From privatisation to nationalisation: Repsol-YPF, 1999–2012

In April 2012 Argentinean Government nationalized 51% of Repsol shares in YPF. Expropiation of YPF is a new step in a broad list of protectionist and interventionist decisions, such as the nationalization of Aerolíneas Argentinas, nationalization of private pension plans, or the amendments of the Central Bank regulations to make the use of reserves more flexible. Institutions set the rules of the game for citizens and companies, allowing incentives and creating expectations. Nationalization of the above mentioned Argentinean companies has created legal uncertainty bringing a relevant increase in the risk premium as a result. Privatization of YPF and its later nationalization, together with the company shareholder composition, and resulting international disputes will be addressed in this article.     

The illicit consumption of military uniforms in Britain, 1914–1918

Focusing on the British home front during the First World War, this article explores civilians’ motives for acquiring and wearing military garments and accoutrements to which they were not entitled. It suggests that uniforms could be donned either to avoid the attentions of recruiting sergeants, or to perpetrate criminal deceptions. That said, individuals did not always wear illicit uniforms in order to ‘disguise’ their civilian identity. Rather, many men claimed a sense of entitlement to such items, either on the basis of previous war service, or, more often, on the basis of their contributions to the war effort on the home front. The acquisition of military items could also reflect men's roles as consumers: for many civilians, acquiring and wearing the newly glamorous uniforms was a consumer choice that could also open the door to further leisure and consumer opportunities. Overall, illicitly wearing military items undermined the uniform's link with service and sacrifice on the battle fronts: it allowed individuals to assume the appearance of combatants or to assert their patriotic identities without actually exposing themselves to military duties or dangers. It also reflected (some) men's continued perception of themselves as consumers, keen, even in wartime, to adopt what they saw as the most desirable sartorial option.     

From urban to regional planning in Latin America, 1920–50

Focusing upon a period during which the planning discipline emerged and was consolidated in Latin America from the 1920s through the 1950s, this article aims to identify some of the impulses behind the widening of the scope of planning activities undertaken by planners of capital cities, from the local and urban to the regional and territorial. The author uses a comparative perspective to analyze this tendency toward the enlargement of the territorial extent of the plan, interpreting it as part of the process through which Latin America’s urban modernization proceeded while also relating it to the epistemological and professional shift from urbanismo towards planificación and planejamento. While factors such as the emergence of planning offices in some capital cities and the emergence of the first courses in planning in university curricula are considered, the article focuses mainly on the the approaches of pioneers in Latin American planning to this transition, in particular Carlos Contreras and Hannes Meyer in Mexico City, Carlos della Paolera in Buenos Aires, Karl Brunner in Bogotá and Santiago de Chile, and Maurice Rotival in Caracas.     

Changes in self-containment within Melbourne, 1966–1981

Abstract

This paper explores the issues of whether the post Second World War suburbanisation of jobs and residents in large Australian cities has facilitated opportunities for outer suburban residents to obtain local work rather than travel to jobs in the inner suburbs, as was the typical case prewar. Empirical data are provided to examine this question for the case of one major Australian city, Melbourne.     

Attributes of successful place-making in knowledge and innovation spaces: evidence from Brisbane’s Diamantina knowledge precinct

Place-making in knowledge and innovation spaces is a challenging task for planners and designers due to the lack of competent conceptual frameworks and design guidelines. To address this issue, this study adopts a qualitative methodological approach to carry out an empirical investigation in a case study from Brisbane, Australia, i.e., Diamantina Knowledge Precinct. This investigation is guided by a conceptual framework derived from the interdisciplinary literature review. Interviews, supported with various data sources, are conducted among a range of key stakeholders. The findings reveal the key design attributes and considerations for successful place-making in knowledge and innovation spaces.     

A case study in early urban design: Toronto, 1966–1978

ABSTRACT

This is a study in the practice of postwar urban design in Toronto, Canada, based on archival documents and interviews with participants. The narrative begins with the hiring of one British-trained architect/urban designer, Raymond Spaxman, by the City of Toronto Planning Board in 1966. Spaxman then set up a new division of staff that he filled with five or six other architect/urban designers of various national and institutional origins. The study describes the work carried out by these urban designers, identifies the principle themes apparent in it, and relates this to published literature on the founding principles of postwar urban design. In most ways, the study's findings fit the current understanding of the early discipline – concern for pedestrians, sympathy for historical preservation – but in others not – it was different from but not antagonistic towards planning. The findings are then considered as an example of the international transfer of postwar planning ideas. The process of idea transfer in this case looks to have been more chaotic, and less definable, than existing paradigms suggest, but this might have been fairly common in second-rank, immigrant-receiving cities.     

