ABSTRACT
Part One illustrates some of the key precedents in the history of city-making: Renaissance idealism that elevates the role of the designer, the continuing importance of culture in traditional settlement patterns, and the value of design leadership in transforming the industrial city. It ends with seminal writing that introduces modernist planning and architecture to the emerging field of “urban design” practice. Both Ebenezer Howard’s and Clarence Perry’s planning-oriented diagrams provide prescriptive and quantitative models for designing greenfield residential developments. Incorporating large-scale real estate development and Fordist housing production, the subsequent translation of neighborhood unit and garden city principles often resulted in far less inspiring settlements than their authors had hoped (e.g., placeless suburbs and stultifying new towns). Likewise with the work of CIAM and Le Corbusier, modernist prescriptions for remaking cities rarely resulted in socially uplifting and well-managed gardens punctuated with towers and linear apartments. From the ill-managed public housing schemes of the USA to the ego-centric masterplans for new capital cities, modern design experienced widespread criticism. Aside from a few masterworks, mid-century architecture and policy-driven planning schemes failed to build the desired city of the future.
