Yale University, School of Architecture

The M.A.R.S. Plan for London

Author(s): Arthur Korn, Maxwell Fry and Dennis Sharp
Source: Perspecta, Vol. 13/14 (1971), pp. 163-173
Published by: MIT Press on behalf of Perspecta.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1566974
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 The M.A.R.S. plan for London
Korn
Arthur Maxwell
Fry DennisSharp
"A mysticalactionworkingfrom "Workcentredupona grille "The planforLondonissuedbythe
unknown and unconsciouslaws devisedbyle Corbusieron which MarsGroup(theEnglishwingof
and yetconcrete,re-establishing thedivisionsof social activity CIAM)and preparedbytheir
thefirstrationalprocessina evolvedbythe biologist-urbanist Town PlanningCommittee was a
mysterious way." Geddes-work-relaxation-
Patrick markedcontrastto anything that
shelter-communication-- had gonebeforeand,one might
marchedwiththerising add, anything
produced
complicationsof planning from Itwas frankly
subsequently.
theindividualdwellingto thecity Utopianand Socialisticin
and region." concept."

163

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ArthurKorn ............ He discoversparts,spaces, cells. He
Architectureis Symbol. Radiation. formscommunications, thehorizontal pipes,
Tendencyof order- music,of an impetus the verticalstaircasetowers.He discovers
to the end. Embracingand dissolution.The the nodal points and fixes them like the
buildingis no longera block,buta dissolution centre-piecesona lathe.
intocells,a crystallization frompointtopoint. He discoverstheprimecells,pertinent
of bridges,joints,shellsand
It is a structure to each individualformation, each building
pipes.Shells,envelopingand discharging and each town,and thatone only.He deter-
air
betweenthemselveslikefruit.Pipe supports. minestheuniquenessof all forms.He analy-
Within itairflowsmaking itfirmandcurved. ses thematter, itsinnercomposition, strength
Architecture is passionatelove. Rear- and structure.He examinesthewholestruc-
ing. Revolving.Oppressed like us, jerking. tureon whicheverything stands,the fragile
Symbol.Theflashofa firesignal.Whattrans- supports andthediscs inthecentre, andhangs
formsrealityintoa piece of artis theflash. theoutsidewallsaroundwithitsperforations.
The burning cities.The burning landscapes. Thus he analyseseveryfactorinvolved;only
Architectureis theroyalleader.Allthe thencan he unify thestructure.
materialsareputintoitshands:iron,steeland Interlockingthematerialbodyintothe
glass, wood and china,fabricand paper,out air
spheric space. Air breakingintothebody
ofwhichdevelopsa sense formaterialstruc- and wire spinningroundthe body creating
tureandthebuild-upofanysubstance.Outof new planes of air. Armsburstingfromthe
germinating walls furniture burstsand long centre intotheairand ribsgrowing outofthe
ago thereedhutsofthenativesgrewintofan- ground.
tasticgrasstowers. Analyticalgrowthemanatesfromthe
Architecture, ingeniousas a machine, lastsecrets ofthematerial;thestructure and
as the undergroundtrain, the air-cabin. theorganisation ofthecells and circulation is
Anonymous. the indispensable pre-condition. It is the ba-
Butit is onlypossibleto live in the sis, no less - butno more.
functionalhouse if the symbolicart-form Butthenit is the responsibility of the
backs thepracticaldemands,feelingthe or- Artistto createthe Total work of art as spon-
ganismand asking on whichcolumnsand taneouslyas if it had just been broughtinto
shellsthebuildingis supported.Howare the theworld.
squaresof lightfixed,howare theplaneses- A mysticalaction workingfromun-
-
tablished straightor twisted?How does known and unconsciouslaws and yet con-
- -
thefurniture mobileorfixed growoutof crete,re-establishingthefirstrationalprocess
it?Howdoes colourkeepstationary orappear ina mysterious way.
to move?Howdoes thebuildingconnectwith Itremainstheincomprehensible secret
theimmediate and widersurroundings ofthe that the knife-sharpanalytical construction
atmosphere?How do the individualrooms and UtopiabornintherealmoftheUnconsci-
act collectively? How does the whole relate ous intersectat one point in a way that the un-
to the smallest particle and how does the conscious genius within us repeats the crea-
whole grow intoa cell of a community?How tive process once more on a higher unknown
does the whole grow into a symbol of the level forthe same purpose.
landscape and intoa humanimage? The symbolic 'flash' within us is just
The solution is insufficient
withoutvi- as real as the analytical construction. And not
sion. The Americangrid-iron,rationalcity is only within one. The battle between the
deadly. machine-man and the analytical artist, be-
But,practically,one can onlylive inthe tween the collective and the individual, put-
impersonalfunctionalhouse if it is construc- ting itself in order like the voice of music -
tive. But constructionis only achieved by free and according to mystic laws - repeats
analysis. The machine designer asks first, the ascension from the necessity of the con-
which task has to be met? He analyses first structive-analytical to the intuitive-artistic
and constructsafterwards. reality.
Simultaneously the architect starts This article firstappeared in the 'post-Expressionist' magazine
withthe analysis of the building,the house, Das Kunstblatt, vols. 11-12, 1923. pp. 336-9. Translation by
or the factory. ArthurKorn and Dennis Sharp.

