Cuthbert 2007# - Urban Design...Last 50 Years

8/13/2019 Cuthbert 2007# - Urban Design...Last 50 Years

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social technology without the grounding incial theory that would allow critical self-reflec-n to flourish. Problematically, this effectivelyates urban design as being several realms

moved from any substantial theory at all. Atweakest it could be seen as merely an

ension of the architectural imagination ore physical consequence of state planning poli-s. Both of these are somewhat nihilistic

itudes that fail to accept, as I hope tomonstrate, that urban design can stand on its

wn as a legitimate theatre of activity with anceptable theoretical signature. Nonetheless,e enduring dependency on architecture andanning remains, largely due to the historicalation of urban design to these two professions.e first position one could take on this situation,indeed many practitioners and academics do,o accept that:

Its power derives from the fact that, irrefutably,it is a deeply embedded social practice thatsocieties have valued from time immemorial,and therein lies its value. As such it does nothave to justify its existence through reference toa discrete set of home grown theory (Cuthbert,2003, p. 10)

hile at one level this is true, the question is notw the practice of urban design is to be under-

od, but how one is to determine its object;her real or theoretical, on which basis thecipline can establish its credibility. The nextk is to generate some explanatory framework

oted in substantial theory that explains thisect. In order to do this we must begin by

fining what we mean by Urban Design, itsationship within a hierarchy of practices, fromhitecture through urban design into urban and

gional planning, and the social function of each

thin a larger and more substantial socialntext. While the stress here is on a theory ofban design rather than theories for urbansign, the reason is simply because the formers been ignored and the latter has suffered innsequence.

pursuing this line of reasoning, significantopositions are suggested below which willobably expand rather than confine debate, and

e to their nature will unlikely be answered. Forample, is urban design an art or a science? If itan art, this removes the discipline entirely frome realm of scientific enquiry. On the other hand,t is a science, to which branch should it belong,

and how does it fit within the philosophy, logicand rationality of scientific endeavour? Suchquestions have no simple answers, and themystery that surrounds them will remain. Myapproach is therefore to offer some propositionsabout the current state of urban design knowl-edge, emerging from our best efforts over the last50 years, with the sole purpose of increasing itsintegrity and legitimacy. I see this first and

foremost requiring a commitment by those whoteach and practice the subject, to recognize that itneeds a foundation which is presently lacking. Atthe moment, urban design is largely fragmentedin its practices, theories and methodologies.Following Alfred North Whiteheads dictum thatit is more important that a proposition beinteresting than that it be true (although a trueproposition is more apt to be interesting thana false one) I suggest five propositions below

that form the substrate of this paper. I maintainthat these are central both to the legitimation ofurban design and to its relevance as a socialpractice.

Proposition 1: Urban design is self-referential andis neither informed by, nor committed to, any externalauthority in intellectual terms.

As a result, the discipline is denied any autonomy.

To quote Paul Feyerabend:

How can we discover the kind of world wepresuppose when proceeding as we do? Theanswer is clear: we cannot discover it from theinside. We need an external standard ofcriticism, we need a set of alternative assump-tions, or as these assumptions will be quitegeneral, constituting an entire alternativeworld, we need a dream world in order todiscover the features of the real world we thinkwe inhabit

yy

the first step in our criticism offamiliar concepts and procedures, the first stepin our criticism of facts must be an attempt to

break the circle (Feyerabend, 1975, p. 22)

As both theory and praxis, urban design is caughtin such a circle, and this paper constitutes anattempt to find an appropriate way out. As itstands, urban design has no external standard ofcriticism that complements or addresses its inter-

nal fractures and inconsistencies. It is a realscientific anomaly, a region of knowledge withan inside but no outside. Whatever legitimation itdoes have is stitched together by imagination inacademic life and regulation in practice. This

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ems to me to be insufficient. Following froms,

oposition 2: Urban design must reorient itself toial science as its wellspring, specifically urbaniology, geography, and economics.

e simple rationale for this position is that theganization of cities reflects the organization of

ciety. Social space and form is our fundamentalect of concern. Abstract exercises in spatialm must weld to the demands of social process.

relating urban design to the social sciences, it isar that the precepts of scientific enquiry apply,d I am aware of the difficulties involved in thissition. Later we will see how the attempt toate a specifically urban sociology during the

80s was fraught with conflict, the normal

uation when any serious scientific or philoso-ical enquiry is undertaken. At least the concepts debated for some 10 years, whereas in urban

sign the term remains meaningless since mostban designers have been insulated from socialeory by their education. Ask most urban designactitioners what urban means and one fallsmediately into a morass of subjectivity andnfusion. Borrowing from urban sociology, spe-ically Manuel Castells, we can suggest:

oposition 3: To be scientific, a discipline mustve either a real or a theoretical object of enquiry.

hile this seems to be quite obvious, it is oneoblem seldom if ever debated within Schools ofchitecture or Planning where most urbansign programmes are located. Part of this ise to the fact that the intellectual environmentthin the social sciences and humanities does

t exist in professional built environment facul-s to anything like the same degree. Questionsated to the third proposition above becomeelevant to urban design practice to the extent

at ideologies are embedded in production, withhatever inherent logic or consequences theyntain. In such a context this third propositioncomes an unnecessary indulgence. This defi-ely leads to a happier life. Nonetheless, theestion of a real or theoretical object remains,

d can be suggested as follows:

oposition 4: The theoretical object of urbanign is civil society, and its real object is the publiclm.

