New socialist cities: foreign architects in the USSR 1920–1940

The creation of a Communist society between 1917 and 1939 implied the concomitant establishment of a non-capitalist economy and a non-bourgeois culture and lifestyle. In terms of the rhetoric used at the time, the Communist utopia was based on confidence in the beneficial impact of science, technology, planning and management. This necessarily presupposed alternative (new) town planning concepts, a reformed building industry, a new housing typology, and new management styles. Solutions for this mission were expected to come from foreign (mostly German) engineers, architects, and town planners who were invited to the USSR to realize the Communist utopia during the first Five-Year Plan (1928–1933).     

Intervening in the cycle of poverty,poor housing and poor health: the role of housing providers in enhancing tenants’ mental wellbeing

Journal of Housing and the Built Environment - Poverty, poor housing and poor health are complexly interconnected in a cycle that has proven resistant to intervention by housing providers or policy...     

The Volta River Project: planning,housing and resettlement in Ghana, 1950–1965

This paper investigates the housing schemes proposed in connection with the Volta River Project, Ghana, in the mid-1950s to early 1960s. The Volta River Project formed part of Kwame Nkrumah’s vision for Ghana’s modernisation and industrialisation in the wake of political independence. Three associated worker housing schemes demonstrated somewhat contradictory design and construction methods, from high specification, extensive amenities, and comprehensive servicing, through to self-build ‘core’ houses amounting to little more than single-room dwellings. The paper traces the complex and controversial history of these schemes, supplemented with findings of several field trips to the settlements in question, to unravel the value of the ‘Core Houses’ approach. The most successful project to incorporate indigenous agency and true collaboration was the semi-formal ‘Combined Area’ housing at Akosombo, a positive model for shared agency and collaboration in planning, housing, and facilities delivery. Sitting alongside the carefully manicured plan of Akosombo, with its regulated market, excellent health care and desire to set high standards of cleanliness, the Combined Area has not only provided homes for the lower-paid and labouring workers of the town, but has developed over time into a settlement where professionals and retired government workers are also now residing, not out of necessity but by choice. By actively developing their own homes, shared spaces and amenities there has developed a strong sense of ownership, community, and identity. The success and level of attachment to this settlement clearly extends beyond its material presence and through the shared experience of helping to cultivate a place of one’s own.     

The concept and planning of public native housing estates in Nairobi/Kenya, 1918–1948

ABSTRACT

Interwar public housing estates for native citizens in Sub-Sahara African cities, represent hybrids of global and local urban concepts, housing typologies and dwelling habits.

The authors explain such hybrids via exploratory research note as a result of transmutation processes, marked by various (non)human actors. To categorize and compare them, Actor Network Theory (ANT) is applied and tested within an architecture historical framework. Nairobi/Kenya functions as pars pro toto with its Kariakor and Kaloleni estates as exemplary cases. Their different network-outcomes underpin the supposition that actor-oriented research can help to unravel a most essential, though neglected part of international town planning history.     

Crossroads: Imperial priorities and regional perspectives in the planning of Haifa, 1918–1939

At the end of World War 1, after the defeat of the Turks by the armies of General Allenby, Palestine (or Eretz Israel, as it was called by its Jewish inhabitants) came under British rule. The Military Government of 1917 was followed in 1920 by a Civil Administration (with Sir Herbert Samuel as the first High Commissioner), as a transitional stage prior to accepting a Mandate from the League of Nations to administer the territory on behalf of the international community. When Haifa was occupied, in 1918, it was a town of some 20 000 people — Moslems, Christians and Jews — the great majority of whom lived on that narrow coastal strip where the looming mass of Mount Carmel came down to meet the waters of Haifa Bay (or the Bay of Acre, as it was then known). For most of its history, Haifa had been secondary in importance to its neighbour at the northern end of the Bay, the historic city of Acre; and it was later to be overshadowed by the upstart, vibrant, new city of Tel‐Aviv, on the sand dunes 100 kilometres to the south. However, in the two decades between the wars, Haifa received a degree of attention from both British and Zionist policy makers and planners which seemed, at first sight, to be altogether out of proportion to its size and apparent importance. This rather unexpected concentration of thought and effort upon Haifa derived from contemporary perceptions of Haifa's role in the region. Its importance, both economic and strategic, was assessed in much more significant terms, both by the Imperial Government and the Zionist Organization, in the light of the prevailing geo‐political realities of the 1920s and 1930s. In order to adapt Haifa and its region to the role envisaged for it, several major planning campaigns were carried out in these critical years, usually —but not exclusively — on the initiative of the Zionist Organization and bodies affiliated or close to it. The history of these ventures has been recorded elsewhere, in papers by the present author and Silvina Sosnovsky, on the down‐town area, the planning of Hadar and the settlements on Mount Carmel, and the redemption of the Haifa Bay lands. Our present concern is to discuss those fundamental policy decisions of the British Government, which were ultimately to shape Haifa's plans, and influence its future growth and development. The key factors, in this process, were the focussing of the railway system on Haifa and the construction of its major workshops there; the decision to build Palestine's principal deep‐water port in Haifa, and to locate it next to the down‐town area; the decision to construct a pipeline from the oilfields of Iraq, and make Haifa one of its outlets, and subsequently to build a major oil‐refinery in Haifa Bay; to locate an aerodrome on the flat terrain of the Bay lands; and to encourage the industrial development of the area, both to ensure the viability of the port, and as a major factor in regional trade. In this paper we examine some of these factors, to the extent that they were eventually to impinge upon land use and planning issues.     

