Neuschwanstein: A fairy tale darling's dark Nazi past

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Fuhrerprinzip [Fuhrer-Fuehrer Principle]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 10/2/19

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The Führerprinzip [ˈfyːʀɐpʀɪnˌtsiːp] (About this soundlisten) (German for "leader principle") prescribed the fundamental basis of political authority in the governmental structures of the Third Reich. This principle can be most succinctly understood to mean that "the Führer's word is above all written law" and that governmental policies, decisions, and offices ought to work toward the realization of this end.[1] In actual political usage, it refers mainly to the practice of dictatorship within the ranks of a political party itself, and as such, it has become an earmark of political fascism.

Ideology

The Führerprinzip was not invented by the Nazis. Hermann von Keyserling, an ethnically German philosopher from Estonia, was the first to use the term. One of Keyserling's central claims was that certain "gifted individuals" were "born to rule" on the basis of Social Darwinism.

The ideology of the Führerprinzip sees each organization as a hierarchy of leaders, where every leader (Führer, in German) has absolute responsibility in his own area, demands absolute obedience from those below him and answers only to his superiors.[2] This required obedience and loyalty even over concerns of right and wrong.[2] The supreme leader, Adolf Hitler, answered to God and the German people. Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has argued[citation needed] that Hitler saw himself as an incarnation of auctoritas, and as the living law or highest law itself, effectively combining in his persona executive power, judicial power and legislative power. After the campaign against the alleged Röhm Putsch, Hitler declared: "in this hour, I was responsible for the fate of the German nation and was therefore the supreme judge of the German people!"[3]

The Führerprinzip paralleled the functionality of military organizations, which continue to use a similar authority structure today, although in democratic countries members are supposed to be restrained by codes of conduct. The Freikorps – German paramilitary organizations made up of men who had fought in World War I and been mustered out after Germany's defeat, but who found it impossible to return to civilian life – were run on the Führer principle. Many of the same men had, earlier in life, been part of various German youth groups in the period from 1904-1913.[4] These groups had also accepted the idea of blind obedience to a leader.[5] The justification for the civil use of the Führerprinzip was that unquestioning obedience to superiors supposedly produced order and prosperity in which those deemed 'worthy' would share.

In the case of the Nazis, the Führerprinzip became integral to the Nazi Party in July 1921, when Adolf Hitler forced a showdown with the original leaders of the party after he learned that they were attempting to merge it with the somewhat larger German Socialist Party. Learning of this, and knowing that any merger would dilute his influence over the group, Hitler quit the Nazis. Realizing that the party would be completely ineffective without Hitler as their front man, the founder of the party, Anton Drexler, opened negotiations with Hitler, who delivered an ultimatum: he must be recognized as the sole leader (Führer) of the party, with dictatorial powers. The executive committee gave in to his demands, and Hitler rejoined the party a few days later to become its permanent ruler, with Drexler kicked upstairs to be honorary chairman for life.[6]

In time, as the party expanded, it fragmented somewhat, with the northern faction led by the Strasser brothers, Otto and Gregor, and including Joseph Goebbels, holding more socialist views then the southern faction controlled by Hitler in Munich. They differed in other ways as well, including on the party's acceptance of the Fuehrer Principle. In another confrontation engineered by Hitler, a party conference was called on February 14, 1926 in Bamberg. At this conference, Hitler won over the leaders of the northern faction with his oratorical skills, and the question of whether the NSDAP would follow the Führerprinzip was put to rest for good.[7]

When Hitler finally came to absolute power, after being appointed Chancellor and assuming the powers of the President when Paul von Hindenburg died, he changed his title to "Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor", and the Führerprinzip became an integral part of German society. Appointed mayors replaced elected local governments. Schools lost elected parents' councils and faculty advisory boards, with all authority being put in the headmaster's hands.[8] The Nazis suppressed associations and unions with elected leaders, putting in their place mandatory associations with appointed leaders. The authorities allowed private corporations to keep their internal organization, but with a simple renaming from hierarchy to Führerprinzip. Conflicting associations, e.g. sports associations responsible for the same sport, were coordinated into a single one under the leadership of a single Führer, who appointed the Führer of a regional association, who appointed the sports club Führer, often appointing the person whom the club had previously elected.[9] Shop stewards had their authority carefully circumscribed to prevent their infringing on that of the plant leader.[10] Eventually, virtually no activity or organization in Germany could exist that was completely independent of party and/or state leadership.

Hermann Göring told Nevile Henderson that "When a decision has to be taken, none of us counts more than the stones on which we are standing. It is the Führer alone who decides".[11] In practice, the selection of unsuitable candidates often led to micromanagement and commonly to an inability to formulate coherent policy. Albert Speer noted that many Nazi officials dreaded making decisions in Hitler's absence. Rules tended to become oral rather than written; leaders with initiative who flouted regulations and carved out their own spheres of influence might receive praise and promotion rather than censure.


The architects of the Night of the Long Knives: Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, and Hess. Only Himmler and Heydrich are missing.

