The aim of this book is to provide a critical account of urban design and city planning from the late 1930s to the early 1970s. Rather than focus on what actually happened as bomb-damaged towns and cities were reconstructed or replanned and developed in the post-war decades, it considers the approaches of the thinkers and practitioners behind the redevelopments. Although these individuals were often ‘modernists’, they remained outside mainstream modernist architecture and planning. Nevertheless, as the authors argue, by making connections between architecture and planning, such people laid the foundation for ‘urban design’.
The book is presented in four parts. The editors’ introduction and Wolfgang Sonne's chapter on ‘The enduring concept of Civic Art’ combine to contextualize the international range of visual and visionary examples of urbanization and post-war reconstruction. Examples drawn from varied economic and socio-political contexts feature throughout the book. The second part of the book looks at ‘Imagined townscapes’. The first of five chapters in this section details the Architectural Review's 40-year townscape campaign. Architectural Review is the major architectural journal of the UK but the influence of the townscape campaign extended internationally. The wider influence of townscape thinking is illustrated in chapters 4 and 6 which look at the representation of Italy's built heritage through the work of Giovanni Astengo and Giancarlo De Carlo in Assisi and Urbino in the 1950s to 1960s and the visual planning in the writings of Japanese planner, Nishiyama Uzō. Chapter 5 examines the 1951 Festival of Britain whose South Bank exhibition was described by the Architectural Review as ‘the first modern townscape’, perhaps unsurprising given that many of those involved in the Festival were in some way linked to the Architectural Review. The final chapter in this section considers townscape and scenography. The authors demonstrate how three-dimensional representations of plans enabled the public to see the future townscape of an area from different perspectives.
For a section focusing on ‘Townscapes in practice’, it would seem fitting to commence with John Pendlebury's chapter on ‘Making the modern townscape: the reconstruction plans of Thomas Sharp’. As Pendlebury demonstrates, Sharp was a prolific reconstruction planner, whose plans responded to the pressures of modernity, such as the demands of the motor car and the need for improved housing, but also recognized the distinctive qualities and character of particular places. The other two chapters in this section consider wider European examples, with an examination of the role of historic townscape in post-war reconstruction plans of Milan, Turin and Genoa and a chapter on post-war Polish architectural modernism. Milan, Turin and Genoa formed an industrial triangle which needed to address industry, infrastructure and cultural structure, three dominating themes of post-war reconstruction in Italy. Milan provides the case-study for planning, whilst new residential districts in Turin illustrate infrastructure and the museums of Genoa address cultural needs.
The concluding section considers ‘Townscapes in opposition’. Chapters 11 and 14 continue the wider European focus, with Nicholas Bullock's chapter, ‘Charting the changing approaches to reconstruction in France: Urbanisme 1941–56’, and Eamonn Canniffe's ‘Neo-realism: urban form and La Dolce Vita in post-war Italy 1945–1975’. In Chapter 12, ‘Brutal enemies?: Townscape and the “hard” moderns’, Barnabas Calder examines the relationship between Townscape and Brutalism. Although in opposition, Calder illustrates the similarities between the two concepts using an investigation of the language, the images and the actual buildings. Through his case-studies of Denys Lasdun's Royal College of Physicians building and the Smithsons’ Economist building, Calder is able to evidence the extent to which Townscape ideas and thinking were incorporated into the work of Brutalists.
This book demonstrates both the international impact and longevity of the influence of Townscape. The names of the post-war pioneers of Townscape at the Architectural Review feature throughout the book. However, it is in Peter L. Laurence's chapter ‘Jane Jacobs, the Townscape movement, and the emergence of critical urban design’ where the impact is most evident. The editorial approach of Architectural Review impacted on US architectural journalism in the 1950s. Laurence details how the Architectural Review's first major Townscape project, ‘Man made America’, a special edition of Architectural Review published in December 1950, was the catalyst for Townscape, and for those behind the concept, to influence American urban theory.
This is an excellent book for anyone interested in the individuals and the thinking behind the reconstruction and redevelopment of towns and cities from the start of World War II to the mid-1960s.
