Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
solved by town planning was to provide a clear and stable framework for private
investors, wanting to build houses, factories etc. in expanding cities. Already the
redevelopment of Paris under Napoleon III and his prefect Eug
ne Haussmann had
given an exemplar to other cities, how to design modern city streets and square. But
Paris had been an exception in regard to the extraordinary powers of con
è
scation
s disposal in the early years.
71
In
and redistribution which had been at Haussmann
'
other countries, strong guarantees for the
of property made such large-
scale urban renewal next to impossible. Thus town-planning as an academic dis-
cipline developed more around the issue, how to divide up new land at
'
sanctity
'
the
periphery of cities. Very in
uential not just for Germany but later on for the general
body of planning theories became Reinhart Baumeister
'
s handbook of 1876 on city
extension. Basically, it
turned the very important Prussian law from 1875 on
“
, demarcations between private land, which could be developed,
and public land which was reserved for streets and square or other public uses, into
guide lines for the practice of the engineer who has to set up an ef
alignment lines
”
cient and
practicable street plan. Hygienic considerations on suf
cient ventilation of streets
and the use of natural gradients to construct well-working sewers were high on the
agenda of this kind of planning. More sophisticated and comprehensive was then in
1890 the handbook published by Joseph St
ü
bben, a German civil engineer who had
carried out the planning for the extension of Cologne, which took down its massive
fortication walls only in the 1880s.
72
At the same time we can already observe a
growing critique of the kind of orthogonal and uninspiring urban landscape which
was generated along these planning principles. Camillo Sitte, an Austrian architect
and trades teacher, published a massive critique of these planning principles in his
topic
(1889), in which he invited his
readers to understand urban squares and streets as pieces of public art. His plea for
crooked streets, for respect of natural topography and historical boundaries, for
irregularity and asymmetry in the design of monuments and public squares was
quickly taken up by many planners and resonated in many European countries.
73
The Garden city concept, developed by Ebenezer Howard and realized in Letch-
worth, close to London, from 1904 onwards, brought a new vision of suburban
living and of the simple and
“
Urbanism according to artistic principles
”
cottage house into planning debates. Many
social reformers saw in garden cities or in leafy settlements away from the bustle
and smoke of the city a powerful instrument to solve the social question, not only
by improving the health of workers, but also by turning them away from revolu-
tionary ideas of overthrowing the capitalist system and integrating them into
society.
74
'
authentic
'
thus became in the early 20th century, to a degree, what
Public Health had been in the second half of 19th century, a panacea for all major
social problems. By 1910 the major strands of town planning came together on an
'
Housing reform
'
71
Hall (
1998
) and Jordan (
1995
).
72
Sutcliffe, Towards; Albers (
1997
) and Ladd (
1990
).
73
Wilhelm and Jessen-Klingenberg (
2006
).
74
Ward (
2011
) and Hall (
2009
).
