SPECIAL SECTION

Reconsidering Traditional

Charles C. Bohl

The 1999 Weiss Symposium series assembled a dozen leading figures from the fields of , , history, sociology, psychology, and journalism to discuss and debate traditional urbanism in five events held in the spring of 1999 at the University of North

Carolina at Chapel Hill. This special section presents the ideas of three participants: Robert Russell, , and Carroll William Westfall.

What is Traditional Urbanism? A recurring question throughout the symposium series concerned,

"What is traditional urbanism?" People both within and outside this series have grappled with the question in discussions of old urbanism versus , and traditional urbanism versus traditional (or vernacular) architecture. It may help to first clarify what the current discussion of traditional urbanism does not concern. Critics and scholars very often reduce the notion of traditional urbanism to the urban social problems associated with overcrowded of the industrial era and the more recent declining inner neighborhoods that have suffered decades of middle class flight, disinvestment, crime, and urban blight. This limited portrayal of

Charles C. Bohl is a doctoral candidate with the Department of City and at UNC-Chapel Hill and the Senior Fellow with The Charles & Shirley Weiss Urban Livability Program at UNC.

CAROLINA PLANNING CHARLES C. BOHL

urbanism is typically contrasted with an equally of equal importance as matters of convenience, and narrow vision of the . This is a shallow, tem- the structural requirements of buildings and infra- poral perspective on traditional urbanism and there structure. The majority of these practices, as is a long overdue need to move beyond this sim- Alexander reminds us, were followed uncon- plistic city-versus- dichotomy that has domi- sciously, not encoded into law. nated discussions ofmetropolitan development since This tradition was completely uprooted during the second World War. the 20th century as a result of a variety of factors In contrast to the city-versus-suburb dichotomy, including revolutions in transportation and commu- the term "traditional urbanism" refers to the many nications, rapid population growth and migration, shades of urbanism that preceded the eras of mass changing demographics and lifestyle preferences, and mass suburbanization, that is, the an unprecedented rise in the standard of living, and hamlets, villages, towns, and small cities that were the introduction of mass production techniques in the dominant forms of "urbanism" until the indus- . While all of these were trial revolution. In light of these precedents, the con- important contributing factors, the hegemony of temporary notion that 50,000 or even 80,000 people Modernism in architecture and planning — which might be too small a population to support a "real defined itself in opposition to prior traditions in plan- town" - the subject of a presentation at the 1998 ning and design — was by far the most instrumen-

Congress of the New Urbanism in Denver - seems tal ingredient in the demise of traditional urbanism. ahistorical and preposterous. Urban culture has As a result, the tradition of good flourished in villages and towns of far fewer than a (characterized by mixed uses, compactness, civic thousand persons for ages. mindedness, human scale and pedestrian-orienta- While traditional urbanism emphasizes the need tion) was supplanted by what has been called "con- to distinguish between many different types of ur- ventional" planning and development (characterized ban settings, it also emphasizes what each of these by segregated uses, dispersion into low-density pods, settings share in common in terms of the physical market forces, and automobile-scale and orienta- layout and design of streets, blocks, houses, lots, tion), or "conventional suburban design." Like the public spaces, neighborhoods, and the centers and dictionary's definition of tradition, "conventional" edges of urban places. refers to something "conforming to established prac- When Christopher Alexander (1979) wrote of tice or accepted standards; based on or in accordance a "timeless way of building," he was discussing a with general agreement, use, or practice." Unlike

"time-honored set of practices" that had evolved tradition, however, it also refers to something con- during more than 5,000 years of constructing build- sidered "devoted to or bound by conventions to the ings, villages, towns, and cities. Thus traditional point of artificiality; unimaginative; and conform- urbanism refers to what Jim Kunstler (1993) has ist." As such, conventional planning and develop- called "the culture of good placemaking," a set of ment is characterized by the repetitive use of stock principles and practices passed down from genera- plans for homes, subdivisions, shopping centers, and tion to generation concerning the planning and de- office parks, and conformance to street design stan- sign of human settlements. dards and ordinances drafted by traffic en-

