Interdisciplinary Theory & Practice

SoSe 2023
Prof. Dr. Kathrin Wieck
Dr. Juliane Heinrich

Referring to the lecture of Dr. Felix Bentlin

‘Berlin’s Urban Expansion: Did you study the old masters?’

Experimental Governance:
Old Masters, No More

By Benjamín Peralta
478739

Abstract

Urban masterplans in the mid-XIX century played a fundamental role in today's urban
structure of many European cities. For Berlin and Barcelona, James Hobrecht and Ildefons
Cerdá respectively developed bold and extensive enlargement plans. However, both cases
failed to address ‘external’ economic and social issues. This paper argues that, in current times
where cities are facing new challenges, it is necessary to study the old masters to be aware that
this role is not viable anymore, nor it should be aimed to. Instead, new transdisciplinary
approaches are required, where experimental governance emerges as an innovative alternative.
Introduction

Hobrecht’s Plan for the Expansion of Berlin (1862) and Cerdá’s Eixample for
Barcelona (1860) are some of the many historic examples of large urban plans attributed to
single individuals (Hall, 2003, p. 308) , the so-called masters. For their development and
implementation, decision-making was centralised and relied mostly upon national
governments. Thus, the involvement of civil society and non-economic actors was scarce,
prioritizing a top-down approach.

Today, after 150 years of these plans, major societal changes caused a significant
migration to cities, which for the first time in history, caused the urban population to exceed
the rural population, entering what is known as the ‘urban millennium’
(United Nations, 2006, p. 6)
. For this new phase, it is expected that by 2050, more than two-thirds of the world's
population will live in urban areas (United Nations, 2019, p. xix) . In this context, cities
worldwide face new urban challenges that require innovative solutions.

This paper argues that it is necessary to study the old masters to conclude that the
existence of that figure is no longer possible, nor it should be aimed at in the planning
discipline. Instead, it is necessary to start using new bottom-up and transdisciplinary
methodologies to cope with contemporary challenges. In this scenario, experimental
governance emerges as an alternative to traditional efficiency-seeking planning strategies. To
argue this, a review of the work of Ildefons Cerdá and James Hobrecht will be given, followed
by a brief description of the evolution of urban planning since that epoque, to later end with an
explanation of the difficulties and opportunities of experimental governance as a
transdisciplinary approach to planning.

Studying two old masters

James Hobrecht

Felix Bentlin’s detailed historical and morphological analysis of Hobrecht’s

expansion plan for Berlin (2023) gives remarkable insights into the beginning of urban
planning as such. Broadly speaking, the plan defined strategies to address complexity,
adaptability, and flexibility. To do so, a set of sectional plans were developed based on
neighbourhood squares, building blocks, and streets (Bentlin, 2023, p. 37) . More
specifically, it shows how planning parameters are both a consequence of
industrialization (e.g., backyards and railway integration to Berlin’s block) and a
pragmatic result of ownership structure, which led to an imbalance between free
market and state regulation (Bentlin, 2023, pp. 50–51).

James Hobrecht was appointed for such a task due to a medical problem of the
former Building Inspector Heinrich Julius Köbicke. Hobrecht, an engineer, was thus
named Head of the Commission for the Elaboration of Development Plans for Berlin
and its Environs, leading a group of professionals to develop the 15 section plans that
comprise the Hobrecht Plan (Bentlin, 2018, pp. 8–10) . The plan was partially
implemented over the years; however, Hobrecht was heavily criticised with respect to
the lack of regulation for private investors’ initiatives, which arguably led Berlin to
become the largest Tenement City (Hagemann, 1930, in Bentlin, 2023, pp. 4-7).

Ildefons Cerdá

Cerdá's appointment to develop the Eixample of Barcelona was not easy. In

1858, Ildefons was associated with the Progressive political party, thus the
conservative local government decided instead to appoint the city architect Miquel
Garriga i Roca to work on the plan, which was later approved in April of the same

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 year. However, Cerdá, who worked in his plan since 1855, personally negotiated with
the national government in Madrid, who in February 1859 secured permission for him
to develop a plan without receiving any remuneration. Cerdá was able to self-finance
his work after he received an inheritance in 1848 (Hall, 2003, pp. 146–149).