Propaganda

Many propaganda films developed the importance of the Führerprinzip. Flüchtlinge depicted Volga German refugees saved from Communist persecution by a leader demanding unquestioning obedience.[12] Der Herrscher altered its source material to depict its hero, Clausen, as the unwavering leader of his munitions firm, who, faced with his children's machinations, disowns them and bestows the firm on the state, confident that a worker will arise capable of continuing his work and, as a true leader, needing no instruction.[13] Carl Peters shows the title character in firm, decisive action to hold and win African colonies, but brought down by a parliament that does not realize the necessity of Führerprinzip.[14]

In the schools, adolescent boys were presented with Nordic sagas as the illustration of Führerprinzip, which was developed with such heroes as Frederick the Great and Otto von Bismarck.[15]

This combined with the glorification of the one, central Führer. During the Night of Long Knives, it was claimed that his decisive action saved Germany,[16] though it meant (in Goebbels's description) suffering "tragic loneliness" from being a Siegfried forced to shed blood to preserve Germany.[17] In one speech Robert Ley explicitly proclaimed "The Führer is always right."[18] Booklets given out for the Winter Relief donations included The Führer Makes History,[19][20] a collection of Hitler photographs,[21] and The Führer’s Battle in the East[22] Films such as Der Marsch zum Führer and Triumph of the Will glorified him.

Carl Schmitt – drawn to the Nazi party by his admiration for a decisive leader[23] praised him in his pamphlet State, Volk and Movement because only the ruthless will of such a leader could save Germany and its people from the "asphalt culture" of modernity, to bring about unity and authenticity.[24]


Adolf Eichmann on trial in 1961

Application

During the post-war Nuremberg Trials, Nazi war criminals—and, later, Adolf Eichmann during the trial in Israel—used the Führerprinzip concept to argue that they were not guilty of war crimes by claiming that they were only following orders. Eichmann may have declared his conscience was inconvenienced by war events in order to "do his job" as best he could.

In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt concluded that, aside from a desire for improving his career, Eichmann showed no trace of anti-Semitism or psychological abnormalities whatsoever. She called him the embodiment of the "banality of evil", as he appeared at his trial to have an ordinary and common personality, displaying neither guilt nor hatred, denying any form of responsibility. Eichmann argued he was simply "doing his job" and maintained he had always tried to act in accordance with Kant's categorical imperative. Arendt suggested that these statements most strikingly discredit the idea that Nazi criminals were manifestly psychopathic and different from common people, that even the most ordinary of people can commit horrendous crimes if placed in the catalyzing situation, and given the correct incentives. However, Arendt disagreed with this interpretation, as Eichmann justified himself with the Führerprinzip. Arendt argued that children obey, whereas adults adhere to an ideology.

See also

• Adolf Hitler
• Autocracy
• Charisma
• Cult of personality
• Führer
• Functionalism versus intentionalism
• Gleichschaltung
• Meine Ehre heißt Treue
• Milgram experiment
• Nuremberg Defense
• State of exception
• Superior orders
• Unrechtsstaat

References

Notes

1. "Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression Volume I Chapter VII: Means Used by the Nazi Conspiractors in Gaining Control of the German State" A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust
2. "Befehlsnotstand & the Führerprinzip" Shoah Education
3. Sager, Alexander & Winkler, Heinrich August (2007). Germany: The Long Road West. 1933-1990. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-926598-4.|page=37
4. Savage, Jon (2007) Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture New York: Viking. pp.101-12. ISBN 978-0-670-03837-4
5. Mitcham (1996), p.21
6. Mitcham (1996), pp.78-79
7. Mitcham (1996), pp.120-121
8. Nicholas (2006), p.74
9. Kurger, Arns (1985) "'Heute gehört uns Deutschland und morgen …?' Das Ringen um den Sinn der Gleichschaltung im Sport in der ersten Jahreshälfte 1933." in Buss, Wolfgang and Krüger, Arnd (eds.) (1985) Sportgeschichte: Traditionspflege und Wertewandel. Festschrift zum 75. Geburtstag von Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Henze Duderstad: Mecke. pp.175–196.
10. Grunberger, Richard (1971) The 12-Year Reich New York: Henry Holt. p 193, ISBN 0-03-076435-1
11. Gunther, John (1940). Inside Europe. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 19.
12. Leiser (1975), pp.29-30
13. Leiser (1975), p.49
14. Leiser (1975), pp.104-5
15. Nicholas (2006), p.78
16. Koonz (2003), p.96
17. Rhodes, Anthony (1976) Propaganda: The art of persuasion: World War II New York: Chelsea House. p.16 ISBN 0877540292
18. Ley, Robert ((3 November 1937) "Fate - I Believe!" German Propaganda Archive Calvin College website
19. "Winterhilfswerk Booklet for 1933" German Propaganda Archive Calvin College website
20. ""Winterhilfswerk Booklet for 1938" German Propaganda Archive Calvin College website
21. "Hitler in the Mountains" German Propaganda Archive Calvin College website
22. "Hitler in the East" German Propaganda Archive Calvin College website
23. Koonz (2003), p.56
24. Koonz (2003), p.59

Bibliography

• Koonz, Claudia (2003) The Nazi Conscience Belknap. ISBN 0-674-01172-4
• Leiser, Erwin (1975) Nazi Cinema New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-570230-0
• Mitcham, Samuel W. (1996) Why Hitler? The Genesis of the Nazi Reich Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-95485-4
• Nicholas, Lynn H. (2006) Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web New York: Vintage. ISBN 0-679-77663-X

External links

• BBC historical article
• Bearers of a Common Fate?
• The Political System of the Third Reich

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Garden city movement
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/21/19

Fritsch's 1896 book The City of the Future became a blueprint of the German garden city movement which was adopted by Völkisch circles.