Change trumps tradition: the Atlantis project of Léon Krier, 1986–1992

In 1986, Hans-Jürgen Müller commissioned Léon Krier to design the Atlantis project. Müller, the owner of an art gallery in Germany, planned to host think-tanks at a remote location in Tenerife. His plan was to foster the preservation of European culture, one that for Müller sets standards for proper manners and good behaviour through art and cultural activities. The artistic and architectural setting mediated and cultivated these standards, the demise of which caused the crisis Müller saw in the world. For Krier the project was affiliated with the Rational Architecture exhibition of 1973 and the Reconstruction of the European City Movement.

The reception of the Atlantis project is coloured by three factors. First, from the beginning of the 1970s to the early 1990s, Krier went from being included in a select group of teachers at the AA School, London, to becoming an outsider to that same group and its intellectual sphere. Second, the client for the project wanted to be a pioneer in the cultural sector and use its larger socio-political influence for ideological purposes. And finally, in the specialised press and popular media, Krier, the clients, the project, the ideological statements, and a diffuse mixture of all of this, were often negatively received.

The Atlantis project came at a decisive moment in Krier's career. At the same time, the project's history is emblematic of a crucial turn in architectural discourse. The oppositional narratives within post-modernism had gone from possible rapprochement to complete antipathy. The Atlantis project itself was never constructed, and with it the idea that a renewed traditional discourse could belong to one unified architectural agenda emerged and also evaporated.     

The organicists: planners,planning, and the environment in Czechoslovakia (1914–1949)

This article takes a brief look at the history of modern Central European planning, especially spatial planning in Czechoslovakia. It is primarily focused on urban and regional planners, planning ideas, concepts, and projects that can be considered ‘organic’. Several important planners (all males) who kept pace with the most current European and US trends (e.g. Vladimír Zákrejs, Jind?ich Kumpo?t, Bohuslav Fuchs, Alois Miku?kovic, Ladislav ?ák, Karel Honzík, and Emanuel Hru?ka) are discussed. The text also mentions some of the driving forces of the time, which had a fundamental impact on organic approaches in planning, including the institutionalization of urban and regional planning. Attention is also given to various international influences and the transfer of ideas that have not yet been adequately analysed. In conclusion, there are some reflections on the significance of organic modernity that succinctly express the atmosphere of that time as well as the efforts of the mentioned planners and thinkers. The main message is to show the close connection between early modern urban planning and the phenomenon of organicism, or rather, organic modernity.     

Living in in-between spaces: A structure-agency analysis of the India–China and India–Bangladesh borderlands

Research on borderlands in recent years has emphasized the variation in how boundaries and borders operate for different groups of people and institutions in the era of globalization. Capital, goods, and people with resources inhabit an almost “borderless world.” In contrast, people in the less developed regions tend to experience borders more as barriers. Borders create different lived experience for people who reside in particular borderlands as distinctive in-between spaces. This paper contends to understand the formation of borderlands and their meanings in the current context of globalization, especially those created as part of colonization or the legacies thereof. We need to carefully analyze the embedded experience of inhabitants’ informal and fluid lived experiences that straddle national geopolitical disputes, local conflicts and negotiations, and in-between urban spaces characterized by what we call “relative urbanity”. We offer supporting evidence for this argument via a grounded analysis of the links and interactions between people living in and across two borderlands along China’s and Bangladesh’s boundaries with Eastern India—that were a creation of British colonial rule in India and have evolved with and beyond this colonial legacy.     

From deficient planning to “incapable tenants”. Changing discourses on housing problems in Sweden

Since the mid 1970s, discourses on housing problems and problem tenants in Sweden have changed significantly. This article, which is based on official reports and an urban case study, accounts for this transformation at the national, the urban, as well as the work‐practice level of discourse from a constructivist perspective.

The government's understanding of high vacancy rates were, in the 1970s, associated with deficient planning and building. However, in the 1980s, focus was diverted to a crisis in the public housing sector, which in turn highlighted the “noisy neighbour” as the source of their negative image. At the urban level the shifting discourse is signified by the municipal housing companies’ more selective policy in the 1980s, and the local social authorities’ growing role in housing for homeless clients. Contradictory demands from the role as landlords and as social workers, at the level of work‐practice, resulted in a redefinition and revaluation of homeless clients. In the beginning of the 1990s, these new practices at urban and street‐levels were sanctioned at the national level, thereby completing the shift from structural to individual accounts for housing problems.     

