A Street by Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright has simultaneous reputations as perhaps the greatest architect the USA has ever produced and simultaneously its worst ever urban designer. American suburbia is often thought to be built at a density of about eight dwellings per acre. This can increase to about 20 acres per acre if a terraced-house (or row-house) typology is used. Frank Lloyd Wright, in his landmark urban design statement, Broadacre City, proposed that density should actually be set at one dwelling per acre. The disastrous effect this would have on walkable distances, mixture of uses and reduced car dependency can be imagined.

Imagine my surprise, therefore when I came across these buildings in Milwaukee, on my second visit to the USA. A cluster of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings built in close proximity, a street no less.

These buildings were commissioned in 1911 by Arthur Richards, a Milwaukee real estate developer, who developed, with Wright, an approach to housing known as the American System-Built Houses. The idea was to create housing off-site, prefabricated in factories, using timber-frame techniques, working to a two foot module. The house kit-of-parts could be delivered anywhere in the USA via  railroad. In reality, for various reasons, only twenty such homes were ever built.   

As an urbanist, Frank Lloyd Wright has been much mocked over the years. By way of  a corollary, the American academic Neil Levine has pointed out that Wright produced excellent designs for difficult very urban sites in cities as diverse as Pittsburgh, Washington DC, Madison and Baghdad.  

Still, who would have thought that Wright was capable of producing an urban design proposal as dense and sustainable as “the Street”?

Villa Tugendhat

The State of France

Last summer I attempted to fulfil a long-held ambition: to travel down the Loire valley in France from its source to the sea.  The journey began at Le Havre which provided an excellent opportunity to see the most comprehensive  collection of buildings by Auguste Perret in France or indeed the world. Le Havre is a city whose centre was almost entirely destroyed by war  in 1944; the responsibility for reconstruction was basically the responsibility of one architect, Auguste Perret.

The whole centre has strongly formal Neo-Classical quality, based as it is around  axis and squares. This Neo-Classical approach extends from both the urban design strategy to the individual buildings. When Le Corbusier came to design the great sequence of spaces that form the entrance to the Capitol complex at Chandigarh he apparently based many of the proportions on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris.  In Le Havre  Perret  draws on a different architectural precedent, in this case, it would seem, the Parisian apartment block. The proportions are not reproduced exactly; there are nods in the direction of modernity, the  buildings shoot up from the bench-mark average of around four stories to mini-Rockefeller Centre proportions. Perhaps the greatest difference here is one of materials, the buildings here are not constructed of stone but of reinforced concrete.

Walking around the centre of  Le Havre  I felt that Perret and his team had avoided the  monotony often associated with system buildings of the 1960’s. Perret and his team seem to have found different ways of detailing concrete ensuring that, though there is a degree of unity, there is sufficient variety too. It is possible to argue that the ultimate uniformity comes from repetition of the  window unit. Christian Norberg-Schulz  argues that the proportions of French windows were determined by the quality of French light, something felt to be unique, from the age of stained glass to the time of the Impressionists. The proportions of the classical French window ensure that the window reaches down to the floor. The  balcony frontage ensures  “inhabitants can participate in the life of the street below”, indicating that “mixed-use” was once a natural component of the French city.

There are several sites within the city with a claim to the city’s  Stadtkrowne or city crown , such as the  Oscar Niemeyer buildings or centre of municipal government, Hotel de Ville. The Church of Saint Joseph by Perrett is for me my nomination for  candidate for this title. As an ecclesiastical architect, Perret tends to be remembered  for buildings such as Notre Dame du Raincy, often viewed as a sort of reinterpretation of a Gothic idiom. This attitude was always simplistic, stylistic and shallow. In that building he employed vaulting techniques in innovative ways even if the stained glass seemed to owe something to precedent. At St Joseph in Le Havre, he allows his modernist instincts a much freer reign. It  side steps any attempt to reproduce the spatial qualities of France’s medieval cathedrals. If you are looking for a historical precedent perhaps the centralised, Greek cross plan is a relevant example here or the Adolf Loos design for the   Chicago Tribune building. Quite unprecedented is the  single unified space at the centre of the building,  a column of light extending some  84m into the air. Highly impressive are the concrete finishes, detailing and structure such as the cross-bracing to the tower. Concrete as a material with architectural potential occasionally comes back into fashion.  Here Perret’s  building sets   exemplary standards which are still relevant today.