Reconstruction and planning in the aftermath of the Anglo-Boer South African War: the experience of the Colony of Natal, 1900–1910

The idea of ‘reconstruction’ is now well established in the historiography of South African planning. Particular attention has been paid to ‘reconstructionist planning’: during and immediately after World War; in the apartheid era; and, in the recent context of post-apartheid development. The centenary celebrations of the Anglo-Boer South African War (1899–1902) are, however, directing attention to the programme for the reconstruction of the previous Boer republics that was initiated by the imperialist proconsul, Lord Milner, and is the subject of ongoing controversy. Natal was not a direct target of Milner's programme but the aftermath of conflict in this British colony was linked to important socio-economic and spatial transformations. The idea of ‘town planning’ was only in an embryonic form at the time but ‘post-war reconstruction’ in Natal included interventions in the shaping of urban and rural space that provided the basis for future programmes of reconstruction and planning, including that of racial ordering under apartheid. For example, the system that developed in Durban to finance the construction and administration of segregated municipal housing for Africans was later exported to the rest of South Africa and became a major feature of the National Party's programme of ‘township development’.     

Thermoeconomic analysis of energy utilization in the residential–commercial sector: An application

Thermoeconomic analysis is a very useful tool for investigators in engineering and other disciplines since its methodology includes the quantities such as mass, energy, exergy and cost. This study deals with this analysis of energy utilization in the residential–commercial sector (RCS). In this regard, the relations between capital costs and thermodynamic losses for subsectors in the RCS are investigated. In the analysis, Turkey is taken as an application country based on its actual and projected values for the years 1991, 1993, 1995, 1999, 2000 and 2001, and for the year 2020, respectively. It is observed from the results obtained that the maximum exergy destructions in the system particularly occur due to the utilization of the large-cost and high-quality energy sources like petroleum, natural gas carriers in the low-energy needs. In conjunction with this, the values for the total exergy losses are found to vary from 486.43 to 2797.28 PJ, while those for the improvement potential are obtained to range from 58.80 to 1870 PJ in the Turkish RCS for the analyzed years. The ratio of thermodynamic loss rate-to-capital cost values is also calculated to be in the range of 0.76–1.01. It is expected that the results presented here would be beneficial to the researchers, government administration and engineers working in the area of modeling the subsectors of countries using thermoeconomic analysis method.     

Modelling the urban future: planning,slums and the seduction of growth in St Louis, 1940–1950

This paper considers the attempts by planners during and after World War II to forecast population change for the purposes of long‐range planning. St Louis is used as a case study to examine the social, economic and political contexts within which decisions about how to map the city’s future were made. At the heart of the problem is the adoption by the city of a growth model to justify a large‐scale slum clearance agenda at the very moment when the city was poised for catastrophic population loss. It is argued that planners allowed themselves to be caught up in the momentary crisis of a wartime population spike, ultimately ignoring their own frequent warnings about underlying trends toward population decline. Within this post‐war crisis of temporary overcrowding, planners made the critical decision to move ahead with slum clearance projects of unprecedented scale. Unfortunately, by the time their projects were complete, the city for which they had been undertaken no longer existed.     

