Some books stay relevant even for those of us who are
grappling spatial and social problems in the current urban environment. Some of
the books in my bookcases I've had since my student days, others I have come
across and read more recently.
"The Death and Life of Great American
Cities" (1961 - Jane Jacobs) with "The Image of the City" (1959
- Kevin Lynch) peeking from behind on the left."Cities and People" (1985
- Mark Girouard) in the middle and "Cities for people" (2010 - Jan
Gehl) on the right.
The seminal book by Jane Jacobs has received praise,
but has also been much maligned. The book is more a polemic than a textbook and
uses many literary devices to get the point across. As the book is exclusively
focussed on the American Grid Cities, its story can't be simply transplanted
onto European cities. Jane Jacobs writes passionately about the high density
urban environment that -in her opinion best caters for urban living- as opposed
to the then current planning practice advocated by architects, which she
amalgamates under the term Radiant Garden
City Beautiful. She basically advocates the slow-paced city with people
walking. Her city comprised of mixed-use blocks between streets with buildings
some 4 to 6 storeys high (so by no means a very high density urban
environment). She rejects both high-rise living (based on the New York Social
Housing Projects), low-density suburban living (based on American urban sprawl)
and formal assemblage of special functions (which she equates to City
Beautiful). She is especially dismissive of modernist architecture. When she
speaks of modernism she means the post 1945 CIAM International Style and not early
20th-century European modernism, however. This is something one always has to
keep in the back of ones mind when reading Anglo-Saxon books on the subject!
The subtitle of "Cities and People" "a social & architectural history"
makes quite clear what the subject matter of this book is. With a broad overview
and laced with anecdotes Girouard takes the reader on a journey through the
ages to show how social, political and economic conditions shape the urban
environment. His book focuses mainly on Europe with some excursions into the
USA thus blatantly disregarding any non-English colony in other parts of the
world. The book is a good start to get some inkling on the way politics and
economy are interwoven and often impact on the way people are able to make
decisions on their lives and the projects undertaken by city administrators.
The book is, however, to Anglo-Saxon in approach to clarify the differences
between the self-governing trade cities of the Low Countries and the
independent cities of the Hanseatic League, not to mention residential cities
within the Holy Roman Empire or Mediterranean trade cities and city states. As
an introduction into urban sociology from a historic perspective the book is
still quite useful.
The idea(l) of a social city that is laid out to
enhance the lives of its inhabitants as advocated by Jacobs has remained a
strong force in thinking about the urban environment in the Post-Modern Era and
after. (Personally I see post-modernism as an eclectic vein of modernism still
mostly occupied with function, form and planning for an expected future and not
so much an opposite of modernism per-se.) Jane Jacobs remains as the inspiring
force behind many urban renewal attempts, social engineering by supplying
grants to resident for home improvement and architectural experiments on a
so-called human scale. As a result of these ideas on a social city on a human
scale, many experiments were made to pedestrianise parts of city centres,
especially in Europe. Her ideas form the foundations of Jan Gehl's approach for
a slow-paced city where walking and cycling have primacy. His 2010 book is much
less a pamphlet but -as could be expected from an architect- a vehicle for
showing his project portfolio. Both books owe much to the book by Kevin Lynch
on how people view the city and how they get about using functional and visual
cues from their urban environment. The principles he describes also apply to
Unwinesque urban design as advocated by Garden City adepts and favour no scale
or style of architecture in particular. It is certainly clear on the other hand
that Corbusier-inspired architecture makes it difficult for people to create a
mental image of their surroundings. Several writers and designers have used Lynch's
findings and appropriated them to fit with their own ideas.
In contrast to the American writers where the modes of
transport for the social city of human scale are confined to walking and the
bus, Gehl shows himself thoroughly European by insisting on walking and cycling.
To satisfy decision makers he includes statistics and charts showing the
effects of pedestrianisation, changing shop fronts and street facades on the
ground floors, laying out new squares and public gardens and creating safe
bicycle lanes. He mainly focuses on his own projects thus excluding many
interesting examples from The Netherlands and Germany. The core of his -valid-
argument is that the human dimension has been neglected over the past decades;
something he blames on modernism (he again means post 1945 International Style
after CIAM principles). In his book he often mentions the "human
landscape" a weird term in English that stems from a literal translation
from Danish and should be read as the human dimension. Similarly when he speaks
of the "city landscape" he means the appearance of streets: the city
at eye level.
The proposals for a slow-paced urban environment are
often simplified to mean a bicycle-friendly city. Jan Gehl has been much
maligned -especially in Anglo-Saxon countries- for his proposals to convert
space dedicated to car traffic to space for walking and cycling. The protests
in London Boroughs against the cycle super highways are a case in point. To
counterbalance the argument that these bicycle-friendly cities are only
suitable to continental Europe he includes examples from the USA, Brazil,
Australia, New Zealand and Europe (mainly from his home town of Copenhagen).
As I myself cycle most short distances, I can only concur
with his emphases on promoting slow moving traffic to improve the urban living
environment and improve the quality of life. Also, one views the urban
environment completely different whilst walking or cycling as opposed to
driving a car or being on a bus or train (trams are somewhat in between). A
city with a high number of pedestrian and cycle traffic is a liveable city!
