Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
international level and formed what came to be a very in
uential international
reformist discourse. In the UK town planning became a statutory practice by
municipalities through the
of 1909. The degree,
to which cities supported and supplemented their planning policies through stra-
tegic land purchase policies and public transport policies was very different in
Europe.
75
An almost universal tendency, however, was to devote more attention
and considerably more public funds to housing after World War I. The revolu-
tionary mood of large sections of the European working-class after 1917/18 needed
to be placated, thus the rationale of that policy, by generous welfare policies, among
which the improvement of housing provision was a major factor. Besides, better
housing promised to yield better, more healthy workers, soldiers and mothers, so
this investment also promised returns in terms of economic prosperity and national
strength. Thus we can identify areas of social housing estates in new architectural
forms and partly also with new communal services (laundry, library, meeting places
etc.) at the then periphery of cities being developed in the 1920s and 30s, and linked
to city centers and factory districts by electric tramways or urban light-rail systems.
We now know, that with rare exceptions (Vienna) this social housing policy did not
help to solve the housing problems of the poorest sections of populations since they
simply
“
Housing, Town Planning etc. Act
”
—
—
could
not afford to live there. But the social housing estates of the interwar period fre-
quently helped to establish rather stable social milieus of qualied workers and
lower middle class employees. Even today, many of the estates are still highly
popular and sought-after residential quarters, whereas social housing estates of a
later period, frequently in large high-rise complexes, have had a more mixed
history.
76
For the second half of the 20th century a planning vision which emerged of the
international planning discourse mentioned before, became fundamental: With the
“
given their unstable income situation and frequent unemployment
Charte of Athens
”
, worked out at a conference of CIAM (Congres Internationaux
d
Architecture Moderne) in 1933, an organization of decidedly modern architects
and planners, and trimmed into a manifesto by their major spokesman, Le Cor-
busier, in 1943, a very clear and pronounced program of urban planning was
published.
77
Le Corbusier and his colleagues envisaged the city of the future in
analogy to a machine: Primary principle was optimal functioning which could
'
—
as
the manifesto assumes
be accomplished by taking the different functions of the
city, working, living, recreation, transport, apart and reassembling them at different
locations of the city in order to prevent interference between them. They should
then be linked by ef
—
cient public transport and wide streets giving room for private
motor cars. Such a guiding vision necessitated a comprehensive redevelopment of
existing urban structures, a consensus shared by most planners and architects in
North America and Europe till the 1970s. This paradigm dominated urban planning
75
Saunier (
2007
) and Schott (
2009
).
76
Meller (
2001
), Von Saldern (
1995
), K
ä
hler (
1995
) and Haumann and Wagner-Kyora (
2013
).
77
Koch (
1984
).