In an unexpected strategy for that time, Cerdá based the plan on a

comprehensive study of the workers’ class and their needs. This publication was a
detailed registry of Barcelona’s working-class difficulties at the time
(Lopez Guallar & Borderías, 2001, p. 5)
. The data was used to define different approaches which are
described by Francesc Magrinyà. The author mentions, among others, a street/inter-
street relationship that responded to the new transport system, the train; a model of
hierarchical streets and crossings; and a set of technical, legal, administrative, and
economic instruments to implement the proposal (Magrinyá Torner, 2009, pp. 68–69).
However, there were some political and economic differences between Cerdá and the
landowners. Consequently, even though the original plan proposed to allocate
buildings on only two sides of the block, in 1859 the Ministerio de Fomento
authorized the construction on three sides, showing no political will to avoid
aggressive exploitation from landowners. By 1863, Cerdá updated his plan,
incorporating blocks with three- and four-sided building blocks
(Hall, 2003, pp. 157–158)
.

As we have seen, both cases have many similar characteristics. Regarding the origin
of the masters, it is not a surprise that both cases were a top-down appointment from the
national government, especially in the case of Cerdá, a decision that was against the local
government and without any payment for him. Regarding Hobrecht’s plan, even though the
current urban structure of Berlin differs from the original plans, reminiscences can be seen
when studying neighbourhood squares, blocks, and streets. Nevertheless, the plan for Berlin
was widely rejected and criticised for years after its publication. It was not until the past
decades that a new and more benevolent perspective is perceived among researchers
(Bentlin, 2018, 2023; Bernet, 2004; Elkins & H
. Differently, Barcelona’s
Exaimple is one of the most completely implemented plans in Europe (Hall, 2003, p. 159) ,
which may be related to the exhaustive theoretical background and the detailed study of
Barcelona’s inhabitants. However, in both cases, land speculation created significant
difficulties for the implementation phase. Not even Cerdá’s extensive social studies were able
to deal with the imbalanced relationship between landowners and governments, which began
to show how urban planning requires working in close relation to several other actors.

From the masters’ plans to transdisciplinary urban planning

European masterplans were mostly triggered by urban transformations due to the

industrial revolution. After that period, at the beginning of the XX century, the discipline was
shaped by physical-oriented approaches to the built environment
(Doan & Ocakç, 2014, p. 113)
. Nevertheless, according to Pinson, by 1920, urban planning started to embrace
interdisciplinarity, as it incorporated social issues (Pinson, 2004, p. 504). This phase would be
more accurately defined as multidisciplinary, as it was characterized by different disciplines
working separately for one goal. Later, in the 1940s, after accepting that changing the physical
structures of the city was not enough to deal with social problems, universities teaching urban
planning began to include demographic, social, economic, and environmental factors in a
comprehensive plan curriculum. The discipline was characterized by a vertical and technical
process, being described as a scientific tool which can predict possible outcomes
(Doan & Ocakç, 2014, p. 114)
. Until the late 1950s, urban planning was still one of the few disciplines
that were paying attention to the city (Pinson, 2004, p. 205).

By the 1960s, as Doğan and Ocakçı (2014) describe, a new vision of planning was
rising. With a political, social, and economic perspective, advocacy planning ideals spread

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across the discipline. Advocacy planning, first defined by Davidoff in 1965, aimed to include
all groups in society, especially the ones who were in most need. Planners would act as
advocates between low-income communities, real estate boards, politicians, and a diverse
range of actors to achieve plural planning (Davidoff, 1965, pp. 282–287). In the next decades,
the contribution of civil initiatives was also an important characteristic. As Friedmann stated,
planning is directly related to people’s struggles for self-empowerment and participation to
change the rules of the game (Friedmann, 1989, p. 129). This bottom-up approach is very well
studied by Paul Sabatier vis-à-vis public policy implementation. The author argues that in
certain areas that involve multiple private/public actors, a bottom-up approach is more
accurate for identifying actors’ perceived problems and strategies (Sabatier, 1986, pp. 32–37).

Today, the complexity of urban problems goes far beyond the scope of an
interdisciplinary approach, understood as the sum of different academic or professional
disciplines working together for one goal. As Pinson eloquently describes, ‘it is not sensible
for one single person to hold this immense body of knowledge’ (Pinson, 2004, p. 507) ,
implying that the masters from the past are no longer a viable alternative to face urban issues.
Furthermore, in line with Davidoff’s advocacy planning, he argues that ‘spatial planning not
only consists of elaborating maps or regulations. It is not only a technical matter, beyond the
reach of society which delegated the decision-making process to experts hidden behind
scientific “truth” or juridical authority. Spatial planning really is a political process aimed at
reaching an equilibrium through concerted dialogue…In this new context, the role of the
urban planner includes tasks of mediation… mixing scientific and political interests, all of
which can be facilitated by a transdisciplinary approach.’ (Pinson, 2004, p. 509).

