Planning Twentieth Century Capital Cities

David Gordon, David Gordon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781134463367
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Arquitectura
• Subtopic: Planificación urbana y paisajismo

The twentieth century witnessed an unprecedented increase in the number of capital cities worldwide – in 1900 there were only about forty, but by 2000 there were more than two hundred. And this, surely, is reason enough for a book devoted to the planning and development of capital cities in the twentieth century.

However, the focus here is not only on recently created capitals. Indeed, the case studies which make up the core of the book show that, while very different, the development of London or Rome presents as great a challenge to planners and politicians as the design and building of Brasília or Chandigarh. Put simply, this book sets out to explore what makes capital cities different from other cities, why their planning is unique, and why there is such variety from one city to another.

Sir Peter Hall's 'Seven Types of Capital City' and Lawrence Vale's 'The Urban Design of Twentieth Century Capital Cities' provide the setting for the fifteen case studies which follow – Paris, Moscow and St Petersburg, Helsinki, London, Tokyo, Washington, Canberra, Ottawa-Hull, Brasília, New Delhi, Berlin, Rome, Chandigarh, Brussels, New York. To bring the book to a close Peter Hall looks to the future of capital cities in the twenty-first century.

For anyone with an interest in urban planning and design, architectural, planning and urban history, urban geography, or simply capital cities and why they are what they are, Planning Twentieth Century Capital Cities will be the key source book for a long time to come.

Chapter 1
Capital Cities in the Twentieth Century

David L.A. Gordon

The twentieth century witnessed an unprecedented increase in the number of capital cities worldwide. In 1900 there were only about forty nation states with capital cities; half of these were in Latin America, created as a result of the break up of the Spanish and Portuguese empires in the late nineteenth century. But things were set to change. World War I and its aftermath sounded the death knell of the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Ottoman empires; the period following World War II saw the gradual disintegration of the French and British empires; and the 1980s and 1990s witnessed the demise of the Soviet Union and fragmentation of the former Yugoslavia. Thus, by 2000 there were more than two hundred capital cities. And this, surely, is reason enough for a book devoted to the planning and development of capital cities in the twentieth century.

However, the focus is not only on recently created capitals. Indeed, the case studies which make up the core of the book show that, while very different, the development of London or Rome presents as great a challenge to planners and politicians as the design and building of Brasília or Chandigarh. Put simply, this book sets out to explore what makes capital cities different from other cities, why their planning is unique, and why there is such variety from one city to another.

To help map this journey we turn to Peter Hall’s ‘seven types of capital city’ – Multi-Function Capitals; Global Capitals; Political Capitals; Former Capitals; Ex-Imperial Capitals; Provincial Capitals; Super Capitals – which he discusses in chapter 2, identifying the functions and characteristics of each, and distinguishing their overlapping roles. Each of the capitals in the book may be classified as one or more of these types, for example, New York is both a Provincial Capital and a Super Capital, Tokyo is a Multi-Function and a Global Capital, and London is a Global and Multi-Function Capital, but also an Ex-Imperial Capital.

Following Peter Hall’s classification of cities in terms of their functions and the reasons for their ascendancy, in Chapter 3 Lawrence Vale turns to urban design. As he says, ‘the planning and design of national capitals is inseparable from the political, economic, and social forces that sited them and moulded their development’. He analyses twentieth-century urban design policy and action in capital cities against the background of three key developments: the dismemberment of empires, the emergence of new federal systems, and the growing importance of super-national groupings. He concludes that whichever of these affected a capital, all have striven to maintain their image and ‘symbolic centrality’ and that ‘urban design remained a vital part of the public projection and reception of capital cities in the twentieth century’.

Chapters 2 and 3 set the stage for the cities which are our chosen case studies. The first of these is Paris, an archetypal Multi-Function Capital. However, as Paul White explains, the first sixty years of the twentieth century were a period of inaction in the city’s planning history. Indeed, even today inner Paris remains much as Haussmann planned it, while the schemes introduced in the 1960s were more to do with the city as a large urban area than as a national capital. Strategic planning over the last forty to fifty years has focused on managing development and ameliorating serious imbalances within the capital region. Against this background and in the face of growing global competition, increasing attention has been paid to the need for Paris to maintain its place as a major world capital. Politicians and planners alike have sought to achieve this by enhancing the city’s cultural image not by creating a single area of capital city attractions, but by placing new developments throughout inner Paris.