                                                                          St Joseph by Perret

The rectilinear architecture which makes up most of the centre of Le Havre, of course, seems highly fashionable today. More surprising is the evident success of the centre, devoid of the stigma of social failure often associated with  high-density  housing and “New Towns”. Although you can  argue how successful the French New Towns program has been, Le Havre  certainly seemed a great improvement  on many British new towns and does not require the sort of regeneration currently being undertaken in  Bracknell.

Travelling through France, by car if not by train, it is surprising to what extent out-of-town retail parks have been given the “green light”  by French authorities.  Again and again, I came across towns whose outskirts consisted of large retail parks, developments which would make Las Vegas look like a model of restraint and elegance.  This is certainly not the case in Holland where retail is usually integrated into mixed-use developments. When I arrived at Tours I stayed in a hotel in  a huge retail development, with the small consolation of a tram line that would take me into the town centre. Public space is generally well designed in France so perhaps they need to re-invent the notion of mixed-use.

The French are not exactly famous for an addiction to suburbia so how exactly has the vitality of French town centres seeped away?  An interesting article appeared on this subject in The New York Times   where it seems that the decline of provincial towns has reached the level of a  malaise.

The route I traversed passed by many key sites  of Gothic architecture. The theorist seeking a guide to these buildings  can turn to many sources; Ruskin was often considered to be the essential source of authority on this subject, though, in fact, he had some very strange views on the subject. He regarded Venice as the essential home of Gothic architecture when, in fact, it originated in France. Venice and Britain were regarded as nations with parallel destinies; one  the home of a once-great  maritime empire, the other  Britain when its own empire  was at its height. Many of his writings  should be regarded as poetic interpretations of architecture and, in that sense, they excel. Another potential theoretical source might be Pugin though he  tended to see everything in terms of religious fundamentalism.   For a rational, technical, Cartesian interpreter of Gothic a   better guide  to Gothic  would be Viollet-le-Duc.

Viollet-le-Duc had an upbringing rather typical of his time; anti-clerical, secular, republican. He became one of the chief figures of the Gothic revival in 19^th Century Europe. His success as a restorer of Gothic architecture was cemented by the commission to restore   Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris; the support of Victor Hugo, the author of the novel “Notre Dame de Paris” , was crucial in obtaining this commission.         

The period of Gothic architecture can be rightly seen as one of the most innovative periods in the entire history of architecture, a period made possible by two technical innovations, the pointed arch and the flying buttress. Roman (and Romanesque) Architecture utilised semi-circular arches, which because they usually rise to the same height, usually imply square bays. With pointed arches, however, by varying the steepness of the angle of the arches or ribs it was possible to achieve rectangular bays or indeed rhomboidal or polygonal shaped structures. Gothic Architecture was thus able to achieve a level of spatial complexity not previously achieved by Roman and Romanesque Architecture.  The flying buttress was also a technical innovation of equal importance. Buttresses had been used before, for example, in large works of Roman architecture such as thermae and basilicas. Buttresses of this type had been built at regular intervals along walls whose top consisted of the springing for groin or barrel vaulting. Their mass helped to resist the spreading movement of the vaulting above. The innovation that Gothic architecture made was to separate the buttress from the building, joining it with an arch. This made large clerestory windows possible and removed shadow-casting buttresses instead flooding the interiors with natural light.

Viollet-le-Duc  argues that many of the features of Gothic architecture were generated by the nature of the construction process in France in the 12^th and 13^th Centuries. Stone was the natural material to use as  quarries were plentiful. Stone was an expensive material which had to be used economically hence it had to be used in an efficient way. Features such as ribs in the vaulting had been generated by the needs of the construction process. The ribs had been erected first on timber centering; the shell infill added later without the need for more centering (Viollet-le-Duc argues unconvincingly that this was necessary due to timber shortages).

He finds a functional justification for every aspect of the finished design. The ribs in the vaulting act, for instance, act as reinforcement to what is basically a groin vault. In a typical Gothic cathedral the buttress is separated from the main building by an arch, partly to let more light in through the clerestory and partly to allow people move around the outside to clean the windows. The buttress is surmounted by a large mass of stone in order to weigh the buttress down and prevent it from overturning. The opening between the arcade and clerestory, known as the triforium, is there to help lighten the structure. All the mouldings have a functional justification too. Externally they throw off rain-water; internally they act as footings to vaulting or corbels to indicate level. Viollet-le-Duc is not opposed to ornament but believes it is secondary.  All ornament is based on local flora or  an enrichment, never  a distortion, of the essential structure.

