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Edward H. Bennett (1874-1954) was co-author, with Daniel Burnham, of the 1905 Plan for San Francisco and the 1909 Plan of Chicago. He was extensively engaged in the implementation of the Chicago plan for over 20 years, designing bridges, parks and road improvements. Although Bennett was educated as an architect, he designed few buildings. His consulting practice ranged from the preparation of comprehensive plans for major cities (Minneapolis, Brooklyn, Portland, Ottawa) to the design of civic centres (Denver, Detroit, Pasadena), building ensembles (Washington's Federal Triangle) open spaces, infrastructure and memorials. Bennett was therefore one of the first American urban designers, although the term was not in general use at the time. Bennett's papers and drawings are held by the Art Institute of Chicago and are a significant opportunity for research into the practice of a pioneer urban design and planning consultant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gordon Joseph Culham (1891–1979), a landscape architect and town planner, was instrumental in the professionalization of both his disciplines in Canada. He helped lead the disorganized practitioners of the 1930s into the modern age and enabled them to assume their professional role in the improvement of Canada's urban centres. The discovery of an archive of Culham's papers provides a previously unavailable insight into the conceptualization and creation of the professions of landscape architecture and town planning in Canada. Culham characterized this as leading a ‘useful life’. He prepared, practiced and enjoyed the power associated with the professions he helped found in leading this useful life. He was a Harvard graduate who worked with the greatest landscape architectural firm in America, the Olmsteds and with the premier British town planner, Thomas Adams. Culham returned to his homeland on the eve of the Depression with an unrivalled reputation. He brought with him a strong sense of professionalism and helped elevate a small, dispirited community of Canadian landscape architects and town planners into one united organization for almost two decades. Professional specialization was an inevitable outcome but Culham continued to bridge the divide between his chosen fields throughout his ‘useful life’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper systematically reconstructs the path of 'the model of a core of a future city' concept, from formation to culmination, proposed by Uzô Nishiyama's team for the Master Plan of the site of the Osaka World Exhibition of 1970. Although it was not realized, what was important was the proposal to build, in the Expo 70 site, a structure that could be used for the event and which could later become a model for a future city centre area. The main objective of this paper is to clarify fundamental elements of that idea through an analysis of Nishiyama's plans from 1960 to 1973, which define a singular period within his whole career. Nishiyama was an important figure in Japanese urban planning, relatively unknown abroad because few of his plans were realized. His importance lay in his work developing a critique of current planning practices in Japan. Support for his ideas led him to become Vice-President of the Architecture Institute of Japan in 1959 and to be consulted on major planning projects of national importance. The new concepts he proposed during the peak of his career will be contextualized within the historical process of Japanese urbanization, showing that Nishiyama developed his ideas by responding critically to the system of planning then in place. This paper uses, among others, primary sources collected in 'The Memorial Library of Uzô Nishiyama' and aims to introduce Nishiyama's work in detail, almost unknown internationally. Also, this investigation gives a new perspective on the site planning process of Osaka Expo 70, commonly regarded as a project developed mainly by the Japanese architect Kenzô Tange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1949, in the newly founded state of Israel, South African architects Norman Hanson and Roy Kantorowich planned the city of Ashkelon and, within it, the exclusive neighbourhood unit Afridar. Managed by the South African Jewish Appeal, which initiated and funded the project, Afridar presented a radical exception to Israel's centralized planning approach during that period. An early example of a semi-private settlement initiative for an ethnic and classbased enclave reserved for 'Anglo-Saxon' Jewish immigrants, it functioned as a 'model town' for the immigrant population from the Middle East and North Africa, which was housed by the government in the rest of the city of Ashkelon. Afridar's enclave reproduced planning practices from South Africa, which had been coloured by race since the 1920s. Despite its exclusive image, it was modelled after progressive experiments in the design of Native Townships. Their main objective of such experiments was to improve the standards of housing of racially discriminated populations yet, in practice, they served as a tool to implement apartheid policies. This paper interrogates this ambivalence of social aspirations and complicity with state segregation practices through examining the translation of apartheid's planning practices to the Israeli context, and the negotiations and conflicts this translation entailed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A border is an ideological socio‐cultural construct by which communities define and defend their territory. But what are its formal and spatial configurations? How is the border architecturally conceived and perceived? This paper investigates these questions through analysis of three border typologies – the door, the bridge and the gateway – fostering a new discussion of architecture as a border‐making practice. It also relates to how architects and planners contribute to conflict, and to ethnic and physical barrier‐making by not being fully aware of the cultural and political implications of their actions. These ideas are