major firrns such as Lawrence or Stuart in various contexts); and he was the architec 'decadent burghs' and branded Glasgow 'the Great activi~ and the bedrock of their power was housing Wen of Scotland'. On the other hand was a group - plentiful, low-rent housing, built if possible by tural driving force of the Scottish Housing Group, a body set up in 1946 under Lawrence's chairmanship ing favouring the bolstering of municipal power, direct municipal labour. So Bunton's own utopia of and keeping Glasgow the Second City of the Empire 'Big Business' - a partnership on Clydeside between to coordinate prefabricated systems, train workmen and act as a negotiating body with the Scottish - including City Engineer Robert Bruce and housing interventionist municipal and central government, minded councillors like James Duncan, senior civil working class (through the Labour Party Office's housing arm: the Department of Health for organised servant Craig Mitchell, and George Buchanan, and the trade-unions), forward-looking building Scotland. DHS recognised Bunton's status- in effect, the heir of Peter Fyfe as a kind of national impresario Labour's postwar Scottish housing Minister, whose contractors, and scientifically-minded architects- all draconian 1940s building-licensing policies paved housing. Figure 2: Clydebank, seen immediately following the of experimental building- by giving him consider this was naturally focused on public-sector monopoly over March 1941 air raids. able help throughout the 50s: for instance, by model the way for a virtual housing. Bunton was, and remained, friendly with By nature a gregarious person, Bunton began to making and administrative services6. build up a vast circle of contacts. In a society in succession. The first literally came out of the skies, His third major opportunity came in the wake of the creasingly orientating itself around public enterprise, on the 13th and 14th of March 1941, when the this essentially meant contacts within municipal and war. The threat of German invasion, and the result German Air Force, in its only major raid on Scotland, ing concerted 'British war effort', seemed to have central government. Even before the war, this was rained bombs down on Clydebank. The raid left the beginning to bring him an increasing amount of powerfully revitalised the Union with England, and vicinity in complete chaos. That night, Bun ton got in to have driven from view the powerful prewar work. He became involved in that major Govern touch with Scottish Office contacts, and got authori ment initiative of the late '30s, the founding of the pressure for restitution of the Scottish national State sation to go in as a kind of temporary government and reassertion of cultural sovereignty. This new Scottish Special Housing Association, and under proconsul. Working with only a few helpers, notably SSHA auspices began to discover a fascination for Unionism was most forcefully articulated not by the Hal Dykes, he spent the following weeks personally Unionist Party, but by a socialist-minded political experimental concrete building construction. Here organising the clear-up operation - arranging trades, we should remind ourselves of the importance of administrative elite, led by English town and coun transport, demolition work, rehousing of the home try planners, determined to enforce the 'strategic concrete construction in this country between the less. Dykes recalls that, although under severe wars: its use had been advocated by an official dispersal' of population and industry in all'prov stress, Bun ton nevertheless all the time conveyed a inces' of Britain. This was applied to Scotland in a committee in 1920 following a public outcry against forceful, authoritative manner (Figure 2). the use of 'alien' brick in the new council housing major initiative by Patrick Abercrombie: the Clyde Regional Plan. The CVRP strategy was to programme: concrete blockwork was advocated as Valley As a result of his Clydebank efforts, not only did he broaden out the anti-urban, anti-tenement attacks of Figure 3: St. Cuthbert RC Junior Secondary School, much closer to stone building, and many thousands get the direct ear of Government for the future, any Hamilton, built 1957 (Uni-School) of dwellings were built, especially by Glasgow Garden Suburb housing reformists, by time he wanted, as someone who could cut through problematising urban concentration and municipal Corporation, where ingenious methods were devel red tape and get things done, but he also secured an all these people - but now he had to make a choice oped by the Director of Housing, Peter Fyfe4. Now, power as a whole, particularly in the case of Glas appointment from Clydebank Town Council as a gow. The solution was to be imported from Eng between these two groups. What he chose was the for the moment, the emphasis was on in-situ meth consultant architect-planner for reconstruction second grouping: to refocus himself on his own city ods; and Bunton helped the SSHA develop the land: the idea of building not suburbs, whether of which gave him a guaranteed focus for plan-making or tenement type, but separate 'garden and to work vigorously to defend it against what he Dutch-inspired technique of 'no-fines' concrete the garden and experimental schemes5. cities' or 'New Towns', to which slum-dwellers saw as a threat against both its people and its 'big building (a rather opaque term, meaning coarse business'. aggregate), and 'crosswall' construction (where the displaced by clearance would be exported. It was an His second wartime opportunity came in 1944, with approach which had been pushed with great vigour loadbearing function is performed only by trans the government's emergency programme for 1 and 2 From now on, all Bunton's work had an underlying verse walls); and he designed major SSHA develop by F J Osbom of the London-based Town and storey prefabricated dwellings. In Bunton, already Planning Association. But the underlying agenda - to fight overspill, to show you could clear ments at Kilsyth and Kilmamock - all still in a Country fascinated by experimental building, this sparked off of this Osbornite strategy was political: to the slums without it. This was to lead him into what basically Art Deco manner. aim an extraordinarily productive period of innovation. diminish the municipal power-base of Glasgow now became the mainstream of his work -projects for Already, in 1939, he and Ove Arup had produced Corporation, and fragment West Central Scotland urban reconstruction, using multi-storey blocks as The War Years and the O yde Valley Plan designs for crosswall concrete air-raid shelters into a constellation of planned, Whitehall-controlled the building type, and blockwork or precast concrete 1946 suitable for later conversion to housing. Now, the garden cities set within a Green Belt7. as the building method. Of course,he was involved emphasis was shifting to peacetime prefabrication. in many other fields at the same time - for instance, But it was the war itself that was to really establish So, marshalling his government, professional and Reactions To the Plan: Bunton's Anti in the application of blockwork construction to business contacts -above all the contractor John school building (initially at a prototype Roman his reputation at a national level. What he relished Overspill Approach above all else was a sudden opportunity, which Lawrence, 4'airman of Rangers, and the engineer W. Catholic Junior Secondary School at Hamilton, built could be exploited with spectacular and unconven A Fairhurst of the partnership F.A. Macdonald, he in 1957 through a specially set-up Lawrence subsidi s far-reaching proposal of 1946 polarised the tional initiatives. The war and its immediate after responded with a bewildering array of projects, Thi ary, Uni-School) (Figure 3). But the mainstream from housing-reformist camp, previously fairly math gave him three decisive opportunities in hardly matched anywhere in Europe. For instance, Labourite now on was absolutely clear. And in his multi-
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The 1958 proposal, for instance, was received with great alarm by government planners, whose Under Secretary, T.H. Haddow, demanded that his staff and Glasgow Corporation planners get together and 'puncture the Bunton thesis, which is liable to spoil the atmosphere for the whole overspill operation'. An extraordinary concerted counterattack against it was now mounted by both groups, using density statistics supplied by planners in the London County Council. Haddow, receiving these figures, trium phantly minuted James McGuinness, Planning Assistant Secretary,' Anti-Buntonia, I think!'- and McGuinness, in his turn, congratulated the Govern ment's senior planner, Robert Grieve, that 'the Glasgow planners seem to have made good use of R(f)[ t I /.tll'\1/ \'I or CL I Of 8 i \f.. their recent contacts with you!' He ¥ronounced Bunton's scheme 'practically dead' . But many - GRE AT WE others were to follow it. Figure 4: Sam Bunton examines a model of his 1958 Figure 5: 1951 proposal by Bunton for Clydebank proposal for polygonal and asterisk blocks with the The second, less publicised stream of his work from central redevelopment using tower and slab blocks. Corporation Sub-Convener of Planning. around 1950 was the less glamorous practical follow storey projects, Bunton looked for inspiration not to ups to his initiatives. These had to conform to ing crusader', Oavid Gibson (Figure 6), a man / - the Picturesque of Roehampton, but, appropriately, existing political expectations, while he campaigned / across the Atlantic. He reworked, in ClAM form, US to change those attitudes. Many were organised by determined both to tear the slums down and to defeat overspill- that such a policy first began to precedents, including the massive slabs and geo his longstanding associate Kenneth Fraser. The 1 metrical plan towers of US 1940s public housing practical problem in the task of resisting overspill seem feasible 2. projects, and, further back, the late Art Deco of the was: how to build blocks of flats in Glasgow as ~\ Rockefeller Center. Where even Liverpool's housing quickly as possible. Constructionally, he now delegation, visiting New York in 1954, had found focussed firmly on one method: precast concrete. -.~:_r-· ..f Parkchester and Stuyvesant Town 'frightening', and But the question was: what building type? During , had vowed that their own multi-storey projects the early '50s, the Housing Committee's attempts to I would be smalJer and less dense, Bunton derived boost output used tenements. So that was what he .. only inspiration and exhilaration from the city's largely designed at that stage: the 1950s peripheral soaring skyscrapers8. His work from now on di schemes included many of his crosswall tene I· - l vided into two main groups. ments10.
The first were fantastic, even bizarre schemes, which Bunton and the Multi-Storey Flat were purely of a propagandising character, and were I intended to grab the headlines, to exploit Glasgow's But Bunton could see what the councillors still could ! , municipal culture of daring gestures, and show you not: that the logic of the anti-overspill case was I! I . could defeat overspill if you were bold enough. r leading in one direction: multi-storey flats. Already \} I They fit well into the contemporary pattern through i in 1949-51, he had drawn up plans to rebuild the ~ out Europe in the early postwar years: one approxi i bombed area of Clydebank (Figure 5), or part of I/'/ \ ~· mate parallel was Sergei Kadleigh's High Padding Glasgow Green, using tall 'point blocks' modelled on ton scheme in England. Bunton's ideas included a Swedish examples. In 1954 he went further: he and 1949 proposal for redeveloping tenement areas, by Lawrence set up a company, with the brand-name Figures 7 & 8: Blairdardie South development (built building multi-storey blocks on top of the tenements, 'Multicon', to build crosswalJ high flats using Wilson from 1960) decanting their occupants upwards, then demolish blocks. The prototype, naturally, was built at Clyde ing and infilling below; or a proposal of 1958, put bank - the first load-bearing prefabricated concrete Bunton's first Multicon multi-storey proposal for forward along with Lawrence, for massively squat high block in the UK 11. Bun ton still involved himself polygonal and asterisk-plan towers closely resem Glasgow was a a scheme for geometrical Y-shaped as consultant in other projects - for instance, in Multicon blocks, and cruciform 4-storey blocks. The bling current New York practice, with the aim of introducing multi-storey flats to Northern Ireland, in prototype contract for these, at Blairdardie South, fitting in everyone displaced by staged 1959, using Wilson blocks. But the main agenda was was built from 1960 (Figures 7 and 8). Its bony, redevelopments (Figure 4). In case we might dismiss to apply all this to Glasgow. And it was only in precast-concrete unpicturesqueness was the first these projects as extravagant maverick gestures, it is 1960, w ith a sudden political impetus for a switch to realisation, on any large scale, of Bunton's 'Hard important to grasp that they were treated as serious Figure 6: Bailie Oavid Gibson, seen in 1961. multi-storey building, emanating from a new and Modem', and paralleled not only contemporary US 'threats' by the 'opposition'. impassioned Housing Conven or- the ex-lLP 'hous-
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mass housing, but also the concrete rationalism of the Housing and Works Department. This was a internal walling went to local firms - internal to (Bellrock), and external to Weir (asbestos many European architects of the time, such as powerful element in municipal Labour Party patron Lawrence Renaat Braem in Belgium or Berthold Lubetkin then age, and, as its name implied, housebuilding was its sheeting on timber framing). So what was the reason working in England. And, to restate the point, 'it was main activity. Here it had developed a very forceful for this dramatic intensification of the project, which very similar to the geometrical layouts of contempo tradition of constructional innovation in the '40s, converted it from a relatively modest development rary US mass housing projects. when it devised its own concrete heavy prefabrica of an existing system into an audacious leap into the tion system- one of the first in Europe- and built a unknown? Various explanations were offered: that But the building of Blairdardie did not work out at special precasting factory for it14. But so far it had part of the site was discovered to be unusable, that all ~tisfactorily. There were persistent delays, fought shy of multi-storey blocks, so outside contrac the City Architect demanded a higher density which stemmed essentially from demarcation tors like Wimpey and Crudens had started coming development, that there was pressure from the local disputes with the architects of both Glasgow Corpo in, designing and building their own high blocks in steel industry17. The best answer may be that, in a ration and the Govemment13. They, to judge from so-called 'package deals'. The General Manager of time of flu x and confusion, all of them were prob Government files, seemed to resent him as an inter the Housing and Works Department, George ably partly true. loper. Increasingly complicated negotiations re Campbell, was worried by their success and decided sulted - particularly frustrating for someone like to organise his own rival 'package deal' (Figure 9). Bunton Supreme Bunton, who loved above all else cutting dramati The obvious place to go to for help in this was the caJJy through red tape. Bunton-Lawrence grouping, and what they decided, Bunton was now riding on the crest of a wave. One together, was that Housing and Works should of the planners recalled nervously that 'When you But suddenly, in 1960, an opportunity to circumvent directly commission the building of Multicon towers, went to see him in his office it was as though you all this opened up without warning, and Bunton using its own bricklayers to lay the Wilson precast were going to see Mussolini - seated behind a big seized it. It came from the City's direct labour force, blocks15. This was good for Bunton, as it would be a the atmoshere was messianic! He'd say, "It''s obvious way of getting Multicon blocks built outside the that fate has marked me out for this! Doors just keep control of the City Architect - as Housing and Works opening in fomt of me without my needing to was a separate department of the Corporation. It push!18". ·,) also seemed good for Gibson, as an additional way of boosting output; so he gave Campbell the go Now that's of course the recollection of an opponent, ahead to build a prototype scheme on a typical gap but I think it points to another powerful motive for ..,.tu..aterv n u. ,...,.• .,. .,,.,...., et c:., • ..,l h a t l.t"c.-., h