-- Theodor Fritsch, by Wikipedia

Ebenezer Howard's 3 magnets diagram which addressed the question 'Where will the people go?', with the choices 'Town', 'Country' or 'Town-Country'



The garden city movement is a method of urban planning in which self-contained communities are surrounded by "greenbelts", containing proportionate areas of residences, industry, and agriculture. The idea was initiated in 1898 by Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom and aims to capture the primary benefits of a countryside environment and a city environment while avoiding the disadvantages presented by both. Howard was knighted in 1927. During his lifetime Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City were built near London according Howard’s concept and many other garden cities inspired by his model have since been build all over the world.[1]

History

Conception



Inspired by the utopian novel Looking Backward and Henry George's work Progress and Poverty, Howard published the book To-morrow: a Peaceful Path to Real Reform in 1898 (which was reissued in 1902 as Garden Cities of To-morrow). His idealised garden city would house 32,000 people on a site of 6,000 acres (2,400 ha), planned on a concentric pattern with open spaces, public parks and six radial boulevards, 120 ft (37 m) wide, extending from the centre. The garden city would be self-sufficient and when it reached full population, another garden city would be developed nearby. Howard envisaged a cluster of several garden cities as satellites of a central city of 58,000 people, linked by road and rail.[2]

Howard's To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform sold enough copies to result in a second edition, Garden Cities of To-morrow. This success provided him the support necessary to pursue the chance to bring his vision into reality. Howard believed that all people agreed the overcrowding and deterioration of cities was one of the troubling issues of their time. He quotes a number of respected thinkers and their disdain of cities. Howard's garden city concept combined the town and country in order to provide the working class an alternative to working on farms or in ‘crowded, unhealthy cities’.[3]

First developments

To build a garden city, Howard needed money to buy land. He decided to get funding from "gentlemen of responsible position and undoubted probity and honour".[4] He founded the Garden City Association (later known as the Town and Country Planning Association or TCPA), which created First Garden City, Ltd. in 1899 to create the garden city of Letchworth.[5] However, these donors would collect interest on their investment if the garden city generated profits through rents or, as Fishman calls the process, ‘philanthropic land speculation’.[6] Howard tried to include working class cooperative organisations, which included over two million members, but could not win their financial support.[7] Because he had to rely only on the wealthy investors of First Garden City, Howard had to make concessions to his plan, such as eliminating the cooperative ownership scheme with no landlords, short-term rent increases, and hiring architects who did not agree with his rigid design plans.[8]

In 1904, Raymond Unwin, a noted architect and town planner, and his partner Barry Parker, won the competition run by First Garden City Ltd. to plan Letchworth, an area 34 miles outside London.[9] Unwin and Parker planned the town in the centre of the Letchworth estate with Howard's large agricultural greenbelt surrounding the town, and they shared Howard's notion that the working class deserved better and more affordable housing. However, the architects ignored Howard's symmetric design, instead replacing it with a more ‘organic’ design.[10]

Letchworth slowly attracted more residents because it brought in manufacturers through low taxes, low rents and more space.[11] Despite Howard's best efforts, the home prices in this garden city could not remain affordable for blue-collar workers to live in. The populations comprised mostly skilled middle class workers. After a decade, the First Garden City became profitable and started paying dividends to its investors.[12] Although many viewed Letchworth as a success, it did not immediately inspire government investment into the next line of garden cities.

In reference to the lack of government support for garden cities, Frederic James Osborn, a colleague of Howard and his eventual successor at the Garden City Association, recalled him saying, "The only way to get anything done is to do it yourself."[13] Likely in frustration, Howard bought land at Welwyn to house the second garden city in 1919.[14] The purchase was at auction, with money Howard desperately and successfully borrowed from friends. The Welwyn Garden City Corporation was formed to oversee the construction. But Welwyn did not become self-sustaining because it was only 20 miles from London.[15]

Even until the end of the 1930s, Letchworth and Welwyn remained as the only existing garden cities in the United Kingdom. However, the movement did succeed in emphasizing the need for urban planning policies that eventually led to the New Town movement.[16]

Garden cities


An attempt at a garden city: Zlín in Czech Republic (architect: František Lydie Gahura)

Howard organised the Garden City Association in 1899. Two garden cities were built using Howard's ideas: Letchworth Garden City and Welwyn Garden City, both in the county of Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom. Howard's successor as chairman of the Garden City Association was Sir Frederic Osborn, who extended the movement to regional planning.[17]

The concept was adopted again in the UK after World War II, when the New Towns Act spurred the development of many new communities based on Howard's egalitarian ideas.