Michael Lang, in Chapter 5, provides an overview of the planning history of Russia’s present and former capitals, both as he says ‘indelibly marked by the cruel hand of totalitarian rulers’. St Petersburg, the eighteenth-century creation of Peter the Great, was capital only until 1918. During those early years of the twentieth century, for all the architectural splendour of its centre, the city had the worst housing and services of any capital. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin moved the capital back to Moscow, where it had been before Tsar Peter set out to build the city which ‘would soar as an eagle’. Without doubt Stalin was the master planner of Socialist Moscow. However, many pre-Revolutionary architects and planners remained in Russia to help build the ideal communist city, blending foreign notions with Russian design traditions to meet the needs of the new Socialist society. Competition with the West was a further driving force in the way the city developed. The result was a capital where growth was uncontrolled and whose population was inadequately housed. It is perhaps too early to tell how the long-term development of either Multi-Function Moscow or Former Capital St Petersburg will be affected by the fall of communism and the re-introduction of the private market.

In 1812, Helsinki, the subject of the next chapter, was made capital of Autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland by decree of the Russian Emperor Alexander I. Laura Kolbe describes how urban planning measures were introduced in response to the city’s rapid growth. The first master plan drawn up in the 1910s was, however, never confirmed. Finland gained independence in 1917; bloody civil war followed in 1918, but so too did Saarinen and Jung’s master plan Pro Helsingfors. This plan was to have considerable influence on Helsinki throughout the twentieth century. The years of war with the Soviet Union were a turning point for the development of the city, but it was not until 1959 that regional planning and master planning became mandatory. Five years later Helsinki’s first city planning department was created and Alvar Aalto produced his second plan for the city centre. Although little of this plan was realized, urban policy since then has been characterized by the maintenance of a strong city centre.

No book such as this could omit London. The twentieth century saw the capital transformed from an Imperial to a Global City. Dennis Hardy’s account of the city is in three sections – the first a summary of the immense changes that transformed the city in the twentieth century; second a review of the nature and extent of public intervention in relation to its capital status; and third an inquiry into why London’s continuing dominance as a capital has not been fully reflected in its architecture and civic design. He argues that the city’s success has little to do with political support or positive planning. While Patrick Abercrombie’s Greater London Plan of 1944 may have provided the benchmark for postwar planning, there was no overall structure to make it happen, while the 1969 Greater London Development Plan was fraught with political conflict and opposition, and it is probably too early to judge the outcome of The London Plan published in draft form in 2002. Nor can one guess at the effects of recent terrorist activity or, indeed, the award of the 2012 Olympics to the city.

Tokyo, the focus of Chapter 8, like London is a Global Capital. At the beginning of the twentieth century, as Shun-ichi Watanabe explains, the urban form of the old castle town of Edo had almost disappeared. The 1919 City Planning Act had some influence on urban structure, but weak land-use controls hindered improvement of urban spaces. However, disaster struck the city when, in 1923, a massive earthquake destroyed much of the city. The following seven years of reconstruction emphasized modernization and protection from future earthquakes, but the Second World War saw destruction of a different kind and in 1945 planners, faced with reconstruction once again, provided the foundation that enabled the subsequent rapid growth of Tokyo. That growth saw large-scale development schemes, but also concern for the over-concentration of the nation’s political, economic, and cultural activities in the city. The 1990s witnessed the end of the economic boom and the city’s future development is likely to be more modest and on a more human scale.

Unquestionably, Washington is a Political Capital. It is perhaps this which is at the root of what Isabelle Gournay identifies as the city’s ‘unresolved conflicts and endemic tensions’. In Chapter 9, she suggests that three factors give rise to these: ‘the notion that Washington belongs to all US citizens, rather than to its inhabitants, is fixed in the national psyche’ which resulted in attention being given to ceremonial symbols and not neighbourhood improvement; ‘the imbalance between the city’s demographic, economic and cultural significance and its political stature’, particularly given the ethnic diversity of the city; and, finally, ‘taxation without representation’ – although the city does now have a non-voting delegate in Congress, whose role is to lobby on behalf of the city’s inhabitants, the preparation and implementation of plans continue to depend upon ‘feudal’ annual congressional appropriation. Gournay provides an illuminating survey of Washington’s planned development from the McMillan Plan of 1902 via the work of the National Capital Park and Planning Commission and its successor, the National Capital Planning Commission.