18 19 Planning Hi.story Vol. 14 No. 3 Pl~nning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Articles Articles sophistication and architectural prestige, while to emerge that there had been a 60% overspend on ment, had now been singled out as a scapegoat, as uncompromisingly monumental blocks which unqualified scale and grandeur was (and is) labelled the 1962 estimate. There was suspicion in some those same architects now moved seamlessly to new would theatrically proclaim the collective idea of c~rse and 'provincial'. Bun ton trenchantly rejected quarters that this sum was inflated by a policy of patterns of architecture in keeping with evolving urban life30. this system of values. He proclaimed: 'Housing using the scheme as a 'scapegoat' to conceal wider 'British norms'. today isn't domestic architecture -it's public build inefficiencies: it was claimed that materials were So much for Bunton's national significance. But ing. You mustn't expect airs and graces and things sometimes delivered and registered at Red Road, Indeed, in 1967 Red Road was pushed into the front what about international? The highway engineer like different-sized windows and ornamental fea then driven straight on to other sites24. line of these changes in British architectural fashion, James McCafferty has recalled, (in his talk to the tures'20. He was intoxicated by the vast new which by now had progressed from the New Scottish DOCOMOMO conference), that the design opportunity of Red Road. His son Len recalls: 'I And if the building of the blocks was controversial, Brutalist attempts to build dense, high Modem ers of the Glasgow Inner Ring Road drew ideas remember my father coming home one evening and so to was their letting. Now, historians of Modem groups as complex conglomerates, towards an direct from the most advanced US practice, trans announcing over dinner that he'd been appointed to architecture are only too aware of the danger of increasing rejection of large blocks altogether, in formed them here into a new form reflecting the the biggest public-housing contract in Europe. Then blanket hindsight-condemnation of one 'world view' favour of lower, more English-villagey patterns. This dense urbanity of the European city, and then re I remember him bringing home a drawing board, by its successors -of the multi-storey 'housing rejection was heralded in 1967, by the avant-garde broadcast them overseas, notably to Hong Kong. I and sitting down with a big broad T-square design crusaders' by the conservationists, for instance. But London critic Nicholas Taylor's special issue of the think research may reveal a similar process in the ing the tower blocks one night. Then he went into that doesn't stop us carefully identifying individual Architectural Review, entitled The Failure of Hous case of Bunton's work. Outside 'the West', during the office that Saturday and threw that down on decisions where, even in the short term, a different ing'. Taylor led off his polemic with a blistering the 70s and 80s, there began to be organised increas someone's desk and said: "Draw that up!" Then, the balance of outcomes might have been arrived at. I denunciation of Red Road: its 'n~htmare sublimity' ingly powerful public housing drives, employing same war came the point blocks and then the slab think one such example was Gibson's decision, and 'total lack of individuality'2B": But this rhetoric large, regularly disposed blocks. The well-known blocks'2 . In 1963 he and Lawrence went further, by against the advice of Scottish Office Housing Admin of Picturesque anti-monumentality, however much campaigns in Eastern Europe were clearly inspired proposing to develop these plan types up to a height istrators, that the first two blocks to be built at Red recited over the following years to the point where it by France, by the long but relatively low blocks of of 45 storeys22. Road, 31-storey blocks with only two lifts, should be began to affect public opinion even here in Scotland, the 'grands ensembles'. But in Hong Kong the public entirely 4-a~artrnent flats, ensuring a very high child need not unduly concern us today. After all, ALL housing drive took a very different course. Crush Problems at Red Road population 5. The apparent result was a reputation 'British Modem' architecture- Taylor's picturesque ingly massive slabs and towers juxtaposed with for delinquency which stigmatised the scheme even Low Rise High Density courtyards as much as outcrops of slender point blocks far higher than any But soon things began to unravel. In 1964, Gibson before it was complete, and lasted right through to anything - has been in official 'disgrace', as a whole, mass housing in the USSR or the USA -erupting died suddenly, from a heart attack brought on by the early '8Qs26. But this of course takes us away for the past 20 years. So 1960s 'British' architectural from hillsides, from any available site, in a paroxysm overwork, and the Housing Committee became from the subject of this article - the provision of rhetoric need not constrain the relationships we of urbanistic energy unparalleJied in the world. embroiled in disputes with the Glasgow and Scottish buildings - into the vastly complicated area of their choose to establish with our architecture of that Now the links between Hong Kong and the UK, but Development Department (i.e. government) planners later use and experience. There is no space to tackle period. It is, incidentally, something of an irony that, with this country in particular, hardly need to be over the level of multi-storey building23. But more such questions here. However, the present highly in the current rediscovery of Modem architecture in stressed -in commerce, and in all professional serious still, things started to go badly wrong at Red successful Red Road concierge scheme suggests that England, the most prominent architects so far to be spheres: including the structure of the Hong Kong Road: delays and confusion mounted. Undoubtedly even the most intractable problems of housing use 'revived' by historians have been Emo Goldfinger Housing Authority. But within the UK it was only in the daring of Bunton's conception, throwing to may be soluble through careful management poli and Berthold Lubetkin- Continental 'outsiders' who Scotland, in Glasgow in particular, that very high gether violently experimental constructional meth cies. never accommodated their rationalistic 'Hard blocks were built in this massed yet at the same time ods on such a scale, on a project that was supposed Modem' principles to the Picturesque29. abrupt pattern. Could there be a missing link to be to be not a vast one-off but a prototype, contributed Bunton's Declining Influence traced in here somewhere? to this. And so did the fact that he was not a man of Conclusion detail, and thus was temperamentally unsuited to What is more relevant here is that the troubles of the unglamorous task of monitoring a contract of Red Road not only chastened the Housing and So - to conclude- what was the significance of This paper was originally delivered as a lecture at the this complexity. Works Department, whose standard package-deal Bunton's work? Well, I think the Red Road saga inaugural conference of the DOCOMOMO Scottish block eventually emerged in a much more modest shows that his great contribution to this country's National Group on 10 October 1992. It is derived from But more important was the role of the Housing and form - the 8-storey 'Block 84'- but also proved the Modem architecture- whatever his own rhetoric of research for a forthcoming book, 'TOWER BLOCK', Works Department, who, to be blunt, were totally undoing of Bunton. He thrived best in a climate of ruthless business efficiency and machine like repeti jointly written with Stejan Muthesius and due for unsuited to the task of management contracting. bubbling bonhomie, and the general cloud of acri tion - was above all in the field of ideas and images. publication by Yale U.P. in 1993. As the paper is essen The embattled job architect, Bunton's nephew Sam mony which now settled over Red Road - with all He was a romantic ideas man, whose Americanising tilllly a report on work 'in progress' ,footnotes are rela Bunton Junior, summed up the problem: 'The one the various contractual and professional factions at skyscraper imagery powerfully energised the peri tively sparing. Full foot notes fo r this paper's subject thing you need on every big building project is a odds - was deeply demoralising to him. More od's now unfashionable causes: housing production, matter will be included in Chapters 20 and 25 of main contractor - and at Red Road there just didn't prosaically, he had great difficulty in getting his fees prefabrication, high-density urban redevelopment, 'TOWER BLOCK'. seem to be one!' In accordance with standard direct paid, and his practice went steeply downhill. In the high blocks. He gave architectural expression to the labour practice -endorsed here by Gibson, to speed end, to cut a long and depressing story short,he went inchoate indignation of many Glaswegians at the References things up -there'd been no prior scheduling of into semi-retirement in the North-East, where he idea of the massed exporting of their city's popula trades; the idea was simply to start building, and eventually died in the late 70s27. tion. He synthesised a widespead feeling that this 1. Williamson, etc.: Buildings of Scotland: Glasgow, estimate as yougo, but without any checking of city's crusade to rehouse its own people- the climax 1990 (Sheriff Court of Glasgow). Taylor: Architec actual expenditure by quantity surveyors: in other Now, I think that by that stage, in the late 60s and of public housing in Western Europe- should not be tural Review 11-1967 (re. Red Road). Stamp: AA words, a kind of blank cheque approach. early 70s, Bunton must have felt that he, who even at bashfully hidden away in an atomised sprawl of Files 1991. Powers: lecture to 20th Century Society the height of his success had been branded a maver low, brick rabbit-hutches, but should be proudly Oct. 1992 (referring to London school by Spence) So it was only after seven years, in 1969, that it began ick by some in the Modem architectural establish- broadcast through the building of vastly expensive, Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Articles Articles
2. Interview with William Bunton 17. Motherwell Burgh Housing Committee 21-2- of Sharp's pamphlets on slavery. The two men were 1963. A British Proposal for soon active in fightingthe practice of 'pressing' 3. Glasgow Corporation, Glasgow and New York: A seamen for duty on naval ships1, and Sharp wrote a Tale of Two Cities, 1939. Municipal Socialism and 18. Interview with former senior Scottish Office American Settlement: pamphlet discussing the old English practice of Glasgow: D. Whitham. planner. divisions into 'tithings', which served as the basis for Granville Sharp's Plan Oglethorpe's plan of the Savannah Colony. 4. SS~: Housing 3-1957 pp. 115-8; T. Begg, Fifty 19. Interbuild 1963 p. 27. Oglethorpe later introduced Sharp to important men Speaal Years, 1987. Scottish Record Office files of for a Town and Town of means to further hisabolitionist work, and such Scottish Development Department (hereaf;er abbre 20. Scotsman 29-11-1965, p. 4. was the respect these two men had for one another viated DD-) 6/1422,3-3-1953, 27-5-1955; 006/1321, that Oglethorpe eventually named Sharp as the 3-2-58. Fyfestone, etc.: N. Morgan, in R. Rodger 21. Interview with L.C.H. Bunton. ship executor of his estate. (ed.), Scottish Housing, 1989, pp. 128-35. 22. Interview with former OHS architect. See e.g. S. Sharp and T own Planning 5. Clear-up: interview Dykes. Bunton schemes at Checkland, The Upas Tree, 1975, p. 74. Elwin C Robison Clydebank, etc.: Builder 25-4-1941, 14-1-1944; R.B. Kent State University, USA Sharp's town planning career began as the result of White, Prefabrication, 1965, pp. 221-2; D06/269 1-12- 23. D06/2362 meeting 4-12-1964, note 8-12-1964, an incident on an English slave ship in 1783 when a 1949 and 14-12-1950. meeting 19-3-1965. The settlement of the North and South American 'cargo' of Africans was dumped overboard. This continents was an issue which interested Europeans total disregard for basic human decency and human 6. DD6/1320, 1322, 1323, 1422, 1515. Builder 22-1- 24. Corporation of Glasgow, Report of the Red Road throughout the 18th century. A large number of ity so enraged Sharp that he attempted to prosecute 1943, 14-1-1944,31-3-1944, Architects' Journal 14-10- Inquiry, 1969. prototypical plans for settlement were produced by the ship's captain for murder. His frustration at this 1948, 18-1-1952. British writers during the century. While some of enterprise led him to propose a settlement of freed 25. D06/2362, 13-4-1962. these plans were intended as speculative ventures, slaves somewhere on the coast of Africa2. The main 7. Clyde Valley Plan, regional planning, Osborn: See by far the greatest number were proposed as a points of his resettlement plans were: e.g ..R. Smith, U. Wannop, Strategic Planning in 26. See e.g. 0 / TC 8.20.T.7, letter of 30-9-1970. means of correcting social ills. A settlement proposal Action, 1985, pp. 63-4; M. Hebbert in G. Cherry which is notable for its foundation in practical 1. No slavery. (ed.), Pioneers in British Planning, 1981, pp. 179-83. 27. lnter:view with L.C.H. Bunton. experience is Granville Sharp's A Plan fo r a Town and 2. Establishment of a fund for purchasing free D. Hardy, Fr'om Garden Cities to New Towns/ From Township. dom of slaves. New Towns to Green Politics, 1991. 28. Architectural Review, 11-1967. 3. No monopolisation of land, with parcels Granville Sharp allotted for public services, conunon-lands for 8. Interview with L.C.H. Bunton. 29. J. Allan, Berthold Lubetkin, 1992. pasture, and cottages set on small parcels. Granville Sharp was an English abolitionist of the Large land holders were to be excluded from 9. DD12/ 1156, 22-6-1958 and letters 1956-1959. using cornrnon-lands. DD12/1735, 17/18-11-1958. 18th century. Although the Sharp family had some prominence in 17th century England, Granville 4. Trustees of the colony were to assure a profit served a typical apprenticeship for investors. 10. Glasgow Corporation, Housing Committee in his youth. Born in Durham 5. Government was to be organised by Anglo Minutes 17-10-1952. in 1735, at age 15 he began a series of apprenticeships to linen drapers. An intelligent man Saxon frank-pledge, in tithings and hundreds who taught himself Greek and Hebrew, he was able (similar to Oglethorpe's colony). 11. D06/1515; Architects' Journal6-3-1952, p. 313. to secure a position in the Ordinance Office at age 23 6. Public works were to be performed by settlers which enabled him to pursue his philanthropic by rotation. 12. Gibson views: interviews with Mrs S. Gibson, W. ideals. A prolific writer of pamphlets, he Taylor and others; Scottish Daily Express 28-3-1964 became interested in town planning through his efforts By 1787 Sharp had organised subscribers for the p. 9; Glasgow Herald 1-9-1962 p. 3 and 28-3-1964, p. to establish a colony for freed slaves venture, and in April of that year 400 blacks and 60 6; D. W. Gibson, Chairman's Address to Housing in Sierra Leone. The prototypical plan which Europeans set sail for Sierra Leone. The six trustees Committee Annual Inspection 1962. he developed was based partly on the practical experience of the of the colony were to be augmented by a seventh Savannah colony, partly on the experience of elected by the colonists. The original town plan was 13. DD12/1156 note of 2-12-1958, DD6/1326, notes of the struggling colony at Sierra Leone, and also on designed by a Mr Smeathson, who was one of the 19-3-1956,29-3- 1956, 14-6-1956, 1-11-1956. contemporary writers. casualties of the first year that amounted to one half of the colony. Disease was only one of the problems 14. Corporation of Glasgow, Review of Ope ra Sharp's abolitionist activities not only created the confronting the settlers. Defence was difficult tions1919-1947. interest in town planning, but provided the re because settlers spread out over the land, originally sources as well. One of the most important contacts avoiding the town settlement. 20 acre plantations 15. Note from Campbell to Sub-Committee on Sites Sharp would make in this regard was his friendship were given to settlers, with individual dwellings and Buildings 16-9-1960; DD6-2362 6-6-1961, 13-4- with James Oglethorpe, the founder of the Savannah scattered over a considerable area. This caused 1962,5-10-1962, 9-10-1962. colony. Also a social reformer, Oglethorpe began difficulties both in civic function and military protec Savannah as way to provide a new life for English tion. The following year one acre town lots were 16. Personal file of Mrs S. Gibson. convicts. Correspondence between the two men laid out by a Mr Gesau (who also promptly died, as began in 1776 as a result of Oglethorpe's reading one did approximately half of all Europeans) which
22 P1;anning Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 History Vol. 14 No. 3 Articles Articles
TH E following is a rough fketch of the whole::.