164

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The MARS Group Plan of London The MARS Group made its plan
E. M. Fry of Londonas nearlyits last will and tes-
tament before the war dispersed its
members, but the impulse to carryout
such a workis of earlierdate and arises
fromthe programmeof the Congresses
forInternationalI Architecture(C.I.A.M.)
of which the MARS Group became a
memberin 1930 or 31.
I writenow manyyears afterthe
event and, in the absence of papers,
must relyon my memoryof what took
place. This has its drawbacks for the
historian but offers the advantage of
preservingsome of the originalspiritof
an undertakingthat involvedthe collab-
oration of a relativelysmall numberof
people, whether I speak of the MARS
Group or even the parent body of
C.I.A.M.
C.I.A.M. was essentially a soci-
ety of ideas, bringingintothe corporate
working of an internationalorganiza-
tion,groups and persons in manycoun-
tries moving toward a common end.
Such groups might have continued
workingin isolation and have burntout
in the process, were it not forthe com-
mon interestthey all shared in the de-
velopmentofa tangibleand understand-
able modern movement, increasingly
defined by those architects-- Walter
Gropius,Mies van der Rohe and le Cor-
busier,who became its naturalleaders.
The commonaim was most tan-
gibly expressed in the buildings of the
Weissenhof Siedlung at Stuttgart in
1927, inthe organizationof which Mies
van der Rohe played down the extentof
his own contributionin favourof exhib-
itingthe worksof as manygenuine col-
laborators as he could muster for the
occasion.
The formationof C.I.A.M. at
about this time had no lack either of
personalities nor material for its pur-
pose, but like manyanotherrevolution-
ary body was under the necessity of
achieving a corporate identityand de-
fendingitselfagainst misunderstanding
and attack. Its membership consisted
nearlyinclusivelyof architectsin active
spate of evolution,supported by build-
ing that though experimental had the
immense potentialof idea made mani-
fest.Those who, like the SecretarySig-
friedGeidion,were notarchitects,were
deeply immersed in the evolutionary
movementsof the age; or like the Engi-
neer Ove Arup found small distinction
as between Engineeringand Architec-
ture.
The common aim of the organi-
zation could be defined in the obvious
necessity to bringthe works of individ-
ual members intothe conspectus of an
instrumentfor use on the broadest so-
cial front,to make as Gropius said "a
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total architecture".
The canvas for such an enter-
prise was already there in the theoretic
works of le Corbusier, widely dissem-
inated, and in the deeply germinative
effects of Gropius's Bauhaus. But be-
side this, in the multiplyingworks of
individualmemberscoveringthe whole
of Europe,were experimentalbuildings
of all kinds, each pointing the way,
though individuallyisolated.
The major task of C.I.A.M. was
to harness this creative productivityso
that each part contributedto a central
instrumentcapable of regeneratingur-
ban life in an industrialisedworld by
giving it a new environment.
Work centred upon a grille de-
vised by le Corbusieron whichthe divi-
sions of social activityevolved by the
biologist-urbanist Patrick Geddes -
WORK- RELAXATION - SHELTER -
COMMUNICATION - marched withthe
rising complications of planning from
the individual dwelling to the city and
region. No one felt that our work was
done untilwe had filled out the spaces
of the grille in schemes of practical or
theoreticimportcarriedout byconstitu-
ent groups in the intervalsbetween an-
nual congresses.
Thus the subject of one of the
earliest congresses thattook place on a
ship cruising among the Greek islands
was the Maison minimum,as constitut-
ing the bed rock of the planning,that
underlaythe Chartred'Athens,a sortof
bill of human architecturalrightsthat
was the public outcome of this momen-
tous congress.
But not all C.I.A.M. members
were urbanists,or some at least were
more urbanist than others to the ex-
tent of wanting to undertake urbanist
programmesin preferenceto anything
else. Our Chairman or President Van
Eesterenof Amsterdam,was clearlyso,
having for most of his workinglife di-
rected the growth and preserved the
spirit of this extra ordinarycity. And
ArthurKorn was another, but swayed
as the good communist that he then
was, by the dialetical approach to theo-
retic propositionsnot at all out of line
with C.I.A.M. method.
It was, Korn tells me, at an In-
ternational meeting in 1931 in Berlin
that Van Eesteren elaborated the ap-
proach towardsthe conceptionof a new
urbanismon the City scale; not that it
was not presentas the naturaloutcome
of C.I.A.M. programmes,though lying
perhaps beyond the limit of our then
resources, or our inclination,in view of
what was still to be done in the stages
leading to it.
ArthurKornfirstarrivedin Eng-
land in 1934 for a short visit, and re-
165
turnedfromYugoslavia in 1937. I saw
littleof him and had nothingto do with
the survey of Bethnal Green in the
East End of London, or the re-planning
scheme he undertookwiththe architect
Lubetkininvolved,thatformedthe sub-
ject of an exhibitionat Olympia,a pop-
ularexhibitionhall in London.
What sparked off the MARS
plan of London was a letterfromArthur
Kornto me thatbroughtabout a meeting
in the Whistler Room of the Tate Gal-
lery.I mustexplain thatthe Tate Gallery
was a haunt of mine. It was relatively
near my office in Victoria Street and I
was in the habitof visitingthe galleries
where new work,as excitingas our own,
was constantlybeing added to the col-
lection. The MARS Group was sup-
ported by modern painters, and sculp-
tors, some of whom - Henry Moore
perhaps, Ben Nicholson, were early
but non-active members or associates.
At any rate we were in and out of their
studios and used their work when we
could.
This WhistlerRoom was a semi-
basement vaulted room completely
covered with a fantasy mural by Rex
Whistler,and at that time, a quiet and
secluded place where members of the
Foreign Office could have confidential
chats, and whichas an inveteratereader
over meals, suited me exactly.
The meeting was attended by
de Cronin Hastings, the editor of the
ArchitecturalReview and a strongsup-
porterof the group, Felix Samuely, the
Engineer,ArthurKorn and myselfand
set about definingthe task and the com-
position,of the governingcommitteeof
which Korn reminds me I insisted that
he should be the Chairmanand myself
his Secretary.
By 1937 the group was losing
some cohesion, due largelyto the grow-
ing commitmentsof its members. We