discussed in the context of Israel/Palestine and the dynamic of the demarcation and separation between Israelis and Palestinians since the early twentieth century. It focuses specifically on the border zone between Tel Aviv and Jaffa, the Menshiyeh quarter. By examining border‐making from architectural and urban perspectives, the paper expands the political‐historical discussion of Israeli boundaries and clarifies the relationships between conflict (destruction), architecture (construction) and the everyday life of groups and individuals in today’s world of modern nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Egon Hartmann (1919-2009) was a prominent East German planner and a rising star of the architectural scene in the early years of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). A graduate from the College for Architecture and Fine Arts, he became Chief Architect of Thuringia in 1951 and built such remarkable architectures like the government high-rise in Erfurt. Nevertheless, he left the GDR in 1954, settled in West Germany where he first worked in Mainz and then moved to Munich and thereby became a 'crosser', one of the few planners who successfully worked on both sides of the Iron Curtain. This paper traces Egon Hartmann's private--professional ties based on the letters sent to/ from him across the inner-German border that have been archived in his estate. It aims to show that integrating a personal dimension and very specific patterns of communication into the analysis of transnational connections, transfers, exchanges, and cooperation of planners reveals rather informal ties that created unexpected relations across the Iron Curtain. Nevertheless, those were a crucial resource for the planners' career and private life, when formal bonds were destabilized due to large-scale political tensions and the division of the two worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A member of the Regional Planning Association of America and architect on groundbreaking projects such as Sunnyside and Radburn, Henry Wright affirmed a communitarian regionalism that advocated new town development in a balanced region as an alternative to sprawling suburbs and congested cities. In his collaborative designs with Clarence Stein, he explored efficiency, aesthetics and quality of life issues, integrating superblock, hierarchical street systems, clustered housing, mixed uses and connected park systems. Yet Wright's subsequent adaptation of the Radburn idea offered a more complex, urban vision than the greenfield, suburban alternative. Reviewing archival material, journal articles from the period and more recent assessments of Radburn, this paper is a comparative study of Wright's interpretation of the regional city. Examination of this relatively little-known alternative vision offers new insights into the planned community and communitarian regionalism, which are of particular relevance given renewed interest in these concepts, most notably among the new urbanists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aarne Ervi (1910-77) was one of the most active and versatile Finnish architects of the decades following the Second World War. Despite the fact that Ervi built a reputation for himself as a designing architect, this study highlights his activity and importance as an urban planner. This paper examines the co-operation between architect Aarne Ervi and two public utility housing organizations in Finland: Asuntosäätiö, the 'Housing Foundation' and Asuntosäästäjät ry, the 'Home Savers Society'. This co-operation included planning and building the suburban housing areas of Tapiola and Vantaanpuisto in the Helsinki metropolitan region during the 1950s and 1960s. These two organizations and their policies are compared. Ervi's planning is analysed and the reasons for the implementation of these projects and the location of the housing areas interpreted. A number of topics are considered: modern planning in Finland, the growth of the Helsinki metropolitan area, public utility organizations and suburban projects, and Ervi's modern planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article details the formation and demise of the American Society of Planners and Architects, the first serious attempt to organize modern architects in the United States and a failed attempt to usurp the domain of planning from planners. The ASPA formed around Joseph Hudnut in 1943 as a vehicle for post-war planning and as an alternative to the American Institute of Architects, and dissolved in 1948 as the building boom made theoretical experiments in planning superfluous. The essay explains its failure in terms of shifting paradigms of professionalization in architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The plan produced by Lutyens and Abercrombie in 1944 for the city of Kingston upon Hull is perhaps the least known of a celebrated series of wartime plans for the reconstruction of provincial cities, such as Plymouth and Coventry, despite the contemporary fame of its authors. The paper seeks to remedy this deficiency. It outlines the Plan's key proposals, describes their formative influences and looks at their relationship to developments in planning during that period. The paper analyses the Plan from the perspectives of both general planning principles and those aspects which were very specific to Hull itself. It identifies a number of imaginative proposals, particularly in the fields of integrated traffic and neighbourhood planning, and the remodelling of the city centre. The paper concludes that the Hull Plan, whilst containing features which would not find acceptance now, deserves wider recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the 2014 Australasian Urban History/Planning History conference held at the Faculty of Architecture and Design of Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, from February 2 to February 5, 2014. Topics mentioned include the lectures organized about ecology and urban planning, the speakers who participated, including Kevin Prime, Bill Gammage, and Jackie Bowring, and the future conferences.