Townfhip A. Townfhip B. T ownfhip C. T own fh ip D. ------:._.:::..=::...::_~-=:======:-.11
2 2 3 3 4 4 ------"'~~~"' ;:~~;: =~Y.'i:~ c s760 acres c ~ = "'~~~"' Wood ti> r Wood tor Wood for ~ < ~ g: 0 & ~ 0 wood fO<
2 s Ions of ' 2 30 acres 1 1 3 3 4 4 I ,,' ,, j: I l --- - l
Figure 2: Method of Forming such Settlement, by Henry Bouquet, from William Smith, An Historical Account of the Expedition Against the Ohio Indians.
plan and diagonal avenues had been used in military the soda! aspect this conunon land as is evidenced city plans since Scamozzi. by his stipulations regarding common land at the Sierra Leone colony. In addition, his Town and Although the plan is well thought out in terms of Township plan provides for locations on lakes, land allocations and reservations for public and oceans, or canals, and in each of these cases common common lands, Sharp's lack of on site experience land along the bodies of water to provide access for with town planning is evident in the plan. The all inhabitants was provided. diagonal avenues do not tie into the grid of the central core of house lots and the parcels of land cut into triangular areas by these avenues are simply nu! .. designated as conunon or reserved lands instead of Figure 1: A Plan for a Town and Township.. .. by Granville Sharp, 1794, photograph from the American Antiquar directly dealing with the spatial complexities of how ian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. one might actually use a triangular lot. Despite the ' r; • b .;: . square plan, the house lots are oriented only about ' < . created a more cohesive settlement. Unfortunately Elsewhere ... of 1794 has a decidedly defensive charac the north-south plan direction, so that east-west d . • d attacks from neighbouring tribes (prompted by ter. Sharp's plan has three separate lines of defence streets have no buildings fronting on them. Likewise British aggression elsew the houses for planters and farmers face on to the 1~ouful ~CII 1~Si here) and French raiders comprised of an earthen embankment and ditch: d J earthen embankments and are spatially removed . . forced several rebuildings of what eventually be one surrounding the ten acre outlots, another sur .•s ho~l s 7 I• s hou.l ) A k\l,hl came known as Freetown. rounding the two and one half acre garden plots, from the town centre. ~ A Ro•d .,;;-;~, , ; 0h·;;;:l9 • and an inner defensive perimeter ., surroWlding the d _s_ d ( Detailed Planning Aspects house lots. Sos guard posts were to be placed at all Other aspects of the plan show more thought. The t6 h.ot~(.. d 1'' ":"'•:1 breaches in the embankment, and entrenchments farmers lots are located on the outer perimeter of the d d The need for defence was foreseen by Sharp from the were regularly placed upon the diagonal avenues to town centre giving them easier access to fields and provide defensive positions if the outer perimeter common land, although such zoning arrangement -~. beginning, he advocated an earthen embankment b 0 b might have some social consequences as tradesmen ' c.t!. and palisade to protect the town. However such an were breached. The square layout of the plan was ' < . enterprise required a greater cooperative effort than conunon to many ideal city plans of the 18th century, and labourers are physically removed from the areas and the 'supergrid' had already been used in North where farmers live. Lots for a church, town hall, and colonists were willing to contribute, and hence the w various disasters which befell the colony in its early America by the Connecticut Land Company (a five other public structures arereserved about the centre square. Most interesting, years. Consequently, it is no surprise that his A mile square grid) and dictated by the U.S. Land however, is the greenbelt General Plan for LAying out Town and Townships on the Ordinance of 1785 (using six mile square grids). of common land which surrounds the town centre. Figure 3: TownPlan Proposal by J V N, 1769, from New-Acquired LAnds on the East Indies, America, or Likewise the 'Renaissance square' in the centre of the While this also functions as a free-fire zone serving a The Gentleman's Magazine. military purpose, Sharp was equally concerned with
24 25 Planning H istory Vol. 14 No. 3 Articles Research Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3
Possible Influences on Sharp's Plan which also has a nuclear town surrounded by a n::.::.::.-.::::::·.-::i·i§§:.:::.:::.::.::·§.::::.-.:·~::.-.::::§:::::::q:.:::.-.,i··;:.. .-.- ...:.::::::.:::::i1 greenbelt of common land and agricultural parcels. There are several plans with which Sharp was i : i : ~ ~ : ~ Joseph Smith's settlement proposal, the Plat of the Research known to have been familiar. One was a settlement d I) 'l lil !) 11 : I ' : : : : : City of Zion has a nuclear settlement and outlying proposal made by Henry Bouquet, a Swiss officer :: ! i 7 400 L'' :: I t--·-·-n••••i L... ••• •••••••••••• ••• ••••• •••••• • ••••· ••~ ~ ~ ouoooooooo•••••••j ~ fields, but the distinct greenbelt surrounding the who entered the British military service and partici house lots is not specified. Ebenezer Howard's The Finnish Neigh pated in the siege and relief of Forth Duquesne (Pitt) IfO:DI BHm~~]t [ITJJ\ l Garden City with substantial greenbelts surrounding in whit is called the French and Indian War. His individualsettlements likewise has not defined bourhood Unit from 3 4 3 proposal, titled Method of Fanning such Settlement n1 I I Ut~ o o ffil!l I I 1!1 greenbelt, but the concept may well stem in part, upon the Frontiers, as might support themselves during ~tm; 35 ~88ITID ITI1!HIIDITID88~~5taod Sharp's proposal for Town and Township served as Tapiola to Pihlajamaki an Indian War3, provides for 100 families of an : . , .88 am am rrm !IIJJ BB: , . , l i ,.~~.2 '1 an important step in the development of the average of five persons each. The settlement covers : : 7 ; ; 03 4 30 !,: : 7 :i ;: , . '· a._ ~ 00., d green belt concept, as well as being a record of the one square mile, with 40 acres allocated for streets utopian ideals of this important social reformer. and public uses, 50 acres for house lots of 1/2 acre ill l I I! ~~~~Hffi~~~~lll ' I I lP PhD Thesis, University of each, and 550 acres for farm ! ::::::·::::::::·::·::: ::::::::.:::::::::: ~:. :.:· t~~; ;:c.-::::::::::::::; ! lots of 5 1/2 acres This article was first presented at the AESOP/ACSP Helsinki, Finland (1991) apiece. The four sides of the square were to be Conference at Oxford in July 1991. stockaded and house lots to be placed on the perim 11 Jj eter. Outside the stockade an additional five square ,~ ~ 1§~88Hdiu...... , References miles was to be reserved for farm lots for the 100 t ...... -...... ::...... u...... ,.v, ...... Ri itta Hurme families. Sharp wrote a tract commenting on the 1. Kaskenkaatajantie 18 C32 plan4, and interestingly he modifies Bouquet's half Figure 4: TownPlan Proposal by J P, 1770, from The General Oglethorpe's Memorandums on the lllegality of plan proposal to sit it on a lake or canal, a later Gentlemen's Magazine .. Pressing Seamen, with Remarks by Granville Sharp, feature he included in the Town and Township 92100 Espoo (London, 1777). proposal. Both plans have defensible town centres town into the tithings which were such a major Finland with agricultural outlots. However, Sharp's plan was element of the Savannah plan (which Sharp knew 2. not only agricultural in concept, but envisioned a very well). Given his admiration for Oglethorpe, Prince Hoare, The Memoirs of Granville Sharp, Esq., more diverse economy. The introduction of the neighbourhood one has to wonder why the Savannah plan was not (London, 1820) p. 265. copied more closely, especially since Sharp was such unit in Finnish town planning Other plans of which Sharp was probably aware a strong advocate of political division into tithings 3. In Finland, the years following the Second World were two proposals published in the Gentleman's and hundreds. A possible explanation is that William Smith, An HistoriCill Account of the Expedition Magazine, a periodical which he was known to read War were marked by a severe shortage of housing. S. Sharp's plan was intended as an economic enterprise Against the Ohio Indians (Philadelphia and London, This was largely due to damages to existing housing The first submitted in 1769 by a J.V.N. is for a town funded by investors. Town lots were to be given to 1764); reprinted ed. (Cincinnati, 1868) p. 121. ship 3 miles square. The centre contained 124 house new settlers with investors earning a return on the in the war, urbanisation and the need to resettle over lots 50 yards by 382 yards, with a central market sale of agricultural lands and subsequent increase of 4. 400,000 people who had been evacuated from the areas of Karelia ceded to the Soviet Union. place, church, public hall, and public granary. Lands land values. He was careful to point out that a This discussion is appended to his tract, An Account There was also a shortage of construction materials in the corners of the township were reserved for donation of the small town lots of 1/2 acre together of the Ancient Division of the English Nation into and capital. Despite the initially unfavourable situation, copses, commons for sheep grazing, and agricultural with their road area would be less than 4 3/4% of the Hundreds and Tithings (London, 1784). lands were allocated to each house. A counter total, and argued that even this reduction would post-war reconstruction provided opportunities for proposal made in February of 1770 was made by a increase the value of remaining agricultural lands of 5. new currents in town planning and urban construc tion. J.P. with the objections that it was too small (to be the township. This concern for economic return Hoare, p. 163. increased to 6 mile square), houses were not contigu would make the Savannah proposal with its gener ous for defence, the roads were too wide, not enough ous areas for parks and public squares difficult to 6. The idea of the neighbourhood unit, implying a model for the structure and expansion of cities and land was allocated to each family, and land should implement. For Savannah this was no difficulty since Hoare, p. 373. Letter to Zachary Macaulay, Sept towns was adopted in the late 1940s from English not be held in common. The centre of this settlement Oglethorpe obtained a royal charter and did not 1796. 'Enclosed I send you a copy of the memoran influences both directly and via Sweden. A central was 2000feet square, with 176 home lots 80 by 160 have to purchase land. However, the economic dums annexed to several of the articles in the cata feet. Two role in this process was played by Otto-1 Meunnan, public squares had space for 4 unspecified realities that Sharp had to contend with in establish logue of books which I sent to the public library who since 1940 had been Finland's first professor of public buildings. Sixty-six garden plots of 3-3 1/2 ing the Sierra Leone colony probably convinced him some time ago, as perhaps some of the hints may be town planning. Meurman worked on three signifi acres surround the settlement core, with a greenbelt to adopt a far more compact and efficient plan. useful, more especially those relating to the forming cant levels in this situation. He made the neighbour surround the central core as in Sharp's later pro of towns and townships, agreeably to a printed hood unit a guide to planning in his teaching and in posal. Although Sharp rejected J.P.'s exclusion of Impacts of Sharp's Plan plan.. .' Letter to William Daves, Nov 1800. 1 have his published work on town planning principles. common lands, he did incorporate separate garden likewise sent you a tract on Congregational Courts, He also used this principle in his own planning, for plots (of 2 1/2 instead of 3 1/2 acres) and the Sharp's publication of the Town and Township wherein the system of frank-pledge is explained; and instance in several town plans, and he wrote exten greenbelt common. proposal had a considerable distribution, and the two more copies of my plan for laying out towns and sively in thee trade original edition of 1794 was followed by a second townships.. .' press and elsewhere about Sharp and the Savannah Plan edition in 1804. He promoted his own plan actively, reconstruction in England and the neighbourhood sendin$ out copies to governors of the Sierra Leone unit principle. The concept was seen as a hierarchi Almost as important as what Sharp did include is colony<>. It undoubtedly served as a model for cal entity of correct planning principles ranging from what he omitted. There is no spatial division of the Joseph Bouchette's settlement proposal for Canada, the community, and the neighbourhood unit down
26 27 Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Planning Hittory Vol. 14 No. 3 Research