broughtthemtogetherforan exhibition
in the Burlington Galleries that was
aimed at and reached exactly the level
of educated people capable of assimu-
latingit.
When it came to the London
plan there were few interestedenough
to collaborate, and in orderto get it go-
ing I brought a group together in my
office, of which ArthurLing, William
Tatton-Brown,Aleck Low, RobertShaw,
Bronik Katz were on my staff; Arthur
Kornhalf on, half off; Elizabeth Denby,
the Housing Consultant,verymuchcon-
nected with my work; and Felix Sam-
uely and ChristopherTunnardfromout-
side; and the work was done in what
time we could spare from a growing
practice.
Arthur Korn was the main
springof the enterprise,but ArthurLing
166
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showed fromthe beginningwhere his earlier in collaboration with the late
life interestslay, and this exercise was F.R.S. Yorke,when a knockon the door
his firstprovingground. announced thearrivalof two detectives.
Thougha plan such as we meant On the walls were spread out
to make was the logical outcome of the the map of London withat one end the
C.I.A.M. programmethere were other portand at the otherthe vitalI northwest
reasons that promptedme to the enter- industries,and in between Westminster
prise. One of the last acts of the weekly the City, and the bridges over the
"The Nation" underGerald Barry'sEdi- Thames.
torship,before Editorand staffwalked "And what may this be"? said
out ratherthan be dictated to by Lord the coppers. To whichArthurin his high
Beaverbrook,was a National Plan by a pitched, obviously germanic tones an-
young man named Max Nicholson. swered. "Here you see are the portand
Itwas a brave new world set out I its industriesfixedto the site by the
all
in considerable detail that so fittedmy river and the docks. Here comes the
aspirations that I wrote offeringhelp in firstbridgeconnectingthe docks of the
case itprovedmorethana journalists northand south London. Here is the city
dream, and found myselfwith fortyor which is you might say . . ." But the
fiftyothersa foundermemberof a Club coppers having little interestin urban-
called Political and Economic Planning. ism and a growing interest in Arthur,
It broughta diversityof talent together said kindlybut firmlythathe had better
in a liberaland hopefulatmosphereand come along with them at once. And so
exercised a great deal of influenceboth for a mercifullyshort period, and until
beforeand afterthe war, besides giving friendsproved him to be of all men the
me the chance of injecting new ideas kindest and most innocent,he passed
of architecture and urbanism into a intocaptivity.
body obsessed witheconomics and pol-
itics.Gerald Barrybecame myfriendand
threwthe weight of the "News Chron-
icle" Newspaper, which he went on to
edit, in favour of modern architecture
and a new schools policy initiated by
Henry Morris for whom Gropius and I
built ImpingtonVillage College outside
Cambridge.
The scene was set, therefore,for
what was probablythe firstattemptto
analyse, diagnose and prescribeforthis
large amorphous mass of metropolitan
London,using forthe purpose a method
devised by C.I.A.M.
How this was done is set out in
detail in Chapter 4 of Fine Building
which I wrote in the firstyears of the
last war. This book was discussed in
restaurantsand clubs, with Jane Drew
and ArthurKorn,untilArthurKornwas
taken away as an alien, and I was sent
fromthe War Office to Derby, and fi-
nally on a draftto West Africa.
It was completed in a bedroom
in the Station Hotel at Wakefield,
which was the depot town of the Royal
Engineers, and brother officers were
helpingto fillin the colours of the plans
as the bugle called us away and closed
a chapter in our lives.
The plans were to have been
sent to eight countriesand thereare no
copies thatI knowof in existence. Sam-
uely and Kornpublished the plan in the
ArchitecturalReview of June 1942, and
I published them as I have just re-
counted, in mybook.
It only remains to recall how
Arthur Korn, the MARS Group dis-
persed, was working alone in a little
workingclass flat in a small block built
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Concept and Interpretation Historical retrospective
The aims and principles of the There have been numerous
MARS plan forLondon plans for London over the centuries.
Dennis Sharp After the disastrous plague and the
greatfireof 1666 Sir ChristopherWren
and John Evelyn both prepared model
plans forthe reconstructionof the City.
Even at thatearlydate Evelyn's plan in-
cluded a scheme for surroundingthe
built environs of London - and thus
definingit - with gardens and planta-
tions. In a sense he prophesied the
green belt idea which was to become
the keystoneof twentiethcenturyEng-
lish town planning. However, seven-
teenth centuryLondon was largely re-
modelled along Medieval town plan-
ning lines and was not to change sig-
nificantly until Georgian times. Be-
tween 1760-66 the City lost its walled
character and assumed the role of a
nucleus around which urban develop-
mentbegan to proliferate.Development
took place principally along the old
Roman routes and gradually ate into
the great countryestates that ranged
around London's perimeterto the north
and west of the City.
Many of the estates to the west
were to become part of Georgian Lon-
don developed by speculative builders
for their respective owners. Bedford
Square for example - built in the
1770's - was a typical productof the
period and was probably erected by
William Scott and RobertCrews. Itwas
builtforthe Duchess of Bedford.
Between 1812-27 John Nash
carried out his extensive metropolitan
improvementsstretchingfromRegent's
Park in the northto St. James's Park in
the south. This developmentwas but a
fractionof his grand plan for London
which due to the political situation at
the time was to remainon paper.
Duringthe FirstWorldWar a fur-
therattemptwas made to plan London
comprehensively.This time the workof
the LondonSociety, the idea was to ring
London with a girdle of green and to
penetrateits urbanformwithparkways.
But in practice the shambles of rebuild-
ing London piecemeal and extendingit
furtherand furtherintothe surrounding
countrysidecontinued and it was not
until 1927 that a Greater London Re-
gional Planning Committeewas set up
to consider what were essentially the
proposals of the previous decade -
theestablishmentof new satellitetowns
and the creation of open spaces. Sir
Raymond Unwin, the advisor to the
Committee was stronglycommittedto
the garden city idea and demanded the
immediate acquisition of open spaces