The idea of the garden city was influential in other countries, including the United States. Examples include Residence Park in New Rochelle, New York; Woodbourne in Boston; Newport News, Virginia's Hilton Village; Pittsburgh's Chatham Village; Garden City, New York (parenthetically, the name "Garden City," as it applied to the Stewart-designed city on Long Island, incorporated in 1869, pre-dates that of the garden city movement, which was established some years later near the end of the nineteenth century); Sunnyside, Queens; Jackson Heights, Queens; Forest Hills Gardens, also in the borough of Queens, New York; Radburn, New Jersey; Greenbelt, Maryland; Buckingham in Arlington County, Virginia; the Lake Vista neighborhood in New Orleans; Norris, Tennessee; Baldwin Hills Village in Los Angeles; and the Cleveland suburbs of Parma[18] and Shaker Heights.

Greendale, Wisconsin is one of three "greenbelt" towns planned beginning in 1935 under the direction of Rexford Guy Tugwell, head of the United States Resettlement Administration, under authority of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act. The two other greenbelt towns are Greenbelt, Maryland (near Washington, D.C.) and Greenhills, Ohio (near Cincinnati). The greenbelt towns not only provided work and affordable housing, but also served as a laboratory for experiments in innovative urban planning. Greendale's plan was designed between 1936 and 1937 by a staff headed by Joseph Crane, Elbert Peets, Harry Bentley, and Walter C. Thomas for a site that had formerly consisted of 3,400 acres (14 km2) of farmland.

In Canada, the Ontario towns of Don Mills (now incorporated into the City of Toronto) and Walkerville are, in part, garden cities, as well as the Montreal suburb of Mount Royal. The historic Townsite of Powell River, British Columbia[19] and the Hydrostone district of Halifax, Nova Scotia are recognized as National Historic Sites of Canada[20] built upon the Garden City Movement. In Montreal, la Cité-jardin du Tricentenaire is a classic form of Garden City located near the Olympic Stadium. All streets are cul-de-sacs and are linked via pedestrian paths to the community park.


Svit in Slovakia - originally in 1934 planned as a combination of an industrial and garden city.

In Peru, there is a long tradition in urban design[a] that has been reintroduced in its architecture more recently. In 1966, the 'Residencial San Felipe' in Lima's district of Jesus Maria was built using the Garden City concept.[21]

In São Paulo, Brazil, several neighbourhoods were planned as Garden Cities, such as Jardim América, Jardim Europa, Alto da Lapa, Alto de Pinheiros, Jardim da Saúde and Cidade Jardim (Garden City in Portuguese). Goiânia, capital of Goiás state, and Maringá are also examples of Garden Cities.

In Argentina, an example is Ciudad Jardín Lomas del Palomar, declared by the influential Argentinian professor of engineering, Carlos María della Paolera, founder of "Día Mundial del Urbanismo" (World Urbanism Day), as the first Garden City in South America.

In Australia, the suburb of Colonel Light Gardens in Adelaide, South Australia, was designed according to Garden City principles.[22] So too the town of Sunshine which is now a suburb of Melbourne in Victoria and the suburb of Lalor, also in Melbourne. The Peter Lalor Estate in Lalor takes its name from a leader of the Eureka Stockade and remains today in its original form. However it is under threat from developers and Whittlesea Council.[23][24] Lalor:Peter Lalor Home Building Cooperative 1946-2012 Scollay, Moira. Pre-dating these was the garden suburb of Haberfield in 1901 by Richard Stanton, organised on a vertical integrated model from land subdivision, mortgage financing, house and interior designs and site landscaping.[25]

Garden city ideals were employed in the original town planning of Christchurch, New Zealand. Prior to the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, the city infrastructure and homes were well integrated into green spaces. The rebuild blueprint rethought the garden city concept and how it would best suit the city. Greenbelts and urban greenspaces have been redesigned to incorporate more living spaces.

Garden City principles greatly influenced the design of colonial and post-colonial capitals during the early part of the 20th century. This is the case for New Delhi (designed as the new capital of British India after World War I), of Canberra (capital of Australia established in 1913) and of Quezon City (established in 1939, capital of the Philippines from 1948–76). The garden city model was also applied to many colonial hill stations, such as Da Lat in Vietnam (est. 1907) and Ifrane in Morocco (est. 1929).

In Bhutan's capital city Thimphu the new plan, following the Principles of Intelligent Urbanism, is an organic response to the fragile ecology. Using sustainable concepts, it is a contemporary response to the garden city concept.

The Garden City movement also influenced the Scottish urbanist Sir Patrick Geddes in the planning of Tel Aviv, Israel, in the 1920s, during the British Mandate for Palestine. Geddes started his Tel Aviv plan in 1925 and submitted the final version in 1927, so all growth of this garden city during the 1930s was merely "based" on the Geddes Plan. Changes were inevitable.[26]

The Garden City movement was even able to take root in South Africa, with the development of the suburbs of Pinelands and Edgemead in Cape Town.