to the residential unit. cal content was always related to the frame of hood-unit ideas were applied in practice. The In the early 1960s the Pihlajamaki area in Helsinki reference of the situation at hand. Although ideologi concept of a satellite town culminated in schemes to was designed according to neighbourhood-unit In the Greater London Plan of 1944 the neighbour cal emphases have varied greately, they have shared make Tapiola an independent municipality or to join principles insofar as it had a clearly hierarchical hood-unit principle was presented in an essentially the aim of creating well-functioning units with it to Helsinki. Later construction of neighbourhood structure based on the cell principle. A common different situation than in Finland. The aim in diversified services. units and suburbs no longer aimed at creating feature with Tapiola was the freely shaped network London was to combat the effects of over-urbanisa communities with a high level of self-sufficiency. of streets taking into account the terrain, and the tion by dividing the overall city structure into The situation in which the concept of the neighbour Nor was this realistic in the building of individual placing of buildings freely in the central parts of the operational units, and by moving part of the popula hood unit and its related ideas were adopted in neighbourhood units. lots. Pihlajamaki, however, dearly displays the tion away from the most congested and polluted Finland dictated to a great degree the course to be changes, preventing the Finnish 'neighbourhood areas. There was also the aim of directing the followed in the construction of new areas. The main The model community of Tapiola came to be built in unit' from fulfilling the original idea of a functioning subsequent growth of the city into the new areas. requirement of the post war years was to build a poor country, which had lost the war and was in community implied in the concept Pihlajamaki The Finnish situa.tion corresponded on a smaller apartments and dwellings. Accordingly, the quality debt, and where the shortage of apartments of remained a residential area relying on a shopping scale to the latter aim. of services, the immediate environment otr other materials created requirements of quantity and centre, where economic change has reduced the features were not major issues. Standards related to quality that was satisfactory, but not necessarily any already small number of services and jobs. The neighbourhood-unit principle was first pre the state funding of housing provided maximum higher. Tapiola was an attempt to provide a boldly sented in 1929 by Clarence Perry in his monograph and minimum requirements for the size and quality and proficiently executed example for raising the The main significance of Pihlajmaki is that an overall on regional planning in New York. For Perry, the of apartments, and at the same time for housing level of community planning and habitation. It also element construction technique was used there on a neighbourhood unit was part of the continuous architecture in general. aimed at improving national self-esteem. The hard large scale. The area is an example of the 1960s urban structure. The concept was clearly linked to sell, American-style marketing related to the project, standardisation, rationalisation, use of elements and garden-city ideas with their emphasis on decentrali Tapiola as a model of the new community however, had an opposite effect, and was rejected in enlarged scale. The influence of Le Corbusier can be sation, as can be seen in the Greater London Plan many quarters. seen in the architecture of the southwest part, where At times the whole and in Meurman's architectural thinking. Eliel An important question in the history of the neigh small aircraft fly over the area. Saarinen was an important background figure for bourhood unit in Finland is why Tapiola never In the 1960s professional planners and designers setting vividly reminds one of Le Corbusier's well Meurman. Before emigrating to the United States in became a prototype for new communities. In Tapiola began to take a critical view of Tapiola. The ideals of known perspective views. the 1920s, Saarinen had already a number of major both the garden city and the neighbourhood unit planning and the overall spirit of society had achievements behind him as an architect and a town principles came to be applied. A community with changed, and Tapiola was seen as an example of In the decades of neighbourhood-unit and residen planner. Meurman adopted Saarinen's ideas con three neighbourhood units and a centre, it was obsolete aims and values, both socially and in the tial-area construction the building trade has become cerning decentralisation, both from the latter's plan intended as a satellite town for Helsinki. Responsible specific field of town planning. In this respect it did industrialised and concentrated. The number of for Greater Helsinki and from his work The City for this venture was an exceptionally wide organisa not matter much that the plans for Tapiola provided trade groups and persons participating in planning which was published in the United States. tion of private associations. As a model of action this for apartment buildings together with small housing has grown. Architects have become only one group was legally possible, but nevertheless rare in projects in order to create a mixture of social classes. Within among planners, designers and other concerned The concept of the neighbourhood unit originated in of this size. Above all, it was contrary to general a short time statistics came to show that Tapiola was parties. It can be seen that this course of develop conditions where population was much higher than trends, whereby town planning was becoming a inhabited by the upper strata of society. Nor were ment undermined the position of architects in the anywhere in Finland, even in the Helsinki region. more and more the concern of society . critical views dispelled by the fact that the planning planning and construction process. It also led to Howard's garden cities surrounding their mother and design of Tapiola had involved the leading situation where architectural and aesthetic design city as independent urban entities, Perry's neigh In Tapiola the buildings were located in their natural names of Finnish architecture. Of these designers, came to have a lesser role in projects where these bourhood units and the reconstruction plans for settings so that the transition between well kept the concepts and ideas of Aulis Blomstedt and Viljo features were not specifically underlined. London were in themselves unsuitable for Finnish parks or gardens and natural landscape was often a Revell were still timely in the 1960s. On the other conditions. Lewis Mumford's negative view of subtle one. This may have obscured the central role hand, Heikki von Hertzen and Otto-1 Meurman, the In Finnish usage the term 'neighbourhood unit' or future developments (The Culture of Cities) was based of landscape planning. Unlike in Tapiola, housing central figures of Tapiola, were known to be con 'housing development' (Finnish: liihiii) came to mean on a review of the failings and inadequacies of large areas built in later years did not place much impor servative. a housing area built apart from the rest of the city, cities. tance on landscape planning and related concerns. and dependent upon a city, its jobs and mass trans The example of Tapiola was not followed in the The residential area - the Finnish 'neigh port. It acquired a different meaning than Clarence The organising of settlement into units of suitable siting of buildings and their relationship w ith the bourhood unit' Perry' or Patrick Abercrombie's 'neighbourhood size has often served the aims of political power and natural environment. This was partly due to reasons unit'. In connection with Tapiola the aim was to bring the neighbourhood-unitconcept to the fore, authority, or it has been hoped that it would do so. of economy, but also to the weak position of land In Finland neighbourhood units, or in most cases and establish for it a meaning following its original The history of the garden-city and neighbourhood scape planning in Finland and lack of training in the residential areas, are linked to the development of English models. The concept, however, changed in unit concepts contains a great deal of material field. areas and large-scale construction with its stress on late.r years to refer to the housing areas as they were relating to such aims. The background ideologies rationalisation, standardisation and the use built. were conflicting, for instance Ebenezer Howard's A further aim was to make Tapiola as self-sufficient ofbuilding elements. The ideas of building whole reform.istic garden-city model, based on joint owner as possible in terms of activities. The area provided areas, standardisation and rationalisation were In the early years of housing-area construction there ship and co-operation, and aiming at breaking down jobs in various services and to some degree in already presented in a book from 1946 by Heikki von was not much discussion concerning the idea of the the structures of power as opposed to Theodor industry. In addition to organised services, local Hertzen as the necessary factors of a better housing neighbourhood unit. The concept was adopted as a Fritsch's city of the future based on public owner associations were established as well as a local environment. Similar aims were linked to the prindple for grouping and organising housing ship and a centrally governed andhierarchically run newspaper to serve the needs of recreation, hobbies, Tapiola scheme. After an initial period, however, without any specific ideological or functional con model of action. There is no reason to regard decen contacts and the handling of joint affairs. The rapid experiments were rejected for a long time in Tapiola. tralised neighbourhood units or suburbs as the launching of intra-community activities was an tent. Architectural discussion in Finland took up instrumentsof any specific ideology. Their ideologi- indication of how the garden-city and neighbour-
28 29 Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Research Research
this theme at a very late stage. When a positive the City Planner, John Mclnemey, architect and so in the case of a collection of essays, The Design of exchange of views would have been timely and The Accidental City: Alderman, Elizabeth Farrelly, academic planning Sydney, which was edited by Professor Peter the necessary, interest still centred on monumental historian Robert Frees tone, Shirley Fitzgerald, the Webberll. Here, it has been observed that, after architecture. Writing the history of City Historian, and Tony Prescott, a historian with spectacular growth of the City from the early 1960s, is the heritage Branch of the NSW State Government's first impressions of Sydney 'could suggest that th :ne.nei.ghbourhood-unit principle gained a foothold planning in Sydney Department of Planning. Circumstances, however, development has been thoughtless and uncon m Fmntsh regional planning, where it was a useful, were to be far less favourable in terms of the avail trolled'. Closer acquaintance, the book's editor ~eneral structural principle. The planning authori ability of secondary source material. contends, 'reveals many delights and surprises': ties of the.Helsinki region still used this principle in Paul Ashton these, it is argued, 'are the result of the efforts of a the groupmg of housing in the mid-1960s. This An initial literature search clearly indicated that number of dedicated people who have fought to connecti.on with regional planning has its back Consultant Historian, Sydney, historians in Australia have largely ignored the control and enhance the quality of the City through ground~ the fact that Clarence Perry introduced the Australia broad and fascinating field of planning. Although a urban design initiatives, in the face of relentless concept m a work on regional planning. The Greater few eminent historians, such as Geoffrey Bolton, development pressures'12. London Plan was also a regional plan of large scale. g in major During 1987, the Council of the City of Sydney, have indicated the importance of plannin On the o~er hand, zoning and regional planning as storians have Vigilant urbanists working as planners, architects Australia's wealthiest local government authority, scholarly works3, few professional hi such provtded a poor framework for comprehending Spearritt's Sydney Since and in other related professions had, Webber notes, commissioned Dr Shirley Fitzgerald to write a been active in the area. Peter the actual contents of the neighbourhood-unit devoted to from the beginning of the long boom helped to history of the City for its 150th anniversary. Sydney the Twenties4, though not specifically concept, for only a broad interpretation of the His bibliog 'mould' Sydney and awaken its 'true personali ty', 1842-1992 was launched in July 1992, the City's planning, was a pioneering publication. concept was necessary for the needs of regional s in the first half of the the latter being the ultimate task of the 'planner as official Sesquicentennial year1. And along the way a raphy on writings by planner planning. contribution to master-artist'. But, quoting Mark Girouard, he is number of important local studies were produced by twentieth century was another early was to co forced regretfully to reflect that they are 'the often the City Council's History Unit (which historian the fields. Fifteen years later, Spearritt Well-meant architectural theories have often fared in Sydney, forgotten heroes who loved cities but fought to Christopher Keatingjoined as Fitzgerald's assistant author a history of metropolitan planning poorly when realised. We may also express some very useful remedy their defects without destroying them'. Even in 1987). These works examined the inner-city but this is more of an outline, albeit a what cynical suspicions that many theories were . Leonie less visible, Webber maintains, are ' projects suburbs of Chippendale, Surry Hills and Millers one, than a sustained historical inquiry6 formulated to explain broader processes which were read book, unrealised but often still influential' of forgotten Point (the latter being a locality which may eventu Sandercrock's well received and widely too strong to be resisted. Examples of the misuse of it examines planning heroes from the dim past13. Attempts ally be accorded a world heritage listing which it Cities for Sale, is another piece of history; theories a~e proposals concerning minimum living in Australia's three appear frequently to be directed at isolating concrete undoubtedly deserves)2. Currently, Fitzgerald is 'the fai lure of urban planning e, which when realised have laid down not only Adelaide7. manifestations of these projects, ideals and philoso sp.a~ working, with Dr Hilary Golder, on a study of the leading cities' -Sydney, Melbourne and nurumum, but also maximum limits. The transition lication of Robert phies 'on the ground' or at discerning traces of them adjoining inner-city suburbs of Ultimo and Pyrmont. Most recent was the pub from sparse building practices to the so-called City on the built environment. This publication, due out in the middle of 1993, will Freestone's Model Communities: The Garden compact town, which in the late 1960s became the in detail the complete the local area studies. Movement in Australi11 which explores only acceptable alternative, was part of a strong garden city tradition of planning8. Historical work, Such undertakings are perhaps in part a response to process of urbanisation and social change. In this while the the, at best, chequered fortunes of planning in the Aspects of planning in the City of Sydney are raised, however, remains thin on the ground situation town-planning theory provided the neces to be City of Sydney. Most plans for Sydney- a City now and again, in all of the Council-Commissioned history of planning in Australia continues arguments for the compact and dense construc to other fields whose very boundaries have ebbed and flowed with sary publication. And matters of planning import are primarily dealt with either as an aside practices that were to be carried out in any case. ical. The strong political tides over the past two hundred tion properly set in their broader social contexts. In of enquiry or in ways which are ahistor three volume years - have either died on inadequate drawing order, however, to treat the important subject of former is evident in F A Larcombe's Finland, the idea of the neighbourhood unit in boards or been manipulated to the point of almost In planning in a more holistic manner, it was decided history of The Advancement of Local Government appears to have foundered on realised examples, with total negation by the state and its numerous authori by the City Council early in 1991 to add a history of New South Wales9 which is richly peppered which