‘Agitating people’s brains’: Noulan Cauchon and the City Scientific in Canada’s capital

Noulan Cauchon (1872–1935) was a founder of the Town Planning Institute of Canada and the Ottawa Town Planning Commission. He played a significant role in the planning of Canada’s capital city in the early twentieth century. This article traces the evolution of Cauchon’s planning ideas and their place within the Canadian planning profession, based upon his numerous public lectures, newspaper and journal articles. He was a close ally of Thomas Adams during the 1914‐26 campaign to extend town planning across Canada. Cauchon’s background as a railway engineer influenced his City Scientific approach to planning, which contrasted with the City Beautiful proposals for the capital produced for the federal government. This City Scientific approach became the dominant mode of planning in Canada after 1918. Cauchon produced a comprehensive zoning by‐law and many small‐scale planning schemes for the Ottawa area. Few of his proposals were implemented by the municipality, which deferred to the national government on most planning issues during this period. But Cauchon’s ideas influenced the early evolution of the profession in Canada and the redevelopment of the national capital after 1945.     

The development of town planning education at University College London 1914–1969: the contributions of professors S. D. Adshead,L. P. Abercrombie,and W. G. Holford

Drawing on archival records of the University of London and University College London (UCL) and contemporary literature, this article examines the development of town planning education at UCL from 1914 to 1969 under the headships of Professors Stanley Adshead, Patrick Abercrombie, and William Holford. UCL established its Certificate and Diploma courses at a time when town planning was in its infancy as an academic discipline and field of professional activity. There were no precedents to follow – it was not until 1916 that the Town Planning Institute formulated its first syllabus. Adshead's initial course structure and curriculum remained largely unchanged until the decision was taken in 1971 to phase out the part-time planning courses. Subsequent changes reflected the personal planning philosophies of his successors, the recommendations of the Schuster Committee of 1950, the post-war transformation of statutory planning in the UK, and the changing requirements of professional accreditation.     

Green wedges: origins and development in Britain

The paper analyzes the history of green wedges in Britain from their origins in the first decade of the twentieth century up until the outbreak of the Second World War. Often neglected by the literature in favour of the ‘greenbelt’, the ‘green wedge’ was equally at the forefront of the minds of planners debating urban growth and the provision of open spaces for modern cities. Firstly, the paper looks into the origins of the idea, with particular focus on discussions about the integration of park and traffic systems in the period. Secondly, it focuses on the fundamental role that the 1910 RIBA Town Planning Conference played in the emergence of the green wedges idea and in its immediate reception and diffusion. Subsequently, the paper discusses the idea's development after the Conference, predominantly in plans for Greater London and in texts by its main supporters, which included H. V. Lanchester, G. L. Pepler, T. H. Mawson, and P. Abercrombie.     

Maurice Rotival: French planning on a world-scale (Part II)

This paper analyses the life and work of the French planner Maurice Rotival through his practical and theoretical work as well as his teachings in cities and regions in Europe, Africa and the Americas. Rotival's plans and projects reflect the influence of major events and changes of the twentieth century - two world wars and the advances in technology and research they promoted, the advent of the automobile, the subsequent urban transformations and large-scale demolitions - and influenced the development of planning in the twentieth century. Through five major steps of Rotival's international career, this article analyses the development of Rotival's pragmatic organic planning doctrine and his regional approach from his experience and training in France at the eve of the First World War, to his subsequent regional and urban planning work in Caracas, New Haven, Europe, Reims and other French cities until the 1980s. By considering Rotival's career as a part of economic globalization at a time when the colonial context was dismantled, the present article highlights the planner's role in societal transformation in collaboration with the e´lite and demonstrates the growing international exchange of planning ideas in the twentieth century.     

Maurice Rotival: French planning on a world-scale (Part I)

This paper analyses the life and work of the French planner Maurice Rotival through his practical and theoretical work as well as his teachings in cities and regions in Europe, Africa and the Americas. Rotival's plans and projects reflect the influence of major events and changes of the twentieth century - two world wars and the advances in technology and research they promoted, the advent of the automobile, the subsequent urban transformations and large-scale demolitions - and influenced the development of planning in the twentieth century. Through five major steps of Rotival's international career, this article analyses the development of Rotival's pragmatic organic planning doctrine and his regional approach from his experience and training in France at the eve of the First World War, to his subsequent regional and urban planning work in Caracas, New Haven, Europe, Reims and other French cities until the 1980s. By considering Rotival's career as a part of economic globalization at a time when the colonial context was dismantled, the present article highlights the planner's role in societal transformation in collaboration with the e´lite and demonstrates the growing international exchange of planning ideas in the twentieth century.     

