Transnational mobilities: Western European architects and planners in the Soviet industrial cities, 1928–1933

During the first Five-Year Plan, the Soviet state relied on the expert knowledge of groups of German and other foreign workers (architects, planners, skilled labourers) to design and build the standardized housing projects for industrial cities. This paper outlines the complicated transfer of Western planning ideas and designs into actual built spaces, focusing on the gap between initial plans and the makeshift and provisional types of housing that were constructed in the Soviet industrial city of the early 1930s, amidst escalating attacks on functionalist architecture and constantly fluctuating attitudes toward foreign specialists.     

From the Charter of Athens to the ‘Habitat’: CIAM 9 and the African grids

After World War II, geopolitical insecurity and human unsettlement mobilised architectural and urban design. During this time of extreme housing shortages, CIAM members lost confidence in pre-war institutions and ideologies. Designers slowly abandoned, though never rejected, previously acclaimed CIAM tools such as the Charter of Athens (1933) that could not deal with the post-war devastation and frustration. This prompted an intense period of research outside the traditional boundaries of the discipline. This essay examines CIAM’s post-war interest in the endemic paradigm of Africa, exploration of the concept of ‘habitat,’ and development of its new Charter. It focuses on the African examples discussed during CIAM 9 in Aix-en-Provence (1953): projects presented by GAMMA and ATBAT-Afrique on Casablanca; research on the bidonville Mahiedinne in Algiers; the Volta River project on the British Gold Coast; and studies of traditional French Cameroon. The essay analyses how post-war consciousness of the African ‘other’ emerged during the passage from imperial to post-colonial societies, and how it promoted CIAM’s internal reflections and reforms questioning dominant narratives of design.     

Alvin Boyarsky (1928–1990)

Abstract

Book reviewed in this article:

Sverre Fehn: Works, Projects, Writings, 1949–1996 Christian Norberg-Schulz and Gennaro Postiglione     

Inventing the World: In and Around Illinois, 1960–75

Some of Lebbeus Woods's formative years were spent on the ‘flat, treeless plain’ at the University of Illinois School of Architecture and at various home and studio addresses in Urbana-Champaign. Architectural historian Sharon Irish describes the dynamic setting of this urban stage and Woods's personal and professional preoccupations of the time.     

Relational housing across the North–South divide: learning between Albania,Uganda, and the UK

Abstract

In this paper, we examine how to understand housing as a relational process. Drawing on research in three diverse cities, we stage an unlikely dialogue that brings together narratives of housing across the global North–South divide. In doing so, we are concerned with thinking housing relationally in two broad senses: first, housing as a relational composite of economy, space, politics, legality and materials, structured by particular relations of power and resource inequality. Second, housing as a space of learning through comparison, which connects geographically and culturally in distinct cities. What do we learn about relational thinking with regards to housing when we compare it across the global North–South divide? In response, we explore a dialogue between a set of cities often off-the-map in debates on housing and urban research: Gateshead (UK), Kampala (Uganda) and Tirana (Albania). In comparing how housing is produced, distributed and inhabited, we seek to contribute to a wider understanding of the relationalities of housing.     

Construction of the planning idea: Britain,the USA and Australia 1929–1939

In the 1930s the idea of planning captured the imagination of the world. Politicians, social reformers, academics and professionals from numerous fields took up the bones of the idea and gave substance to it in accordance with their particular traditions, interests and resources. In this article the immediate origins of the post‐depression planning phenomenon are examined. Comment is made on the assumptions underlying the planning faith. British, American and Australian sources are scanned, to identify points of actual or potential contact between the various fields of thought in which the word planning was commonly employed or in which the concept was implicit; including urban planning, regional development planning, Keynesian macro‐economic management and the Technocracy movement. It was at regional level that the best prospects existed for a joining of minds between planners from different disciplines. However, planning was too general an idea to serve as the defining element of a unified field of theory or action.     

The palace,the city and the past: controversies surrounding the rebuilding of the Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul, 1990–2010

In step with economic and political growth, the Korean government is in the process of restoring the main palace, the Gyeongbok Palace, of the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910), which was destroyed by the Japanese during the colonial era (1910–1945). The ensuing public debate regarding the method and extent of the restoration has brought to the fore the significance such a project carries in Korean society of the twenty‐first century. The restoration of this palace complex has created a number of controversies relating to history and the built environment, urban morphology and national identity. Questions about historical authenticity, both in terms of what has happened to the site since the palace was destroyed and the best means of restoring it; questions about the historical origins of Seoul and the need to restore the palace to make its role in this clear; questions about the methods and materials of restoration, are all matters of debate. There are also cultural and political issues: the role of the built environment in aiding public education; sustaining a sense of national identity; encouraging the development of traditional craftsmen’s techniques for public benefit; bolstering self‐confidence for national progress and expanding the infrastructure for the Korean tourism industry. This paper argues that not only is the physical restoration of the ‘new’ historic buildings and structures important, but also the cultural and social meanings (as outlined above), and that these justify the controversial restoration of the national historic monument.     

Regional cost-of-living differentials,rural–urban migration,and the contribution to economic growth

Using a multi-region, multi-sector dynamic model of an economy with rural–urban migration fit to Turkish data, this paper explores the evolution of each region's output and factor allocation as well as inter-regional disparities that emerge with migration. Migration or residence decision of households is endogenous with respect to regional cost-of-living differentials. Results show that migration slows down and dampens the shift of labour from urban manufacturing to services, despite the increase in demand for urban services. It is also established that rural–urban migration contributes positively to growth while the reallocation of labour within each region proves to be unfavourable.     

Coal Strip Mining,Mountaintop Removal,and the Distribution of Environmental Violations across the United States, 2002–2008

This study draws upon concepts in landscape research and environmental justice to examine the association between community poverty and environmental violations that occurred between 2002 and 2008 across 110 coal strip mining operations located within the United States. Multivariate results suggest that residential poverty is greater around facilities that have been identified as violating an environmental law. In addition, the association between poverty and violations is dependent upon regulatory inspections. While an increase in inspections is associated with an increase in the odds that a violation will be discovered, it is also associated with lower levels of community poverty. We conclude that this pattern of associations between poverty, inspections, and violations is consistent with arguments in the environmental justice and landscape literatures.     

National Defense Migration and the Transformations of American Urbanism, 1940–1942

Abstract

This article examines how a shift toward decentralized and automobile-based patterns of American metropolitan development was a major aspect of the national defense buildup that took place just before Pearl Harbor. It suggests that the continuing and seemingly permanent clash between what are now standard contemporary suburban development practices and the ideas of architects about the design of cities and metropolitan areas can be traced back to that pivotal time.