In Italy, the INA-Casa plan - a national public housing plan from the 1950s and '60s - designed several suburbs according to Garden City principles: examples are found in many cities and towns of the country, such as the Isolotto suburb in Florence, Falchera in Turin, Harar in Milan, Cesate Villaggio in Cesate (part of the Metropolitan City of Milan), etc.

In Belgium the Garden City movement took roots in the 1920s. After the First World War, there was a huge need for new housing. Social housing associations were created, often linked to political movements. In Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent new extensions of the city were build. These houses are still very popular among residents and classified as historical heritage. In the former Czechoslovakia, all industrial cities founded or reconstructed by the Bata Shoes company (Zlín, Svit, Partizánske) were at least influenced by the conception of the Garden City.

The Epcot Center in Bay Lake, Florida took some influence from Howard's Garden City concept while the park was still under construction.[27]

Singapore, a tropical city has over time incorporated various facets of the Garden City concept in its town plans to try and make the country a unique City in a Garden.[28] In the 1970s, the country started including concepts in its town plans to ensure that building codes and land use plans made adequate provisions for greenery and nature to become part of community development, thereby providing a great living environment. In 1996, the National Parks Board was given the mandate to spearhead the development and maintenance of greenery and bring the island's green spaces and parks to the community.[29]

List of garden cities

The localities in following lists have been developed directly as Garden Cities or their development has been heavily influenced by the Garden City movement.

United Kingdom and Ireland

• Letchworth Garden City, England, United Kingdom
• Welwyn Garden City, England, United Kingdom
• Bedford Park, London, United Kingdom
• Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, United Kingdom
• Penkhull Garden Village, Stoke-on-Trent, United Kingdom
• St Helier, London, United Kingdom
• Milton Keynes, England, United Kingdom
• Telford, United Kingdom
• Bournville Village, Birmingham UK
• Moor Pool, Birmingham, United Kingdom
• The Garden Village, Kingston upon Hull, United Kingdom
• Glenrothes, Scotland, United Kingdom
• Marino, Dublin, Ireland
• Rosyth, Scotland, United Kingdom
• Tadpole Garden Village, Swindon UK

North America

• The Public Works Administration of the New Deal created three Greenbelt communities based on the ideas of Ebenezer Howard which are now the municipalities of Greenbelt, Maryland, Greenhills, Ohio, and Greendale, Wisconsin.
• Mariemont, Ohio is one of the first cities in the US to be pre-planned as a garden community
• Park Circle (ca. 1912), North Charleston, South Carolina, United States
• Cité-jardin du Tricentenaire (Tricentennial Garden-City) (1940–1947), Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• Gardenvale neighbourhood, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec, Canada (ca. 1918)
• Town of Mount-Royal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• Village Homes, Davis, California, United States
• Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City, United States
• Reston, Virginia, United States
• Sunnyside Gardens Historic District, Queens, New York, United States
• Epcot, Bay Lake, Florida
• Forest Hills, Boston
• Wyvernwood Garden Apartments, Los Angeles, California
• Fairview, Camden, New Jersey, United States
• Chatham Village, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
• Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada
• Radburn, New Jersey

France

• Garden City, Suresne, Suresne, designed by Alexandre Maistrasse, Julien Quoniam and Félix Dumail
• Garden City, Stains, Stains, designed by Eugène Gonnot and Georges Albenque
• Garden City, Pré-Saint-Gervais, Pré-Saint-Gervais, designed by Félix Dumail

South America

• Ciudad Jardín Lomas del Palomar, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Viña del Mar, Chile
• Maringá, Brazil

Australia and New Zealand

• Colonel Light Gardens, Adelaide, Australia
• Garden City, Victoria, in inner bayside Melbourne
• Peter Lalor Housing Estate, Lalor, Victoria, Australia
• The Sunshine Estate, Sunshine, Victoria, Australia
• Canberra, Australia
• Christchurch, New Zealand
• Wundowie, Western Australia

Europe

• Covaresa, Valladolid, Spain
• Frohnau, Berlin, Germany
• Garbatella, Rome, Italy
• Gartenstadt [de], Mannheim, Germany
• Giszowiec, Katowice, Poland
• Hellerau, Dresden, Germany
• Konstancin-Jeziorna, Poland
• Mežaparks, Riga, Latvia
• Milanówek, Poland
• Svit, Slovakia
• Podkowa Leśna, Poland
• Tapiola, Finland
• Ullevål Hageby, Norway
• Velenje, Slovenia
• Wekerle estate, Budapest, Hungary
• Zelenograd, Moscow, Russia
• Zlín, Czech Republic

Asia

• Den-en-chōfu, Ōta, Tokyo, Japan
• Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
• Menteng, Jakarta, Indonesia
• Polonia, Medan, Indonesia
• Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong, China
• Tel Aviv, Israel

Africa

• Edgemead, Cape Town, South Africa[30]
• Pinelands, Cape Town, South Africa

Criticisms

While garden cities were praised for being an alternative to overcrowded and industrial cities, along with greater sustainability, garden cities were often criticized for damaging the economy, being destructive of the beauty of nature, and being inconvenient. According to A. Trystan Edwards, garden cities lead to desecration of the country side by trying to recreate country side houses that could spread themselves; however, this was not a possible feat due to the limited space they had.[31]