Canberra, too, is a Political Capital and, as Christopher Vernon says, it is ‘Australia’s greatest achievement in landscape architecture and town planning’. Following the search for a site for the new capital within a larger federal territory, in 1912 the international competition for the city’s design was won by Walter Burley Griffin. The design, the work of Griffin and his wife, was a sensitive response to the site’s natural features. The grandeur of the site was to be the surrogate for the cultural and monumental artefacts found in cities of the Old World, but lacking in the new nation. Griffin’s replacement in 1921 by a succession of advisory bodies resulted in numerous departures from the original plan and increasing antipathy to the new capital; for more than three decades there was little development. However, in the 1950s the city found a champion in the then Prime Minister Robert Menzies, who invited William Holford to make design proposals for the city’s development. Implementation of Holford’s scheme began in 1958, overseen by the National Capital Development Commission established in the same year. In 1988 the Commission was replaced by the National Capital Planning Authority. Today, as Vernon says, ‘the picturesque reigns triumphant at Canberra’ and Canberrans hold dear the presence of ‘nature’ within their city.

Unlike Canberra, Ottawa was not a greenfield site nor, as I explain in Chapter 11, was there a master plan for the capital of the United Canadas. Moreover, the small lumber town was not a place where politicians or civil servants wished to live. Following an initial period of neglect, the Ottawa Improvement Commission (1899–1913) appointed landscape architect Frederick Todd to design the city’s park and parkway system. Criticism of the Commission’s work led to the creation of a different body, the Federal Plan Commission under whose auspices Edward H. Bennett prepared a plan for the capital. The First World War, lack of funding and political support resulted in a period of inertia, but the interwar years saw some limited progress in the capital’s development. After World War II, Prime Minister Mackenzie King established the National Capital Planning Committee and his chosen architect, Jacques Gréber, became head of the National Capital Planning Service; his National Capital Plan, which was to be a landmark in Canadian planning history, was published in 1950. With the establishment of the National Capital Commission in 1959, development moved apace and the erstwhile lumber town was transformed into the green and spacious capital city of today.

Moving the capital of Brazil was first mooted some three hundred years before it became a reality. Geraldo Nogueira Batista and his colleagues describe how the establishment of a new capital on the central plain was a precept of the 1891 Constitution of the Republic, but despite selection of a site little real progress was made for a considerable time. Indeed it was not until 1956, after further reconnaissance and technical reporting, and with President Kubitschek’s support, that authorization was given for the relocation of the capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília and the establishment of the Federal District. The same year saw the creation of the Company for Urbanization of the New Capital, the appointment of Oscar Niemeyer to direct architectural design, and the call for a competition for the design of the city’s Pilot Plan. Lúcio Costa’s winning design introduced the superblock, the most distinctive and inspired physical-spatial element of Brasília. The President set 16 April 1960 for the city’s inauguration – a date met albeit with much construction unfinished. From then on the population of the Pilot Plan and the Federal District grew rapidly, inducing urban dispersion over the entire territory, the development of satellite towns and slum settlements, despite attempts to control development. ‘The expectation that a planned core would induce an orderly occupation of the territory – an essential utopia of Modernism – did not come to pass’, yet Brasília today is a remarkable achievement – a Political Capital that offers opportunities to rich and poor alike.

In Chapter 13, Souro Joardar describes the planning and development of New Delhi, which spanned the first three decades of the twentieth century. Thereafter, he argues, ‘it became more and more, physically and administratively, an integral part of the exploding and impersonal metropolitan Delhi and its region, especially after India’s Independence’. The 1911 announcement of the proposed move of the capital of Imperial India from Calcutta was supported by Charles Hardinge, Viceroy of India, who had considerable say in the site selection, but less in the make up of the Delhi Town Planning Committee and the appointment of Edward Lutyens as chief planner. It was accepted that a key concept of the planning and design of the new capital was connectivity between the major capital elements and the landmarks of historic Delhi. Lutyens’s plan with its sweeping vistas and vast open spaces and landscaping was in marked contrast to the crowded environment of Old Delhi. Furthermore it took no account of the people of the old city or their livelihoods, nor had any allowance been made for the growth of the capital city of a large and populous country. But by the time New Delhi was inaugurated in 1931, the end of the Imperial era was in sight. Growth pressures both before and after Independence resulted in new administrative bodies and new planning measures. Today, Lutyens’s New Delhi represents only 3 per cent of the land area and 3 per cent of the population of the Delhi National Capital Territory, but is subject to debate between those who support its preservation and those who believe it should be developed at higher density.