The attitudes of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning towards blitzed cities in 1940s Britain

German air raids during the Second World War damaged many British cities. Plymouth is one of the few cities in Britain that has persisted in its aim of comprehensively rebuilding the gutted city centre. It is also one of the few cities whose city centre plans gained approval during the 1940s from the Ministry responsible for town planning. Plymouth's plan was elaborated by Patrick Abercrombie, an eminent planner of the day, and Paton Watson, the city's engineer. Most other blitzed cities were not able to obtain a ministerial approval, and some ultimately abandoned their initial plans. This article considers the relationship between the government and Plymouth, especially from the viewpoint of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, established during the war. In examining the Plymouth case through the prism of the new Ministry and comparing it with the circumstances of other blitzed cities, this article shows that the attitudes of the Ministry officials in their relationships with blitzed cities were at fault, and that they were consequently unable to intervene in a sufficiently effective and timely way.     

Building the modern city: planners and planning expertise at Léon Eyrolles' Ecole Spéciale des Travaux Publics, 1898-1939

By the beginning of the twentieth century French urban redevelopment employed a broad range of technicians. Many of these had studied in specialized schools set up for the purpose of creating skilled personnel for the development and management of the country's industry and infrastructure. One such private school was the Ecole Spéciale des Travaux Publics. On Léon Eyrolles' initiative, the school emerged within a few decades as a successful technological institute in civil engineering. This article focuses on Eyrolles' school in order to illustrate the development of town planning techniques and theories in France during this period, from the end of the nineteenth century through to the end of the First World War.     

艾伯克隆比与香港战后城市规划

英国城市规划师艾伯克隆比为英国战后城市重建做了大量城市规划工作,尤以"大伦敦规划"最为著名。之后,他又被邀为香港拟备"香港初步城市规划报告"。该报告作为香港首部战略性城市规划,使英国城市规划理论与实践延续到其远东殖民地,使香港成为西方文化与技术在东方的中转站。该文横向比较艾伯克隆比的"大伦敦规划"与"香港规划报告",以追溯城市规划思想的源流与演变;纵向比较"香港规划报告"的"高密度发展与疏散、城市人口与工业布局、城市规划立法、新市镇建设"等城市发展提议与香港战后城市规划与建设的实践。通过分析该报告对香港城市规划的影响和贡献,以及探寻香港近现代城市规划理论和体制形成的因素,对进一步完善香港近代城市史学研究,并为内地城市制订战略性城市规划提供历史借鉴     

当代德国园林展的风景园林规划策略解析及其启示

德国战后开展的园林展取得了显著的成果。它有效地完善了城市绿地开放空间格局，保护了生态环境，保护与延续了地区文化景观的发展脉络，保持和增加了城市中心城区和边缘地区的社区活力。选取德国2000年以来已举办和规划当中的主要园林展，在总结风景园林规划策略并进行解析的基础上，分析其对我国风景园林建设的借鉴之处。     

大巴黎区域规划和空间治理研究

二战后,法国政府推行区域分散式发展政策,对巴黎的社会经济发展采取诸多限制措施。前总统萨科齐在任期间,重新开始推动巴黎的空间拓展与经济振兴,促进巴黎在大都市尺度上的发展和全球竞争力的提升。介绍了法国大巴黎区域的规划和空间治理的发展历程以及近年来推动区域整合以强化巴黎发展的一系列行政、规划措施。法国大都市区发展范式的转变对上海新一轮总体规划的编制具有很大的借鉴价值。     