More recently the environmental movement's embrace of urban density has offered an "implicit critique" of the garden city movement.[32] In this way the critique of the concept resembles critiques of other suburbanization models, though author Stephen Ward has argued that critics often do not adequately distinguish between true garden cities and more mundane dormitory city plans.[32]

It is often referred to as an urban design experiment which is typified by failure due to the laneways used as common entries and exits to the houses helping ghettoise communities and encourage crime; it has ultimately lead to efforts to 'de-Radburn' or partially demolish American Radburn designed public housing areas.[33]

When interviewed in 1998, the architect responsible for introducing the design to public housing in New South Wales, Philip Cox, was reported to have admitted with regards to an American Radburn designed estate in the suburb of Villawood, "everything that could go wrong in a society went wrong," and "it became the centre of drugs, it became the centre of violence and, eventually, the police refused to go into it. It was hell."[33]

Legacy

Contemporary town-planning charters like New Urbanism and Principles of Intelligent Urbanism originated with this movement. Today there are many garden cities in the world, but most of them have devolved to dormitory suburbs, which completely differ from what Howard aimed to create.[citation needed]

In 2007, the Town and Country Planning Association marked its 108th anniversary by calling for Garden City and Garden Suburb principles to be applied to the present New Towns and Eco-towns in the United Kingdom.[34] The campaign continued in 2013 with the publication in March of that year of "Creating Garden Cities and Suburbs Today - a guide for councils".[35] Also in 2013, Lord Simon Wolfson announced that he would award the Wolfson Economics Prize for the best ideas on how to create a new garden city.[citation needed]

In 2014 The Letchworth Declaration[36] was published which called for a body to accredit future garden cities in the UK. The declaration has a strong focus on the visible (architecture and layout) and the invisible (social, ownership and governance) architecture of a settlement. One result was the creation of the New Garden Cities Alliance as a community interest company. Its aim is to be complementary to groups like the Town and Country Planning Association and it has adopted TCPA garden city principles as well as those from other groups, including those from Cabannes and Ross's booklet 21st Century Garden Cities of To-morrow.[37]

New garden cities and towns

British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced plans for a new garden city to be built at Ebbsfleet Valley, Kent, in early 2014, with a second also planned as an expansion of Bicester, Oxfordshire.[38][39] The United Kingdom government announced further plans for garden towns in 2015, supporting both the development of new communities in North Essex and support for sustainable and environmentally-friendly town development in Didcot, Oxfordshire.[40] A "Black Country Garden City" was announced in 2016 with plans to build 45,000 new homes in the West Midlands on brownfield sites.[41]

On 2 January 2017, plans for new garden villages, each with between 1,500 and 10,000 homes, and garden towns each with more than 10,000 houses were announced by the government.[42] These smaller projects have been proposed due to opposition of "urban sprawl" in the garden city projects, as well as such quick expansion to small communities. The first wave of villages to be approved by ministers are to be located in:

• Long Marston, Warwickshire
• Oxfordshire Cotswold, Oxfordshire
• Deenethorpe
• Culm, Devon
• Welborne, Hampshire
• West Carclaze, Cornwall
• Dunton Hills, Essex
• Spitalgate Heath, Lincolnshire
• Halsnead, Merseyside
• Longcross, Surrey
• Bailrigg, Lancashire
• Infinity Garden Village, Derbyshire
• St Cuthberts, Cumbria
• North Cheshire, Cheshire

The approved garden towns are to be located in:

• Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire
• Taunton, Somerset
• Harlow & Gilston, Essex-Hertfordshire

Diagrams

Diagrams from the 1898 edition


Ebenezer Howard, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform.


Diagram No.1: The Three Magnets (Ebenezer Howard, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform.)


Diagram No.2 (Ebenezer Howard, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform.)


Diagram No.3 (Ebenezer Howard, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform.)


Diagram No.4 (Ebenezer Howard, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform.)


Diagram No.5 (Ebenezer Howard, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform.)


Diagram No.6 (Ebenezer Howard, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform.)


Diagram No.7 (Ebenezer Howard, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform.)

Diagrams from the 1922 edition


Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-morrow.


Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-morrow.


Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-morrow.


Diagram No.1 (Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-morrow.)


Diagram No.2 (Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-morrow.)


Diagram No.3 (Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-morrow.)


Diagram No.4 (Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-morrow.)

"Den-en Toshi (Garden City)" Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1907


"Den-en Toshi (Garden City)" Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1907.


"Den-en Toshi (Garden City)" Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1907.


Diagram No.1 ("Den-en Toshi (Garden City)" Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1907.)


Diagram No.2 ("Den-en Toshi (Garden City)" Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1907.)


"Den-en Toshi (Garden City)" Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1907.