Most of Viollet-le-Duc’s theories about the functionality of Gothic architecture are to some extent rational and to some extent hypothetical; a more genuinely scientific answer to these questions might be found  in the writings of the American  academic, Robert Mark.

When one reads a writer like Christopher Alexander, it becomes clear that it is something of a myth that the origins of Gothic architecture lie in the work of Abbot Suger at the cathedral of St-Denis. The reality is rather more complicated. I recall my surprise, many years ago, at seeing pointed arches in Durham Cathedral in what is clearly a Romanesque building. Alexander  states that these arches were built between 1120 and 1133.  The West front and Choir  of the Abbey of St. Dennis were begun  in 1140 , followed shortly after by the commencement of construction on the Cathedral of Notre Dame between  1150 and 1155.

The first major Gothic building   I visited was the cathedral of Chartres. With its vertical quality and green roof it appears like a great ship sailing across rural France, dominating the surrounding countryside. One of its most initially arresting qualities is the asymmetrical towers. Their disparity can be explained by their construction dates. The rebuilt north tower was finished in 1514, whereas the south tower was finished in 1155. The latter was built  at a time when the new architecture was ridding itself of the last vestiges of Romanesque  influence whereas the influence of Flamboyant tracery was at its peak  when the north tower was completed. 

                                                                         Cathedral of Chartres

In addition to its tectonic qualities, Chartres is a triumph of decorative art. It has the most admired stained-glass of any cathedral in France. Almost equally admired is the stunning sculptures on its west, north and south portals.

When I arrived the building was surrounded by French soldiers, a reflection of the state of emergency the French government had placed the country under. I was not even allowed to take a penknife inside. However,  I was able to walk round the outside, admiring  the flying buttresses. The roof is covered by quadripartite vaulting, i.e. a single bay of what is basically a pointed groin vault covers one bay of the arcade.

From Chartres I went onto Le Mans to visit the cathedral, almost  the only outstanding piece of architecture I saw in a very disappointing town. I paused to admire the  flying buttresses, one of the most impressive examples of this kind of tectonic form along with Beauvais and then travelled onwards to Bourges.

                                                                        Cathedral of Le Mans

The Cathedral of Bourges provides much food for thought regarding the development of Gothic. Rather like the Cathedral of Wells, the west facade    is dominated by two towers,  albeit that in this example, the main feature  seems to a rather curious lozenge-shaped window.  The interior, despite the fact that it has no transept , is one of the most extraordinary of any French Gothic cathedral. The building has double aisles, unlike Chartres where these occur only at the ambulatory towards the east end. The clerestory windows are much smaller. The overall vaulting feels much more spacious, the sense of rhythm, regarding the spaces and the way in which they progress towards the east end is entirely different. This is hardly surprising since Bourges utilises  sexpartite vaulting. Each bay of vaulting covers two of arcade. The vault has a six-fold division instead of four by the addition of ribs across the central space, half way between the diagonal ribs. This means the top of the arcades alternate as a springing  point for one rib on one pillar and for three at the next.

                                                                        Cathedral of Bourges

When compared to Chartres it becomes a moot point regarding which building is more progressive in terms of aesthetic and technical development. Bourges was begun in 1192, Chartres in 1194. The buttress system used at Chartres is massive apart from the relatively light upper flyers. Each tall pier buttress weighs about one million kilograms exclusive of its foundations. This can be contrasted with Bourges where each pier weighs four hundred thousand kilograms, a more economical approach. The more acute flying buttresses at Bourges transmit the vaulting load directly to the ground. The buttresses at Chartres have three elements; the light upper flyer, the two heavy lower flyers linked by a series of colonettes and also the triangular wall under the side aisle roof.

By contrast the flying buttresses at Chartres are described by Robert Mark as  “relatively ponderous – even somewhat clumsy from a technological point of view.”