As Wolfgang Sonne says, Berlin has had ‘a chequered planning history [which] offers numerous insights into the factors that lead to the success or failure of capital city planning’. The beginning of the twentieth century saw the city as capital of the German Empire with little need for planning intervention, since the important institutions were already housed in ‘monumental splendour’, and little inclination for the development of a master plan, given the political tensions between the imperial house and the social democratic city. The First World War brought drastic change; Germany and its capital entered the era of the Weimar Republic. During this period there were design proposals for a democratic government district in the capital, but these were thwarted by the country’s failing economy. The National Socialists seized power in 1933. Hitler appointed Albert Speer to realize his ambition to develop Berlin ‘into a real and true capital city of the German Reich’, but by 1945 what remained of this grandiose vision was little more than a pile of rubble. Sonne suggests that it was ‘not until a certain continuity manifested itself during the second half of the century – the existence of the GDR for forty years and the stability of the Federal Republic of Germany since 1949 – that successful capital city planning came within reach’ of Berlin – albeit a city divided for much of that time. German reunification in 1990 heralded a fresh chapter in the city’s history.

Rome, once capital of the mighty Roman Empire and later of the Vatican, before becoming capital of Italy in 1861, has seen change and development through ‘great events’ rather than by means of regular planning. So argues Giorgio Piccinato in Chapter 15. He cites, for example, the Great National Exhibition of 1911, celebrating fifty years of Italian unity, as bringing about spatial transformation independently of any plans. The Fascist years brought rapid change to Rome as Mussolini sought to ensure that the city reflected the greatness of Fascism. The 1931 plan, the work of Marcello Piacentini, was soon negated by preparations for the Esposizione Universale 1942 (or EUR) with its monumental marble public buildings and wide streets. War intervened and 1945 found Rome with an influx of refugees from all over the country, a dire housing problem, and poor transport and services. In 1960 another ‘great event’ in the shape of the Olympics came to Rome and boosted development, while in 1962 the City Council adopted a new plan. Some forty years later this was replaced by another master plan, but it is the EUR, Piccinato suggests, which is the real success story of post-war urban planning in Rome.

Chandigarh is not a national capital, but serves as the capital of two states, Punjab and Haryana; belonging to neither, it is classified as a Union Territory and is today administered by the federal government. As Nihal Perera explains in Chapter 16, need for the new city arose when Punjab was divided between India and Pakistan and the traditional capital, Lahore, fell within Pakistan’s borders. Of course, it is impossible to discuss Chandigarh without mentioning Le Corbusier’s role in the city’s planning. However, he was not the first choice of the Punjab officials. In 1950, the American firm of Mayer and Whittlesey was appointed, and Albert Mayer and Matthew Nowicki prepared the first master plan. However, following Nowicki’s death, Le Corbusier was brought in to execute the plan – instead he revised it radically, turning a plan based on garden city principles into a Modernist vision. Further, while Mayer and Nowicki had some understanding of Indian culture and society, Le Corbusier did not; his plan had scant regard for the traditional way of life and his interest lay in creating a city according to the principles of CIAM. In comparing the two plans, Perera explains why the Punjabi officials and even Nehru were convinced by Le Corbusier’s design. Today a city of more than 900,000, Chandigarh has undergone and continues to undergo a process of ‘urbanization, familiarization, and Indianization’.

Brussels became capital of Belgium in 1830 and, as Carola Hein explains, when Léopold II came to the throne in 1865 he ‘introduced a complete plan for beautifying the city, introducing major parks and green spaces, broad avenues and a uniform design for private buildings’. Since then there have been no such attempts at beautification. In contrast, during the 1960s in particular, ‘new office buildings rose quickly and “bruxellization” became a term for urban destruction’, while disputes amongst the country’s two main language groups led to the creation of separate regional and community organizations, all but one of which chose Brussels as its capital. However the impact of these organizations on the city is but little compared to the impacts resulting from the city’s role as ‘capital of Europe’. Hein describes how, in the late 1950s, the Belgian government used the presence of the European headquarters to boost Brussels’s urban development and traces the tangled processes by which the Quartier Léopold became Brussels’s European district, and home to the European Commission (the Berlaymont Building), the Council of Ministers (the Justus Lipsius Building) and the European Parliament.

The final case study city, New York, is without doubt a Super Capital. Eugenie Birch argues that the workings of a tri-partite governmental (city, state and federal) structure, where each level has sharply defined powers, and a system of implementation in which the public and private sectors work together to produce creative funding and administrative structures resulted in ‘a “chemistry” of design, politics and finance that catalyzed New York’s emergence as a Super Capital’. To reveal this process more clearly, Birch discusses four large-scale developments – the United Nations, the Rockefeller Center, the World Trade Center, and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. By the 1940s as a result of huge population growth, economic dominance, and leadership in culture, communications and style, the city had become the ‘capital of capitalism’, and by the 1970s it was a Super Capital, but this did not stem from compreh...