If indeed this proposition constitutes the veryessence of the discipline, then any urban designeducation should revolve around these twoprinciples. It should begin by answering suchquestions as What are the fundamental princi-ples governing civil society? How did the conceptof civil society arise? What types of civil societycan be identified, what particular social formsdoes civil society engender and how is it

constructed? What are the specific relationshipsthat allow civil society to produce spatial forms,specifically those of the public realm? How doescivil society project meanings into space throughurban form? How is globalization affecting theorganization and design of the public realm andsocial life? and other such questions. Finally, it isclear that if the above ideas are acceptable, thenlogically there are some fairly substantial implica-tions for education and practice alike. It demands

for example a complete reassessment of urbandesign traditions as historically relevant, havingemerged from the material circumstances of thetime, yet potentially irrelevant to the globalizationof capital in the digital world of the thirdmillennium. Once again I want to be clear thatthis does not mean, as it might sound, that wemust throw out everything we have been taughtand start again, or that we are faced with aneither/or proposition that the notion of a theory

ofurban design stands in opposition to a theoryfor urban design. Quite the opposite is implied. Isee this not as an either or proposition, but bothand. Emerging from this:

Proposition 5: Our understanding of the produc-tion of design outcomes must change from a modernist,Beaux Arts obsession with form, the eureka principle,and the cult of master/disciple to one where the organicproduction of urban forms and spaces are homologous

with the production of society.

Devolving from this, several points need to beclarified in relation to the above propositions andobservations, since they have certain wide-ran-ging implications. Nor am I suggesting that thereare no social or economic consequences to specifictypes of spatial design practice. Of course, itwould be nice to re-orient some research in urbandesign to discovering exactly what these are.

Re-orienting our analytic lens to spatial politicaleconomy would not only allow a significantassessment of projects before they are ordained,it would also permit a more user-centredapproach via an in-depth appreciation of culture,

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well as appropriate methods of predictingassessing outcomes of large-scale urban

development projects. Second, we must acceptt the use of the term theory has a hugehaeology of levels from the astronomy of black

les to making the best cup of coffee. This is alsoe within urban design. I have suggested below

me of the more powerful tools available to urbansigners via theories for urban design, and the

ors central to their use, for example, Hilliersalysis of crime levels in complex layouts, inprived areas which exclude surveillance, Alex-ders use of patterns as templates, etc (it is alsotructive however that Hillier and Hanson (1984)er to their space syntax as a A Configurationaleory of Architecture not Urban Design).

hile much urban design theory has considerableegrity, in other cases, it is clear that claims to

eory are merely descriptions of common urbantures or processes. They are axiomatic and

ve no universal application, qualities which Il pervades most of, for example, Kevin Lynchs

ork. Clearly there is a lot of theorizing thatmains to be done at this level, and the very best

it makes some effort to engage with morebstantial concepts in psychology, economics,d social theory. The important considerationre is that science demands a generally agreed

e system that rises above, for example, Alex-ders pattern language yet relates to it. Both arecessary, both should exist, but both neednificant integration if we are to succeed in

ecific and coordinated urban design knowledge.

order to do this I will adopt the followingocess. To begin, I try to put to rest the endlessoblem of defining urban design. This coverse entire range of so-called definitions that have

en ongoing for the best part of a century withresolution. The suggestion is made that the

k has been fruitless to date for several goodsons that are then explored in some depth.

ch exploration leads directly to the inescapableestion of appropriate theory, without whichy definition is insubstantial and largely contente. It also gives a clue as to why prevailingfinitions remain largely axiomatic and deprivedanalytical rigour and interest. Discussion then

nges over pre-existing ideas of theory in urbansign. I have selected the four most compellingorts in two areas. First, that of attempts atnthesis, and second, individual positions whichve in some manner attempted a unified theory

of urban design. More recently, several newtheoretical positions have emerged which chal-lenge knowledge to date with new ideas andhypotheses. Following Karl Poppers dictum thatscience advances through disproofs or falsifica-tion, the creation of new theory demands that the

best of the old falls under the microscope.

Taken together thestatus quoin urban design may

be seriously challenged by a generational positioncalled political economy. This discipline emergedin the work of Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith andDavid Hume, part of an intellectual fermentoriginating in Scotland some 300 years ago, whichat least one author has sourced as the wellspringsof the modern mind (Herman, 2002, p. v11).Some of this history is traced and connected to theidea of a specifically spatial political economy, adiscipline which up until now has been largely

confined to aspatial phenomena, as was mostsocial science until relatively recently. Taking thisconcept from aspatial phenomena into a sociologyof space has been a daunting and worthwhiletask, despite immense intellectual conflict. I thenargue that in order to legitimize urban design as adiscipline, we must escape from the shackles ofpersonality cults and ideologies into a sharedtheoretical base, with all its warts and flaws. Inconclusion, I suggest that if urban design theory is

to progress, it must be by substantial interactionbetween spatial political economy and urbandesign, since space cannot be separated from itssocial production in specific urban forms.

Urban design definitions

As in all disciplines, the most difficult problemsarise over the simple question of definition what

is being defined? an institution, a process, atheoretical construct, or an object of investigation?At the most elementary level, we have to considerthe very fact ofnaming the discipline, and thereare three related phrases that have had varyinglevels of use in signifying the design of cities,namely Civic Design, Urban Design and CityDesign. Civic Design was the terminology usedin regard to modernist architecture, where largeurban projects were carried out for the state and

were therefore civic in a very direct sense. Theterm was predominantly used in Britain, prior toLiverpool University establishing a foundationcourse in Civic Design in 1909. This constitutedthe beginning of urban design as an academic

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cipline, and the stimulus for all other pro-ammes in the UK. By 1970 the concept hadcome outdated, since its close connotation tounicipal government and functions such asvic Centre, were seen to be too restrictive.ncurrently, Harvard University in the United

ates was the first to establish a programme inban Design in 1960, and the term was thenported into the UK. Hence the more general

mUrban Design came into use. In some sensess neutralized the discipline by removing its

herent political significance the new term didt have any necessary connotation to citizenship,

e modern state and urban administration inneral that were implied in the term civic. In aajor sense, the emergent discipline was mysti-d by apparently removing it from the sociallm. One of the most applauded theorists in

ban design, Kevin Lynch, had difficulty with

th concepts. He preferred to use the term citysign which to him was a more encompassingm (Bannerjee and Southworth, 1990). He hads to say about city design:

City or environmental design deals with thespatial and temporal pattern of human activityand its physical setting, and considers both itseconomic-social and psychological effects (ofwhich latter the sensuous aspect is one part).

