ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the authors explore the various motives for turning to planning history: to build new cities and buildings; for military, communal, religious, ideological or other reasons; and for aesthetic, cultural, nationalistic, and global inspiration. They identify two broad historical categories that the authors label ancient planning ideologies and modern planning ideologies. Their identification of these two types of ideological influence on planning is not intended to reify or essentialize a static "ancient-modern" dichotomy, but rather to talk about broad patterns in the use of the past by politicians, historians, and planners. Modern planning ideologies were prominent in European practices from the 19th century forward; representatives of the emerging discipline of planning used the ancient past to justify a variety of ideological messages. The authors explore how academics have built upon earlier cycles of reconstruction to write histories as a foundation for design in accordance with the practices of the past.