Planning History • + • •••••+ • • •• + • • •• •• •• • • Bulletin of the International Planning History Society Vol15 No.l 1993 Planning History Contents Bulletin of the 1 International Planning History Society Editorial Notices 3 Editor Or Robert Freestone School of Town Planning Articles 4 Or Stephen V Ward University of New South Wales School of Planning PODox 1 Urban Renewal In Hamburg and London - Origins, Procedures, Oxford Brookes University Kensington NSW 2033 Australia Effects- A Structural Comparison from 1875 to 1950 Gipsy Lane Campus 6 Headington Dirk Schubert Oxford OX3 OBP Or Pieter Uyttenhove Open City Co-ordinator Banack Camps for Unwanted People: a neglected planning tradition Telephone: 0865 483421 (Urban Planning and Architecture) Robert Home 14 Telex: G83147 VIA Antwerpen 1993 v.z.w. Fax: 0865 483559 Grote Markt 29 International Influences on Urban Design: The impact of the en 1 B-2000 Antwerp in Belgium Aesthetics of British Guild Socialism on Yorkship Village Editorial Board Camden, New Jersey 21 Professor Shun-ichi Watanabe Or Gerhard Fehl Hanegi 2-26-8 Lehrstuhl fi.ir Planungstheorie New Towns as the Monuments of Tomorrow Setagaya-ku 32 Technische Hochschule Aachen Slawomir Gzell Tokyo S100 Aachen Japan Schinkelstrasse 1 Cordon Stephenson: Designing the Great and the Small Germany 38 Professor Cordon E Cherry Christina DeMarco Geography Oept Or Kiki Kafkoula University of Bi rmingham 44 Dept Urban & Regional Planning Research P O Dox363 School of Architecture Birmingham B15 2TT Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Entries in the 1912 Competition for the Design of the Australian Thesssaloniki 54006 44 Michael Ebner National Capital Greece Oept of History Lake Forest College 49 Professor Georgio Piccinato Practice 555 North Sheridan Road Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia Lake Forest Oipartimento di Urbanisti ca OCX:OMOMO Scottish National Group Illinois 30125 Venezia Santa Croce 1957 49 IL 60045-2399 Glendinning Italy USA Planning History in Zimbabwe Or Halina Ounin-Woyseth Derek Gunby 51 Oslo School of Architecture Production Dept of Urban Planning Design: Rob Woodward P O Box 271 Word Processing: Sue Bartlett 3001 Orammen Reports 53 Norway Printing: Middlesex University Print Centre Planning History is published three ti mes a year The Australian Planner Professor John Muller 53 Dept of Town and Regional Planning for distribution to members of the International Cordon E Cherry University of Witwatersrand :tanning Hist?ry Society. The Society as a body Johannesburg tS not responstble for the views expressed and PO Wits 2050 statements made by individuals writing or Publications 54 South Africa repo~ti n~ in Planning History. No part of this p~blt canon may be produced in any form wtthout permission from the editor. Pl~nning History Vol. 15 No. 1.1993 Editori~l depended for their improvement on contributions from developers profits that have so far failed to Editorial materialise. There are many other lessons of the same type, but not all the insights of this Parisian trip were quite so simple. One day, having set the students working on A trip to the capital city of a neighbouring country various projects, I took myself off to the north always provides opportunities for interesting reflec­ eastern suburb of Drancy to track down a late 1930s tions and insights. When that city is Paris, the housing scheme which had had a great impact on opportunities are particularly rich for anyone inter­ British planners and architects through its exciting ested in planning and its history. Taking a group of use of a mixture of horizontal and tower blocks. students on a field trip to see the city at the end of Known as the Cite de la Muette, images of it ap­ March proved even more thought provoking than peared in many important planning, architecture usual, not least because we travelled on the day and housing books published in Britain in the late France decisively elected a new right wing govern­ 1930s and 1940s. In general the suburbs of Paris, ment and returned on the day that British rail especially this very working class part of Paris, are workers staged a one day national strike. remarkably dreary- the other side of the coin to the charms of the central city. Yet I half expected to find The actual journey, by what is still, rather quaintly, this model estate of the 1930s still shining out from called the boat train, will soon be consigned to its unremarkable surroundings just as it had done. history when the Channel Tunnel is opened next year. Even allowing for the inevitable run down in And it actually did stand out, though not in the way boat train facilities on both sides of the Channel, the I expected. The line of towers that had been such a consequences of the French belief in investment in a striking feature had gone, as indeed had much of the publicly-owned railway system and the British rest of the cite. What I found instead was a memo­ obsession with short term pursuit