Letchworth Garden City: the first true garden city

The first Garden City to be developed was at Letchworth where from 1903 onwards a new town was created with a town centre near the train station and a central green axis with the main amenities around it. Beyond this formal area the residential streets are winding and often follow the naturally undulating terrain. The post-war housing estates are less attractive than the pre-war estates directly around the centre.

Even in bad weather Letchworth is worth a visit. The town centre comprises of these low blocks with shops, offices  and other business premises on the ground floor. This part of Letchworth emulates historic market towns with an irregular square near the station and five streets running of it. Most of these streets are curved, except for the straight main avenue that end in a roundabout and forms the central axis of the town.

The Broadway is the name of this central axis. It is modelled after a Pall Mall as long strip of green between two flanking streets. The design is very formal with a central path emphasising the axis towards a public garden. This design recalls a baroque Vue de Vert.

The Broadway Gardens are situated on the central axis with a large water feature with water jets at the halfway point between the start and end of this key feature. Topiary, paths and beds with planting enforce the symmetry of this axis. As such a formal feature is central to the layout of this first Garden City.

Around the Broadway Gardens the main buildings are grouped together in a loose placement. These buildings include churches, schools, offices, public library, museum and a cinema (left) and a town hall (right). A central garden square surrounded by public buildings is very much in the style of 19th-century urban planning.

The Broadway continues in a straight line with two double rows of lime trees on each side. The street thus emulates a formal French Chassé (an avenue in a hunting forest radiating from a single point as a star).

The Broadway ends in a roundabout. This might not be something very special nowadays, but this is the very first roundabout built in England. This circular junction dates from 1909. It was not uncommon for a formal axis to end in a round point, rotunda or semicircle (of trees) in baroque gardens.

Around the formal central ensemble the housing is designed in Arts and Crafts style and the placement is Unwinesque. Here an example of two blocks angled away from the street to create small greens in grass. The houses are designed in a typical vernacular style with a ground floor in brick and a lighter rendered upper floor underneath a roof with red clay tiles.

Letchworth is famous for its colony of black squirrels. I saw several when I visited, but they are very difficult to photograph as they are very fast. This is not a different species but a melanistic form of the grey squirrel (the normal pigments replaced with black pigment). The Cloisters (on the right) are an eclectic complex of buildings, built in 1905 by Quaker Annie Jane Lawrence as an open air school. The institution was dedicated to psychology and skills relating to the Arts and Crafts Movement. It was also a centre for Theosophy. It became a masonic centre in 1951.

The streets in Letchworth garden city are semirural in character. This character was not prescribed in Ebenezer Howards book, but was inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement and German examples of what is known as a Gartensiedlung. Here a typical street of short terraces with wide green verges on both sides planted with small trees, walk ways on either side and small front gardens edged by privet hedges.

These semidetached houses are set in ample gardens around them. This often lead to visitors thinking that Garden City means city made up of houses with front and back gardens. Again these blocks are examples of vernacular design with the very sculptural high Mansard roofs with a chimney stack at the corners of the ridge.

More sculptural chimney stacks in this building in the Howard Park. This complex was built as a memorial to Ebenezer Howard’s first wife, Elizabeth Ann Bills, who had died shortly before moving to the new Garden City. The building was designed by Parker and Unwin as a sprawling ornamental farm. The Mrs Howard Memorial Hall (1905) was the first public building in Letchworth and quickly became the literary, music and social hub of the fledgling Garden City.

Vernacular inspired Arts and Crafts architecture became to be almost synonymous with the Garden City Movement, especially in Britain. This type of architecture is also the focus of Hermann Muthesius book on the English House. The buildings are often an eclectic mix of historic design elements assembled for visual effect. Characteristically such buildings have hanging tiles, composite roofs, porches, protruding section, hanging elevations, rendered facades in combination with brick and wood (as weatherboarding, posts or timber frame).

One of the characteristics of Sitte-esque urban design is the placement of buildings in spatial clusters separate from the streets. There are several examples in Letchworth where groups of houses are set back from the road, either on a close or around a communal garden or green. Here an example of the latter. This spatial set up is reminiscent of almshouses and Courts Beguinage.

In several places in Letchworth the houses built for the Cheap Cottages Exhibitions of 1905 and 1907 can be seen lining the streets. Almost all of the exhibition cottages are still standing (124 and 57, respectively). Most can be found east of the station, conveniently within walking distance for the many visitors. Here some examples along Nevells Road.