for recreational use. Over ten years
later, in 1938, the Green Belt (London
and Home Counties) Act was passed
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and by 1945 - at the end of thewar -
25,000 acres had been acquired and a
further51,500 acres approved for ac-
quisition. Thus was furthereda pic-
turesque notion of London almost fifty
years after the garden city proposals
had been propounded by Howard. The
ideas of Howard were also implicit in
the major plan forthe Countyof London
by Forshaw and Abercrombieof 1943,
and in Abercrombie's Greater London
Regional Plan of 1944 which was ac-
cepted officiallyin 1946.
The Mars Plan forLondon
The plan for London issued by
the Mars Group (the English wing of
CIAM) and prepared by their Town
Planning Committee was a marked
contrastto anythingthat had gone be-
fore and, one mightadd, anythingpro-
duced subsequently. It was frankly
Utopian and Socialistic in concept in-
fluenced by the ideas - among others
- of the Russian Miliutinand the Ger-
man ErnstMay. While not disregarding
the acceptable aspects of the Garden
City Movement it bore little resem-
blance to the traditionof Britishtown-
making. That it was unworkable need
not detain us here, for what the archi-
tects and planners had worked up into
a programmaticsolution for the future
of London was not a concrete scheme
but a concept thatwould by its veryna-
tureproduce interpretations. Withinthe
ModernArchitecturalResearch (MARS)
Group emphasis was placed on analyti-
cal research and research methods that
would produce conceptual solutions; in
the case of the Plan for London some-
one spoiled the image by referring to it
as a 'Master Plan', which was far from
the authors' intentions.A title so dog-
matic as this broughtmany criticisms
and effectivelydeterred any serious
considerationsof the finerpoints of the
plan. Indeed C. B. Purdom,the author
of a numberof importantbooks on plan-
ning in Britain in the inter-warperiod
called it a 'fantasythat has no relation
to the needs and aspirationsof men'.
The Plan was a modified linear
concept, the resultof a hierarchicalra-
tionalisation of a plan's function. Its
planners saw London as a growthpat-
tern held togetherby one main artery
and controllablein all directions.
The diagrammaticlayoutof the
plan resembled the skeleton of a gigan-
tic herringwith a main vertebra, ex-
tendingfromTilburyin the east to Rick-
mansworth in the west, devoted to
commerce,industry, administrationand
the docks, and also includingthe exist-
ing areas taken up bythe West End and
the City.The bones formedthe pattern
of the residential units and the local
pockets of industryand commerce. On
167
top of the skeleton was overlaid the
fleshof parksand recreationalareas.
The main backbone of the plan
was capable of extension westward
along the lines of earlier linear plans
(cf. Soria y Mata's Cuidad Lineal and
the Russian linear cityMagnitogorskof
the late twenties) and the residential
unitswere extensible in a northor south
direction.Alongthe main east-westcen-
tral axis all major forms of transport
were to be routed and linkedwitha ro-
tarysystem which extended northand
south - like a pair of combs - into
the residential zones. Three railway
stations - replacing the ten in use in
the late were situated on the
main axisthirties--
going undergroundthrough
the conserved West End and City.
There were sixteen residential
districtsintotal,each brokendown hier-
archically into one District Unit of
600,000 people, subdividing intothree
sub-districtunits of 200,000 each and
again subdivided into four Borough
Units each of 50,000 people apiece.
Each of the 16 residential districts
measured approximately8 miles long
by 11/2 miles wide and the population
was spread out in various densities.
High densityareas were nearerthe main
arteries and predominantly flatted,
while low density housing lay exclu-
sively on the outside edge. The 16 dis-
tricts- makinga-cityof nearly10 mil-
lion people - were spaced approxi-
mately two miles apart with green
'wedges' penetrating into the central
areas. The central spine was two miles
wide and the overall size of the plan was
approximately 18 miles by 30 miles.
The estimated total cost in 1938
terms of ?1,200,000,000 was com-
pared with a total cost of rebuilding
from scratch- as it was in 1938-
of ?1,750,000,000!
The plan was a bold conception
byany standardand startlinglyoriginal,
evoking to a certain extent the senti-
mentof the Russian linearistswho had
argued in the 1920's for an 'endless
stream of human dwellings along the
big arteries of human life joining our
centres of industry and agriculture'.
The two men who master-mindedthe
London Plan were well aware of the
superamericanisationand the mechani-
cal mania of the Russians. ArthurKorn,
the chairman of the Mars Group's
Town Planning Committee had a great
admiration for, and had worked with,
Miliutin and had previously prepared
part of the Greater Berlin plan. He had
arrived in England as a refugee in the
mid-thirties witha reputationforration-
alityand a keen sense of Prussianorder.
Felix Samuely, his colleague, was an
Austrianeducated in Berlin,and a brilli-
168
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ant engineer who also had spent some
time as a borrowed 'specialist' in Rus-
sia. Aftercoming to Britainin 1933 he
became the engineer most favoured by
the more enterprisingarchitects of the
modern movement, including Wells,
Coates, Connell, Ward, Lucas, and
Denys Lasdun. For the Mars Plan for
London he acted as chairman of the
subcommittee on transport and eco-
nomics and was responsible forthe rail
plan. When the Mars Plan was even-
tuallypublished - in the Architectural
Review in June 1942 -it was under
the joint authorshipof ArthurKornand
Felix Samuely. But it had been four
years earlier when Arthur Korn first
presented his recommendationsfor re-
search into the planning of London to
the Mars Group.
In February 1938 Korn sent a
letterto the ExecutiveCommitteeof the
Mars Groupsettingout some elegraphic
notions forreplanningLondon. The rel-
evant sections of the letter read as
follows:
"The followingsuggestions are
not merelyan improvisationbut the re-
sult of long preliminaryresearch. Some
results contained here are fixed while
othersare flexibleand remainto be ex-
amined. To the firstgroupbelongs 'The
Elements', the composition and trans-
formation of which are still to be
studied and definitelydecided.
Ideas on Town Planning spring
fromthe life and work of mankindand
lead to the best system of organisation
forthe town of today, so the elements
arise.
Elements