Skopje Resurgent: the international confusions of post-earthquake planning, 1963–1967

In the period of the Cold War, architecture became a critical medium of knowledge transfer, facilitating the processes of modernization. The Cold War protagonists, the USSR and the USA, vied to gain the political allegiances of third world nations of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas. This was done through development and aid programmes that offered to lift nations out of poverty, and thereby also deliver them into political commitment to one side or the other. The destruction of Skopje, capital of Macedonia, in 1963, along with the subsequent efforts to replan and rebuild the city, brought with it a significant disruption to the Cold War dynamic. For one thing, Skopje happened to sit within Yugoslavia, a non-aligned country. For another, the winner of the competition to rebuild Skopje was a Japanese, Kenzo Tange. Moreover, the rallying efforts of the United Nations to bring people and resources from around the world to the aid of Skopje managed to transcend much of the partisanship characteristic of international politics. This paper explores the actors, networks, and mechanisms that came together from both sides of the Cold War divide to deliver one of the most defining trans-national urban projects of the 1960s.     

The 1968 Tehran master plan and the politics of planning development in Iran (1945–1979)

ABSTRACT

This paper traces the relationship between state development policies and planning Tehran’s urban development from 1945 until the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It shows how the geopolitical context of the Cold War, and the political agendas of multilateral and bilateral development agencies (i.e. the World Bank and the Ford Foundation), together with the specific circumstances of the national modernization of Iran, were decisive in shaping the Iranian planning administration and the emergence of a comprehensive master planning approach. Moreover, this study demonstrates the critical role of the Iranian technocratic elite and professional middle class in establishing planning institutions and advocating for a vision of progress and development. The focus here is on the formation of the ‘Plan Organization’ as the first modern planning institution in Iran, and the ways in which this institution played a key role in shaping Iranian expert culture and urban planning practices. By examining the links between national development policies and urban planning, this paper presents how comprehensive master planning emerged as the preferred model for the planning and development of Iranian cities. The focus here is on the design and implementation of Tehran’s 1968 Comprehensive Master Plan.     

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.     

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.     

Empirical investigation of owner-occupiers’ reinvestments in housing: the case of Ankara,Turkey

In Turkey, reinvestments in the existing housing stock are entirely dependent on households’ decisions in the free market. There are no policies to consider reinvestment processes, and the body of knowledge on households’ reinvestment decisions is scant. Understanding how individual reinvestment decisions are determined is vital to devise policy measures to improve the condition of the existing housing stock and neighbourhoods. In this study, an attempt is made to identify the basic motivations and factors underpinning the owner-occupants’ performed and planned reinvestments in the apartment flats of Ankara. The results display that consumption considerations, particularly circumstances of necessity and urgency, are the basic motivation for undertaking reinvestment works among the surveyed owner-occupants. Higher household head age, shorter duration of occupancy, higher house value and maintained installations and infrastructure in common parts of the apartment blocks are displayed to increase the probability of having undertaken reinvestment works. Also, perception of the dwelling to be in disrepair and landscaped common outdoor space of the apartment are identified to increase the probability of having reinvestment plans for the future. The analysis suggests that policy measures are required both to trigger reinvestment capacities of households and to monitor the tendencies of reinvestments.     

Politics,planning and the protection of nature: Political abuse of early ecological ideas in Germany, 1933–45

This paper has three objectives. First, it illustrates how the theme of rationality, so important for a country's artistic culture and for studies in the positive sciences, is present both in modern Italy and the field of town planning. Second, it examines the ‘limits’ of town planning: a sort of set of ‘commandments’ which establishment culture has formulated in order to test and institutionalize planning projects. Third, it attempts to demonstrate how one of the peculiar and conditioning features of town planning in Italy is the importance attributed to history (the history of the city, the history of planning schemes and procedures) in justifying decisions which result in urban transformation.     

State intervention in urban housing markets: A case study of public housing development and change in Melbourne, 1945–1980

Abstract

The paper analyses the three major public housing programmes which have been operating within Melbourne since 1945 within the framework of the theory of the state. The paper also reviews the functions and causes of state intervention and assesses the utility of the theory of the state.     

Refashioning urban space in postwar Toronto: the Wood-Wellesley redevelopment area, 1952–1957

This paper considers the creation and the subsequent meaning of ‘redevelopment areas’ in Toronto in the 1950s. The city passed a bylaw in 1952 that defined blighted areas as suitable for redevelopment. One of these areas was the downtown district that runs between Wood and Wellesley streets. The history of the Wood-Wellesley redevelopment area between 1952 and 1957 was important in several ways: it built on but differed from similar activity in the USA; it discursively reflected the needs of the city to refashion itself as a modern landscape; it provided the city with the tools to turn planning ideas into action; and it gave developers the forum by which they could push for specific areas of the city to be opened up for investment. Politically calculated and heavily contested visions of urban space, redevelopment areas such as Wood-Wellesley were used by the state and developers to physically reconstruct Toronto’s downtown area for private capital, to create a new modernist landscape, and to reproduce new and to reinforce existing social inequalities.