The purpose of the upper flyer has often caused controversy among writers on architecture. In Chartres the clerestory windows drop well below the springing of the vaults. The upper flyer connects with the exterior of the building on a level equal to the top of the clerestory and hence cannot receive any of the outward thrust of the roof vaults. To understand their real purpose, it is probably necessary to visualise a ship’s sails. By conducting analysis tests on models, Robert Mark concluded that their purpose was to resist wind loading.

In the development from Early to High Gothic  there is also a development from sexpartite to quadripartite vaulting. This can be explained in both in aesthetic and technical terms. 

It can be argued that the crucial building in Gothic structural development is  Notre Dame in Paris. The vaulting in Notre Dame in Pars is sexpartite, that is each bay has six ribs in it. One bay of sexpartite vaulting covers two bays of the arcade. In French Gothic cathedrals vertical shafts usually run from the arcade to the vaulting visually connecting the two. If the cathedral has sexpartite vaulting, the springing alternates between a pier capital receiving one rib and  alternate pier capitals receiving three. This rhythm was often accompanied by an alternating rhythm in the wall shafts i.e. in Laon cathedral the support shafts alternate between three and five. It also has horizontal bands .

From an aesthetic point of view, quadripartite vaults have an entirely different spatial  quality. Each bay is rectangular in shape. Each bay of vaulting covers one bay of arcade. This helps to create a sense of unity to the interior. Rectangular bays have a sense of movement to them, unlike the stasis of square bays. Whether or not this was an aesthetic advance is debatable. 

Alternatively, the development from sexpartite to quadripartite vaulting can be justified on technical grounds. Some people have thought that quadripartite vaulting was actually lighter but scientific tests have shown that sexpartite vaulting is actually lighter. The technical advantage of quadripartite vaulting lies in the way they transmit longitudinal forces. These are the forces that run along the axis of the main nave and choir. The force of the thrust of the roof vaults as it meets the  springing usually translates into three components; a downward thrust down the nave wall, an outward thrust perpendicular to the axis of the nave, resisted by the flying buttresses and finally a longitudinal thrust against the adjacent wall. As Early Gothic developed into Highly Gothic clerestories became larger. On either side of the vault there was no longer stone, as at Bourges, but  glass as at  Chartres. Hence ways had to be found to reduce the longitudinal thrust along the nave and choir. Sexpartite vaults, because the greater angle they meet the wall and the way in which the number of ribs alternates, exert more longitudinal force. Quadripartite vaulting directs more of the force directly out to the flying buttresses. Hence the move towards  quadripartite vaulting and larger clerestories are part of one technical development.

There remains the question: how are these building to be run and maintained? The journalist Simon Jenkins has argued that cathedrals should now be viewed as part of a city’s cultural assets like a city art gallery or symphony orchestra.

At  Tours  I was able to visit the  Vinci Conference Centre designed by Jean Nouvel.  This building has three auditoria and exhibition space enabling it to host a variety of activities, from music performances to pharmaceutical conferences.   The exhibition spaces are largely column-free: the load-bearing structure only touches the ground at a few points, the auditoria being suspended on cable structures. Here one of the building’s administrators, Monsieur Henry Rivoire, demonstrates the top of one of the junctions of column and cable structures. 

  

When photographing a Jean Nouvel building I really think you should take the Claude Monet approach: visit the building in every conceivable state of natural light and try to capture every variety of image. However, time constraints made such an approach impossible to I was left with the possibilities of one sunny afternoon. To quote Jean Nouvel as narrated by Conway Lloyd Morgan:

“Traditional architecture was based on fixing solid and void. This approach overlooked the primacy of light….For me, light is matter, and light is a material, a basic material. Once you understand how light varies, and varies our perceptions, your architectural vocabulary is immediately extended, in ways classical architecture  never thought of. An architecture of ephemerality becomes possible…..mutable ones, changed by light and changing with light. Not only through changes in daylight, but through changing the interior lighting of the building, and playing with different opacities and transparencies………..My buildings are planned around five, six, or seven different sets of lighting conditions, from the start. Had I started with just one set -  as some other architects still do -  the result would be very different: but not acceptable to me!”

                                                       Conference center in Tours by Jean Nouvel

The journey  ended at Nantes, near the mouth of The Loire. I visited  newly regenerated  residential neighbourhoods which seemed like places where people would actually want to live, unlike the Le Mans, desperately in need of regeneration.    I did not have time to photograph these neighbourhoods in Nantes.  I did, however, have time to visit and photograph a  new cultural quarter, on the banks of the river in the southwest of the city.