The concepts and techniques for manipulatingthis complex pattern, are as yet half formed.The ambiguity of our graphic notation system,its lack of inclusiveness, is one symptom of thisinadequacy. The goals for which this pattern ismanipulated are not clearly stated, and theirrelation to pattern is imperfectly known. Ourvocabulary of city form is impoverished: theneed for innovative ideas is correspondinglystrong. Yet it is clear that city form is a criticalaspect of the human environment, and designit we must (Bannerjee and Southworth, 1990,p. 483)

hile this statement was written in 1968, Lynchmained true to this basic ideology throughout

entire life, and frequently conflated the termban designto city design. Lynch had a significantluence over several generations of architects,

anners and others involved in the design ofies, and his concept of urban design was one

nonymous with project design or the designpect of urban planning. There are, of course, ahole series of flaws with this kind of analysis,edominantly the question of defining anynificant process merely in terms of its scale,

using concepts that now have little meaning suchas city, and not having a concrete definition ofwhaturbansignifies, let alone when it is tied to theequally problematic concept of design. In addi-tion, few people today would accord to Lynchsuse of the termcity designfor other reasons. Lynchalso correlated city design with environmentaldesign, where the more commonly used phraseis now sustainable development, leading to addi-

tional confusion (see Cuthbert, 2006, Chapter 7).

Nonetheless, the termurbanhas had a much moresignificant intellectual history than the generaldescriptor city which has little residual value incommunicating any meaningful functions, pro-cesses, forms or symbolic content. In contrast, thetermurban, apart from the fact that it originates inthe Latin word urbs meaning city, has hadsignificant accrued meaning since Lewis Wirth

first wrote his legendary paper Urbanism AsA Way of Life in 1938. Interrogating the termUrban also formed the basis for one of the mostmeaningful investigations into urban structure,that of Manuel Castells now iconic book TheUrban Question, first published in French in 1972.After its English debut in 1977, it set a debate inmotion for the next 10 years over the idea of aconceptually valid urban sociology, one that stillresonates today, although much of the territory

has now been captured by urban geography. SoI will continue to deploy the term urban since itremains a more relevant and conceptually chal-lenging term than either civic or city whenapplied to design, one whose meaning willhopefully become clearer over the remainder ofthis monograph.

Therefore from its somewhat confused identity,the discipline of urban design is usually defined

without reference to any meaningful theory andby analogy in its relation to physical scale, toadministrative matters, in regard to urban func-tions or to a skill-based process in support ofurban planning. Definitions such as the followingunderwrite most of the literature in urban design,and one searches in vain for anything of realsubstance:

Urban design is the art of three dimensional

city design at a scale greater than that of asingle building; Urban Design links planning,architecture and landscape architecturetogether, to the extent that it fills whatevergaps may exist among them; Urban design is

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that part of city planning that deals withaesthetics, and which determines the orderand form of the city; Urban design is thedesign of the general spatial arrangement ofthe activities and objects over an extended area,where the client is multiple, the program isindeterminate, control is partial and there is nostate of completion; Urban design is primarilyconcerned with the quality of the urban public

realm, both social and physical, and themaking of places that people enjoy andrespect; Urban design is the art of making orshaping townscapes, and so on (Cuthbert,2003, p. 12)

Poppers terms, these sorts of statements areuctured for extremely low levels of refutability,

e mark of insignificant theory. The literature onban design is swamped by axioms such as

ese, which are obvious even to the uninitiated.d so the search for an appropriate definition as

e foundation for urban design theory has beengoing over the last 50 years, a task doomed tolure in the absence of a substantial theoretical

undation. In spite of endless attempts atfining the discipline over the interveningriod, progress towards developing a satisfac-y hypothesis, a set of guiding constructs ornciples, or a reasoned manifesto of ideological

actices has been absolutely glacial. Virtually allfinitions begin and end in dogma, and the so-led crisis in urban design, like the endlessisis in urban planning continues, and nobodyks the obvious question as to why the crisis isemingly continuous and endless, and what itsurce might be. So urban design theory con-ues to be impelled by a dearth of critical and

alectical thinking, an emballage of anarchisticactices, an obsession with skill-based learning,

d a continuing belief in physical determinism.

re two papers stand out simply because of theires; David Goslings 1984 paper Definitions ofban Design, and Alistair Rowleys paper of the

me name exactly 10 years later (an altogetherperior work can be found in Punter, 1996). In paper, Gosling has adopted a wholly archi-tural perspective, as if only architects had anyht to define the discipline. While it may seem

fair to criticize this paper, now 20 years old, itmains significant precisely because it embodiese of the most powerful and enduring ideologiesl dominating the field of urban design. While

autifully written and executed, the work is

nonetheless a self referential, ideologically biasedand atheoretical rendition of the genre, alienatingevery major theorist concerned with urban devel-opment, structure, and form, to the bleechers.Similarly, potential models of urban design, forexample, defined through civil society or thepublic realm, as a socio-spatial matrix, as sym-

bolic representation, etc, are wrapped and madeaccessible only in and through the work of

architects and their critics.

So Goslings paper presented a picture of urbandesign that could only be defined and understoodin reference to the entire payroll of modern andpostmodern architecture, beginning, as is thenorm with Le Corbusier, and continuing throughthe work of Oscar Niemeyer, Rob and Leon Krier,Robert Venturi, Lucien Kroll, Bernard Tschumi,Emilio Ambasz, Miguel Angel Roca, Aldo Rossi,

Matthias Ungers and a host of others. The papercloses with a new definition of urban designwhich is not stated, but is inferred again withreference to architectural projects such as Cergy-Pontoise (Lucien Kroll), the Byker Wall in New-castle (Ralph Erskine) Carlos Nelson Dos Santos(Bras de Pina Favella, Rio de Janiero), all of itwrapped into having something to do with fairand equitable access to well designed state-sponsored housing. While most of the projects

discussed are undeniably brilliant in formalterms, their collective outcomes are not evaluated,nor does any meaningful definition of urbandesign emerge from any association.