Transdisciplinarity and experimental governance for the present and future

Even though there is no universal definition of transdisciplinarity

(Doucet & Janssens, 2011, p. 2 (Eds.); Jahn et al., 2012, pp. 2–3)
, for the purpose of this essay, it is defined as the
collaboration between several academic and non-academic actors to achieve a common goal
and develop new solutions for society’s problems. This approach expands the scope of actors
by including society as communities or individuals. It is therefore significantly linked to
experimental governance. This last concept refers to experiments developed on a quadruple
helix of collaboration between the public and private sector, academia, and civil society
(Fig.1), which seeks to co-create and raise pertinent questions and answers for the future
through horizontal negotiations, shared responsibilities, and distributed decision-making
(Eneqvist et al., 2022, p. 1597).

Civil Society

Academia

Public

Private

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Figure 1: From the master to experimental governance
Source: own elaboration
There is a wide range of experiments, yet they should all be practice-oriented, collaborative,
and involve learning-by-doing (Potjer, 2019, p. 15). Furthermore, as experiments may fail, this
approach is not goal-oriented but rather process-oriented, thus taking distance from traditional
time and cost-efficiency planning. In this process, local governments play a fundamental role
in several phases of the process, acting as enablers, partners, and promoters
(Eneqvist & Karvonen, 2021, p. 184)
.

Experimental governance is emerging in many cities around the world in the form of
urban living labs, urban experiments, urban laboratories, among others, and they are all aiming
to look for creative and sustainable solutions to different urban problems. However, some
critiques have been made of experimental governance. Firstly, as Eneqvist et al., described in
their study, there is a problem regarding the legitimacy of municipalities during the different
stages of the process. There are no procedures to ‘ensure openness, transparency and fairness
in the practice of experimental governance’ (Eneqvist et al., 2022, p. 1609) . Additionally,
considering that an important element of experimental governance is learning between
experiments, the process of transitioning from small-scale experiments to a broader social
context becomes harder without a solid institutional background, resources, and communities
(Ersoy & Van Bueren, 2020, p. 98), which may explain why experimental governance is more
common in cities from the global north. Nevertheless, by studying cases from the global south,
it can be noted that experimental governance is mostly oriented to solving social issues, where
some of the initiatives come from organized communities. This gives new insights into how
this tool adapts -and may adapt in the future- to deal with urgent problems like poverty and
inequality (Duarte Masi, 2016, p. 79).

Conclusion
It is undeniable that the study of the masters who developed large urban plans
in the XIX century is important to understand the current state of many European cities.
Moreover, after reviewing the work of Cerdá and Hobrecht, we can now tell that the top-down
approach of these plans failed to address issues outside the built environment. From this point
on, urban planning evolved from a technical and slightly interdisciplinary realm to an
extended scope of disciplines including social, political, and economic areas. By the 1960s, it
was already becoming clear that urban planning was not possible to circumscribe in a single
discipline, but rather it would work as a mediator between different actors who are interested
in the city, paying attention to the most vulnerable groups of society, while exploring bottom-
up approaches.

In current times, the discussion has moved from interdisciplinary and

multidisciplinary to transdisciplinary, where civil society must become a central actor in urban
planning, abandoning the figure of the masters in decision-making. In this context,
experimental governance emerges as a methodology to coordinate private, public, academic,
and civil society actors, diverging from traditional goal-oriented planning. Local governments
and Municipalities play a significant role as promoters, enablers, and partners, which may
present risks of legitimacy and transparency in the process. Furthermore, the requirement of a
solid institutional background makes experimental governance harder to implement outside
the global north. Nonetheless, it is being implemented across Africa, Asia and Latin America,
focusing mostly on social issues, with some experiments emerging from organized
communities. Going back to Friedmann’s argument, this methodology, applied in the global
south, presents real opportunities for self-empowerment of the people to change the rules of
the game and improve their living conditions. Urban planners must therefore engage with
other players to learn, present knowledge, and find innovative solutions for contemporary
problems.

5
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