http://www.citylab.com//2014/50//why-garden-city-is-making-an-unlikely-comeback/371717/
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Garden City diagram
scarysquirrel.org |
Hello Everyone:
In a recent article in
City Lab titled, "Why the 'Garden City Is Making an Unlikely Comeback," Anthony Flint sat down with architect and Yale University Architecture Dean Robert A.M. Stern to talk about the return of the Garden City. Mr. Stern was New York City to to mark the publication of his book
Planned Paradise, the launch of his furniture line,
and is scheduled this month to give the keynote presentation at the Congress for New Urbanism in Buffalo. In
Planned Paradise, Mr. Stern argues that the nineteenth century town planning movement and template provides useful lessons for today.
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Sir Ebenezer Howord
rickmansworthherts.freereserve.co.uk |
The Garden City idea first gained gained traction in the late nineteenth century as an antidote to the dark and dirty urban industrial core. The publication of Ebenezer Howard's
Garden Cities of To-Morrow (1902) introduced a new concept in city planning, an ideal town that was a blend of town and country with an ideal population of no more than 30,000 on 6,000 acres, a density on thirty dwelling units per 2.5 acres, and a variety of housing types to accommodate different income levels. I've used the book for a research paper in school and I can safely say that the diagrams, like the one above are pretty straight forward in a Victorian way. This utopia was based on scientific research mixed with an accountant's sensibility. If you look at the diagram, you'll notice that the settlement circles are ringed with greenbelts and connected by transit corridors. This ideal community, was intended to be repeatable and evaluated on solid metrics.
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Letchworth Garden City
letchworth.com |
The first garden city is Letchworth, England-financed by Cadbury Chocolates and Lever Soap. The community was founded in 1904 and designed by Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin. The community sits on 1600 hectares (nearly 4,000 acres) of agricultural land, encompassing the villages of Letchworth, Willan, and Norton.
(http://www.north-herts.gov.uk) In the United States, the best-known model is Greenbelt, Maryland (1934), planned by Rexford Guy Tugwell, part of the New Deal era affordable housing initiatives. Inspired by the beautiful gardens and cities of England, Rexford Tugwell wanted to develop a similar community in the United States. Greenbelt was one of three sites developed by Mr. Tugwell, the other two being Green Hills, Ohio and Greendale, Wisconsin.
(http://www.nps.gov) The traditional plan-a central civic square with boulevards radiating out-is also the foundation for Canberra, Australia's urban plan and the New Urbanist planned community of Seaside, Florida.
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Aerial view of Chandigarh
Le Corbusier
flickriver.com |
Anthony Flint describes
Planned Paradise as "...an encyclopedia of other versions throughout the world: nearly 1,000 of them, in 25 countries." Mr. Flint asks, "So could it be that this is a model that actually works pretty well?" Mr. Flint doesn't answer his own question, rather he uses one of the book's examples to illustrate his point. Mr. Flint cites Le Corbusier's attempt at town planning in Chandigarh, India as an example of a "gambit to rescue an august planning tradition 'tragically interrupted' by 20th century modernism, though there is a little bit of Ebenezer Howard in some of the modernist Stern disdains..." Perhaps it's me, but I really don't see any of the swarths of green space in the plan for Chandigarh. What is apparent is the architect's idea of "towers in the garden" approach to community planning, emphasis on the towers. Recent demographic and market trends suggest growth in the urban centers, however Robert Stern argues differently. Mr. Stern makes the case that there is ample room to grow differently, blend town and country all over again.
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Vintage picture of Forest Hills
Queens, New York
queensnewyork.com |
According to Robert Stern, "There are vast swaths of abandoned land that are not going to be redeveloped as skyscraper neighborhoods." We can infer from this that he referring to blighted suburban areas. Mr. Stern suggests that cities such as Detroit would be a great testing ground for re-introducing garden city planning because the infrastructure is in place for reinventing the urban grid. The key components in the formula: a town square, a place of worship, public transportation, a local store, hotel, small houses (Forest Hills, Queen for example) can be dispensed in more judicious quantities. Further, Mr. Stern argues that Jane Jacobs might have been "too dismissive" of suburban development. He implies that there has to be a balance, "Suburbs are like cholesterol...there's good and there's bad, all to be sensibly calibrated."
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Seaside, Florida
nestofposies-blog.com |
The need for some sort of balance between "good" and "bad" suburbs is the fashionable argument among planners, possibly the most powerful. From coast to coast and into Europe, growing cities are becoming extremely unaffordable. More attention is being given to a diversity of housing types and less concentration on making places for low- to middle-income singles and individuals. "I don't mean to sound all de Blasio," says Mr. Stern, referring to the more equity minded Mayor of New York City William de Blasio, "but there's a little bit of that." Academia tends to bypass the town-and-country blueprint mainly because of its use of traditional architecture, according to Mr. Stern. However, the neo-traditional design, evident in Seaside, can be a source of comfort for people, make them part of the community. "Whatever else, one cannot say that Zaha Hadid is cozy. It may be great for an opera or a swim meet but you don't want to go home to one of those things."
What does all this mean? Modernism is not the devil, the suburbs are not dead, and let's stop beating the drum about reviving the urban center. Robert Stern's book offers a discourse in re-incorporating garden city planning in the twenty-first century. It suggests that there can be a reasonable balance between town and country.
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