Similar criticisms can be applied to AlistairRowleys paper, which exhausts the superficialto such an extent that only substantial theoryremains to be addressed elsewhere. This is initself a singular service, because in the 20 pages of

the paper, Rowley condenses virtually every kindof definition of mainstream Urban Design sinceSpriergens seminal work in 1965, and there isnothing left to say. Most definitions are axiomaticto the point of humour. Even on the first page,and 20 years after the huge debates on the termurban raged within urban sociology, involvingsome of the best social theorists of our time, weare still presented with a definition of urban assomething (we know not what) in contrast to

rural development, a relationship demolished inthe postscript to The Urban Question by ManuelCastells in 1977. Quoting Ruth Knack, we areinformed that Trying to define urban design islike playing a frustrating version of the old

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rlour game, twenty questions (Rowley, 1994, p.1). In the section The substance of urbansign we are offered two insipid definitionsat illustrate how notions of the subject haveveloped since the 1950s:

The purpose of town design is to see that (theurban) composition not only functions prop-erly, but is pleasing in appearance and in

contrast, Urban design is essentially aboutplace-making where places are not just aspecific place, but all the activities andevents that make it possible (Gibberd, 1953;Buchanan, 1988 in Rowley, 1994, p. 182)

finitions of urban design in Rowleys paper areo seen to be dependent on the repetition ofdless taxonomies of various kinds that exhauste stock of available adjectives to describe urbanm such as

87 planning considerations grouped under 14second tier headings which in turn weregrouped under six broadly based first tierconsiderationsyy.Cook has written about thefour qualities that urban design, as process,seeks to achieve visual, functional, environ-mental and urbanexperience and the essence ofcities complexity, surprise, diversity, and activityandyyy.Kevin Lynchs five performance

dimensions, habitability, sense, fit, access and

control, Bentleys seven qualities permeability,variety, legibility, robustness, visual appropriate-ness, richness and personalisationyythe Princeof Wales ten principles,the place, hierarchy, scale,harmony, enclosure materials, decoration, art, signs,lights and community (Rowley, 1994, p. 185)

Definitions of Urban Design, Rowley concludesth 10 more characteristics (why not have 20), by

hich point it should be apparent to the

elligent lay reader that the discipline is inious trouble. Once again another taxonomy

places any critical thinking on the subject. Thet of these notes that urban design education

mands literacy in the social sciences, law,onomics, public policy and business adminis-tion, none of which are deployed in the paper.e problem with all of these attempts to defineban design is that they are content-free, depth-s and incapable of moving us forward, except

rhaps into another set of the so-called basiclues, functional qualities, descriptive proper-s, performance dimensions or other qualitativeoupings, usually claimed to have universalnificance which of course they dont. As a

collectivity, the result is akin to running on thesurface of a sphere, at some point and on arandom basis you have to arrive back where youstarted. It is not that these observations are untrueor uninteresting, simply that they are triviallycorrect, that is, so devoid of content that it isalmost impossible to devise any empirical testwhich would prove them false.

In this sense they are also immune to Poppersconcept of refutability, which would accord themsome kind of theoretical justification (see Popper,1959, 1974). As Thomas Kuhn has suggested, thisdoes not even consist in its proof but of itsprobability in the light of evidence that isavailable to us. Hence definitions such as thoseabove contain no propositions of any real content.Not only are they wholly isolated from significanttheory, they also block the possibility that any will

ever emerge by perpetuating this kind of thinkingendlessly into the future, a process which has now

been going on at least since 1945, and is still aliveand well in the annals of the urban designliterature (Schurch, 1999). One quote from DonaldAppleyard however does stand out, that bound-ary definition in the case of urban design is anegative activity. It is indeed more enriching toidentify, clarify and debate the central beliefs andactivities of a field than to hide behind a simplistic

mask (in Rowley, 1994, p. 181). What these arehave not yet been stated with any real conviction.Given that the least meaningful definition ofurban design used by professionals is that itoccupies the space between architecture andplanning, it is worth pausing for a moment toconsider John Punters insightful paper of 1996,Urban Design Theory in Planning Practice: TheBritish Perspective which traces its origins fromthe Garden City Movement and Raymond

Unwins classic text Town Planning in Practice: anIntroduction to the Art of Designing Cities andSuburbs(1909).

Before considering the implications of the abovesituation which are clearly substantial, I will

briefly amplify on the reasons why I feel thaturban design is in such a moribund position.Rowleys explanation of urban designvis-a-vistheBritish planning system concentrates on two

traditions. First, that of the picturesque, whichhad close ties to landscape painting. This in turnwas closely related to the practice of Englishlandscape gardening and such artists as UvedalePrice, George Repton, and Capability Brown.

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cond, to the tradition that evolved from it calledTownscape Tradition, one that concentrated on

e idea of serial vision as the organizingnciple (Cullen, 1961, 1967 and Smith, 1974,

76).

e definition that emerges from both of these isrely visual and experiential. There is a nostalgication on appearances where the perfect model

ould seem to be the idealized English villageated in a beautiful landscaped garden (of

mewhat limited application in a globalizedorld). This vision dominated planners defini-ns of urban design at least until 1973 when thesex Design Guide synthesized prevailing atti-des into the first comprehensive attempt to

mbed urban design in the UK into planningactice. As with architectural definitions ofban design, the ideas that evolved from

ymond Unwin and Gordon Cullen also remainve today. The principles of the British pictur-

que, visual, townscape tradition are enshrinedthe highly publicized design interventions ofs Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, sup-rted by various architects such as Francis

bbalds, Quinlan Terry and Rob Krier (Hansond Younes, 2001). This neo-traditional move-

ent is now sweeping the globe in the form ofthew Urbanism, a movement that seeks to construct

e future based on nostalgic visions of the past.

ming right up to the last 10 years, the fact thatof these definitions remain alive is well

presented in the UK. In December 1999 thepartment of the Environment, Transport and

e Regions (DETR) commissioned two reports onban design by Arup Economics and the Uni-rsity of Reading, respectively. These werembined in a final report in 2001. The completed

cument estimated that there were some 180,000dividuals in Britain who may be involved inme way in urban design activity. The fact that age engineering practice was chosen to run the

oject says a lot in itself.