1. Housing and Work. (Miljutin,Korn).
2. Combined withLeisure.
3. Connected byTransport.
4. Carried out according to economic
and political powers of the day, or
according to a general plan and its
differentparts.
(1) Housing& Work
(1) Housing. In order to pro-
vide the liberationof as much land as
possible, flats of 20 storeys should be
provided, (Gropius, Corbusier) concen-
tratedin parkland,to providethe advan-
tages of the garden and city,and avoid
their disadvantages by wasting trans-
port and communitynecessities (Van YO
* "
Eesteren). 80% of the existing dwell- (2) Leisure
ings are designed to be let at the lowest I
possible rents.
Work.a) The additional propor-
tion of industrialsites wavers between
3% and 60% of the urbandistricts.
b) A stillmore importantfactor
is that industriesare eithershortof, or
rich in, employees. As an example take
a power station which employs only 60 ki==(3) Transport
men, while a lamp factory,employing
5,000 men, occupies onlythe same site
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area. This makes a proportionof 1:100
on the required space.
c) Even this changes con-
stantlyby means of new inventionsand
rationalisationswhich alter the number
of employees requiredin various indus-
tries.
d) The result is that a large
elasticity together with opportunities
for extension are always required.
in the case of London, half the
population, i.e. five million, is em-
ployed,and as follows:
3 millionin trade and administration.
2 millionin port,industryand transport.
Fromthisthe followingsituationarises:
Industry City Industry
This means that on the very
small site of the City there are three
millionemployees and on the large har-
bour and industrialsites, only two mil-
lion.
(2) Leisure. It is thereforenec-
essary to reserve space forthe various
types of leisure.
(3) Transport.The resultis that
in the LPTB (London Passenger Trans-
portBoard) districtthereare ten million
journeys made every day. Of these
roughlytwo thirds are in the morning
and evening (at 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.)
whichwe maycall the'Mass-Transport',
the remainder being made roughly
throughoutthe rest of the day from
point to point, which we may call the
'Point-Transport'.The significance of
this is important,and the accent is on
'Mass-Transport'.
Taking'Mass-Transport'firstwe
are able to propose a cityof ten million,
on a depth of one mile, so that every
employee can walk to his work. This
would require a length of roughly 50
miles.
I . .. . . . . .. 1 .. ; ."
But thereare still otherways of arrang-
ing the proportionof a town.
And this question is linkedwith
thatof the size of the town,i.e.
n
one concentrated city of 10 million,
or threeconcentratedcities of 3 million,
or 10 concentratedcities of 1 million,
or 50 concentratedcities of two hundred
thousand.
*e ..
.: .
It remains to decide which of these is
the most convenient solution, and as-
suming the requirementsof life to be
the same, the answer depends upon the
economy of timeand costs of transport.
(4) Execution. Four million
dwellings have been built in England
since the Armistice,rehousingone third
of the population in twentyyears. From
this itwill be clearlyseen thatthe whole
of the population will be rehoused in
sixty years and it is necessary, there-
fore,to plan forthe next sixtyyears, in
accordance with the regulations gov-
erning slum clearance schemes. The
most urgent task is the rebuilding of
the circle immediatelysurroundingthe
City which statistics prove is the old-
est, most overcrowded and unhealthy
area.
The proposals as basically out-
lined above were ready by the end of
the year, having been discussed and
prepared by a committeeconsisting of
Korn,Samuely, Maxwell Fry (in whose
office much of the work was carried
out), William Tatton Brown, Godfrey
Samuel, ArthurLing (who did most of
the drawings) and Elizabeth Denby as
housing consultant and Christopher
Tunnard as landscape and garden con-
sultant. The diagrammatical proposals
for the plan were issued to the Mars
Group and summarizedin the following
document:
. , ,., 1
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MARS Town Planning Committee--
London Plan
I. INTRODUCTION
(1) Growthof London
ContemporaryLondon has de-
veloped with the growthof the Empire
and has become the greatest city com-
plex in the world. This developmenthas
passed throughsix stages:
a. Primitivesettlement
b. Roman Camp - Londinium
c. Decline in Saxon times
d. Mediaeval town centre
e. Gradual growthup to the Industrial
Revolution
f. Rapid capitalist expansion up to the
presentday.
(2) Position of London
London is inevitablybound to
its site bythefactthatit standsat the
junction of Europe and that the trade
routes to the west throughits harbours
Liverpooland Southampton,and that it
is the heartof the BritishEmpire.
(3) Geographical Element
The chief feature of London is
still the River Thames even though it
has lost its former significance. The
two areas of high ground in the north
and the south - Hampstead Heath and
CrystalPalace, the largerparks such as
Richmond Park and the tributariesof
the Thames, especially the Lea Valley,
are all features that cannot be ignored
in any plan for the reconstructionof
London.
(4) Reconstruction
A town planning scheme must
be the result of research into the ele-
ments of living which must be orga-
nized in the most efficient manner:
such a scheme mustspringfromthe life
and work of the people.
The London problemis concen-
tratedin the provisionof good housing,
adequate leisure and healthy work
places, these three elements being
linked by efficienttransportservices.
These four elements Work, Leisure,
Housing and Transportare completely
inter-dependentand formthe basis of
the problem.
(5) Organisationof Elements
The elements of London fall
into two groups, variables and con-
stants. Amongthe latterwe include the
CentralFinancial,Administrative, Com-
mercial, Cultural and Shopping Areas,
togetherwith the Port of London with
the industriesconnected withit.Among
the formerthe most problematical is
the recentlydeveloped trading estates
situated along the north west roads
out of London.
The Harbour and its industry,
the Central AdministrativeZone and
the NorthWest IndustrialZone formthe
backbone of London,an area of approx-
169
imately25 miles long and 2 miles wide.
This zone formsthe diameter of a vast
housing circle. Order must be intro-
duced intothis chaotic area. It has been
decided to form16 housing districtsof
about 600,000 persons each, based on
an economic distributive calculation,