The foundation project in this quarter seemed to be a building which housed the function of law courts, a work also by  Jean Nouvel. With characteristic Nouvel thoroughness, it seemed as if a whole range of light conditions had planned for the building. The Cartesian grid which is carried throughout the whole building might, I suppose, be seen, as a symbol of fairness and rationality.

                                       

                                                     Law Courts building in Nantes by Jean Nouvel

The quarter also contained  an architecture centre which contained  an exhibition of projects for the region, both planned and realised. As well as residential projects there seemed to be an ecole des beaux arts  going up next door. Pride of place seemed to belong to a new school of architecture by Vactal & Lasson.

The demise of French culture, often  predicted,  seems premature; on the contrary, French architecture  is alive and well today.

                                                     Gothic-revival  building in London

                                                                Notre Dame, Paris

(In writing this piece the author referenced texts by Viollet-le-Duc, Ruskin, Christopher Wilson, Robert Mark and Conway Lloyd Morgan. All photos and drawings by author.)

Book Review: “The Fabric of Place” by Allies and Morrison

Allies and Morrison have long occupied a curious place within the perceived hierarchy of British architectural practices. They tend to be viewed as creators of reliable yet un-iconic architecture.  Yet this preference for fabric over the iconic is deliberate, based as it is on a subtle reading of British cities.

A philosophy of urban design is central to their work. They state their belief that the street has more historical continuity than individual buildings. They state that they would like users to be unaware of where their master-plans end and the surrounding fabric begins. Since they see urban design as dealing  more with process than form, it is appropriate that the illustrations for projects like King’s Cross and Brent Cross, Cricklewood  are expressed often in the form of street sections.    For them the most important response to the Great Fire of London in 1666 was not Christopher Wren’s masterplan but the building code expressed in the 1667 Act for rebuilding the City of London.

I had long thought that Aalto must be a key influence on  Allies and Morrison. This influence is drawn not from the Aalto of exuberant organic form but of constrained, orthogonal sites, the Stockmann Academic Bookstore  being the Aalto building here examined as a precedent. The lesson here seems to be that simple, orthogonal buildings can work provided that their proximity does not reveal a poverty of detailing. Indeed, this book confirms other expectations i.e. the key strategic issue for the Olympic park was felt to be healing the rift that the Lea Valley imposed upon east London.

                          The Stockmann Bookshop in Helsinki by Aalto

It is fascinating to see the rationale behind some of their more famous projects. For instance, their strategy for the re-development of the Royal Festival Hall; unlike more grandiose strategies for the South Bank, their approach was to simply  provide a fabric or context for the building  and rationalise its interior   by  removing commercial uses to the outside.

Clearly they have always drawn on the example of Arabic architecture so it  is interesting to see how they respond when given the chance to work in this context. Such projects give them the opportunity to most fully express their vocabulary of urban place-making, endowing sites in Doha and Beirut with a  variety of external spaces such  as alleys, pocket piazzas and gardens, all framed by characteristically  simple buildings. In fact, whatever the context, be it  a Victorian building in London or a British cathedral city, their response is more driven by qualities such as grain rather than style. Many of their buildings have qualities in common with modern, abstract art; the strategy seems to be that simple ideas gain strength through repetition.

In this Allies and Morrison building in Farnborough, surely the influence of Aalto can be detected.

                     Future proposals  for Farnborough by Allies and Morrison

The book includes an essay by Robert Maxwell and Bob  Allies locating their approach to urban design in the context of urban design theory,   from the orthodoxies of CIAM to the more nuanced approach we see today.

It can almost be read almost as a primer on the subject of urban design.

( All photographs by author. A version of this article appeared in Building Design)

Extending Aalto

Last year I fulfilled a long-held ambition: to visit Finland to see the work of whom, for me, is one of the key modern architects, Alvar Aalto. I travelled north from Helsinki to Seinajoki which holds a sort of Acropolis of Aalto’s architecture since he designed the entire civic centre.

                         Old library undergoing renovation on left with
                         new library on right.