They include among the professions, architects,planners, surveyors, civil engineers, and land-scape architects, who together with the UrbanDesign Group and Civic Trust, have formed the

Urban Design Alliance. The combined mem-bership of these five professions is 216,000persons with about 5000 applicants commen-cing first degree courses at the universities andcolleges each year, potentially leading to a

professional qualification in these disciplines(DETR, 2001, p. 1)

The final paper encapsulates all of the abovedescriptors and because of the arcane problemssurrounding any reasonable definition, begins bysaying that It is easier to say what urban design isnot, architecture, civil or highway engineering,landscape architecture, surveying, town planning,

than what it is: urban design is both more and lessthan any one of these long established profes-sional activities. This is a bit like saying that anelephant is definitely not a giraffe, a zebra, or acamel. Its much heavier than all of them butcannot run as fast. Moving on into even deeperwaters, many other definitions are given in thepaper, for example, Urban Design is an inter-disciplinary process and activity, Urban designshould be taken to mean the relationship between

different buildings; the relationship betweenbuildings streets, squares, parks, waterways andother spaces which make up the public domain;the nature and quality of the public realm itself;the relationship of one part of a village, town orcity, with other parts; and the patterns of move-ment and activity thereby established; Thereare different styles or types of urban design.The variations between each type reflect a rangeof factors including the role of the urban designer

in the urban design process; the objectives ofthose employing urban designers; the situationand issues that will be addressed; and the criteriaused to measure success. The paper concludes bypaying a tribute to Jonathan Barnetts memorabledescription of urban design as designing citieswithout designing buildings (DETR, 2001, p. 1).

Forget any meaningful theory, in every case theabove attempts to define urban design are

seriously divorced from any theory at all. Var-iously, they constitute radically empiricist, func-tional, technocratic, historicist, or practice andskill-based definitions. Many are deprived of anymeaning whatsoever. Most are tautological oraxiomatic, where no learning is possible. What wecan assume from this, given that many highlyintelligent minds have had a go over decades, isthat seeking a definition exemplified by the manyattempts given above is not only counterproduc-

tive but impossible, in the absence of a theoreticalframework that would make them real. Like anyother social process, urban design does notremain a static phenomenon, and the need to hita moving target is also omnipresent. However,

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s is not all bad, and it is quite clearm the fairly extensive rubric above, that one

n indeed get a glimpse of how urban designs into the overall processes of urban develop-nt while simultaneously being deprived of any

planation at all as to how or why it occurs asdoes.

th few exceptions, traditional definitions con-

tute descriptions of perceptible surface struc-es in administrative, professional, aesthetic or

her arrangements, a bit like trying to defineavitation in terms of apples falling to theound, by what colour the apples are, what type

apple, how they compare to apples fallingother trees etc, in the absence of a supporting

pothesis. Overall, the processes of science,tical thinking, and focused research are alld in suspense. Even the basic principle of

mulating a significant hypothesis about thecipline, one to be tested as the foundationtheory, is ritually avoided. One may search in

in for any author who begins an article mypothesis as to a satisfactory theory of urbansign would be the following. But as in alleory, we are not looking for some immutableunchanging truth, just a satisficing summarythe object in question that can be debated

d tested, so that another horizon in the

velopment of knowledge can be establishedmon, 1969).

the problem remains. In the absence of anyorous theoretical framework that links urbansign activity to the historical process, to socialvelopment and to other professions, the samesic positions and approaches outlined abovell be recycled ad finitum. Conversely, explana-n using the method described, demonstrating

me theoretical coherence might begin by align-g urban design theory to the material produc-n of the built environment as an ongoingtorical continuum. On this basis the need to

ntinually restate definitions would disappear,d the endless process of grinding out yetother taxonomy could terminate. But such anproach demands that we consider at least threesic ideas.

st, we should abandon any attempt to defineban design in any of the forms outlined above,d conflate the term urban design to theduction and reproduction of urban form. In

neral, this is how I will use the term in this

paper. The central reason for such a distinction isto make it impossible to consider design indepen-dent toother processes (as exemplified in Gosling,and Rowley, above). Overall, the arguably super-ficial nature of urban design theory stems fromthis one fact, that is, the separation of form fromcontent.

Second, we need to set aside the professionaliza-

tion of knowledge/process for the simple reasonthat professions are by definition, territorial. Theycapture regions of intellectual capital supported

by legislation, membership, and the arcanelanguages of practice (Cuthbert, 2006, Chapter 10).Any emergent theory or even any satisfactoryexplanation of the production of built form wouldhave to incorporate a critique of professions quaideological structures. Critical self-reflection is notabout to emerge from this source since profes-

sions are knowledge monopolies linked to bigcapital. Hence, developing a substantial theory ofurban design, might be experienced by thearchitectural and planning professions as a formof self-immolation.

Third, to a large degree the same is true of theacademy and tertiary education in general. Theideological nature of tertiary education is onthe one hand heavily penetrated by professional

intervention via accreditation processes. On theother hand, neo-corporate interests intrude in thegeneral definition, production and ownership ofintellectual property. In this sense, the boundarieswithin tertiary education are no better than thosewithin the professions themselves. Indeed, it can

be easily argued that the professions play anactive part in maintaining territorial imperativesin tertiary education via accreditation (legitima-tion) processes.

