ABSTRACT
Drawing on ‘official’ published accounts, including national and local archival material, council minutes and newspaper reports, this chapter explores in some detail the pre-war conditions that existed in Coventry and Birmingham and the planning response to the wartime situation. While these two cities are not ‘typical’ of the UK’s response, Coventry became an international icon of destruction, reconstruction and reconciliation. Birmingham became equally well known, perhaps infamous, for its traffic-dominated response to post-war reconstruction. Following a brief description of the levels and extent of the cities’ wartime bomb damage, the chapter moves on to describe the professional background and influence of the dominant figures Donald Gibson and Herbert Manzoni in shaping post-war planning ideas for the two cities, and it closes by outlining how these ideas were communicated to members of the public.