Although I managed to see inside the church, theatre and town hall, I could not get inside the library which was closed for renovations. It is, in fact, in the process of being connected, via a tunnel, with a new, already built library extension by JKMM architects, an extension much bigger than the original building. The demand for library use in Finland seems to have gone up not down in the current digital age. Libraries and books seem to hold an important place in Finnish culture. The Finns consume enormous amounts of books, newspapers and coffee incidentally.

The new building is clad in copper scales.

The architects strategy seems to have been to provide a contrast to Aalto,  eschewing  organic geometry, preferring a  preference for a geometry based on perspective.  Low ceilings emphasise the sense of a horizon, so although the space you are in is three-dimensional, your attention is directed neither up nor down but forwards. This is perhaps part of the architect’s  philosophy, that the most important part of a libraries function is that of a social space.

The low, enclosed ceilings are broken by sudden  eruptions  of space, suggesting a conceptual vision of space rather than an organic. 

The contemporary notion that the  library need to be  re-invented  as a social space, a strategy well –attested by other architects, is  here evinced by a myriad of strategies. The open plan library contains an auditoria/ stepped-seating area for events. Special rooms are set aside for more private events. Newspapers and periodical are displayed under openable glass cases. There is a small café. Stands display grab bags  containing  random contents intended to offer mind-expanding experiences.

 As well as providing multiple viewing boxes,   certain alcove/reading spaces have been provided throughout the library, mostly for children.

The new library, as well as being partially underground, affords excellent views of the original Aalto civic centre, at both ground and basement levels.

The library contains  windows seemingly based on an Indiana Jones logic , where the entrance of sun-beams, at certain times of the day and year allows sunlight to fall on certain precisely calculated locations .

A local artist, Aino Ristimäki, mounted an exhibition when I was there entitled “Sairauskertomukseni” (My case history).

Architectural culture, both in terms of creative talent and the political will which recognizes its worth and is willing to pay for it, seems alive and well in Finland.

Urbino & London; Italian lessons and British Context

“Make of a house a small city and of a city a large house”

Attributed to Alberti and Aldo Van Eyck

The city of Urbino in Marche, Italy is often taken to be perhaps  the perfect Renaissance city. The architectural highlights of this city include the Ducal Palace, with its courtyard by Bramante, the Duomo Cathedral and the Sanzio Theatre with its subterranean ramp.   This is a walled, multi-levelled city. You enter through one of the city gates ( three or four I recall) ascending a steeply inclined street/ramp. This leads you through the city fabric to the two main  piazzas of the city from where you can visit the main city monuments.

                                                Plan of Urbino

Urbino  establishes an almost perfect balance between architecture and nature. Everyone who lives inside it lives in an apartment with no access to a personally owned garden. However, residents  can easily walk into the surrounding countryside. When we look at a plan it is clear that the overall footprint of the walled historic city is about 400m by 1000m. A person walking at 3 miles an hour covers almost exactly 400m in five minutes. Hence the  journey time a pedestrian will take to reach the countryside will only be in a matter of five or ten minutes. Despite the fact that, in its overall footprint, it is approximately the size of an English village, it feels like a city, largely due to its buildings being four to six stories high.  For various reasons, probably largely economic, it never grew as a city. Its high density environment has remained largely unchanged exuding a strong feeling of being frozen in time. After the last war a decision was taken to greatly expand the university leading to the appointment of the architect Giancarlo de Carlo in 1956. Some of the city centre buildings have been converted to academic uses. A large cluster of academic buildings have been created on the other side of the next hill.

It is illuminating to compare the example of Urbino with  London. Going back to the example of Urbino, we can see that London once occupied a similarly scaled footprint, when it’s size did not much exceed its Roman/Medieval boundaries. When it began to expand, at first basically into Westminster, the pattern of growth began to change. The growth of London can  illustrated by showing precise maps at different stages in its development.

