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ABSTRACT Alfred Caldwell Was Among the First Full PAPER #1.01 THE CITY IN THE LANDSCAPE : ALFRED CALDWELL’S BROADER PERSPECTIVE ON URBAN DESIGN Kristin Jonesa, Zaida Garcia-Requejob aIllinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois, USA bUniversity of A Coruña, A Coruña, Spain ABSTRACT KEYWORDS Alfred Caldwell was among the first full- time Alfred Caldwell; city planning; landscape; American professors Mies van der Rohe urban design; Illinois Institute of Technology. hired at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). Many have admired Mies’s architecture since the 1920s, and know that his ideas were also transmitted as a professor, first at the Bauhaus in Europe and then as Director of the Department of Architecture at IIT. Caldwell, a practicing landscape architect and protégé of Jens Jensen, is perhaps less widely known, but was a major influence on IIT’s program especially in the areas of construction, landscape, and architectural history. Caldwell completed a Master of Science in City Planning with a thesis entitled The City in the Landscape: A Preface Figure 1. “The City in the Landscape”, drawing by Alfred for Planning, which can be considered a Caldwell, MS thesis 1948. Source: University Archives manifesto of both his professional ideas and and Special Collections, Illinois Institute of Technology. IIT’s planning pedagogy. In addition to his own works, Caldwell collaborated with Mies and architect Ludwig Hilberseimer, Director of City and Regional Planning at IIT and former Head of Building Theory at the Bauhaus, on the design of built works which left behind artifacts representing the ideal of “the city in the landscape.” This communication examines the broader perspective on urban design influenced by the symbiotic disciplines of architecture, city-regional planning and landscape as manifested in the individual and collaborative built work and pedagogy of Caldwell, Hilberseimer, and Mies. Figure 2. Alfred Caldwell and IIT Students at Bristol Farm, circa 1958, photograph by Jong Soung Kimm. 42_block 1: devising, representing and narrating the city INTRODUCTION the Armour Institute of Technology (AIT) to prepare for the state board examination. Alfred Caldwell came to IIT in 1944 an award- Caldwell had a mastery of drawing that winning landscape architect. He had been opened the door for him to work closely in practice for 20 years, planning beautiful with Hilberseimer helping him prepare the landscapes for several Chicago public parks drawings for his book entitled, The New and private gardens, and his ideas were City. Caldwell’s skill and collaboration with beginning to be published (Domer 1997). Hilberseimer preceded the opportunity While assisting Ludwig Hilberseimer, then to be hired as the first full-time American Director of City and Regional Planning at professor by Mies in 1944. Although IIT, with drawings for the book, The New Caldwell was never officially enrolled in the City, Caldwell began to teach undergraduate undergraduate course in Architecture at IIT, courses in construction and architectural the administration accepted his experience history. In 1945, Caldwell was awarded related with the subjects, and awarded him a a Bachelor of Architecture and earned Bachelor’s degree in 1945. a Master of Science in City Planning in As a member of the faculty, Caldwell 1948 with his thesis entitled The City in contributed significantly to the development the Landscape: A Preface for Planning. The of the undergraduate program. When Caldwell City in the Landscape can be considered a began teaching at IIT, the undergraduate manifesto of both Caldwell’s professional degree program in Architecture was a four- ideas and IIT’s planning pedagogy. After year program with an optional fifth year a 22-year hiatus associated with Mies’s to specialize in Architecture or City and resignation from IIT, Caldwell returned to Regional Planning. Mies’s program gave teach at IIT until his death in 1996, adding to students the opportunity to “acquire a basic his teaching repertoire a landscape course. architectural philosophy and fundamental His ideas about human settlement, which creative principles which would guide them advocated a deeper understanding of the in their task of creating living architecture” connection between humanity and nature, (Achilles 1986, p. 167). The fundamental influenced hundreds of students across the principles of Mies’ architecture program at IIT U.S. through the end of the 20th century. were structure, space, proportion, materials, painting-and-sculpture, and their integration. In parallel, students were also instructed in 1. DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEORY general theory and professional training. Caldwell’s teaching in the construction 1.1. Caldwell’s Education studio, with its focus on