For the moment the thorny problem of whatconstitutesscienceand what does not, and whetherurban design knowledge can be defined scientifi-cally will be set to one side. What is required issome significant framework or structures ofknowledge that satisfactorily account for theproduction of specific spatial arrangements, whichresult in identifiable urban forms and systemsof representation. Since these will ultimately be

proven false in the necessary development ofknowledge, science requires that such a formula-tion should be highly resistant to empiricalrefutation. Fortunately, much of the requiredinfrastructure has already been addressed in other

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eas of knowledge as we shall see, but with fewceptions it remains invisible to urban designministrators, educators and professionals.

paraphrase the words of Scott and Roweis ineir seminal article Urban Planning in Theory andactice A Reappraisal(1977), we should attemptdiscover the sociohistorical meaning, rational-

and limits of urban design, rejecting defini-

ns of the type proposed above. Such definitionse counter-productive in that they all configureban design theory as essentially normative.ing an analogy to urban planning, what isplied is that to date, urban design hasesented itself as that reality, not so much oneat is false, but one which is trivially correct orherwise structured for a low level of refutability.

contradiction, it is not an independent andtonomous urban design theory that produces

e various facts of actual urban design; it isher the realities of contemporary urbanization

at give rise to urban design as a necessary socialivity, and hence its explanation as a social fact.e only person to my knowledge that hasually tried to do this is Manuels Castells, andpropositions below bear comparison with the

thora of attempts to define urban design givenove.

relation to spatial political economy, Castellsmes the fundamental question on the basis of

e fundamental concepts of historical material-m, how can we grasp the specificity of the forms

social space? (Castells, 1977, p. 235). In concertth this question he also offers by far the mostcompassing and theoretically rigorous defini-n of urban design to date, one which informedth The Design of Cities and The Form of Citiesuthbert, 2003, 2006). In contrast to every other

empt documented earlier in this paper, heoids the pitfall of any definition that is notuated within a hierarchy of socio-spatial con-pts that allow context, relativity, and process to

included:

We define urban meaning as the structuralperformance assigned as a goal to cities ingeneral (and to a particular city in the inter-urban division of labour) by the conflictive

process between historical actors in a givensociety.

We define urban functions as the articulatedsystem of organizational means aimed at

performing the goals assigned to each city byits historically defined urban meaning.

We therefore define urban form as the symbolicexpression of urban meaning, and of thehistorical superimposition of urban meanings(and their forms), always determined by aconflictive process between historical actors.

We call urban social change the redefinition ofurban meaning. We call urban planning thenegotiated adaptation of urban functions to ashared urban meaning. We call Urban Designthe symbolic attempt to express an acceptedurban meaning in certain urban forms (ManuelCastells 1983, pp. 303304)

Rather than resort to definitions of urban designsuch as those previously discussed above, where

the various qualities, properties, dimensions, etcof cities are used to delineate urban design aspraxis,Castells great contribution was to define ittheoretically as an embedded part of other urbanfunctions and processes (notwithstanding the factthat what exactly constituted urban remainedunresolved, and the fact that the concept of urbanmeaning as a workable principle remained some-what opaque). Importantly, Castells also assignsthe term meaning (not economy as one might

expect) as the ultimate measure of the perfor-mance of cities, and associates such meaning withthe outcome or representation of conflict. WhileCastells can be criticized for not making explicitwhat he meant byurban meaning, that is, turning itinto a formula, the term is made in the context ofhis own massive output of scholarly works. I takethe term meaning here at its broadest compass tosignify the actual material expression of thehistory of capitalist development, writ large in

the built form of cities using the medium of urbandesign, or more succinctly, the accrued history ofits symbolic capital. This would include first andforemost in Castells terms, the idea of classstruggle, collective memory, and the expression ofsocial distinctions. Inherent in this would beincluded war oppression, liberation and recon-struction, representations in the realms of science,art and philosophy and other forms of semiosis.Physically we are dealing with the entire panoply

of urban form, individual architectural elements,monuments, street sculpture, including spacesand places as well as their naming and associa-tions. In this regard Allen Scotts classic paper of2001 Capitalism, cities and the production of

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mbolic forms offers additional insights. Primeo is the concept of the urban landscape, thessic work in this last category being DennissgrovesSocial Formation and Symbolic Landscape98).One may hazard that the urban designers

ntral activity is in the production and consump-n of symbolic capital through the medium ofed capital investment, reproduction and ex-ange (Harvey, 1989).

ncepts of symbolic capital and symbolic spaced form, are closely related ideas (Bourdieu,77; Schusterman, 1999). Bourdieu advanced theea of symbolic capital, which he describes morecurately as the symbolic effects of capital at greatngth in Outline of a Theory of Practice and the

m remains in widespread use today. A crudey to look at symbolic capital would be say

at it is the value of the added symbolic

pression and associations of a product, inntrast to its material cost. In many casess may outweigh its cash value which cancome irrelevant over time. For example, thembolic capital of the great pyramid of Cheops

Egypt is priceless but its material value isro. Bourdieu also introduced the concept

taste, exhibited through the ownership ofmbolic capital, Harvey points out that symbolicpital is both fetishistic and ideological since it

nceals the real basis of economic distinctions.rthermore,

Conjoining the idea of symbolic capital withthe search to market Kriers symbolic richnesshas much to tell us, therefore, about suchphenomena as gentrification, the production ofcommunity (real, imagined or simply packagedfor sale by producers), the rehabilitation ofurban landscapes and the recuperation ofhistory (again real imagined or simplyreproduced as pastiche). It also helps us tocomprehend the present fascination withembellishment, ornamentation and decorationas so many codes and symbols of socialdistinction (Harvey, 1989, pp. 8082)

concepts of urban meaning, symbolic capital,eology, social reproduction and the actualsign of the built environment are all integratedd lie at the heart of urban design practice. By

ating function, form and meaning, Castellsovides us with a complex of relationshipshere we can clearly see the interaction of

ociated elements in the urban process, ratheran as the fixed properties of physical form.