of profits, pro­ rial. A few years after its completion, the area had duced starkly contrasting experiences. Paris itself is evidently become a Nazi deportation camp, whence also the very model of a superb and, despite a thousands were deported to death or labour camps. devalued pound, cheap metropolitan transport These horrific events were commemorated by a system, far superior to anything currently found in sculpture, whose inscription told the stark truth, and Britain. One wonders of course whether the new a small railway wagon, bearing the words '40 government of Prime Minister Balladur, appointed hommes'. Given the circumstances in which I came on the second and third day of our visit, will be upon it, it served as a particularly poignant reminder tempted to follow the road of anti-interventionism of the inherent corruptibility of planning and design pioneered across the Channel by Mrs Thatcher. It ideals. would clearly take huge redirection of political effort to undo the all-party commitment to planning and Remote though they are from the routine of most massive public investment which has characterised planning activity, we can detect some echoes of this post-war France under governments of all persua­ theme in the present issue of Planning History. The sions. most explicit connection is of course with Rob Home's piece on barrack camps for unwanted Visiting La Defense, the vast, bustling, off-centre people. However Stlwomir Gzell's article addresses office park to the west of the City of Paris proper, I the question of how planning ventures become was struck by the contrast with London's equally monuments, highlighting the critical issue of keep­ ambitious, but largely empty, Docklands office ing faith with the original, even when it is tainted centre at Canary Wharf. La Defense was a product of with political ideologies that have become discred­ planning, underpinned by massive public ited. Mike Lang's contribution gives another, less infrastructural investment and accompanied by tight chilling, example of the diversion of ideals, William controls of new office developments in the City of Morris' guild socialism, into warlike ends, the Paris. Canary Wharf by contrast was a product of the creation of housing for munitions workers. deregulated British planning system of the 1980s. A creation of the market, it failed because major new Christina deMarco's biographical account of Cordon developments were allowed to proceed elsewhere in Stephenson gives a different twist, focusing on the London which had eroded its initial rental advan­ growth and application of the ideals of an individual tage, especially when the recession of the early 1990s planner. On the whole most of his efforts survived began to bite. And, quite simply, its transport links the transition from plan to reality, but we see how to the rest oflondon were woefully inadequate and they were occasionally thwarted and corrupted by 1 Notices Pl;anning History Vol. lS No. 1. 1993 Pl;anning History Vol. 15 No 1. 1993. Noticu forces outside his control, including McCarthyism in vision of the next. Do cities still serve a purpose? Association of Collegiate 1950s America. Yet the first article, by Dirk Schubert, This investigation into our relationship with the is perhaps the most optimistic, showing the resil­ Notices nineteenth century city leads us to reflect about the Schools of Planning ience of planning ideals, transcending even the most perception and representation of cities, about the cataclysmic external events. way we plan and create them. 35th Annual Meeting, Overall these articles, from Germany, the UK, the Antwerpen 93 A number of detailed reports, based on exchanges USA, Poland and Canada, and the other contribu­ Cultural Capital of Europe with an interested audience, are being prepared by Philadelphia, tions to this first Bulletin of the International Planning an international group of researchers and experts for History Society serve to remind us of the truly inter­ publication at the end of 1993. The OPEN CITY Pennsylvania, national endeavour of which we are part. It is also STUDIO seminars will take place during the first particularly good to note Derek Gunby's efforts to Open Stad (Open City) half of the year and are open to everyone. October 28-31 , 1993 create a p lanning history network in Zimbabwe, particularly since there have recently been such Contact: Pieter Uyttenhove Open City Coordinator (Urban Planning and Archi­ Preamble impressive developments in neighbouring South Open City is the programme for urban planning and Africa. Readers will be able to learn more about the tecture) architecture of AN1WERP 93, Cultural Capital of The Department of City and Regional Planning at latter in the next number of Planning History, which Antwerpen 1993 v.z.w. Europe. the University of Pennsylvania cordially invites the will be a theme issue on South Africa, edited by John Grote Markt 29 faculty and students of the programs affiliated with Muller.