clear and authentic masonry and timber construction, as well as Before establishing himself as a landscape his special brand of architectural history and architect working for the Dubuque and landscaping courses were a large part of the Chicago Park Districts, Alfred Caldwell had program’s success. worked in Jens Jensen’s office for five years While Caldwell was working with Hilberseimer and spent three weeks with Frank Lloyd on the book, the professor suggested he Wright at Taliesin East, where in his own take a master’s degree. Caldwell had been words he learnt enormously (Caldwell 1987). working around the same idea for years: While working for the Chicago Park District, how to have a good life in America, so Caldwell decided to get his architectural Hilberseimer encouraged him to put his license and enrolled in a refresher course at ideas together. “That is very easy to do. A few words, a few pages…” (Caldwell 1987). the architect and the city_43 Under Mies’s directorship, a new Master of being dominated by commercial industry Science in City Planning was introduced in and ruled by interest, rather than reason and addition to the existing Master of Science man’s needs, as in the Agrarian villages of old degree in Architecture. To obtain the Master (Hilberseimer 1946, p.166). City and regional of Science in City Planning it was necessary planning was for Hilberseimer a means to to study the subjects Theory of Dwellings reclaim our individual freedom by rebuilding and Housing, Theory of City Planning, Theory our cities. of Regional Planning, Applied City Planning He advocated for planned decentralization and Applied Regional Planning, all of which which, as opposed to unplanned sprawl, were taught by Hilberseimer. Additionally, provided an opportunity to integrate modern students attended certain lectures on the commerce, industry and agriculture into history of city planning, art of city planning, a healthy and sustainable urban fabric social hygiene, national economy, statistics, (Hilberseimer 1949, p. 136). Technology real estate law and finance, and finally the of the time also played a significant role in preparation and acceptance of a thesis. Hilberseimer’s specific planning proposals. Hilberseimer’s ideas about city and regional Greater military defensibility against planning naturally became part of Caldwell’s the atom bomb coupled with available thinking. modes of transportation, (i.e. ship, train and automobile), called for and enabled a 1.2. "The Hilberseimer Plan” decentralized model of development. With careful planning, vacant land could be used Hilberseimer’s city planning theory to adapt and move our cities toward a more represented a new chapter in urban planning sustainable development pattern. that was not based on formal aesthetics Hilberseimer’s plan, taught at IIT into the and design, but on attempting to align early 1990s, refers to a planning concept human needs with social and technological based on the idea of a human settlement conditions in a more sustainable and livable “unit”. The Settlement Unit (Hilberseimer manner. In order to make cities better and 1963), as it was called, dealt with and healthier places to live, he believed that we resolved the relationships of contemporary first need to conceive of the city as part of a community life (i.e. living, working, and larger whole. Like Caldwell described: recreation) while also planning for growth. The size of the unit was based on a When we began by considering the city just comfortable walking distance from home by itself, a multitude of other inter-related to school with a commercial center and maladjustments … soon revealed themselves. industry located a short drive’s distance. It became apparent that any valid solution of Other essential features of the unit included the city must be a whole solution. We must houses with Southern exposure to maximize find not only a specific answer to the chaos daylighting, a street pattern with cul-de- of the city, but a general answer to the chaos sacs separating car and pedestrian modes of our time -- of which the city is but a part. of travel, (eliminating crossing hazards for (Caldwell 1948). children walking to school), and plenty of green space in and around the residential To discover what is wrong with our cities, areas and tying together the commercial and Hilberseimer would ask “What is wrong industrial areas. Interconnected landscaped with our world?” defining a broader point of areas would be used for gardens and farms, view from which to look at the problem. He orchards and meadows, forests and parks. would open our eyes to contemporary cities 44_block 1: devising, representing and narrating the city The settlement unit was conceived as a fourteen presents an application of the flexible and responsive concept, adaptable settlement
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