Whereas most other definitions of urban designdiscussed above are static observations that gonowhere or are based on happy certainties thatcannot be refuted, the complexity of Castellsinsight automatically leads to other hypotheses orspeculations rooted in substantial theory Whatis urban meaning and how is it derived?, Inwhat manner does the redefinition of urbanmeaning result in changes to the built environ-

ment?; How does the symbolic expression ofurban form relate to class and other societalconflicts? Through which processes does suchurban meaning materialize, using what kinds ofcontent? Castells encompassing hypothesis there-fore stands out as a singularly insightful attemptto connect the process of designing cities to theoverall process of the production of space withincapitalism, or to paraphrase Scott and Roweisonce again:

We cannot assume that Urban Design emerges,acquires its observable qualities, and evolves,according to forces that reside solely withinitself. Urban Design is not invented in avacuum, but is structurally produced out ofthe basic contradiction between capitalist socialand property relations (and their specificallyurban manifestations) and the concomitantnecessity for collective action (Castells, 1977,

p. 1011)In The Urban Question, Castells had alreadyoffered a rare analysis of urban spatial forms asproducts of basic economic processes produc-tion, consumption, exchange and administration,and the reflection of ideological structures insymbolic configurations, elements and places.Castells typology of urban space is extremelywell structured and is solidly grounded in anextensive theoretical foundation. There is no

doubt that it represents a qualitative advance onits predecessors by several levels of magnitude.This does not imply that it is ideal or cannot beimproved, or that all of the epistemologicalproblems have been solved. Nonetheless, it wasthe first serious attempt to incorporate urbandesign and urban planning within a unified andcoherent definition, linked to a significant body ofsocial theory based on the morphing of politicaleconomy into the dimension of urban space and

form.

Before moving these ideas forward, we will nowtake a greater in-depth look at some of the moreprominent mainstream theories in urban design

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order to maintain a progressive historicalrspective on the discipline. A more substantialproach to theory will then be engaged, follow-

g Scott and Roweis lead into recent develop-nts in spatial political economy.

rban design Theory?

s not my intention here to write a normativetory of urban design (one that is yet to beembled), but to illustrate some of the moreluential and prototypical discourses that tradi-nal theory still clings to for support. All of

ese texts are classics in their own right, andnstitute significant markers in the journeywards an improved understanding of urbansign. Historically, each represented a significantempt to correct what was seen to be a dominant

oblem at the time they were written. Much ofhat is contained between their covers willmain valid for years to come, for the simpleason that even the simple principles embodied

for example, Gordon CullensTownscape (1961)main widely ignored 40 years after the book

s written. As we approached the end of theond millennium however, three things became

ry clear.

e first was that the ideologies represented ine collective corpus of work traditionally asso-ted with modernist urban design had lost

uch of their explanatory power. Jon Langsssic text Urban Design, The American Experience94), marked in a very real sense, the lastnificant breath of the modernist position.

cond, since that time, that is roughly over thet 10 years, a new era in urban design theory has

rfaced, although this remains to be articulatedany empowering manner. Nan Ellins book

stmodern Urbanism (1996) and Ross Kingsancipating Space (1996) represent two memor-

le texts written in the intervening period, theter the only one that has a dialectical relation-p to theory.

ird, the upsurge in things urban in disciplinesat had previously been wholly disconnected to

e design of cities began to produce a significantrpus of work. Urban sociology, economics andography, cultural studies, art history, landscapehitecture and other disciplines from anthro-logy to philosophy were all involved. Overall

Urban Sociology and Human Geography havebeen the two key players since the early 1980s.Leslie Sklairs recent articles The TransnationalistCapitalist Class and Contemporary Architecture inGlobalising Cities and Iconic Architecture andCapitalist Globalisation (Sklair, 2005, 2006) demon-strate the extent to which significant explanationsof urban design in the information age have

been abstracted out of the hands of urban

designers into urban economics and urban sociol-ogy. While the design process is not discussed inany of this work, what constituted the realcontent of the urban (design) process was beingarticulated in all kinds of ways and from manydifferent sources. This progression has resultedin the undeniable observation that moresignificant theoretical paradigms about the shapeand form of urban space were originatingfrom outside the discipline of urban design than

from the inside, and not before time either. It alsooffers a partial explanation as to why so few keytexts on urban design have emerged over the last20 years.

In Designing Cities (Cuthbert, 2003), I thereforemade a clear distinction between what I considerto be normative theory in urban design over the30 years period from 1960 to around 1990 or so,which I will summarize below, and other more

significant theoryofurban design and urban formthat addresses urban spatial theory, has beenelaborated in significant detail inThe Form of Cities(Cuthbert, 2006). In order to contextualize theknowledge represented in mainstream urbandesign theory, I also suggested an elementarytaxonomy of 40 scholars whose work had sig-nificant influence over mainstream urban designwhich I have slightly modified and upgraded to40 on the basis of feedback from colleagues over

the last few years (see Table 1).

In addressing mainstream theory, we must brieflylook at the functional relationships betweenarchitecture, urban design and urban planningthat configure much traditional thinking aboutthe significance of each. To facilitate this compar-ison, a systems view of the three related dis-ciplines, couched in terms of Herbert Simonsirreducible elements of systems referred to in his

bookThe Sciences of the Artificial (1969) is given inTable 2. Like all attempts to create a simpletaxonomy or table of relationships one has toresort to some fairly pragmatic statements.Nonetheless, clarifying the purpose of each in

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ationship to its social function allows a trans-rency of meaning denied to definitions thatnflate each to the other. On this basis it is fairly

clear that some significant distinctions betweenthe three disciplines can be made even at thisfairly rudimentary level of analysis.

ble 1 Forty classic texts in urban design

Chermayeff and Alexander (1960) Community and PrivacyLynch (1960) Image of the CityMumford (1961) The City in HistoryJacobs (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Cullen (1961) Townscape Halprin (1963) Cities

Buchanan (1963) Traffic in TownsWebber (1964) The urban place and the nonplace urban realmRudofsky (1964) Architecture without ArchitectsSpriergen (1965) Urban Design; Architecture of Towns and Cities.