thatgive the double advantage of direct
contact to both transportand nature.
Each housing district,therefore,is ap-
proximatelyone mile wide with a traf-
fic artery runningthrough the centre
and continuous parkways between
each districtgive half a mile as a maxi-
mum distance fromtransportor park-
way. The district transport lines are
connected to the main East-Westtraffic
arterywhich links the industrialareas
togetherand formsthe backbone of the
TransportSystem.
I/. WORK
(1) Analysis
There are fourand a halfmillion
workersin greaterLondon out of a total
population of 10,000,000 employed in
the followingcategories of works:
1. Administration 25%
2. Distributionand services 35%
3. Industry 40%
London is the centreof the Brit-
ish Empireas well as Britainitselfand
the predominentlyadministrativeand
distributivenatureof its work is shown
by these figures.The recent increase in
manufacturingindustries is due to the
attractionof a cheap labour pool and an
immediatemarket.
The industry can be divided
intothreemain categories:
1. HarbourIndustry.
a. Docks
b. Depots for goods (coal and
buildingmaterials).
c. Works with Wharves as to take
advantage of the cheap transport
by river.
d. Power stations (gas and elec-
tricity)making use of cheap wa-
ter transportforfuel.
2. Small Local Industries,i.e. furniture
making, tailoring often on a tradi-
tional familybasis. 12% of the total
or half a million workers are en-
gaged in this formof industry.
3. New Concentrations of a larger
scale light industryencouraged by
main transportlines and betterserv-
ices available,advertisingsite value,
cheap ground available for housing
workers and an immediate market.
Distribution and Administra-
tion in the city and west-end has re-
mained in the centre of the northof the
river,with a tendency to move west-
wards as expansion takes place. Sev-
eral tendencies can be seen in the
changing structureof London's indus-
try. Restrictionof site for expansion,
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high marketvalue of central sites and
danger of air attackare leading to a dis-
persal to the peripherychiefly in trad-
ing estates to the north-westin the di-
rection of the industrial areas of the
Northand Midlands. The small local in-
dustries are being displaced by larger
concerns.
(2) Reorganisation
The proposals fora reorganisa-
tion of London's workareas follows:
1. Centralised Harbour and manufac-
turing industries to be kept within
definite limits and housing elimi-
nated fromthese areas; the latterto
be situated on the main transport
line to the northwest.The size of
thiszone is flexible.
2. Areas for decentralised light indus-
tries to be allocated at the extremi-
ties of the city districtsand balance
the inward flow of transport.
3. Small home industries to be pro-
vided with communally controlled
workshop accommodation which
will help their eventual amalgama-
tion; sites for these to be situated
either within the green areas or
withinthe housing districts.
The main advantages of these
proposals are thattheyallow fora wide
flexibilityand can be varied to suit the
type and development of industry.
Administrationremains on its
present site but distributionis altered
in relationwith the proposed transport
system. The shopping areas are zoned
into
1. Nationaland Empireshopping
2. BoroughShopping
3. Local Stores
and forman integralpartof the housing
areas.
///.HOUSING
(1) Analysis
The immense post-warhousing
effortsresultingin more than fourmil-
lion dwellings has providedthe best re-
sources available even underextremely
difficulteconomic conditions.Had there
been any co-ordinationbetweenthe var-
ious housing schemes by local authori-
ties, countycouncils and privateenter-
prise,and had therebeen in existence a
Regional Town Plan the face of London
would be very differenttoday. The
problem now is purely one of recon-
struction.
The fundamentalneed of many
of the people is fornew houses or flats
at a rentwhich theycan afford,in place
of theirexistingslum dwellings. This is
an immediatetask but in carryingit out
the structureof the whole in relation
withtransport,leisure and workand the
need for an organised social structure
must not be ignored.
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
The people of London live in a
vast urbanagglomerationwhichsprawls
for more than ten miles fromits centre
- without organisation either of the
housing or the social amenities which
should accompany it. An administrative
divisioning into boroughs has little
meaningwhile it is impossible to differ-
entiate where one begins or another
ends; London as a whole is the only so-
cial unit which conveys anythingto its
people but itconveys a social lifewhich
is read about ratherthan lived. An or-
ganic social structurein which the in-
dividual can take an active partis a vital
necessity; for at the moment there is
more individual isolation in this mass
of 10,000,000 people than in the
smaller towns and villages in the
country.
Such isolation will continueun-
less there is some organisation of so-
cial life and its expression in architec-
tural and town planning form; for the
visual effecton the mind is considera-
ble. The vast crowds must be split up
into groups in which the individual
does not feel so overwhelmedthathe is
forcedto retireto his own home almost
entirelyforhis social life. Such groups
must have an economic as well as a
social basis.
(2) Proposals
The housing proposals embod-
ied in the accompanying plans are
based on a social structurebuilt up of
the followingunits:
1. Residential Unit ... 1,000 people
The NurserySchool and the every-
day lifeof the people formthe basis
of this unit. A population of 1,000
gives the economic numberof chil-
dren (70) between the ages of 0 - 5
for such a school and at the same
time creates a small communityin
which the individual is of vital im-
portance. This grouping acts as a
kind of stepping stone in people's
minds between the individualistic
conception of their homes and the
communal conception of the neigh-
bourhood unit.
2. NeighbourhoodUnit . 6,000 people
Six residential units grouped to-
gethergive the rightnumberof chil-
dren in the elementaryschool age
groups (480 from5- 10 years and
480 from10 - 15 years) foran effi-
cient elementary school structure,
and forma communityin which the
adults can take an active part espe-
cially ifadult education is buta con-
tinuationof child education.
3. The Boroughor Town Unit
This is of a size which makes a full
measure of social life an economic
possibility;it provides all the neces-
sary communal equipmentsuch as a
 neighborhood unit