The Garden City was always conceived as a complete settlement, so not merely a commuter town or dormitory village (which is what most New Towns effectively are). Along the railway parcels of land were set aside for industrial use. A very prominent building  directly west of the station is the Spirella Building a former corset factory now converted to a business centre. The complex was originally built in three stages between 1912 and 1920.

Letchworth Garden City, realising an organisational model

The concept of the Garden City as outlined in Ebenezer Howards book Garden Cities of To-morrow met with great criticism and scepticism when it was published in 1898. The cooperative vein combined with the clear organisational drawings resonated with social reformers, Arts and Crafts adapts and Quakers. The book and the subsequent Garden City Association (1899) lead to the creation of Brentham Garden Suburb in 1901; in 1902 the German Garden City Society was founded in Berlin. The year after the First Garden City Ltd. was founded with the aim of acquiring a site to realise the first true Garden City (i.e. not a suburban expansion of an existing urban area, but a separate satellite within a green belt). 

Some 16 km2 of land outside Hitchin between the hamlets of Norton, Willian and Letchworth was purchased by First Garden City Ltd. in 1903 (that company had been specifically set up to buy the land and develop it). A design competition was held to find an architect that could translate the utopian vision of a new garden city and the organisational drawings in the book into reality.  The firm of Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin was chosen with a rather formal 19th-century design. The other submissions were also regular or axial in composition. After winning the commission Parker and Unwin started working on a master plan. For this they set up an office in Letchworth where Unwin also lived.

The official plan for the new Garden City shows none of the typical spatial features of the Garden City Movement: it lacks informality,  winding streets and the placement of building on artistic principles (also known as Unwinesque urban design). The central feature is an axis that starts at the station building and end in a roundabout. On this axis a public garden inserts civic space with the main public buildings positioned around it. This setup is similar to the 19th-century star-like urban housing quarters in cities like Brussels, Paris and Berlin.  

The new Garden City was slow to get started as it mainly attracted idealists and artists. Unwin advocated a revolution in the architecture of domestic buildings -based on Arts and Crafts principles. He also stressed the need for an overall framework to give a sense of form to the urban development. Only after he came into contact with the German practice of city planning via Muthesius and Der Städtebau he is able to make these ideas practical. In 1905, and again in 1907, First Garden City Ltd. held the Cheap Cottages Exhibitions. These were architecture  contests to build inexpensive housing. Sponsored by the Daily Mail these exhibitions attracted some 60,000 visitors and resulted in the Ideal Home Exhibitions held at the Kensington Olympia. The two model homes exhibitions had a significant effect on planning and urban design in the UK, pioneering and popularising such concepts as pre-fabrication, the use of new building materials (concrete, steel, hanging tiles, etcetera) and front and back gardens. It is from this last feature of these model cottages built at Letchworth that the popular misconception stems that a Garden City is an urban environment characterised by houses with front and back garden.

The railway station was a prime requirement for such a suburban satellite. The one in Letchworth opened in 1903 not far from its current position. Railway companies used to run excursions to the town, bringing people to marvel at this social experiment and giggle at those eccentric folk populating this fledgling town.  After 1907 the housing is planned on Unwinesque principles in the staple Arts and Crafts style. By 1944 Letchworth Garden City had grown into a small town with ill-defined neighbourhoods on either side of the railway tracks. Norton Common had been opened up and was made a public park.

Letchworth was the first of two true Garden Cities to be built (the other one being Welwyn Garden City further south). The legacy, however, is far greater and spans continents. The idea of suburban satellites resulted in the 1944 Abercrombie Greater London Plan for a ring of New Towns around Greater London. Abercrombie proposed 10 New Towns of 60,000 inhabitants each to enable the rebuilding of war-damaged London and slum clearance. Stevenage, located between Welwyn and Letchworth is a good example. It has almost the same basic plan as Letchworth Garden City, but isn't a true Garden City.

Letchworth Garden City with the central axis of Broadway with the avenues radiating from it (1) is still at the heart of this town. Norton Common (2) is at the heart of the northern section. The Spirella Building (3) and the Works Business Estate (4) are located along the railway. This old core is surrounded by larger housing estates: The Grange (5), Icknield-Wilbury (6), Westbury (7), Jackmans (8),  Lordship (9) and Manor Park (10). The latter is named for the former Letchworth Hall (L) not far from Willian (W). Standalone Farm (S) is located within the Green Belt, whilst Norton (N) and Baldock (B) are located just beyond that.