           London during the time of Queen Elizabeth I (Reign 1558-1603) 

Queen Elizabeth I tried to limit the growth of London by issuing a proclamation in 1580  forbidding  the construction of any new buildings within 3 miles of the city walls and also established the principle that no more than one family should live in each house.  In her time, London meant what is now basically perceived as the City of London, what is now the  financial district, plus a small part of Southwark. The demographics of London meant that this decree was eventually unenforceable. West London, what is today Westminster, was the home to many estates owned by aristocrats, convents and monasteries, hospitals and lawyers i.e. important  households set in mostly open land. Gradually, bit by bit, this land was developed into the built fabric of London we see today. The Monarch’s attempts to control development did bear  fruit in the sense that the Government established a system whereby developments could only go ahead if a licence was granted, prefiguring today’s  planning system. A license was often only granted if a development was seen as being of sufficiently high quality.  For example, in the case of Saint James, the estate was divided up;  the Tudor palace of St James was preserved along with a small amount of open land, what today is St James Park. An enterprising developer, the Earl of St Albans was allowed to develop the northern part of the estate  into a mixed-use neighbourhood comprising a square, housing and eventually the church of St James in Piccadilly designed by Sir Christopher Wren. This, in fact, was the pattern of development for the expansion of London: neighbourhoods  with a mixture of uses i.e. some housing plus other functions such as a church or market and  including some open land. This polycentric pattern of growth ultimately culminated, in the context of the 18^th Century,  in  the Georgian city of the Hanoverians recorded in  John Rocque’s plan of London.

 

                                   John Rocque’s plan of London in 1746

The ancient City of London had virtually no green space within its boundaries. It did not need to, being so small. Seeing that its street pattern has never really changed, this absence of green space remains even today. As the great estates of west London were built on, it was always felt wise to reserve some of the green space as a park. This is the ultimate origin of west London’s great series of parks.

We are used to seeing sections through  buildings and even cities to illustrate how spaces relate to each other. We also need sections through peoples’  lives to see the dwellings and towns or cities they choose to live in at that  point in their lives. When I visited New York I remember talking to someone who described the life pattern of many young Americans. They live in an apartment when young but latter, when they are often married with children, they choose to move away to a house with a garden. It is also worth remarking how an area like the City of London has almost entirely changed over the centuries from a mixed-use neighbourhood, where people lived as well as worked, to an almost entirely mono-functional area consisting of offices. Perhaps this can be taken as a classic symptom of a city which has been allowed to become too big. There are, of course, developments such as The Barbican which might be taken as an attempt to re-introduce mixed-use back into the City of London. Perhaps the most obvious lesson is, to return to the quotation which began this piece, is that high density works best when a city is at quite a small scale.

The Georgian city recorded in John Rocque’s plan did not, of course, mark the end of the city’s growth. If a city’s growth patterns are formed by its transportation patterns then, of course, further plans could be presented:  the age of the railways, i.e. the Victorian age and the age of the early motor car, i.e. the 1930’s leading up Patrick Abercrombie’s plan of 1945; the decision to limit the growth of London by a green belt and direct new growth to eight satellite towns.

What lessons can be learnt  here on the subject of a city’s growth?  Firstly, it is clear that a city grows in a process similar to cellular sub-division. New neighbourhoods are added to existing neighbourhoods. What constitutes a neighbourhood might be understood as an area with a mixture of uses which can be easily traversed. In the age of Urbino it was determined by the walking distance of a pedestrian. The lesson here is that man as the measure of all things i.e. the pedestrian scale, is the correct scale by which to gauge the development of the polycentric city. It is also true that attempts to mitigate the effects of excessive urbanism by the use of the typology of the house with garden can be inadequate. The third lesson might be that it is possible to argue that an excessively urban design environment cannot be mitigated by  more neighbourhoods with this type of the housing and that to the lessons of mixed-use and pedestrian scale  must be added the notion that the entire size of a   city can actually be allowed to become too big.

Clearly the growth of a city can be seen as requiring a major strategic rethink once it has acquired a certain size. What is needed is a solution that goes beyond simply more houses with gardens. Offering suburbia as a solution to the problem of city growth can be rather simplistic.  In itself suburbia does not really constitute an urban design proposal since it only deals with one function of the city, housing. The early urban design proposals of Le Corbusier may have been ludicrously simplistic, no more than over-scaled diagrams. However, Le Corbusier did reduce a city to simply four functions and not just one. The Athens Charter included work, leisure and circulation along with housing as the four basic functions of the city.

 

In this description of the growth of London, I am indebted to Rasmussen’s book, “London: The Unique City,” possibly the finest book ever written on the growth of a city and certainly, in my view, perhaps the finest book on London. All I can say is read it in its entirety.

(Thanks to Rob Bourke for plan of Urbino.  All other images are either by author,have had copyright ownership traced as far as possible or believed to be in public domain )