town hall, central library,secondary

schools, etc. An examinationof Eng-
lish towns and boroughs shows that
50,000 is probably the most satis-
factory size. Eight neighbourhood
units grouped together will form
such a unit.
4. The City Districtor Small City
Where industryso demands 12 such
borough unitscan be grouped intoa
still larger unit as a small city of
600,000 or as a citydistrictforming
part of a metropolis.The reason for
this size is that it allows an eco-
nomic distributionof food and pop-
ulation as outlined in the transport
section. Communal facilities in
work, leisure and transportare pro-
vided.
5. The City
Ten such citydistrictsformthe city town unit

or metropolis of 10,000,000, a fig-

ure to which every effortshould be
made to restrictthe present popula-
tion of London. To this unitbelongs
higherculturalfacilities and admin-
istrativeand distributivecentres.
This structureof social units is
in no way intendedto break the city up
into 'satellites' or to ruralise it: the di-
visions are purelyinternal.The city re-
mains a city but withorder.
The arrangementof the units is
conditioned by transport and leisure
and the need for continuous parkways
and main transportfacilitieswithinhalf
a mile walking distance results in the
arrangementshown on the accompany-
ing plans. This is at the momentpurely
diagrammatic,illustratingthe principle
behind our proposals ratherthanthe re-
alistic formforimmediateconstruction.
This method of social structure
is flexibleand does notapply to London
alone; the same principles can be ap-
plied to the reconstructionof old towns
or the constructionof new ones in the
rest of the country.
The question of typeof housing
depends largely on the circumstances
under which this plan can be carried city district

out. We advocate a development of

houses and flats mixed in proportionto
the people's needs, houses being re-
served particularlyfor families. There
is a great lack of research intothe eco-
nomic form of housing particularlyof
high flats. An acceptable solution has
yet to be found.
IV. LEISURE
(1) Existingconditions
Open air recreation space in
London is inadequate: its disposition is
the result of uncoordinated purchases
and bequests of isolated parks, and is
unrelated to the housing areas, the
most densely populated areas being al-
most unprovided for. In many cases

171

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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
trafficarteries make the parks inacces-
sible forchildren,who are forcedto use
the smaller woods for their play-
grounds. The majorityof schools and
even new flat developments provide
only asphalt playgrounds,and the chil-
dren have to travel considerable dis-
tances to reach adequate open space.
The provision of allotments and gar-
dens is negligiblein the areas where the
need is greatest.The national aspect of
indoor leisure in London predominates
and is of a high standard, but the local
Borough amenities are generally insuf-
ficient.
(2) Analysis
A. Indoor leisure is intimatelyrelated
to the design of the home which
should provide adequate means for
individual leisure by ensuring pri-
vacy, quietness and a directcontact
with nature. Within the social
frameworkoutlined in the housing
section indoor leisure has also to
be catered for in varying degrees
according to the natureof the social
unit; a communal hall within the
neighbourhood unit, cinemas, mu-
seums etc., withinthe boroughand
cultural institutions of a higher
level withinthe city.
B. Open air leisure can be divided into
the followingcategories -
1. Horticulturalpursuits
2. Organised recreation
3. Unorganisedrecreation
There must be provision made for
the firstnearer to houses or flats.
The second can be organised as
follows-
a. Home organised recreation
b. School organised recreation
c. Away organised recreation
The people have differentrequire-
ments according to theirage or oc-
cupation. The young children re-
quire play space near their homes,
the school children at school and
the adults either near their fac-
toryor office or withintheir Hous-
ing District.
On the basis of present leisure hab-
its the followingareas would be re-
quired for a population of ten mil-
lions -
Playingfields for
schools 16,000 acres
Playingfields forfac-
toriesand offices 30,000 " which there is no organised linktraffic.
Open play space near
the home 15,000 " minimumof segregationeitherof speed
Privategardens,
allotmentsand
restareas 15,000
Total 76,000 acres
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or 72/3acres per thousand persons.
This area does not include forplay-
ing fields forworkerswho find or-
ganised recreation in the Borough
rather than at their place of em-
ployment;it is assumed that this
group can be accommodated at
school playing fields. Nor does it
include forcivic open space, (which
involves geographical considera-
tions), aerodromes, stadia, race-
tracks etc.
(3) Proposals
In the proposals no dwelling is
more than half a mile from its open
space which is arranged in continuous
green parkwaysgivinga sense of space
and air in the urban area and providing
forfreemovementin the cityduringlei-
sure hours. A sense of civic unitywill
be fostered ratherthan destroyed and
therewill no longerbe any necessity to
escape to the countryfor the country
will be broughtintothe heartof London.
Adjacent to the flatsand houses
open space is provided forgardens, al-
lotmentsand children's play space and
the heightand densityzoning has been
carefullyconsidered to make the pro-
vision of these amenities compatible
with privacyand accessibility.
The proposals are shown in dia-
grammaticformonly,particularlyas re-
gards the parkways.A geographicaland
geological survey has been undertaken
to see where these can be best sited.
Existing parks and trees must be re-
tained and in most cases these formthe
nucleus of the parkways proposed in
later plans.
Leisure mustalso be considered
in relation to the rest of the country
where the people spend their holidays
and weekends. The proposals include
the reservationof a 10 mile weekend
zone of purely rural country around
London and the reorganisationof holi-
day resortson the sea coasts within50
miles of London.
V. TRANSPORT
(1) Existingconditions
At the present momentGreater
London is served by 20 trunkroads and
10 main line railways. The roads con-
verge on the central area and are unre-
lated to each other,while the railways,
due to their competitive origin have
each developed their own zones of in-
fluence, each system culminatingin a
main line terminal station, between
In all types of London trafficthere is a
or types of goods carried. Where local
rail transportproves insufficientto ca-
ter for newly developed residential
areas it is supplemented haphazardly
by road transportin the formof bus and
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
tramservices. The main trafficarteries
usually formthe centres of residential
areas, theirefficiencyand trafficspeed
being greatlyreduced owing to confu-
sion of main line and local traffic.The
undergroundrailway networkwas the
outcome of high land values in the cen-
tral areas and the impossibilityof pro-
viding adequate surface connections
between the more importantpoints in-
side the centralarea.
The undergroundhas recently
expanded its system and now links up
certain suburban areas with the City.
Goods distributionis hampered by lack
of connection between trunkterminals
and excessive handling generally. The
centralcommoditymarketshave begun
to disappear due partlyto the growth
of the chain store and co-operativetype
of distribution.The increasingcompeti-
tion between road and railtransporthas
proved that the goods rail trafficis ex-
tremely inefficientdue to lack of co-
operation between the various railway
companies and thata general re-organi-
sation on a national scale is necessary.
(2) Analysis of Transport
Trafficreceipts show that 75%
of London's transportis concerned with
goods distributionand only 25% with
passenger traffic.
A. Goods traffic.The methodof goods
transportdepends on the follow-
ing-
1. Type of goods carried, i.e. from
producer to consumer, or vice
versa (most producers being at
the same time consumers).
2. Concentrated or dispersed dis-
tribution.
3. Type of goods - raw materials
in bulk, small fabricated parts
forassembly etc.
4. Source of goods.
a. importedfromabroad
b. nationalscale produce
c. Cityscale produce
d. local produce
B. Passenger traffic.There are four
main types of passenger trafficin
London.
1. Pendulum traffic,i.e. fromresi-
dential area to work place and
vice versa - 60%.
2. 'Point' traffic,i.e. fromresiden-
tial area to any point in London
other than workplace- 12%.
3. Interworkplace traffic,i.e. from
one workplace to another -
20% .
4. Local traffic,i.e. fromone resi-
dential area to another-8%.
(3) Proposals
The proposed transportsystem
has been based on a highly concen-
trated traffic artery running roughly
east and west from Tilbury to Rick-

