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GARDEN CITY OF TOMORROW-buvana
GARDEN CITY OF TOMORROW-buvana
GARDEN CITY OF TOMORROW-buvana
By,
G.bhuvaneswari,
2nd year m.arch,3rd sem,
Pmu,vallam
Sir Ebenezer Howard
(29th January 1850– May 1st, 1928)
AN INTRODUCTION -
• Sir Ebenezer Howard was born as the
son of a shopkeeper in the City of
London, on 29th of January 1850.
• After schooling, he took on a number of
clerical posts.
• In 1871, he emigrated to the frontier
country of America to become a farmer.
• He subsequently spent four years living in
Chicago, witnessing it’s rebuilding
following the great fire.
• It was during this time, he began to
contemplate ways to improve cities.
GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT: The Origin -
• Howard was heavily influenced by the utopian visions of Edward
Bellamy and his publication Looking Backward (1888).
• Sir Ebenezer Howard is known for his publication Garden Cities of To-
morrow (1898), the description of a utopian city in which people live
harmoniously together with nature.
• The ideas put forth in To-morrow were a synthesis of his personal
experiences and the works of others.
• The publication resulted in the founding of the garden city movement,
that realized several Garden Cities in Great Britain at the beginning of
the 20th century.
• The first garden cities proposed were Letchworth and Welwyn in 1903
and 1920 respectively.
GARDEN CITIES OF TOMORROW : The Book –
• This book offered a vision of towns free of slums and enjoying the
benefits of both town (such as opportunity, amusement and good
wages) and country (such as beauty, fresh air and low rents).
• He illustrated the idea with his famous Three Magnets diagram
which addressed the question 'Where will the people go?', the
choices being 'Town', 'Country' or 'Town-Country'.
• It proposed the creation of new suburban towns of limited size,
planned in advance, and surrounded by a permanent belt of
agricultural land.
• These Garden cities were used as the model for many suburbs.
• Howard believed that such Garden Cities were the perfect
blend of city and nature.
• The towns would be largely independent, managed by the
citizens who had an economic interest in them, and financed
by ground rents on the Georgist model.
• The land on which they were to be built was to be owned by a
group of trustees and leased to the citizens.
THE CURE - Sir Ebenezer Howard
• It is important to understand the context to which Howard’s work was a
reaction.
• London (and other cities) in the 19th century were in the throws of
industrialization, and the cities were exerting massive forces on the
labour markets of the time.
• Massive immigration from the countryside to the cities was taking
place with London.
• This situation was unsustainable and political commentators of all
parties sought “how best to provide the proper antidote against the
greatest danger of modern existence” (St. Jame’s Gazette, 1892)
• To Howard the cure was simple - to reintegrate people with the
countryside.
• In trying to understand and represent the attraction of the city
he compared each city to a magnet, with individuals
represented as needles drawn to the city.
• He set about comparing the ‘town and country magnets’ but
decided that neither were suitable attractors for his utopian
vision.
• Instead he believed that “Human society and the beauty of
nature are meant to be enjoyed together” – hence giving his
solution “the two magnets must be made one.”
• "Town and country must be united, and out of this joyous
union, will spring a new hope, a new life, a new civilization."
THE THREE MAGNETS - The People, Where will they go?
The Three Magnets Diagram (below) makes three points:
- Town life has good and bad characteristics
- Country life has good and bad characteristics
- Town-Country life can have all the good things about
life in towns and life in the country - without any of
the bad things.
TOWN COUNTRY
POSITIVE ASPECTS NEGATIVE ASPECTS POSITIVE ASPECTS NEGATIVE ASPECTS
An Analysis
• Land of 3822 acres
• Reserved Green belt- 1300 acres
• Designed for a maximum of 35000 population
• In 30 years – developed with 15000 population & 150 shops, industries.
An Analysis
.• Land of 2378 acres
• Designed for a maximum of 40000
population
• In 15 years – developed with 10000
population & 50 shops, industries.
Welwyn Garden City- Arrangement from top.
• Streets are designed so as
to give the concept of a
Neighborhood unit.
• Personalization of Homes in
Welwyn with varying roofline,
texture and composition for
each house.
RADBURN, NEW JERSEY
• Radburn was planned by architects Clarence Stein and Henry Wright in 1928.
• It is America’s first garden community, serving as a world wide example of the
harmonious blending of private space and open area.
• Radburn provided a prototype for the new towns to meet the requirements
for contemporary good living.
• Radburn was designed to occupy one square mile of land and house some
25,000 residents.
• However, the Great Depression limited the development to only 149 acres.
• Radburn created a unique alternative to the conventional suburban
development through the use of cul-de-sacs, interior parklands, and cluster
housing.
• Although Radburn is smaller than planned, it still plays a very important role
in the history of urban planning.
• The Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA) used Radburn as a
garden city experiment.
RADBURN CONSISTS OF-
• Residential areas
• 149 acres of interior parks,
• Walkways.
• 2 swimming pools,
• 4 tennis courts,
• 2 playgrounds,
• Archery plaza and a school,
• 2 outdoor basketball courts
• A community center, which houses administrative
offices, library, gymnasium, clubroom and service
and maintenance areas.
ELEMENTS OF THE RADBURN CITY
• Park as backbone of the neighborhood.
• Specialized Highway system, Complete separation of vehicular and pedestrian
traffic with 21% of road areas.
• The Radburn planners achieved the separation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic
through the use of the superblocks, cul-de-sacs, and pedestrian-only pathways.
• Through the use of the superblock, houses in Radburn were uniquely designed
to have two fronts.
• The ‘back side’ of the house, what we would normally consider the front side,
faced the culs-de-sac and parking.
• The kitchen was normally placed in the back to provide visitors a place to enter
the house.
• The ‘front side’ of the house faced towards the green spaces or parks
encouraging pedestrian traffic.
• Since automobiles were given limited access to the ‘backs’ of the houses, the
‘fronts’ of the house were relatively quiet, therefore, the bedrooms were always
placed on this side of the house.
• The 2900 residents of Radburn share 23 acres of interior parks, which yield 345
square feet / person.
Housing blocks