From shikumen to new-style: a rereading of lilong housing in modern Shanghai

This paper provides a rereading of a particular dwelling form under the general name of lilong that has constituted the primary living space in the inner city of Shanghai, where ordinary Shanghainese have conducted their everyday life for more than a century (1870s–1990s). Attention is given to two types of lilong neighbourhoods, in which two housing types are involved respectively: one is the so-called shikumen neighbourhood, including its early multi-bay model and a later double- to single-bay model, which are believed to derive from a more native dwelling concept and value system; the other is the so-called new-style neighbourhood, which is believed to have its origin in western dwelling culture brought in by foreign sojourners and welcomed by locals. Based on a combined historical and typo-morphological reading, changes in both types can be identified at housing unit level and neighbourhood level. In terms of the neighbourhood structure in relation to a larger urban block, a dual structure of ‘outside shops and inside neighbourhoods (waipu-neili)’ was commonly adopted in shikumen neighbourhoods that helped to integrate those pocket-like houses into the fast-modernising urban environment through a mixed land-use pattern, while a more pure residential environment was created in the new-style housing neighbourhood where very few or none shop houses were to be found as ‘mediators’ between the neighbourhood and the urban. Differences in their unit plans also revealed a shift from a more metaphoric layout to a more functional layout, from the clan/family-based courtyard-centred living to the community-based alley-centred living, from a self-contained traditional living style towards a more open, more independent modern urban living style. Nevertheless, under the general name of lilong, these dwelling forms as a whole shared much of the experience of ‘alley-living’ that was due to simultaneous densification – the inhabitants turned this transitional space into a shared living room and multifunctional space, through which a particular local dwelling culture was created. As the first kind of mass commodity housing produced and consumed in the dynamic of local/foreign interactions within a market mechanism, lilong dwelling played a transitional role in Chinese urban history by challenging age-old values in the traditional dwelling system and bringing it further towards its modern version.     

Imported modernity and local design: the creation of resilient public spaces in late Ottoman Palestine, 1878–1918

ABSTRACT

Jewish colonies were established in rural areas of Ottoman Palestine in the late nineteenth century; a period full of radical changes, including the industrial revolution, political and cultural shifts in the Ottoman Empire, and social transformations wrought by World War I. These global and local events had a significant impact on everyday life in the colonies, challenging the resilience of the built-up and open public spaces. According to urban space research, the ability of public spaces to withstand change depends on how these spaces are created and defined and the extent to which they evoke a communal sense of ownership and belonging. In light of the above, this paper combines archival and theoretical research in order to examine and characterize the resilience of public spaces in the Jewish colonies in Ottoman Palestine over four decades – from 1878, the foundation of the first colony, to 1918, the end of World War I. Planned and designed by mostly European-educated designers and entrepreneurs, the colonies’ public spaces demonstrated modernity, accommodated change, and created vibrant centres geared to serve a diverse ethnic local population.     

The history of the country park, 1966–2005: Towards a renaissance?

The origins of the Country Park are examined and the implications of those origins are analysed. Country Parks are followed through to the present, including their enthusiastic sponsorship by the Countryside Commission, their role in local authority policy and practice, and the decline noted in the 1999 House of Commons Select Committee inquiry into Town and Country Parks. In the last two years, the Country Parks Network, administered by Green Space and funded by the government, has shown the tenacity of the Country Park, and there are encouraging signs from the Countryside Agency of renewed interest, and its hopes for a ‘Renaissance in Country Parks’. A summary of this period is also included, but an assessment of the effectiveness of its initiatives must wait for more time to pass.     

Changing conceptions of “mandala” in tang china: ritual and the role of images

ABSTRACT

“Changing Conceptions of ‘Mandala’ in Tang China: Ritual and the Role of Images” is concerned with the intersection of visionary experience with visual forms. The focus of the study is a Buddhist incantation, or Dhāranī, titled the Revered and Victorious Dhāranī of the Buddha's Usnīsa. This particular dhāranī was widely circulated in China during the Tang dynasty (618–907); for this reason, it may be approached as an important case study for studying the conceptualization of mandalas in China prior to their transmission to Japan in the early ninth century. Through a detailed examination of successive translations and ritual manuals associated with the Revered and Victorious Dhāranī of the Buddha's Usnīsa, different conceptions of mandalas and the roles that were played by images may be observed. This, in turn, responds to larger questions in East Asian Buddhism and studies of Buddhist art regarding the functions of painted mandalas during Buddhist rituals. Lastly, this article seeks to shed light on lesser-known aspects of esoteric Buddhist art in Asia, as the scholarship to date on Buddhist mandalas has primarily focused upon studies of Japanese and Himalayan works.     

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.     

Healthy Urbanization:From Quantitative Growth to Qualitative Promotion–Adjustment on Emphasis of Urbanization Strategy

China is currently experiencing the dramatic process of rapid urbanization,and the issue of how to realize a healthy urbanization is such a hot topic that it attracts attention at various levels from the Central Government to the local governments,as well as in many fields from academic community to political circles.Around this issue,this article provides several related point of views from seven experts and scholars,in order to inspire the thoughts on the future of China’s urbanization.