transportgrid, main reception center for all goods
and two sub-distributionpoints
main arteryof transportgrid and local arteries
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mansworth.This arterywill linkup the
various sections of the workzone, Har-
bour Industry,Central Administration
and North-westLight Industry;the 10
railway termini will become obsolete
and in their place there will be three
main line throughstations which will
be able to deal with all London's main
traffic.Ithas been provedthata through
station can deal with four times as
much trafficas a terminus.All sidings
and marshallingyards will be planned
at the extremitiesof this main artery
and outside the circularconnectingrail-
way, thus freeinglarge centralareas for
parkwaysand redevelopment.Crossing
this east to west arterywill be a series
of secondary traffic lines which will
care for the pendulum trafficby high
speed rail and road services fromthe
housing areas to the central work
places and vice versa. These will be ap-
proximatelysix miles long with railway
stations to every two Boroughs, each
dealing withone hundredthousand per-
sons, and crossing the main arteryat a
differentlevel.
Goods distributionto the City
Districtswill be made throughtwo mar-
ket halls, each dealing with 1,000 tons
of goods per day, situated at key posi-
tions along the secondary arteries: fur-
ther distributionwould be by delivery
vans. The citydistrictswould each have
a goods station at the extremityof the
transport lines and these would be
linked by a circular rail and road serv-
ice to the industrialzones so thatgoods
distributionis segregated frompassen-
ger transport.Local trafficis served by
roads running between City districts
crossing the pendulum trafficlines by
flyovers.
This is an outline of the dia-
grammaticproposals shown in the ac-
companyingplan. A survey of existing
transport services has shown that it
will be possible to utilise many of the
existing roads and railways and an im-
mediate reconstructionprogrammeis in
preparation.
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Author's Note
The English MARS (Modern
Architectural Research) Group was
founded by architect and engineer
Wells Coates and othersin 1934 as the
Englishwing of CIAM. It was an exclu-
sively London-centered organisation
and drew its members fromthe avant-
garde architects and indices in Eng-
land, and the refugee architects who
came into the countryat that time. De-
cidedly an in-groupit sponsored an im-
portant(but badly attended) exhibition
at the BurlingtonGalleries, London, in
1938. It also acted as host organisation
forthe CIAM 8 Congress at Hoddesden
in 1951. The Group almost petered out
in the fiftiesafterthe Team X debacle
in CIAM but today still remains alive,
on paper at least. For furtherinforma-
tion on the background to the MARS
Group see Eloghary, F. H. "Wells
Coates, and his position in the begin-
ning of the modern movement in Eng-
land," (unpublished thesis,) University
College, London 1966, and Anthony
Jackson, The Politics of Architecture,
London and New York, 1970. In prepa-
ration: Dennis Sharp, The Mars Group
and English Architectureof the Thirties
(Dissertation, Manchester University)
For a full discussion of Arthur
Korn and his contributionto English
architectureand planning see Dennis
Sharp (Ed.) Planning and Architecture,
Essays presentedto ArthurKornby the
ArchitecturalAssociation, London: Bar-
rie and Rockliff; New York: Witten-
born, 1968. See also special issue of
AA Journal,'ArthurKorn: 1891 to the
presentday', December 1957.
173