The elusive green background: Raymond Unwin and the greater London regional plan

Decentralization of population and industry from the London County Council (LCC) area began before the end of the 19th century; it significantly gathered momentum in the 1920s. The 1909 and 1919 planning legislation proved unequal to the task of controlling and directing this suburban growth. Although a number of ad‐hoc joint regional plans concerned the Greater London Region, there was little sense of co‐ordination. Consequently, the Minister of Health, Neville Chamberlain set up the Greater London Regional Planning Committee (GLRPC), made up of local authority representatives, in October 1927. In January 1929, Raymond Unwin, who had been a principal officer with the Ministry since 1919, was appointed Technical Adviser to the GLRPC. Since 1912 he had developed Howard's Garden City cluster to regional scale; and a strategy of planned decentralization to satellite communities, within a protected green belt, was advocated by the Garden Cities and Town Planning Association and Unhealthy Areas Committee. Unwin prepared the two GLRPC Reports (1929, 1933). The first presented alternatives indicating planned development on a protected ‘green background’ against a lesser measure where ‘green girdles’ were protected within a development area potentially spreading outwards over the region. In 1933 the first alternative was developed in the context of the 1931 Census returns. The Committee was reconstituted a year later and the LCC took a dominant role, with the green belt concept given statutory backing in 1938. Decentralization to New Towns was enacted in 1946, following the recommendation of Abercrombie's Greater London Plan (1944).     

Echoes of Empire: British Mandate planning in Palestine and its influence in the West Bank today

Almost 70 years after Great Britain gave up its Palestine Mandate, Regional Plans prepared under the Mandate still survive – as live statutory documents that are used to justify planning decisions. Behind them lies a story of how planning is unavoidably tied up with land, with rights, and with power. This article outlines the history of the making of these Plans, explores what the planners of the Mandate epoch thought they were doing, shows how the Plans have been used ever since, and provides an update in the light of a recent UN Habitat Mission to study the planning system under the Israeli occupation. The Plans were the output from the activity of the Mandate government’s ‘Town Planning Adviser’ in the late 1930s and the 1940s – during the period of both the Second World War and the worsening Jewish/Arab violence that led to war in 1947. It was very much a case of the ‘export’ of town planning from urban and industrial Britain to a society which was primarily rural. The Mandate Plans continue to be used in the formal process by the occupation authorities, but selectively: a selectivity which, unfortunately, the Mandate Plans enable by their flexibility. This bites directly on how Palestinians in the West Bank live – ‘the history in the present’.     

转型视角下的伦敦城市发展与城市规划

二战以来,伦敦的城市发展经历了数次成功的转型,城市规划在其中扮演了重要角色。本文首先回顾了二战以来伦敦城市转型和城市规划的演进历程,介绍了新世纪以来为应对全球化的挑战所编制的大伦敦空间发展战略的内容,并以伦敦东部码头区的转型发展为例,阐述了其在伦敦城市转型中的角色和对城市整体转型的推进作用。     

From Greater London to Greater Valencia: a case of British influence on regional planning and neighbourhood units in Spain (1939–1952)

Starting in 1945, Pedro Bidagor, the National Chief of Urban Planning in Spain, attempted to replicate the British regional urban model based on Abercrombie’s proposals of the County of London Plan and the Greater London Plan. The Greater Valencia Administrative Corporation, with its supramunicipal approach, was the principal representative of this urbanistic transposition. This article analyses the transmission of British planning ideas and practices in the years following the Spanish post-war period, and the important role that the architect Pedro Muguruza – key figure in early Francoism – played in it. The study also demonstrates the influence that the contemporary British urban models based on neighbourhood units had for the satellite town centres projected in Valencia (Burjasot and Manises, 1952).     

基于低碳生态理念下的山地旅游小城镇规划研究——以盐边县红格镇镇区控制性详细规划为例

本文基于低碳生态的可持续发展理念,对山地小城镇在低碳生态理念下的规划进行分析研究。并以《盐边县红格镇镇区控制性详细规划》为例,探讨低碳生态理念在控规层面的运用和操作性,从而引导城镇健康合理发展。     

British colonial civic improvement in the early twentieth century: E. P. Richards in Madras,Calcutta, and Singapore

E. P. Richards’ Calcutta report of 1914 has been reprinted as a key text in planning history, but little is known of the man himself, compared with other planners active in the British colonies during the early twentieth century such as Geddes and Reade. This article seeks to rescue Richards from obscurity, and position him in the context of the new town planning movement in the first quarter of the twentieth century. A basic narrative of Richards’ career, taken mainly from his membership records and obituary at the Institute of Civil Engineers’ headquarters in London, covers his key periods with the Derwent Valley Water Board (working on the Birchinlee model village) and the Calcutta and Singapore Improvement Trusts between 1901 and 1924.     