were devoid of content, functionally imperfect history. The latter- an ahistorical approach ties. Only fragments or hints of 'planning' remain to pl~ing in Sydney to the Sesquincentenary history planning ideals of the best examples, which were often Ashton's From be discovered or explored. and senes. I was commissioned to undertake this work. - is discernible in works such as Nigel regarded as obsolete and mistaken. Functional and Village to MetropolislO. s~bsequent improvements to Finnish housing It is undeniable that much of the detail and many of other Planning History in Australia areas wtll perhaps make these housing areas neigh Key Themes the specific elements which make up contemporary bourhood units in the original sense of the term. Sydney can not be labelled the product of mere It is possible that Independent, environmentally ly, should it be surprising As primary and secondary research progressed for a chance. Nor, alternative aware Aldermen looked forward to the production society, most of the City's history of planning in Sydney, themes rapidly that as part of a capitalist of a lively account of planning in Sydney which they has been predicated on emerged. None, in my view, were more pronounced 'design' and development could use as a cudgel on their pro-development anarchic, free market forces14, though the dominant conservative than that of laissez-faire. Laissez-faire individualism political opponents. It is also likely that powers are not obscure -profit maximisation, per bureau frustrated effective control of nineteenth century civic pol.iticians may have expected their sonal greed and a belief in private property. Viewed tame publication that urban growth in Sydney. And the doctrine of cratic minders to ensure a from the perspective of town or city planning, prosperity of the City laissez-faire worked effectively against the imple would chart the progress and however, Sydney is anaccidental City, a City which and even mentation of planning schemes and ideas in twenti bought about by wise planning decisions emerged from a complex web of power relations the covert political eth century Sydney. Thisdorninant theme, however, wiser politicians. But whatever without recourse to holistic planning. In the drive to freedom was respected. This inter-related as it is with the themes of power and intentions, intellectual expand the City and its capacity to create wealth or rt ~onflict , clashed with the principal organising theme was reinforced by the appointment of an expe Sydney has almost m a number of reflective and quasi-historical works facilitate capital accumulation Advisory Committee, the members of which were evelopment by planners (and architects). This was particularly constantly undergone piecemeal red
30 31 Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Research since the second half of the nineteenth century. This culties surrounding the development of planning prising to find that on occasions, one will find a state 6. Peter Spearritt and Christina DeMarco, Planning process is still at work today instruments and controls in Sydney can be related to Labour government sacking a Labour Council, as Sydney's Future, (Alien and Unwin, Sydney, 1988). conflicts between different authorities or the duplica happened on 26 March 1987, because Independent rcock, for Sale: Property, Politics The Book. tion of powers and prerogatives. Aldermen on the City Council were holding up 7. Leonie Sande Cities major developments - mainly five star hotels - which and Urban Planning in Australia, (Melbourne Univer can be said of attempts at strategic plan sity Press, Melbourne, 1975), quotation page ix. Sydney's planning history is thus to be titled The The same were deemed important to the financial success of Accidental City: Pla nning Sydney 1788-1992. And ning in the City. On 15 December 1969, the Council the 1988 Bicentennial celebrations. Nor should City of Sydney formally resolved to commis 8. (Nelson, Melbourne, 1989). these are the themes which will largely inform its of the informed observers find it odd that on occasions a and structure, both of which are reflected in sion a strategic plan for Sydney. And this was Civic Reform Council (which is the local version of contents 9. (Sydney University Press, Sydney, [Vol 1] 1973, the chapter titles: subsequently prepared by the Sydney-based firm the conservative Liberal Party) might push what Urban Systems Corporation under the direction of would appear to be radical ideas. Whatever the [Vo12] 1976, [Vol3] 1978). the planner George Clarke. The City's strategic plan ent, the 1. 'the dry bones of civic life': Regulating political make-up of any particular parliam in July 1971. And for a decade and a 10. NW Ash ton, From Village to Metropolis: A Brief Growth in 19th Century Sydney was completed fundamental goals of 'the state' remain constant. half, Sydney was to have both a statutory scheme Review of Planning in the Sydney Region, (Sydney, Department of Planning, 1984). 2. 'in the interests of economy and efficiency': and a strategic plan. The strategic plan illustrated Conclusions National Efficiency and the City Beautiful desired land use patterns and defined specific programmes of work, the detail for which was To see planning in Sydney from the point of view of 11 . Peter Webber (ed), The Design of Sydney: Three Decades of Change in the City Centre, (The Law Book 3. 'a new battleship just launched?': Planning developed in separate action plans. The City's confl ict between state and local government - or Company Limited, Sydney, 1988). in Sydney Between the Wars strategic planners also intended that their plan between 'the state' and civic institutions - i s to set would provide the means to assess whether develop local planning in Sydney in a broader context. From applications under the statutory scheme were 12. G P Webber (ed), The Design of Sydney: Three 4. 'a race between planning and chaos': Post ment this perspective we also see that the social and long term objectives and the City's Decades of Change in the City Centre, (The Law Book war Reconstruction compatible with spatial outcomes of the process of planning are overall fabric. Despite the implementation of vari dependent upon the city's political economy. Company, Sydney, 1988). 5. Generating 'political steam': Participatory ous action plans, however, the strategic plan was by rtive, and strategic planning per se was 13. Ibid, p V . Democracy and Strategic Planning and large abo Given the resources allocated to the project, it is dropped by state government-appointed Commis hoped that The Accidental City will be a modest but during 1987 after the Council was sacked for 14. For a detailed study of the property market, see 6. 'losing ground': Post-boom Planning sioners useful contribution to planning history which seeks the fourth time in its 145 year history by parliament. to place planning in its broader social context. M T Daly, Sydney Boom, Sydney Bust, (George Alien and Unwin, Sydney, 1982). Leaving aside details of planning schemes and legislation, what, then, are the projects general The fragmentation of Sydney's Planning The Accidental City will be published in 19931Jy Hale findings? and Iremonger. Paul Ash ton is a consultant historian The fragmentation of planning authority and func based at 4 Maple Avenue, Pennant Hills, NSW, 2120, It may be appropriate, here, to quote a question tions in Sydney did not just 'happen': these local Australia. posed in a 1991 issue of the Australian magazine conditions were and continue to be manifestations of Modern Times by journalist and political commenta ongoing conflict between the state government and References tor, Mungo MacCallum, who asked: Sydney's local government authority, the City Council, due to a laissez-faire approach to city 1. Shirley Fitzgerald, Sydney 1842-1992, (Hale and If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, planning mixed with not a little political opportun Iremonger, Sydney, 1992). what should we call an economy designed by ism. That Sydney's Council shares the City with a one federal government, six state govern politically and legally more powerful level of gov 2. Shirley Fitzgerald, Chippendale: Beneath the Factory ments, two territory governments and a few ernment has meant that local government and Wall, (Sydney, 1990); Christopher Keating, Surry people who got into the meeting by mistake? planning in Sydney has been largely dependent Hills: The City's Backyard, (Sydney, 1991); Shirley upon the political goodwill (or lack thereof) of the Fitzgerald and Christopher Keating, Millers Point: This is a good question and one which can be readily state government. Local planning functions as The Urban Village, (Sydney, 1991). All published by applied to a case study of the City of Sydney. It may administered by local government have also been Hale and Iremonger. well be asked: 'What do you call a city designed and directly affected by the political composition of the controlled by one state government, one precari state government. On a number of occasions, Liberal 3. Geoffrey Bolton, The Oxford History of Australia ously placed City Council, dozens of government (conservative) state governments have sacked Volume 51942-1988: The Middle Way, departmen ts, several special boards and authorities, Labour City Councils -and vice versa - which is the (OUP,Melbourne, 1990), pp 27-58. all of which are underpressure from numerous ultimate removal of planning power for local gov interest groups as well as a few people who got into ernance of the city. 4. (Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1978). the meeting by mistake? We should, however, draw a distinction, here, 5. Peter Spearritt, 'Selected Writings of Sydney The plethora of authorities and instrumentalities between the state government and 'the state'. In a Planning Advocates, 1900..1947: A preliminary which have had a hand in the control and develop capitalist society, 'the state's primary role is to foster Bibliography', Australian Political Studies Association ment of the City of Sydney has long been problem conditions for capital accumulation- for money and Monograph, No 13, 1973. atic to local planning in the City. Most of the diffi- profit making'. ln this sense, it should not be sur-
33 32 Pl01nning H istory Vol. 14 No. 3 Pl01nning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Reports
states, in the present unstable state of European Papers presented were as follows: First Conference of politics. Both spoke of the need for a world dimen tory studies, theme Reports Professor Cordon Cherry, International sion on European urban his the conference, although Transfers in Planning Ideas and Practice the European Associa which was little explored at one paper, from Joel Outte (Paris), explored the al city' as applied by European II Professor John Muller, Parallel Paths: The tion of Urban Histori 'dream of the ration reformers in Brazil in the Planning History Origins of Planning Education and the (particularly French) urban Planning Profession in South Africa. ans, Amsterdam, Neth interwar period. were presented under nine Workshop Held at the Ill Professor Tom Huffman, Settlement Patterns About eighty papers erlands, 4-7 Septem planning history During the Iron Age themes, including several by University of the researchers and members of the Planning History ber1992 the 'pathology' of cities, IV Faustin Kalabamu, The Historical Processes Group. The theme group on (Leiden), included Witwatersrand, Johan of Traditional Tswana Settlement chaired by Herrnan Diederiks some topical papers touching on environmental Home, University of East public utilities, such as Africa, V Catherine Labum-Peart, The Persistence of Robert issues and privatised nesburg, South u Plan: The Magopa Experience London, UK Stephanie Geissler (Berlin) on environmental poll tion by the gas industry in 19th century Germany, 24-25 August 1992 two papers on Dutch public health issues in the late VI Professor Colin Tod Welch, Historical new venture, hosted by the This was an interesting 19th/early 20th century (Henk van Zon, Groningen, Continuity in Town Planning (Stellenbosch) Urban History Group at the International Dutch on sewerage disposal, and Myriam Daru, of Social History, Amsterdam, and attended Professor John Muller, University Institute Eindhoven, on piped water supply), and Marjatta VII Professor Wallace Van Zyl, The Planning from most European coun b~ about 120 delegates, Hietala (Helsinki) on cholera in Fi nland. The theme of the Witwate rsrand, South Africa Origins of Bloemfontein s. trie session on leisure was dominated by British and Dutch papers, perhaps suggesting that it is a pecu ~rofessor Cordon Cherry spent two weeks in August VIII Louw van Biljon, Pretoria: Genesis and the European Association of Urban Historians is a The liarly North European cultural construct; among m the Department of Town and Regional Planning at Successive Evolutionary Layers , with a loose organisa ~ew academic association these, Maurits van Rooijen (Rotterdam) traced the the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg structure (indeed it has no formal member tional political and class conciliating dimensions of the as the J?epa r~en t:s. 1992 Visiting Professor. During IX Martin Drake, The Blueprint Plan: Historical hip, and not much in the way of finances). The lead s Dutch public parks movement in the mid 19th the pen od of h1s v1s1t a Planning History Workshop Overview of A Planning Preoccupation in setting it up was taken mainly by the Centre for c~tury. Willem Korthals Altes' paper on the garden was held - the first such workshop to be run in South History at Leicester University (under Profes Urban oty movement in Vienna 1919-34 traced interesting Africa - at which he delivered a keynote paper on X Alan Mabin, The Witwatersrand Joint Town P~ter Clark), which has over the past few years sor comparisons with the plotlands movement of the International Transfers in Planning Ideas and Prac Planning Committee 1933-1945: Rigour and contr1buted to establishing and large ERASMUS and same period in Britain. tice. Academics from Planning Schools around the Mortis ~MPUS network for academic exchange in the country contributed papers on various aspects of . Other initiatives from the Centre include a f1eld The conference had a strong economic, social and planning history. Topics ranged from settlement XI Lulu Gwagwa, The Role of the Black urban register of Urban History research in Europe (edited demographic emphasis, but planning history was patterns during the Iron Age to urban reconstruction Planner in South Africa: A Short History Barry Haynes and Peter Clark, and available from by well represented with its own theme group, in which in the 1970s. Papers were presented on the origins of Centre, Leicester LE1 7RH, for £10 including the nine papers were presented. These included planning education and professional