Garden suburbs

The concept of garden cities is to produce relatively economically independent cities with short commute times and the preservation of the countryside. Garden suburbs arguably do the opposite. Garden suburbs are built on the outskirts of large cities with no sections of industry. They are therefore dependent on reliable transport allowing workers to commute into the city.[43] Lewis Mumford, one of Howard’s disciples, explained the difference as "The Garden City, as Howard defined it, is not a suburb but the antithesis of a suburb: not a rural retreat, but a more integrated foundation for an effective urban life."[44]

The planned garden suburb emerged in the late 19th century as a by-product of new types of transportation were embraced by a newly prosperous merchant class. The first garden villages were built by English estate owners, who wanted to relocate or rebuild villages on their lands. It was in these cases that architects first began designing small houses. Early examples include Harewood and Milton Abbas. Major innovations that defined early garden suburbs and subsequent suburban town planning include linking villa-like homes with landscaped public spaces and roads.[45]

Despite the emergence of the garden suburb in England, the typology flowered in the second half of the 19th century in United States. There were generally two garden suburb typologies, the garden village and the garden enclave. The garden villages are spatially independent of the city but remain connected to the city by railroads, streetcars, and later automobiles. The villages often included shops and civic buildings. In contrast, garden enclaves are typically strictly residential and emphasize natural and private space, instead of public and community space. The urban form of the enclaves was often coordinated through the use of early land use controls typical of modern zoning, including controlled setbacks, landscaping, and materials.[46]

Garden suburbs were not part of Howard’s plan[47] and were actually a hindrance to garden city planning—they were in fact almost the antithesis of Howard’s plan, what he tried to prevent. The suburbanisation of London was an increasing problem which Howard attempted to solve with his garden city model, which attempted to end urban sprawl by the sheer inhibition of land speculation due to the land being held in trust, and the inclusion of agricultural areas on the city outskirts.[48]

Raymond Unwin, one of Howard’s early collaborators on the Letchworth Garden City project in 1907, became very influential in formalizing the garden city principles in the design of suburbs through his work Town Planning in Practice: An Introduction to the Art of Designing Cities and Suburbs (1909). [49] The book strongly influenced the Housing and Town Planning Act of 1909, which provided municipalities the power to develop urban plans for new suburban communities.[50]

Smaller developments were also inspired by the garden city philosophy and were modified to allow for residential “garden suburbs” without the commercial and industrial components of the garden city.[51] They were built on the outskirts of cities, in rural settings. Some notable examples being, in London, Hampstead Garden Suburb, the Sutton Garden Suburb in Benhilton, Sutton, Pinner's Pinnerwood conversation area and the 'Exhibition Estate' in Gidea Park and, in Liverpool, Wavertree Garden Suburb. The Gidea Park estate in particular was built during two main periods of activity, 1911 and 1934. Both resulted in some good examples of domestic architecture, by such architects as Wells Coates and Berthold Lubetkin. Thanks to such strongly conservative local residents’ associations as the Civic Society, both Hampstead and Gidea Park retain much of their original character.

However it is important to note Bournville Village Trust in SW Birmingham UK. This important residential development was associated with the growth of ‘Cadbury’s Factory in a Garden’. Here garden city principles are a fundamental part of the Trust’s activity. There are very tight restrictions applying to the properties here, no stonewall cladding, uPVC windows, and so on.


Park median in Avenida Ámsterdam, the "grand avenue" of the Mexico City subdivision Colonia Hipódromo de la Condesa, designed in 1926 and inspired in part by Ebenezer Howard's Garden City

Howard's influence reached as far as Mexico City, where architect José Luis Cuevas was influenced by the garden city concept in the design of two of the most iconic inner-city subdivisions, Colonia Hipódromo de la Condesa (1926) and Lomas de Chapultepec (1928-9):[52]

• In 1926, Colonia Hipódromo[53] (a.k.a. Hipódromo de la Condesa), in what is now known as the Condesa area, including its iconic parks Parque México and Parque España
• In 1928-29, Lomas de Chapultepec

The subdivisions were based on the principles of the garden city as promoted by Ebenezer Howard, including ample parks and other open spaces, park islands in the middle of “grand avenues”, such as Avenida Amsterdam in colonia Hipódromo.[52] One unique example of a garden suburb is the Humberstone Garden Suburb in the United Kingdom by the Humberstone Anchor Tenants’ Association in Leicestershire, and it is the only garden suburb ever to be built by the members of a workers’ co-operative; it remains intact to the present.[54] In 1887 the workers of the Anchor Shoe Company in Humberstone formed a workers' cooperative and built 97 houses.

American architects and partners, Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin[55] were proponents of the movement and after their arrival in Australia to design the national capital Canberra, they produced a number of garden suburb estates, most notably at Eaglemont with the Glenard and Mount Eagle Estates and the Ranelagh and Milleara Estates in Victoria.

See also

• Gardening portal
• Charles Reade
• City Beautiful movement

Related urban design concepts

• Transition Towns
• European Urban Renaissance
• Transit Oriented Development
• Urban forest
• Principles of Intelligent Urbanism
• Subsistence Homesteads Division
• Soviet urban planning ideologies of the 1920s
• EPCOT (concept)

Notes

1. Examples being the ancient city of Chan Chan (20 km2 (7.7 sq mi), 850 AD) in Trujillo, north of Lima, and the 12th-century Inca city of Machu Picchu. Peru's modern capital, Lima, was designed in 1535 by Spanish Conquistadors to replace its ancient past as a religious sanctuary with 37 pyramids.

