ABSTRACT
The decade after World War 2 produced opportunities for a generation of radical architects, fired by the ideals inherent in rebuilding a better Europe. Taking ideas that had originated in prewar Germany, Scandinavia and the Netherlands and influenced by Le Corbusier’s published work, designers were basing the form of their housing designs on functional issues such as separating cars from pedestrians, increasing densities, building flats and maisonettes instead of houses, including large areas of shared open space, and providing access to sunlight for all dwellings, district heating, etc. All these ideas constituted fertile ground for radical design solutions and in this heady situation the conventional approach to urban design and street-based layouts, which were felt to have either been based on irrelevant suburban densities or the nineteenth-century street, were brushed aside.