These practices have involved the human scale gineers and lawyers with little, if any, training in design of buildings, streets and public spaces; site physical planning and . selection, building orientation and architecture sen- sitive to natural conditions of sun, wind, seasonal Urbanism: Old and New changes, and topography; adaptive reuse of exist- The reconsideration of traditional urbanism is ing structures and incremental growth of communi- not simply a historical or nostalgic exercise. The ties that blends contextually with adjacent buildings past decade has witnessed an explosion of interest and neighborhoods; the allocation of the most cen- in alternative development models based on fradi- tral and prestigious sites within the community for tional urbanism. What began largely as an architec- buildings and spaces of public importance; and the tural and urban design movement has blossomed fact that aesthetic concerns were treated as at least into a national and international debate over growth

SUMMER 1999 VOLUME 24. NUMBER 2 RECONSIDERING TRADITIONAL URBANISM

and involving planners, citizen make civic life possible." The public realm is im- groups, policy makers, and academia. Well-known portant to our communities because, as Kunstler paradigms being advanced include Andres Duany writes, it is "the manifestation of the public good." and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk's neo-traditionalism, Civic life, for Kunstler, is simply "what goes on in 's pedestrian pockets and transit-ori- the public realm," that combination of chance en- ented design, Leon Krier's urban quartiers, and counters, meeting and greeting, watching, protest- Anton Nelessen's small communities. ing, gathering, strolling, and experiencing our com- Collectively these ideas have become known as munities of place. New Urbanism, an increasingly influential and con- Unfortunately, the term civic art has come to be troversial movement with its own charter, Congress, misinterpreted as simply urban beautification in- and membership organization. The new urbanism volving the location of monuments and artistic is nothing less than this generation's answer to works. As practiced and understood by the great CIAM, the modernist organization and movement planners and architects of the early 20^" century, which dominated the fields of planning and archi- however, it involved the art of creating a civic realm tecture worldwide beginning in the 1930s. through the arrangement, orientation, and design of The connection between traditional urbanism both public and private buildings. As Leon Krier and the new urbanism is strong. The new urbanism (1998) has noted, all buildings have a public face, clearly traces its roots back to the thought and works and the civic character of places depends on the of Camillo Sitte, , John Nolen, extent that both public and private buildings honor Werner Hegemann, Elbert Peets, and other pre- and contribute to the community's public realm.

WWIl figures in architecture and planning. The Going a step further, it can be argued that the qual- movement also identifies with, and was preceded ity of traditional urbanism is more about the char- by, pioneering research on traditional urbanism by acter and experience of the spaces between build- urban morphologists, typologists, urban historians, ings, rather than the buildings themselves. It's about and urban designers. These individuals have con- the creation of a human scale public realm, which tributed greatly to the revival of interest in tradi- is where the civic life of a community takes place. tional urbanism, and include Rob and Leon Krier, Daniel Kemmis, the Mayor of Missoula, Mon- Aldo Rossi, Anne Vemez-Moudon, Kevin Lynch, tana, has woitten that:

Vincent Scully, Jr., Allan Jacobs, George CuUen, Sam Bass Warner, Robert Stem, and William Whyte "(T)he word 'Civil' originally meant to name but a few. The new urbanism has also re- simply "of the city." Civility was what vived interest in the works of and it took to live next to one another as , both of whom decried the destruction cities, by definition, require people to of traditional urban forms and yet disagreed over do. But if civility is a requisite for cit- the essential ingredients of urban life, a debate which ies to exist at all, civilization goes a continues amongst New Urbanists with respect to stage beyond this. Civilization is not the balance between civic and commercial uses. only a city that worked by allowing people to live near one another, but a

Civics, Manners and Laws good city - one that enables its inhabit- One of the most essential aspects of traditional ants to live good lives together." urbanism concerns its civic nature. In the context (Kemmis 1995, pp. 11-12) of traditional urbanism, we are concerned with the role of public institutions, public spaces, and civic One person who does not misinterpret the prac- ideals in the creation and sustenance of urban places tice of civic art, or its relationship to the civic life of that encourage and support the civic life of our com- cities, is Carroll William Westfall. In his article on munities. "Civic Art, Civic Life and Urbanism," Westfall

