What is Planning Theory?SPT-E1030 Planning Theory20.09.2018Vesa KanninenUniversity Lecturer050 512 4632 vesa.kanninen@aalto.fi

Learning diaries• Overall: EXCELLENT WORK!• The missing pages?• Get the names right!• No time to think about the

bigger picture around theplanning issues?

• Where does “theory” come from?• Planning theory asd a whole is:

vague, obscure, haphazard,complex, multidisciplinary,…?

• “From People, to the People” but what is in between?

• From great men togreat planning theorists?!!

• What is public interest? What is common good?

“Fortunately, most of us can’t imaginerealities too far away from our actuallimitations””If the theory of planning is a mixture of many field’s theories why are mainly onlyarchitects the ones who put the planninginto practice?”“Anglo-American scientific tradition seems to set the obvious framework for planning theory. While being in some ways very understandable, it is also rather curious that a geographically very limiting point of view is so self-evident that it doesn’t even need to be explained or justified”“Is it possible that in good planning process there wouldn’t be any planners””How much should we give weight to theoutspoken citizens when they are thought to be ’wrong’?”

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…previously in Planning Theory…

Planning theory classifications

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• The emergence of ”theory of planning” (Faludi 1973)• ”Planning is the application of scientific method – however crude – to policy-

making. What this means is that conscious efforts are made to increase thevalidity of policies in terms of the present and anticipated future of theenvironment”

• The process of planning ”involves advisers [planners] as the suppliers of scientific intelligence, and decision-makers.”

• Advisers have concluded that their relationship with their masters must becomean object of reflection, and, ultimately, transformation so that planning canbecome more valid.

• Need to differentiate between form and content: ”A theory on whicha policy is based may be perfectly valid […] and the policy still invalid.”

• Thus, there is a useful distinction to be drawn betweentheory in planning and theory of planning

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Introduction toThe tradition of physical &

blueprint planning

City BeautifulDaniel Burnham

“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stirmen's blood and probably will not themselves

be realized”

City Beautiful movement

• between the 1890s and the 1920s• organized comprehensive urban planning• making cities more livable and orderly• a move toward increased civic virtue and the

waning of social ills.• Idea to establish ties to European Classical

traditions• Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Washington,

D.C.• move toward increased civic virtue and the

waning of social ills• Charles Mulford Robinson: The

Improvement of Towns and Cities (1901)18.9.2018

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Context:• The Great Chicago Fire 1871,

real-estate speculation & building boom after it

• Technical advances: steel high-rises

• As the walls no longer supported the building, it was easier to put the ground floors into the service of commerce

• Louis Sullivan: ”form follows function”; City Beautiful sets architecture back “for half a century from its date, ifnot longer”

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“Beauty brings about economic success and social harmony”(Daniel Burnham)

• City Beautiful movement promoted the building of beautiful cities for less well-off groups

• City Beautiful searched for a balanced view of technological progress and urbanization

• technology – aesthetics• uniformity - uniqueness• National identity building – regionalism (Chicago, Mid-West)• Familiarity, recognizability – revelatoriness• Daniel Burnham (architecture) – Frederick Law Olmsted (landscape architecture)

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Burnham’s Plan of Chicago 1909• Focus on the possibilities to expand the city and building of the

whole metropolitan area• Focus on regional transportation issues• However, Burnham did not see the rise of the automobile

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Criticism to City Beautiful principles & practice:• The problem was that city for less-well-off could not be achieved unless the

well-off groups kept the wheels of economy turning• Comprehensive, grand-scale yet detailed plans were not realized, or

perhaps they were not realizable even in principle• Focus was on administrative buildings; how about commercial

buildings or residential buildings? Housing questions were ignored• Conservative stylistic choices hindered the progress of American

architecture• Empty aesthetics: beauty does not bring about social progress and

better communities, but it can prevent us to see the capitalist logic behind the surface

• The era of visionary comprehensive planners began to be over; power in planning was scattered to different planning-related professions

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Garden CityEbenezer Howard

“It is deeply to be deplored that the peopleshould continue to stream into the already over-crowded cities, and should thus further deplete

the country districts”

Ebenezer Howard

• Tomorrow, a Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1898), Garden Cities of To-morrow (1902)

• Influenced by Bellamy’s “Looking Backward”• Bellamy’s view: industry grouped into government-

owned co-operative trust; competition replaced by centralized planning

• Howard, however, did not trust concentrations of power à decentralization

• Garden city: moderate centralisation, cooperative socialism

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• ”A Garden City is a Town designed for healthy living and industry; of a size that makes possible a full measure of social life, but not larger; surrounded by a rural belt; the whole of the land being in public ownership or held in trust for the community.” (Howard 1919)

• Garden city is a self-sufficient, functional and administrative unit that has

• a diverse population• services and working places• administrative and commercial buildings

• Beautiful environment creates the basis of good life• The design of public spaces is crucial for the social quality of the

city

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From Letchworth to Tapiola

Radiant CityLe Corbusier

“A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe and 50 times: It is a beautiful catastrophe”

Le Corbusier

• The vertical garden city• Space, light and order• “The materials of city planning are: sky,

space, trees, steel and cement; in that order and that hierarchy”

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• Syndicalism (or “trade-unionism”) as the guiding principle of the Radiant City: “federal” organization and individual freedom

• However, disbelief in the free market led to concentration of power

• Collective realm of administrationà centralized administration of production

• Individual realm of family life and participation• The realm of freedom is the residential district; open spaces• “Plans are not political” but plans represent necessary and objective

ordering of society in the “machine age”

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ArchiDialog

Alvar Aalto

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Broadacre CityFrank Lloyd Wright

“To look at the plan of a great City is to look at something like the

cross-section of a fibrous tumor””

Frank Lloyd WrightBroadacre City (1935)Characteristics:

• Individualism & individual ownership of land

• Decentralisation, less density• All centres larger than a “county seat”

have disappeared• “Homestead” is the centre of society• Automobile dependence:

superhighway network• Shared work: part-time farming,

part-time industrial

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Emerging technologies behind Broadacres vision • The motor car: general mobilization of the human being• Radio, telephone and telegraph: electrical inter-communication

becoming complete• Standardized machine-shop production: machine invention plus

scientific discovery

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Conclusion– next week…!