Communitarian regionalism in India: how lessons from the New Deal Greenbelt Town programme translated to postwar India

This article examines transnational planning history following the Second World War with a focus on the diffusion of Western planning principles to postwar India by US architect-planner Albert Mayer. Specifically, Mayer’s role as a foreign advisor to the Indian government from 1946 to 1958 and the application of a US communitarian regionalist planning ethos to rural village improvement and town planning at Cawnpore (Kanpur), Greater Bombay (Mumbai), and Chandigarh is explored. Using the stages of transnational planning flows as a framework, we review the foundations of communitarian regionalism in American planning practice and Mayer’s participation in the New Deal Greenbelt Town programme to inform his translation, in partnership with American and Indian planners, of these town planning principles to suit postwar Indian planning needs. This comparative assessment allows us to present a re-examination of the transfer and adaptation of Western planning as well as exchanges of knowledge and practice within very disparate contexts.     

Carlo Doglio (1914–1995) and the theory and practice of slingshot planning

In 1961 Carlo Doglio (1914–1995) left London, where he had spent the previous six years studying Town Planning (among other things), to join the poet, activist, and social worker Danilo Dolci in leading the development plan of one of the poorest and most marginalized Italian regions: Sicily. Doglio’s actions were guided by a constant dissatisfaction with a model of society that excluded communities from the decision-making process. In Sicily, he saw this as an opportunity to use technical knowledge and experience to achieve a different model of social organization, based on social cooperation and voluntary action. As a militant planner and anarchist, he believed that the planning process had to be structured from the bottom-up in order to offer choices that could be freely discussed and appropriately fulfilled, by the community. Based on original documents from the planner’s archive, this study provides an overview of his work in Sicily, the place where his theories and practices best express his identity as a planner. Although this article offers a detailed examination of Doglio’s work, it also introduces the notion of urban and regional planning as a form of social action and as a means to promote a new form of society, built on pro-active and cooperative communities.     

Italo Insolera,Roma moderna. Da Napoleone I al XXI secolo

Unravelling processes of decision-making is central to most planning history. While archives can helpfully supplement published plans and even oral histories, many archive files [such as those in the UK's National Archives (NA)] are fragmentary and lifeless. This short note explores the surprising survival in the NA of some very acerbic and personal commentaries, demonstrating a lack of regard of the civil servants of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning for planning and planners, including some of the best-known planners of the period. This sheds new light on decision-making and professional relationships.     

War,planning and social change: The example of the garden city campaign, 1914–1918

The relationship between war, planning and social change is an intriguing one. In Britain, both the First and Second World Wars saw the evolution of an enhanced role for the State and the framing of new social welfare legislation. If this observation is in itself uncontentious, the extent to which the two processes, war and social change, are causally related, is, however, more problematic. Some historians have tended towards the view that war has a catalytic effect on society, overturning old ways and bringing in the new; while others have urged a more cautious approach, looking towards prewar practices and trends for the origins of radical change.

For the planning historian this is an interesting and important debate. Both world wars are significant chapters in the development of the modern planning system, and it is instructive to pursue the extent to which the progress that occurred in these periods simply evolved from what existed already, or whether it was primarily a product of unique wartime conditions. Various aspects of this debate have already been investigated, not least of all through studies of the ‘Homes for Heroes’ campaign that originated in the First World War and through the official histories of planning in the 1940s.

The intention of this paper is to contribute fresh evidence in the form of an analysis of the 1914–1918 lobby of the Garden Cities and Town Planning Association for town planning and, in particular, for the adoption of a national policy for garden cities. The paper takes the form of a summary of where the campaign stood before war was declared, prior to a review of what was achieved during the war years. It is concluded that wartime conditions undoubtedly served to draw governments towards an increasingly interventionist stance, coupled with a new sense of social urgency, but that the seeds of changes had already been firmly planted before 1914.