References

Citations

1. Caves, R. W. (2004). Encyclopedia of the City. Routledge. p. 281.
2. Goodall, B (1987), Dictionary of Human Geography, London: Penguin.
3. Howard, E (1902), Garden Cities of To-morrow (2nd ed.), London: S. Sonnenschein & Co, pp. 2–7.
4. Fainstein & Campbell 2003, p. 42.
5. Hardy 1999, p. 4.
6. Fainstein & Campbell 2003, p. 43.
7. Fainstein & Campbell 2003, p. 46.
8. Fainstein & Campbell 2003, p. 47.
9. Hall 2002, p. 68.
10. Fainstein & Campbell 2003, p. 48.
11. Fainstein & Campbell 2003, p. 50.
12. Hall 2002, p. 100.
13. Hall & Ward 1998, pp. 45–7.
14. Hardy 1999, p. 8.
15. Hall & Ward 1998, p. 46.
16. Hall & Ward 1998, pp. 52–3.
17. History 1899–1999 (PDF), TCPA, archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-27.
18. Horley, Robert (1998). The Best Kept Secrets of Parma, "The Garden City". Robert Horley. ISBN 0-9661721-0-8.
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25. Sue Jackson-Stepowski (2008). "Haberfield". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-04-26.
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31. A. Trystan Edwards (January 1914). "A Further Criticism of the Garden City Movement". The Town Planning Review. 4 (4): 312–318. JSTOR 40100071.
32. Stephen Ward (18 October 2005). The Garden City: Past, present and future. Routledge. pp. 205–. ISBN 978-1-135-82895-0.
33. Dylan Welch (2009-01-08). "Demolition ordered for Rosemeadow estate". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2015-09-17.
34. Garden Cities Archived 2013-08-12 at the Wayback Machine at Town and Country Planning Association
35. "Creating Garden Cities and Suburbs Today - a guide for councils" Archived 2013-07-06 at the Wayback Machine
36. Letchworth Declaration
37. Cabannes, Yves; Ross, Philip (2015-02-13). 21st Century Garden Cities of To-morrow: A manifesto. Lulu.com. ISBN 978-1-291-47827-3.
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41. "Black Country Garden City to get 45,000 new homes". BBC News. BBC. Archived from the original on 2016-10-01. Retrieved 1 July 2016.
42. "{title}". Archived from the original on 2018-01-16. Retrieved 2018-04-04.
43. Hall & Ward 1998, p. 41.
44. Stern, Robert A.M.; Fishman, David; Tilove, Jacob (2013). Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City. The Monacelli Press. pp. 17–19. ISBN 1580933262.
45. Stern, Robert A.M.; Fishman, David; Tilove, Jacob (2013). Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City. The Monacelli Press. ISBN 1580933262.
46. Stern, Robert A.M.; Fishman, David; Tilove, Jacob (2013). Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City. The Monacelli Press. p. 48. ISBN 1580933262.
47. Hall, Peter (1996), "4", Cities of Tomorrow, Oxford: BlackWell.
48. Design on the Land.
49. Hall 2002, pp. 110–12.
50. Stern, Robert A.M.; Fishman, David; Tilove, Jacob (2013). Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City. The Monacelli Press. p. 214. ISBN 1580933262.
51. Hollow, Matthew (2011). "Suburban Ideals on England's Interwar Council Estates". Archived from the original on 2013-08-11. Retrieved 2012-12-29.
52. Manuel Sánchez de Carmona; et al., El trazo de Las Lomas y de la Hipódromo Condesa (PDF)(in Spanish), archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-29
53. ""Histoira de la Arquitectura Mexicana", Gabriela Piña Olivares, Autonomous University of Hidalgo" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2013-10-29. Retrieved 2013-10-24.
54. "Humberstone Garden Suburb". UK: Utopia Britannica. Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2011-03-28.
55. Goad, Philip (2012). The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture. Cambridge University Press.

Sources

Works cited

• Fainstein, S; Campbell, S (2003), Readings in planning theory, Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell.
• Hall, P (2002), Cities of Tomorrow (3rd ed.), Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell.
• ———; Ward, C (1998), Sociable Cities: the Legacy of Ebenezer Howard, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
• Hardy, D (1999), 1899–1999, London, England: Town and Country Planning Association.
Bibliography[edit]
• Meacham, Standish. Regaining Paradise: Englishness and the Early Garden City Movement (1999).
• Ross, P; Cabannes, Y (2012), 21st Century Garden Cities of To-morrow - How to become a Garden City, Letchworth Garden City: New Garden City Movement.

External links

• Sir Ebenezer Howard and the Garden City Movement Norman Lucey 1973
• Patrick Barkham Britain’s housing crisis: are garden cities the answer? 2 October 2014
• L. Bigon and Y. Katz (eds 2014), Garden Cities and Colonial Planning: Transnationality and Urban Ideas in Africa and Palestine Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press.
• Nature Meets Culture: Poland’s Garden Cities