Modernism and Early Urban Planning

This weeks reading by Richard LeGates and Frederic Stout focuses on modernism and early urban planning, and explores the ideas of many people that have helped shape planning including: Frederick Olmsted, Ebenezer Howard, Daniel Burnham, Patrick Geddes, Lewis Mumford, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright to name a few.

The video shows a clip from the 1939 Documentary The City, narrated by Lewis Mumford, an advocate of the benefits of urban and regional planning. The clip shows how the industrial revolution created a multitude of problems (overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, health problems) and ultimately  how planning evolved from the need to address these problems.

The first movement that aimed to respond to these unsatisfactory conditions was The Parks Movement- which aimed to provide healthy outlets for the city's poor and working class in the congested cities. Central Park in New York, co-designed by Frederick Olmsted, is an example of the success of this movement. Originally designed to provide the expanding city with open space, the park today an iconic location integral to the lives of many New Yorkers.

People Enjoying Central Park
Source: CentralPark.com 2008

Expanding on the notion of planning as a means to improve health conditions, the Garden City Movement, pioneered by Ebenezer Howard, emerged.

Letchworth, Heartfordshire in 1903- The First Garden City
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica 2011

Garden City Plan- characterised by 6000 acre towns

surrounded by a green-belt. The movement aimed for

'slumless and 'smokeless' cities, unlike those during the

Industrial Revolution.

Source: Listverse 2010

The City Beautiful Movement began in the 1890's, which then gave way to the City Scientific Movement that focused more on function than asthetics. Edward Bassett worked on the idea of the Master Plan as a core document of city planning agencies, and in doing so led to beginning of the professionalisation of planning.

Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, although both had very different ideas, were part of the 'Utopian Modernism' idea.

Le Corbusier's Plan for Paris
Source: Sedulia's Quotations 2011

Frank Lloyd Wright's design of Broadacre City- with a minimum of one acre per person

 This week's reading highlights how planning has changed greatly over time, and will no doubt continue to change as we face new challenges- climate change as one example. As an aspiring planner, it's inspiring to notice how the accomplishments of this early city planning still impact the lives of people today.