planning in postage and packing}, the reconstitution of the Rionach no Neill (University College, Dublin) on the South African and on the role of the Black urban XII Professor Dan Srnit, Urban Reconstruction Urban History Yearbook into a new, twice-yearly redevelopment threats to Dublin's quays, and Jim planner int he past and in the future. Other papers academic journal, Urban History, and a book series 1975-1992 Yelling (Birkbeck, London) on his newly published addressed issues such as community resettlement on urban history, published by Leicester University work on London slum clearance and redevelopment under apartheid ideology, historical pre-occupation Press. in the 1930s. Papers by Alexandra Yerolympos and with blueprint planning, and the work of planning Vithleem Martinides-Hastaoglou (both from Aristo committees in the 1930s. Case studies on the history The conference, while organised on a shoe-string tle University of Thessaloniki) on 19th century town of Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Stellenbosch, were and with limited advance publicity, was stimulating planning ~n the Balkans and Greece respectively presented. The content of the Workshop was thus and enjoyable. In the opening theme paper, Profes were particularly topical, in the light of recent events wide-ranging and discussion was lively and prob sor Aymard (Paris), under a Braudelian mantle ~ East-Central Europe, and traced how the newly ing. There was evidence of an active interest in, and explored the emergence of urban history in the,early mdependent Balkan states set out consciously to enthusiasm for J study in the field of planning 1970s as a new frontier of historical research, which replace the 'poly-ethnic' Ottoman towns with ba history. At the concluding session it was resolved has_concentrated particularly on the early modem roque-style western models. Serb nationalism grew that a Planning History Study Group be immediately penod (17th and 18th centuries). In the closing up as a rural movement suspicious of the urban formed in South Africa and that liaison with the the~e paper, Professor Lynn Hollen Lees (Pennsyl bourgeoisie and their Ottoman contacts ('beyond the Planning History Group be initiated. Contact was vama) s_uggested that urban history lacked big or peasants ther_e is no Serbian nation'), which may made with the editor of Planning History and it has contentious themes, and also urged more attention help to explam someof the present-day violence in been agreed that papersread at the workshop will to the political dimension in urban Bosnia. form the content of a future edition of Planning history,particularly the relationship of urban devel History. opment to the formation and dismemberment of
35 34 Pl;anning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Pl This first conference seems to have got the Associa Provost Jean Roberts led a delegation to eight Ameri Key Actors Look Back tion off to a good start, and it intends to repeat the Visions Revisited: The can cities, returning convinced that a great urban venture biennially, with Strasbourg lined up for motorway system was essential to Glasgow's rede Dr J Dickson Mabon, ex-MP for Greenock and a September 8-111994, and Budapest for August 1996. first conference of velopment. minister at the Scottish Office 1964-70, recalled the This will provide a supportive academic structure political context of the great housing driv~. Labour for planning historians, and supplement the Ameri DOCOMOMO-Scot The second recurring theme, centraJ to Scottish had promised 500,000 new houses a year m Great can networks of SACRPH and the Urban History planning history and by no means yet fully disentan Britain, against the Tory bid of 300,000. On Labour's Association. Suggestions for themes and papers for land, Glasgow, 10 Oc gled, was the thirty-year struggle between Glasgow narrow victory in October 1964, Mabon was called Strasbourg 1994 to Jean-Luc Pinol, Centre des and the Scottish Office over dispersal of the city's on to produce the Scottish rate of 50,000 within 18 Recherches Historiques sur la Ville, 22 Rue de I'Ail, tober 1992. population. Despite Glasgow's reluctant acceptance months. While the target for England and Wales Universite de Strasbourg 11, 67000 Strasbourg, of overspill and new town policies, the strength of would be partially met by the private sector, that France. the 'second city' faction, with its historic image of a market was virtually non-existent in Scotland. Apart million population, affected planning and housing from numerical shortage the quality of housing and David Whitham decisions in west-central Scotland from the second the extent of overcrowding were much worse in world war to the 1970s. Scotland; thousands of respectable 'lower middle class' families in Glasgow lived in flats with no DOCOMOMO, an international working party for The Introductory Papers baths, and rural areas had their slums too. Three the documentation and conservation of buildings, assets were the centrally managed Scottish Special sites and neighbourhoods of the modem movement, Chairperson Kirsty Wark's welcome and Housing Association, the new towns, and industrial was founded at the University of Eindhoven in 1988. Following Professor Henket's greeting, the morning session ised building which had been promoted by the A United Kingdom branch is well established, but Tories. The SSHA and new towns were already the conference was convened from the History of Art began with introductory papers by Dr David Walker and Miles Glendinning. geared for high production, and industrialised Department, Glasgow University under the fiery building enabled small towns to negotiate jointly cross of DOCOMOMO-SCOTLAND. with one large contractor. High-rise building was Walker, chief inspector of ancient and historic David welcomed; every small burgh wanted its 'multi'. Opening the conference, Professor Hubert-Jan monuments in Scotland, later to be embarrassed by on listing of modem buildings, raised two Henket diplomatically explained that if nationality questions Production came close to the 50,000 target for a few were recognised the Scottish group would be the points of difficulty, if not dissent from years- 'if onJy it had been for ten ... ' Glasgow, 28th national working party. He went on to define DOCOMOMO's principles. Buildings were being where the powerful housing convenor Bailie Gibson in their architects' own lifetimes as the field of interest that DOCOMOMO had set for demolished enthusiastically accepted high flats, also exceeded its itself: its period the end of the 19th century to today; never before, not onJy because of their construction planned overspill rate, despite Gibson's second city as that which was historically innovative, due to the specialised functions of many modem modernity but sentiments. technically, socially or aesthetically. buildings, a clear obstacle to conservation. He also to qualify, if not question, the inovative test; seemed Ronnie Cramond, a senior Scottish Development The Great Themes of Glasgow's Planning pioneering was not important in time. Dr Walker Department administrator during the housing drive, after quality, to be valued on its own terrns. and Architectural History was and a historian of Scottish public sector housing, recalled the social context of the 1950s by describing A century ago, Glasgow's civic power and enterprise Miles Glendinning of Edinburgh University, a a recent demonstration at a wedding party, with a made it a wonder of the world. 'Municipal social historian of modem housing with a holiday home in similarly geriatric colleague, of 'joined-up dancing': ism', pioneered in Joseph Chamberlain's Birming a 22-storey tower block, expanded on the difficulties 'It's like watching a documentary', onlookers said. ham, was most highly developed in Glasgow, and of the post-1945 period. It was a period of unprec More seriously he pointed to the origins of public visitors concerned with social services and city edented building activity, with a near-monopoly of sector housing, the realisation, prompted by the management came from the world over, but particu public sector work, not only housing but including Scottish Royal Commission report of 1917, of the larly from the USA. The municipal ideal became an schools, hospitals, universities, roadworks and moral imperative to meet housing needs not met by ideology, even a faith -Glasgow had a branch of the bridges, industrial buildings for the Coal Board and the market and since 1919 always chasing a moving American Civic Church. The tramways, municipal ports authorities; even commercial buildings in target of housing need. His most impressive recol ised in 1894 and electrified by 1901, could open up Scotland tended to be built for government clients. lections of the housing drive were of the enthusiasm better housing, better recreation and health for all, Buildings had decayed and were lost to redevelop and integrity of the people involved, civil servants, increase mobility of labour, and promote urban ment. Art-history valuations were no help; The councillors and local officials, in the daily handlingof development. Glasgow became the Mecca of the buildings of Scotland (The Scottish 'Pevsner') while huge contracts; -'there was a lot of idealism about' civic faith and the tramcar its icon. praising Scandinavian inspired empirical work of to get their constituents reasonably housed. Working the 1950s, saw the new Glasgow Sheriff Court as now in the voluntary housing sector he believed that Yet by mid-20th century, as two contributorsshowed, 'dumb monumentality'. It wasnecessary to pursue idealism and integrity was still there, but in the face the direction of pilgrimage had been reversed. In the archaeology of building provision, separately of continuous denigration of the public service, for 1939 the arch-municipalist Patrick Dollan took from its experience in use. how long? There could be no dogmatic solution to Glasgow councillors to see housing achievements of the 'housing problem', but to advocate caution or Mayor La Guardia's New York, and in 1961 Lord 37 36 Planning H istory Vol. 14 No. 3 Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Reports Reports delay was suicidal in the continuously changing could be housed within the city boundaries had context. proposed two ri ng roads, the inner ring tightly enclosing the city centre. Abercrombie's Clyde Patrick Rogan, ex-Edinburgh councillor and first Valley Plan of 1949, though recommending reduc Labour chairman of Housing Committee was elected tion of Glasgow's population by at least 250,000, in 1954 when Edinburgh had no housing department endorsed Bruce's road plan, enhancing it by propos as such. Housing provision was slow, and letting ing that main radial roads should be motorways was controlled by the Finance Committee. Gty rather than improved existing roads as Bruce had officers were more deeply concerned than the ruling envisaged. The inner ring box was thus accepted by moderate councillors: both second city and dispersal camps. There was no 'Slums =darkness, dampness, dilapidation, despair' dispute either about the need to clear the city's said a health department inspector. By unceasing slums, the worst of which surrounded the city centre action, unpaid and with pitiful compensation for in the path of the ring road. The 1960development attending daytime committee meetings, and by plan review linked the problems: skilful use of the local press, Rogan made housing a political issue in Edinburgh, becoming housing 'The future social and economic health of Glasgow chairman in 1962. Edinburgh became an active will depend basically on a successful attack on the housing authority with a housing policy, a housing interlocked problems of housing, employment and programme and a housing department; and of communications. In this respect, the campaign in the course, still with housing problems, post-war hous 1960-80 period should be centred on the 29 compre ing in need of rehabilitation or even demolition, hensive development areas and on the traffic pro estates with inadequate social facilities, and an posals for the central area'. increasing waiting list. The CDA, originally intended for reconstruction of Roads and P lanning in 1960s Glasgow war-damaged areas was the chosen instrument for renewal in the 1960 review: Glasgow's 29 CDAs covered 2700 acres and contained 300,000 people. James McCafferty, a partner in Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick who had worked on the Glasgow urban In this context Scott Wilson IGrkpatrick were to motorway schemes from the 1960s provided a make an initial study of the inner ring road, and pivotal view of Glasgow's post-war planning his Lord Provost Jean Roberts led her delegation to the tory. USA. SWK were appointed to make a more compre hensive study, with American consultants, and He traced the evolution of the Glasgow road plan. eventually to design the inner ring. In 1963 the city City engineer Robert Bruce's plan of 1945, which highway plan was completed and work commenced confidently demonstrated that a million people on the north flank in 1965. The study, with Holford Associates, published by the city in 1965, in many ways anticipated the Buchanan report on traffic in towns, but by 1974, with construction of the west flank well advanced, urban motorways were out of fashion. The GLC had abandoned its inner ring plan and even in Glasgow confidence waned. In 1975 roads became a regional responsibility, and after completion of the north and Figure 2: The Glasgow Inner Ring Motorway. Aerial view 1969 showing Kingston Bridge under construction and west flanks in 1981 there would be no more urban north flank cleared. motorways. The Architects Mr McCafferty clearly regretted that the plan was In the afternoon we got to the buildings. Mark not completed, demonstrating present congestion Baines, of the Mackintosh School of Architecture, the morning session, setting the and forecasting worse, but was justifiably proud of That completed delivered a 'slide by slide' talk on 'post-Coia Coia', Scottish scene. At lunch a display of what had been achieved. His illustrations ranged post-war being the work of lsy Metzstein and Andy and photographs had been arranged, an from the heroic, the Renfrew Motorway threading drawings MacMillan, both present, which he believed to be staged by views of Glasgow from the 9th through south-west Glasgow to the IGngston Bridge, effort up 'the first public lecture other than by themselves', floor windows of the Boyd Orr building on a bril to the intimate, the carefully graded and landscaped which was a thought. It included a haunting image clear day. pedestrian crossings that never resort to the terrify liantly of the present state of St Peter's College, Cardross, a Figure 1: Glasgow Centre Area CD As in Relation to ing and squalid tunnels of other cities. the Proposed Inner Ring Motorway; 1960. 