This article identifies and discusses some of the ideas of Michel Foucault and applies them to the history of Brazilian city planning. It is argued and shown that the theoretical framework developed in his work provides a useful insight for the understanding of the discourse on city planning in Brazil. I discuss concepts created by Foucault such as discipline and bio-power applying them to the planning history of mainly Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, but also providing insights on Recife, analysing episodes of interventions in Brazilian cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estonian 1940s-1950s town planning practices show that Stalinist principles were in line with those of Estonian architects during the 1930s pre-war, independence period. However, between 1944 and 1955, within the context of the Soviet regime’s occupation, urban planning was faced with rigid ideological constraints. After the Second World War, Estonian architects were forced to abandon projects in historical city centres, which focused on maintaining local natural conditions and cultural heritage, as well as using local materials. Some existing town centres, such as in Tallinn, Narva, and Pärnu, were reconstructed after suffering damage in the war, as well as for ideological reasons. Yet, during this time period, most efforts were directed towards building new industrial towns in East Estonia that exemplified a Stalinist utopia; this also presented the Soviet regime with an opportunity to exploit local mineral resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vällingby - one of the first post-war suburbs in Stockholm - became a well-known and much visited development, a prominent place in the geographical imaginations of many planners and architects during the 1950s and 1960s. This article will consider the ways in which Vällingby was ‘showcased’ to planners and architects outside of Sweden during this period. It will demonstrate how this was achieved through three practices in particular: (1) the hosting of visitors to Vällingby; (2) the promotion of Vällingby by those governing and marketing the development; and (3) the reporting of the development in English language planning and architect journals. In so doing, the article will speak to the academic literature on policy mobilities and two important concepts within it: informational infrastructures and the extrospective city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Celebrated architect and city planner Daniel Hudson Burnham enjoyed a rise to fame in the aftermath of his widely acclaimed achievement as Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition, held in his adopted Chicago in 1893. Roughly in parallel with Burnham's rise, town planning movements were coalescing in Australia, and it would not be long until the Chicagoan's name was circulating in Australian professional circles. This is a pilot study broadly aimed at chronicling and interpreting Australian awareness of Daniel Burnham at the turn of the twentieth century. More specifically, it is concerned with the reception of Burnham's civic design ideals and why some believed them to be of antipodean relevance. Their Australian impact, however, is beyond the present study's scope. Reciprocally, this essay also surveys Burnham's knowledge of Australia. Special emphasis is given to Burnham within the context of the Australia's Federal Capital competition (1912), arguing that although the Chicagoan did not compete, he profoundly, albeit vicariously, impacted the capital's design. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article appraises the career of architect Ralph Erskine focusing on the context for his contribution to Swedish and British social housing and planning. Erskine's formative experience during the 1930s and his subsequent transnational career are utilized to explore the mutual influences of planning ideals across national boundaries. The Garden City ideal, Functionalism and the urban village concept are considered for their long-term contribution to his work. In addition, vernacular architecture and participatory planning are explored as influences on the evolution of his community architecture vision by the 1970s. Drawing on evidence from urban developments in Britain and Sweden, the discussion demonstrates that Erskine's cultural transfer of international planning ideals essentialized aspects of British and Swedish historical culture. The article concludes with a discussion of the 1970s and Erskine's role in the redevelopment of Byker in Newcastle upon Tyne. This process was hailed as a pioneer moment in the English community architecture movement. However, this study demonstrates that Erskine should be distinguished from the grassroots activism of the community architecture movement. Rather the discussion emphasizes that his participatory planning was underpinned by a structural tension between social engineering and democratic participation that was generated and reinforced by his transnational career. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The German architect and city planner Hans Bernhard Reichow (1899-1974) published his book Organische Stadtbaukunst: Von der Großstadt zur Stadtlandschaft (The organic art of building towns: from the metropolis to the city landscape) in 1948. This presented a uniquely comprehensive discussion of the concept of the Stadtlandschaft (city landscape) in urban planning, an issue which was at the focus of debate in relation to the post-war reconstruction of Germany. Reichow was radically opposed to the idea of the metropolis and proposed the establishment of a new-style Stadtlandschaft, composed of residential cells that were kept closely attuned to their natural landscapes. Discussions from a quarter of a century earlier seemed to reappear in that concept, such as the call for the metropolis to be abolished in the revolutionary years of 1918-1919 following the First World War - a call which, however, gave way to a more pragmatic approach during the Weimar Republic. It is astonishing that the idea of atabula rasa was maintained by Reichow for so long. There is also another perturbing aspect: Reichow gave his idea the same name as the concept which Nazi town planners had adopted as their own. How was it possible for Reichow to incorporate a new version of the concept of Stadtlandschaft into planning the reconstruction of the new Germany? This article shows, based on the example of Reichow, how concepts of urban planning are carried through history, with new political interpretations being continually attached to them. It deals with the question of continuity at the level of the planners and examines specifically how this continuity and adaptability of the concept of Stadtlandschaft was possible. Reichow's concept is introduced in the first part of this article in order to trace the roots of Stadtlandschaft within history in the second part of the article; finally Reichow's work is put in a theoretical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]