Letchworth now became part of this belt of suburban satellites aimed at housing the London overspill. This meant that Letchworth should also grow in population. Several housing estates have thus been added. These plans follow the pre-war proposals of the company quite closely and more or less fill out the area available within the green belt. The first estate started in 1947 was the Grange Estate, north of Norton Common. After this the Icknield Estate and Westbury Estate were expanded. The Jackmans Estate followed in the 1960s. In the 1970 work started on the Lordship Estate. Manor Park Estate and some infill housing followed from the 1980s onwards.

Experimental dwellings: Housing Expo "De Fantasie" & "De Realiteit" Almere

The city of Almere is a New Town built in one of the reclaimed polders of the Zuiderzee as a new satellite for Amsterdam. This makes Almere the youngest city in the Netherlands, and also an example of a completely planned community (Hoofddorp, Nieuw-Vennep, Nagele, Emmeloord, Lelystad and Dronten are other examples). Almere was named for a former lake the Almere, that was roughly located where the new city was proposed. The city was conceived as a multinuclear suburban satellite composed of distinct sections surrounded by green (parks, playing fields, woodland etcetera). On land drained in 1968 (and known as the South Flevoland Polder) development of the first section Almere-Haven (Almere Harbour) started in 1976.This section was built as a self-sustaining village with its own little centre and amenities. In 1980 work started on Almere-Stad, the central section. Development progressed with Almere-Buiten (1984), Almere-Hout (1992) and Almere-Poort (2000). Plans are now being developed for Almere-Pampus.

The new high-density city centre of Almere as viewed from across the Weerwater lake. There are plans to move the power lines that now cut across the water.

As part of a rethink dubbed Almere 2.0 the idea is to make the city into a "true city" with a clear high-density centre. This will be developed along the northern edge of the Weerwater (a large artificial lake) and connected via a new "urban loop" around the lake's edge to a new, equally high-density mixed office and residential development near the motorway dubbed "the hub". The goal is to grow Almere to a city of 350,000 inhabitants by 2030. For this the local council is looking at increasing employment opportunities, as the city is basically a sleeper or commuter town.

Some of the towers of the new city centre and the way these new buildings are used to frame a view across the adjoining artificial lake.

Almere is known for its neighbourhoods of similar housing in a style typical of the building period. Owner-occupied and socially rented housing are mixed, as is usual in the Netherlands. As such most of the housing developed up to the 1990s is seen as bland and suffering from sameness and a lack of imagination. As land was cheap, it all belonged to the state as it was once the bottom off a bay,  Almere was seen as a good place for experimentation. So two experimental neighbourhoods De Fantasie (The Fantasy) and De Realiteit (The Reality) were developed. This sounds impressive but these experiment were at a diminutive scale compared to the normal housing production. A third architectural experiment called De Eenvoud (The Simplicity) is nearing completion.

Two of the winning entries of the first design competition "De Fantasie", are located next to the Weerwater. These temporary dwellings have been expanded to become proper houses.

In 1982 the design contest titled "Ongewoon Wonen" (= unusual housing) was declared by the Committee De Fantasie. The central theme was to design an experimental dwelling without foundations as a temporary structure. Building regulations were waved. For the selected submissions 10 plots near the Weerwater lake were set aside by the Rijksdienst IJsselmeerpolders (the municipality of Almere had not yet been established) for a period of 5 years. The idea was to take the dwellings down after this exhibition period. They remained however, and have even been extended in parts.

The entries that were built for "De Realiteit" are equally adventurous, often displaying a typical Postmodern signature. On the left a house built from reused materials. On the right the house on stilts to evoke the fact that soil level is below sea level called "Boven de zeespiegel" (Above sea level) by Wagenaar & Weysenfeld.

Due to the success of the first design competition, it was followed in 1985 by a second one with the motto "Tijdelijk Wonen" (= temporary housing). Each winning entry was given a 20 by 20 metres square plot along a street with a building subsidy of 10.000 guilders. Along a street dubbed De Realiteit 17 structures were erected. Like the houses on The Fantasy, the buildings on The Reality have not been torn down, although they were meant as a temporary showcase of experimental housing solutions. As such these examples are comparable to housing expo's of the interwar period, like the Weissenhofsiedlung and the Werkbund Siedlung.

Another example of Postmodernism from "de Realiteit" called "De naam van het huis" (the name of the house) by Hans Hammink.

Following on from these experiments, it was decided in 2006 that there should be a third instalment called "De Eenvoud". Another design competition was launched; again focussing on creative new ways of (re)using materials and realising -relatively- cheap and simple freestanding dwellings. New was a focus on energy neutral living. The houses are being built on 12 plots located on the edge of a housing estate aimed at self-builders called Noorderplassen - Noordwest (North Lakes - Northwest).