Jim Kunstler (1996) has written that civic art is embraces the notion of the good city first articu- "the effort we make to honor and embellish the pub- lated by Plato and Aristotle. He views urban places lic realm with architecture and design, in order to as settings where people willingly come together to

CAROLINA PLANNING 9 CHARLES C. BOHL

define what is good and just. Just as musical com- practice of traditional placemaking. But in the end, position requires notes and scales, he sees traditional all three also emphasize the need to change the laws and classic architecture as the language of urban- that now make the building of new Charlestons, ism. In discarding this language, Westfall declares, Savannahs, and Nantuckets illegal in most of the the "modernists have broken the city," and "only a United States. As Westfall writes, "these are Ameri- rejection of modernism can fix it." can cities, embodying the principles upon which our For Jim Kunstler (1993), the break in our nation was founded. They too were built according placemaking tradition reaches beyond the fields of to laws and ordinances—different ones from the architecture and planning, showing up in our fail- ones we now have, many of them implicit under- ure as a culture to define "what constitutes a life standings of how the civic life ought to be conducted worth living," and to transform our laws and prac- within a community." tices in order to "create places worth caring for." In The advent of the new urbanism is showing that failing to address these more fundamental issues, contemporary development can be reconfigured in Kunstler feels we are only dealing with symptoms the form of small villages, towns, and urban neigh- when we discuss issues such as , borhoods that adapt to modem lifestyles. Changes automobile dependency and . in Americans' attitudes towards planning, develop- In "Buildings, Manners and Laws," Robert ment, and lifestyle preferences also suggest that civic

Russell strikes a more pragmatic note in his discus- life remains important for many people who see sion of the Charleston, South Carolina "single themselves both as individuals and as part of their house." Russell explores the single house, not sim- larger communities. As dissatisfaction with sprawl ply as a historical curiosity, but as a "type" of resi- and the suburban lifestyle continues to mount it is dential building that has been successfully adapted likely that even greater numbers of Americans will for housing Charleston's rich and poor, black and reconsider traditional urbanism. t© white, small families and large families for much of the city's history. Russell extols the virtues of the single house "as a defmer of urban form and shaper Editor's Note: The "Traditional Urbanism Recon- of city life." The adaptability of the type allows it to sidered" symposium was sponsored by the Charles blend together adjacent homes built in different cen- & Shirley Weiss Urban Livability Program.. Charles turies with dramatically different property values, Bohl conceived and organized the Traditional Ur- and sized and located on lots of differing sizes. The banism Reconsidered Symposium, held in the spring single house also provided a tool for carrying out of 1999 at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Charleston's scattered site public housing program, which was implemented in part "by adapting a rec- References ognizable domestic form - the single house - to Alexander, Christopher. 1979. The Timeless Way public housing purposes." But perhaps most signifi- of Building, Center for Environmental cant, for the creation of traditional urbanism, Russell Structure. New York: Oxford University notes that the piazza of the single house acts as "an Press. intermediate and mediating zone between private Kemmis, Daniel. 1995. The Good City and The and public aspects of living in the single house." Good Life: Renewing the Sense of Com- By articulating the transition between public and munity. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Com- private realms through a series of transitional in- pany. door and outdoor spaces, the single house acts as a Krier, Leon. 1998. Architecture: Choice or Fate. building block of traditional urbanism, in contrast Great Britain: Andreas Papadakis Publisher. to ranch homes and subdivision products that act as Kunstler, James Howard. 1993. The of a dissolvent. Nowhere. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Interestingly, Westfall, Kunstler and Russell all Kunstier, James Howard. 1996. Home From No- to some degree discuss language, manners and laws where. New York: Simon & Schuster. in relation to traditional urbanism. For the most part they confront the loss of a common language and

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