39 38 Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Reports Sources Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Sources Cartoons 2 This is the second in an occasional series. The first appeared in Vo/13 No 1, 1991. Dacey's Dream: Up in the air and down to earth Robert Freestone University of New South Wales Figure 4: Glasgow; The Achievement. The Renfrew Figure 3: Glasgow: The Vision. Townhead interchange, the north-east corner of the proposed inner ring motorway. motorway threads between works and railways to Australia Bridge at top left. Paisley Road West Coli ins press is front left with school and college buildings behind; Glasgow Cathedral middle right with a the Kingston newRoyal Infirmary to its north. Drawing by Alexander Duncan Bell, 1965. crosses the picture d iagonally; Ibrox Stadium is Cartoons are an important source for planning centre left. history (Ward 1991). Providing amusing perspec architecture in Scotland; this tives on what are invariably complex issues, they are building triumphant in recent memory; now derelict, tation of modem Figures 2 to 4 from Scott Wilkinson Kirkpatrick he hoped that a form of popular commentary that is a valuable illustrating as Professor Metzstein said in discussion, conference was the first step and archive. the difficulty of the highly specialised building. serious analysis would flourish under corrective to the official record. In Australian DOCOMOMO-SCOTTISH NATIONAL GROUP. planning history, their significance has been to Professor Charles Robertson of Strathclyde Univer highlight both the perceived absurdity and the sity, returned to Glasgow, recalling his time in the The conference showed that Scotland is different (to Readers interested in the aims and activities of inherent politics of planning in practice. Individual Basil Spence office 1956-62 as job architect on evoke a wider historical debate), if only because, as DOCOMOMO should write to: cartoons can have a story in themselves. They can 'Hutchesontown C', the 'hanging gardens of the Miles Glendinning said, of the overwhelming impor open up a richer understanding of personalities and Gorbals', with anecdotes of Spence's panache in tance of public investment. That has resulted in a The Co-ordinator DOCOMOMO-UK events, promises and realities. selling his ideas to officialdom, and cavalier attitude greater faith in planning, with some justification, as Shoreditch Studio to costs. Again the reality is of abandoned and the achievements of the Highlands and Islands 44-46 Scrutton Street The Australian Planning Cartoon enormous buildings. What can we do with them Development Board, for example, show; and more London EC2A 4HH now? passion, as in the second city argument. Your Spearritt has effectively used black and white comic reporter could not stay for Sunday's coach tour, but or, from outside the UK, to: art to distil the essence of many complex political Red Road, one of the last and the largest of the enjoyed a stimulating and thought-provoking day. controversies in his work on the postwar develop Glasgow high-rise schemes, has survived and now What remained undiscussed should provide mate DOCOMOMO International ment of Sydney (Spearritt 1978; Spearritt and De serves another sector of the housing market. Miles rial for several more conferences and for much Eindhcroen University of Technology Marco 1988). The saga of the undoing of Sydney's Glendinning delivered the last paper research in recent architectural and planning history BPU Postvak 8 'green belt' in the late 1950s provides a classic case on its designer, Sa m Bunton, whose career illustrates in Scotland. PO Box513 study of how cartoons mirrored if not contributed to both the transatlantic and second city themes, and a 5600 MB Eindhcroen declining public confidence in an ailing planning version of his talk appears elsewhere in this number. The Netherlands concept (Freestone 1992). It turns out there are remarkable parallels with the Melbourne experience Paul Sturton of the Glasgow art history department during the same period (Dingle and Rasmussen summed up. There was no truly historical interpre- 1991). 40 41 Planning Hietory Vol. 14 No. 3 Sources Sources Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 The history of cartoons on planning in Australia would probably reveal that the national capital of Canberra has attracted far and away the most unsympathetic press. The political saga of siteselection was an early journalistic target (Pegrum 1983) but the brouhaha concerning the international design competition of 1911, the arrival of the idi osyncratic American Waiter Burley Griffin, and the politics of design before world war one were a godsend and formative influence on the national sport of Canberra-bashing. Even Patrick Abercrombie was putting a light-hearted pen to work at this time (Abercrombie 1913). The First Planning Cartoon? In 1913 Australia could still boast only one develop ment said to incorporate the latest overseas ideas on town planning: Dacey Garden Suburb in Sydney. Inevitably, given the Australian penchant for 'knock ing' government with even the barest hint of contro versy, pomposity or grandstanding, it had already -· attracted a cartoon comment. nearly two years before the first town Appearing John Rowland Dacey Oenny IGm) , planning association was even formed, Hal Eyre's __J 'Up in The Air' (1912) was arguably one of the first cartoons dealing with a modem planning issue to State-built housing also came on the agenda in appear in any Australian newspaper. Indeed, the July1911 when the government introduced a bill 'to very concept of a daily cartoon was not established provide for the erection and construction by or on until the early 1920s. Its use by the Sydney Daily behalf of the Crown of workmen's dwellings'. lhis Telegraph in the early 1900s reflects that paper's lapsed but early in 1912 the new State Treasurer, reputation as a lively banner bearer of the 'new John Dacey, gave notice of reintroducing similar journalism' (Mayer 1964). legislation with the initial objective of developing a planned housing scheme as a 'model' for both local Hat (Harold) Eyre was a pioneering political car authorities and private builders to emulate. toonist and Telegraph stalwart whose work has been reproduced in general cartoon histories (Coleman John Rowland Dacey (1856-1912) had campaigned and Tanner 1978; Stone 1973). His son (Harry) Eyre for better housing since the late nineteenth century. Junior became the Sydney Morning HI!T'ald's chief Energetic, clever and a natural politician, lrish-born political cartoonist from the 1940s until his death in Dacey was both the first significant Catholic politi ' 1972 (Souter 1981). cian in the Labour Party and as a successful Sydney /_.;. · t coachbuilder one of the few employers in its ranks. The Origins of the Cartoon He had entered politics through local government in the 1880s and won a state seat as the Member for The countdown to Eyre Senior's cartoon effectively Botany in 1895 (Nairn 1989). A surprise omission began in October 1910 when New South Wales from Labour's first cabinet in 1910, he became a elected a Labour administration for the first time in Minister without Portfolio and member of the the state's history. Premier James McGowen's Executive Council in October 1911. Following government came to office on a platform of social resignations from the ministerial ranks, he became improvement, better management, public works, State Treasurer in November 1911. and state enterprise. Affordable housing was a major political issue and the new government in its In early January 1912 Dacey was embroiled in a 'UP IN lHE AIR' first two years acted on several fronts: instituting a number of political controversies, including pro Mr Frazer, PMG, by reason of a short flight by aeroplane, claims to be the first Minister to ascend into the air, but parliamentary inquiry on house rents, commission posed income tax legislation and a dispute over the he was anticipated by the State Treasurer. ing a report by Professor Robert lrvine on workers powers of the Railway Commissioner. When La housing overseas, and legislating to facilitate home bour's housing plans resurfaced at this time, Dacey loans through the State Savings Bank. 42 43 Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Pl~nning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Sources Sources as the responsible minister had to shoulder more what some felt was Dacey's flight of fancy was both lower and upper houses of parliament, the 4. T Dingle and C Rasmussen, Vital Connections: criticism that the government lacked the necessary irresistible for Telegraph cartoonist Eyre whose 'Up in NSW Housing Act was passed into law within a Melbourne and its Board of Works 1891-1991, McPhee legislative powers to erect, sell or lease workmens' the Air' cartoon appeared on 6 January 1912. It month. Gribble, 1991. dwellings. depicts Dacey in Frazer mode astride a biplane conjuring up a vision in the clouds called Even before this, the original plan had been 5. R Frees tone, Model Communities: The garden city Outside of Sydney's Rocks precinct, where consider 'Daceyville', one of the first uses of this term. scrapped in favour of a less inchoate, though in time movement in Australin, Thomas Nelson, 1989. able property had been resumed following the similarly superseded, scheme. This was put together bubonic plague outbreak of 1901, this was true. After the Cartoon by Sydney's leading town planning authority John 6. R Freestone, 'Sydney's Green Belt 1945-1960', Neither Dacey nor the government had hidden the Sulman and the man destined to become the Hous Austra/inn Planner, 30, 2, 1992, 7Q-77. fact that it would seek 'parliamentary sanction' for Perhaps spurred on by such public scepticism, ing Board's first chairman and Daceyville's greatest its proposals in the near future. This did not inhibit within a few weeks State Cabinet had approved the advocate, John Fitzgerald (Freestone 1989; 7. R Keg, 'Dacey Garden Suburb: A study', BTP some sceptics taking a shot at the newly appointed development of a state model suburb to house about O'Flannagan 1988). thesis, University of NSW, 1988. Treasurer. On 5 January 1912 the Daily Telegraph ran 5,000 people on Crown land near Kensington in 8. R McMullin, The Light on the Hill: The Australinn a special article on state housing policies in Australia Dacey's electorate in southern Sydney. In late Building operations commenced in early April 1912. and New Zealand which likened NSW Labour's January the preliminary 'ground plan' for what the Construction slowed during the first world war but l.Abor Party 1891 -1991, Oxford University Press, 1992. building plans 'to the efforts of a magician of an Telegraph continued to irreverently dub 'Daceyville' seven years later over 300 dwellings and a variety of Arabian Night's entertainment'. wa's released. From this point on, Dacey's dream community facilities had been constructed at acost of 9. H Mayer, The Press in Australia, Lansdowne Press, became more serious and community debate concen nearly 200,000 pounds (Keg 1988). 1964. Meanwhile, the previous day the Telegraph had trated less on debunking a nebulous 'pie in the sky' reported that Charles Frazer, Postmaster- General in idea and more on the public expenditure involved. A few years before the NSW Government decided to 10. B Nairn, 'John Rowland Dacey', in Australinn Andrew Fisher's federal Labour government, had abandon its sponsorship of low income housing and Dictionary of Biography, Col 8, 1981, p 188. flown at Penrith west of Sydney with pioneer aviator In February 1912 Dacey introduced a new housing abolish the Housing Board, the estate was a genuine William Hart (Butler 1971). The 10 minute flight, bill into the NSW Parliament. It made provision for showpiece. A federal government authority re 11. B Nairn, Civilising Capitalism: The Beginnings of during which Hart's plane reached a speed of 55 an appointed Housing Board with wide powers ported in 1919 that 'a visit to the homes ... gives a the Australian LAbor Party, Melbourne University miles per hour and an altitude of 600 feet, was less relating to the planning and construction of work strong impression of the advantages that can be Press, 1989. than two years after the first powered flight in men's dwellings and other buildings. Dacey told obtained by town planning. The beauty of the Australia. Frazer (1880-1913), the mercurial member members of the Legislative Assembly of his intention gardens and lawns, the practical comforts of the 12. N O'Flanagan, 'John D Fitzgerald an the Town for Kalbgoorlie and a former enginedriver, was to produce a planned environment of which the interiors, give an impression of a different civilisa Planning Movement in Australia', Planning History, Australia's youngest ever federa cabinet (McMullin citizens could say: 'There, that is how Australia tion from that of the crowded areas of the city' 10, 3, 1988,4-6. 1992). In January 1912 he could claim to be the first builds its garden cities'. The proposed legislation (Freestone 1989). Minister of the Crown in Australia to have flown in attracted vigorous debate with a conservative 13. P Pegrum, The Bush Capital: How Australin Chose an aeroplane. opposition concerned at the unprecedented social This would surely have pleased Dacey given his Canberra as its Federal City, Hale and lremonger, 1983. and economic implications of Labour's latest experi early doubters. He had not lived to see his dream The link between Frazer's actual aerial ascent and ment in state socialism. But with Labour controlling realised, having died of nephritis on 11 April1912 14. G Souter, Company of Heralds: A century and a half before barely a sod had been turned on the site. of Australian publishing by John Fairfax Ltd and its Today, Daceyville- once the pejorative label of a predecessors 1831-1981, Melbourne University Press, political cartoonist, now an official suburb name 1981. sanctioned by the NSW Geographical Names Board - remains as 'a memorial to his sympathetic social 15. P Spearritt, Sydney since the Twenties, Hale and insight' (Nairn 1981). Despite this, Dacey, like his Iremonger, 1978. federal colleague and erstwhile aviator Charlie Frazer, who died prematurely from pneumonia at 16. Spearritt and C De Marco, Planning Sydney's the age of 33, has passed into Labour history as one Future, Alien and Unwin, 1988. of those semi-legendary figures whose promise was cut tragically short. 17. W Stone, eel, 50 Years of the Newspaper Cartoon in Austra.lin, Art Gallery of South Australia, 1973. References 18. SWard, 'Cartoons', Planning History, 13, 1, 1991, 1. P Abercrombie, 'Australian Federal Capital', Town 29-31. Planning Review, 3,4, 1913, p 287. 2. C A Butler, Flying Start: the history of the first five decades of Civil ATJilltion in Austral in, Edwards and Shaw, 1971. 