ABSTRACT
The topic springs from the origins of urban design within the Modern Movement. Mid-century modernism had denied history, seeking an urban canvas as empty as the all-white ground of a Piet Mondrian abstract. In real life the canvas was never empty – places were going concerns, with substantial economic value embodied in their property structures, and social and cultural capital too. The case had to be argued for overriding these legacies, making Modernism as much a critique of the past as a manifesto of the future.