3. P Coleman and L Tanner, Cartoons of Australian First plan for the 'Proposed state model suburb' at Kensington in Sydney, later Dacey Garden Suburb. (Sydney History, Thomas Nelson, 1978. Morning Herald, 27 January 1912. 44 45 Vol. 14 No. 3 Ph•nnins Hietory Publ ic~tions Publications Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Tony Dingle and Carolyn Rasmussen, Vital Connec James C O'Connell and Michael E Konig, Shapingan Williim S Worley, f C Nichols and the Shaping of tions: Melbourne and its Board of Works 1891-1991, Urban Image: The History of Downtown Planning in Kansas City: Innovation in Planned Residentinl Commu Publications Melbourne, McPhee Gribble, 1991,432 pp, ISBN 0 Springfield, Massachusetts, Springfield, Massachusetts: nities. Columbia and London: University of Mis 86914 259 3, paperback, $A30.00. Connecticut Valley Historical Museum and Institute souri Press, 1990, pp 324, ISBN 0-8262-0744-8,£2950 for Massachusetts Studies, Westfield State College, cloth. This book was written to mark the centenary of the 1990, 120 pp, cloth $10.00. Abstracts Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, This book explores Kansas City real estate developer founded in 1891 to provide underground sewerage This book explores the urban planning of downtown J C Nichols and his company's role in popularising for Melbourne and to operate and augment its water Springfield, Massachusetts, along with the various the planned, deed-restricted subdivision between Brian McLoughlin, Shaping Melbourne's Future: J supply system. Over the following century, the political and economic decisions involved in that 1903 and 1950. The book examines a number of Town Planning, The State and Civil Society, Melbourne, MMBW's operations expanded into other areas, planning process. It provides historians with a topics relative to planning historians including the Cambridge University Press, 1992,320 pp, ISBN 0 including pollution control, the establishment and comparative view of the downtown planning in a real estate magnate's activities and attitudes toward 521 41334 6 cloth, $A64.00. management of a metropolitan park system, freeway medium-sized city and is useful to future planners, land use in the dual contexts of British common law construction, and town planning. One chapter civic leaders and citizens as they evaluate future tradition and the emerging American practice of This book is about the effects of land use planning examines the MMBW's 1954 metropolitan master downtown plans. presenting subdivided land to consumers complete on the shape and structure of metropolitan Mel plan' another concentrates on the revised planning with streets, curbs and streetlights. Successive bourne since the second world war. Its theme is that agenda of the 1970s. Responsibility for metropolitan chapters analyse Nichol's impact on urban planning Melbourne's planners 'have seldom achieved what planning was transferred to a Ministry of Planning and his effort to instill a sense of community in the they set out to do'. Not only has the planning and Environment in 1984 leaving the Board (with its neighbourhoods he developed. system been ineffective in an overall functional motto of 'Public Health is my Reward') to concen sense, but it has also been 'socially regressive in its trate on water, sewerage and drainage. failure'. There are three main sections: an historical Laurence C Gerckens, Proceedings of the Third Na overview of Melbourne and its planning, a socio tional Conference on American Planning History (No political analysis of capital, community and power, vember 30-December 2, 1989), Hilliard, Ohio: Society and an examination of 'space, plans, controls and for American City and Regional Planning, 1990, 1302 G J Ashworth, War and the City, London, Routledge, outcomes'. McLoughlin's previous book was Urban pp, $62.50 cloth. 1991, 227 pp, £40.00, ISBN 0 415 05347 1 Planning in Australin: Critical Readings (Longrnan, Hazel Conway, People's Parks. The design and develop 1985). ment of Victorian parks in Britain, University Press, The Proceedings consist of 52 papers presented at the The characteristics of cities and the defence function Cambridge, 1991, 287 pp, £4950, ISBN 0 52139070 2 Society of American City and Regional Planning's have had an important influence on one another. As third annual conference held in Cincinnati in 1989. a priority for urban planners, defence has often The promoters of municipal parks sought to encour Most of the papers consider planning efforts in shaped the choice of location and site, architecture age education and particular forms of entertainment. particular towns, cities, states and regions. Balti and physical form, and even the organisation of more, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, urban societies. Similarly, cities have influenced the Don Garden, to the Nation: The A V ]ennings Parks reflected such motives in their design, build Builders Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, shape of conflict, both in terms of external attack and Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1992, ings, statues, bandstands and planting. The volume Story, New York, and St Petersburg were among the large international insurrection. Chapters cover the 417 pp, ISBN 0 522 84480 4, cloth, $A45.00. identifies the main national and international influ ences. There are detailed sections on park develop cities whose planning history was examined. To themes of the fortified city, the defence, town, the gether, these papers provide insight into which insurgent city, the city as battle terrain, air defence, This book was commissioned to commemorate the ment, design and use, a summary of relevant legisla aspects of planning history have captured the the re-use of redundant defence systems, and de sixtieth anniversary of the Jennings Group founded tion, and a gazetteer of the earliest municipal and attention of American scholars. fence as heritage. in 1932 by Sir Albert Victor Jennings (b 1896). other public parks, with details of their size, how Jennings' initial ventures were small house-and they were created, and the name of their designer. garden estates in Melbourne in the early 1930s. Securing key building contracts during the second world war, his company was to evolve into a multi faceted corporation involved in planning, construc Robert Tittler, Architecture and power. The town hall tion, development, engineering, manufacturing, and the English urban community c 1500-1640, Oxford, mining, and project management. The author, a Thomas Hall (ed}, Planning and urban growth in the I M Barlow, Metropolitan Government, London, Clarendon Press, 1991, 210 pp, £30.00, ISBN 0 19 Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Nordic countries, London, E and F N Spon, 1991, Routledge, 1991,346 pp, ISBN 0 415 02099 9 820230X Melbourne, adopts a chronological-thematic ap 271pp. proach which unavoidably extends into various Examines developments in metropolitan govern Based on extensive research in local records, the aspects of Australia's town planning history: the Provides a survey of the development of urban ment in London, Manchester, Melbourne, Toronto volume explores the town hall and its role in civic pioneering fully services subdivisions, planned planning in the Nordic countries, with particular and San Francisco. In the context of some 100 years culture and urban life. From the function of decora public and private housing estates, remote mining emphasis on the period since the middle of the of progress, recent events indicate the demise of tions and furnishings to the political activities and towns, the remaking of Australia's central cities, and nineteenth century. Chapters focus on urban plan metropolitan government. The international com self-image of the urban elite, every aspect of the major redevelopment projects including the latest ning in Denmark (Bo Larsson and Ole Thomassen), parative study suggests that, as the turn of the town hall is examined as a means of illustrating the Southbank project in Melbourne. Finland after 1850 (Mikael Sundman), Norway (Erik century approaches, there may well be renewed connection between the boom in town hall building Lorange and Jan Eivind Myhre}, and Sweden interest in this unit of government, as part of a wider and the cultural and political evolution of the pro (Thomas Hall). reappraisal of local-government organisation. vincial urban community of Early Modem times. 46 47 Vol. 14 No. 3 Planning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Publications Treasurers Report Planning History Tanis Hinchcliffe, North Oxford, New Haven and Martin Wachs and Margaret Crawford, eds, The Car PLANNING HISTORY GROUP: Accounts for 1991 London, Yale University Press, 1992,261 pp, and the City: The Automobile, the Built Environment and £25($45), ISBN 0 300 05184 0 Daily Urban Life, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Treasurers 1. Surnmacy Press, 1992,325 pp, ISBN 0-472-{)9459-9, cloth $37 50. North Oxford is one of the best known and most Balance brought forward from 1990 9,728.46 3,117.81 widely admired Victorian suburbs in Britain. The This volume is a collection of papers first given at a Receipts 1991 volume traces the social and architectural history of conference held at the University of California-Los Report this landmark area, developed by St John's College Angeles in 1988. The twenty essays which appear in 12,846.27 in the years after 1850 to provide accommodation for the volume are focused mostly on the Los Angeles 1. After experiencing a fallback in 1990, the the rapidly expanding middle class in the city. One experience with the automobile and are authored by Payments 1991 1,853.19 Group's subscription income rose marginally in of the main reasons why the College became among historians, social scientists and planners. Topics 1991. Interest received from monies on deposit the wealthiest in the city, the transformation of the vary from studies family /gender analysis of the fell somewhat (interest rates generally have been fannland in urban fabric represented a highly automobiles impact to studies of the automobile 10,993.08 falling from the high level noticed in last year's successful speculative development. industry. Other scholars examine the impact of the automobile on architecture and planning. Conclud report). Nonetheless the overall position was 2. Receipts and Payments for the year ended broadly comparable with that for 1990. ing essays focus on the future of the auto/city 31.12.91 relationship. 2. The Bulletin Reserve Fund covered some transi Receipts tional payments from 1990 for Vol XII of Plan Subscriptions Herbert J Gans, People, Plans, and Policies: Essays on ning History. Increased administration expenses UK 1 036.00 Poverty, Racism, and Other National Urban Problems, included the printing of an updated membership Overseas 1,256.36 New York: Columbia University Press 1991,383 pp, leaflet. There was some expenditure in connec Other years 20.28 ISBN 0-231-07402-6, cloth $46.00 tion with the proposed Directory of Theses. Two Interest on deposits 795.17 travel awards were allocated from the Seminar Back issue sales 10.00 This volume brings together twenty-one essays by Fund to members accepted to present papers at one of the nation's leading sociologists. Most have the International Conference in Richmond, but been published elsewhere but there are two previ who were without access to institutional help. £3,117.81 ously unpublished conference papers. The book is divided into five topical sections: 'Environment and 3. The Bulletin Reserve Fund has been maintained Payments Behaviour', 'Understanding Cities and Suburbs', at £6,000.00 to allow for some transitional pay Bulletin Production 969.00 'City Planning, Social Planning, and Social Policy', ments for Vol XIII in 1992. In view of the signifi Membership Mailing 408.82 'Homes, Schools, and Jobs', and 'Race, Ethnicity, and cant discussions on the development of the Administration 184.07 Class'. On the whole, this volume provides a useful Group's international role, however, the General Refunds (Sub) 10.00 historical perspective on the work of an important Reserve Fund has been increased to £3,500.00. Seminar (Travel) 196.30 scholar as well as contributing to current thinking Thesis Register 85.00 about social policy. 4. The Group's funds are held in current accounts Excess of receipts over in the British Giro Bank and the Royal Bank of payments 1,264.62 Scotland's main branch in Liverpool; the sum of £5,000.00 has been transferred from our Royal Bank of Scotland Gold (deposit) account to a £3,117.81 higher interest yielding Gold Ninety account. 3. Balance Sheet as at 31.12.91 Peter Johnson and Barry Thomas (eds), Choice and 5. The Group once more wishes to express its Seminar Fund 403.70 demand in tourism, London, Mansell, 1992, 226 pp, appreciation to Mr E G Elms, our Hon Auditor, General Fund 174.38 £35.00, ISBN 0 7201 2118 3 for checking the PHG books and accounts for Thesis Directory Fund 915.00 1991. General Reserve Fund 3,500.00 Peter Johnson and Barry Thomas (eds), Perspectives Bulletin Reserve Fund 6,000.00 on tourism policy, London, Mansell, 1992, 240 pp, David W Massey £35.00, ISBN 0 7201 2121 3 University of Liverpool £10.993.08 The first volume highlights key aspects of choice and demand, such as typologies of tourists, their motiva tion, factors that affect their choice of activities, and demand and forecasting models. Contributions to the second focus on the developed countries, demon strating the role of research, both by providing data that inform policy choices and by evaluating the choices already made. 48 49 P l~ nning History Vol. 14 No. 3 Tre~s u rers Report 4. Represented by: Planning History Group Giro current a /c 43.69 Bank current a /c 136.60 Bank deposit a /c 5,812.9 • • • Bank 90 Day a /c 5,000.00 • • ••• • •••••• • • • £10,993.08 • • •• • • Audit Report 18 August 1992 The Planni ng History Group, inaugurated in Audited and found correct E. G. Elms 1974, is an international body. Its members, drawn f rom many disciplines, have a working interest in histo ry, planning and the environment. Chairman Professor G. E. Cherry Department of Geography University of Bi rmingham PO Box 363 Bi rmingham B15 2Tf 021 --!1.,1 5537 Membership Membership of the group is open to all who have an interest in planning history. The annual subscription is £10 (currency equivalents available on request). Membership Secretary: Dr Pat Garside Planning History Group Department of Civil Engineering Salford U ni versity The C rescent Salfo rd M5-!WT 061-736 5843 Professor Cordon Cherry is Joint Editor with Professor Anthony Sutcliffe of an international journal concerned with history, planning and the environment: Planning Perspectives. There is a link between Planning History and Planning Perspectives and members of the Planning History Group are able to subscribe to the latter journal at very favourable discount rates. 50