Bacon (1967) The Design of CitiesMcHarg (1969) Design with NatureRudofsky (1969) Streets for PeopleSommer (1969) Personal SpaceHalprin (1969) The RSVP CyclesProshansky et al(1970) Environmental Psychology

Lynch (1971) Site PlanningNewman (1973) Defensible SpaceBanham (1973) The Architecture of Four EcologiesMarch and Steadman (1971) The Geometry of EnvironmentRapoport (1977) Human aspects of Urban Form

Venturi et al(1977) Learning from Las VegasAlexander (1977) The Pattern Language

Rowe and Koetter (1979) Collage CityNorberg-Schultz (1979) Genius Loci Krier (1979) Urban Space

Lynch (1981) A Theory of Good City FormBarnett (1982) An Introduction to Urban Design.Hillier and Hanson (1984) The Social Logic of SpaceTrancik (1986) Finding Lost SpaceAlexander (1987) A New Theory of Urban DesignBroadbent (1990) Emerging Concepts in Urban Space Design

Katz (1994) The New UrbanismLang (1994) Urban Design : The American ExperienceHillier (1996) Space is the Machine.Ellin (1996) Postmodern UrbanismGehl (1987) Life Between Buildings

Madanipour (1996) Design of Urban Space Dovey (1999) Framing Places

Gosling (2002) The Evolution of American Urban Design

ble 2 A systems view of professional boundaries

cipline Architecture Urban design Urban planning

ment

tructure Statics+human activity Morphology of space and form(history+human activity)

Government bureaucracy

nvironment 3 dimensional (closed system) 4 dimensional (open system) The political economy of the state

esources Materials+energy+design theory Architecture+Ambient space+Socialtheory

Systems of legitimation andcommunication

bjectives Social closure/physical protection Social communication and interaction To implement the prevailingideology of power

ehaviour Design parameters: Artificiallycontrolled environments

Dynamics of urban land markets Dynamics of advanced capitalistsocieties

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thin this arrangement, Architecture is limitedthe design of individual buildings, which arenceived primarily in terms of the designrameters of artificially controlled environ-ents. Importantly, the term artificial used ins context does not connote false, but man-

ade. Despite the endless claims by architectsat their buildings integrate with nature anderact with their environment, and whatever

sthetic is adopted, buildings, for all practicalrposes are closed boxes. The essential function

architectural components is private andfensive, predominantly from the weather andm other people; hence buildings generallyerate as closed systems with human, electronicphysical means of surveillance used to mediateernal relations. Urban design on the other

nd is represented as an open system thates individual architectural elements and

mbient space as its basic vocabulary. Whereashitecture is predominantly concerned with

cial closure and protection, urban design is byvery nature, focused on social interaction

d communication in the public realm. Urbananning may then be conceived as somethingndamentally different again, as the agent ofe state in controlling the production of land

the purposes of capital accumulation andcial reproduction, in allocating sites for the

lective consumption of social goods such asspitals, schools, religious buildings, and inoviding space for the production, circulationd eventual consumption of commodities.

hile Architecture represents the locus of ex-ange values locked into fixed capital assets,ban Designquathe public realm appears as useues representing the space of civil society.

ban Planning is unique in the sense that it

sts only in the degree to which it is representedan ideological structure focused on two things,

cial control and profit. It relies solely on thete for its existence and is legitimated through a

mplex system of planning law that consolidatespitalist social relations in regard to space. Asmbolic art forms and containers of history, nonethis infers that architecture and urban designnot rise above these functional criteria, nor that

ban planning cannot focus on the greater social

od. Clearly it has played a significant role inproving the general well being of labour while

multaneously guaranteeing superprofits fromnd development in return for minimal regula-n. There are however significant philosophical,

technical and functional differences among andbetween them, and neither architecture nor urbanplanning can make facile assumptions about theirown ability to expedite urban design strategies aspraxis. Within this general paradigm, we canmake three kinds of distinction about urbandesign theory for the purposes of the ensuingdiscussion.

First, there have been several courageousattempts to synthesize the entire field of urbandesign: the most notable epitomized in thefollowing four examples:

Rowe and Koetters Collage City(1979) Gosling and Maitlands Concepts of Urban

Design(1984) Roger Tranciks Finding Lost Space-Theories of

Urban Design (1986) Geoffrey Broadbents Emerging Concepts inUrban Space Design (1990).

Second, there are claims to primacy, by whichI mean some claim to a theory of urban design byindividuals

Kevin LynchsA Theory of Good City Form, (1981) Rob Kriers Urban Space (1979)

Bill Hillier and Julienne Hansons The SocialLogic of Space (1984) Christopher AlexandersA New Theory of Urban

Design(1987).

Third, there has been a significant movement inapproaches to urban design over the last 10 years.Overall there have been two major trajectories,

both practice led. The first is the overall trendtowards sustainability, largely considered the

arena of architecture until relatively recently. Assustainability is by now generic to most profes-sional environmental disciplines, its implicationsare not directly related to any specific theory ofurban form, its principles being incorporated aspraxis into engineering, architecture, planning,

building, landscape and related disciplines. Sec-ond, the movement called The New Urbanism is afast maturing ideology with wide-ranging impli-cations with specific theoretical implications for

urban design. As a movement, it may be arguedthat the assumptions and practices of the NewUrbanism have the potential to overshadow mostof the paradigms under consideration (Clarke,2006).

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tempts at synthesis

e four major attempts at synthesis tried inrious ways to generate typologies, even if theea of collage does not readily fit the category.ken together they offer an interesting summarytheory in urban design since the Second World

ar. Each book is beautifully produced with aultitude of illustrations, collectively encompass-g most of the significant major urban projects

until 1990. It is also telling however, thatthout exception, the authors are architects. Eachrampantly modernist in his approach. Unsur-singly architectural ideologies dominate. Be-

use of this there is endless referencing of theionalist and contextualist schools of thought (asll as neo-rationalist and neo-contextualist)

d a continual recycling of the work of majorhitects such as Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier,

ank Lloyd Wright, Aldo Rossi, Rob Krier andhers. In two cases (Rowe and Koetter, 1979d Broadbent, 1990) there is at least the acknow-gement of some theory that exists outside

e aesthetic and formal aspects of architecturalsign.

llage City by Rowe and Koetter (1979) is anredibly erudite piece of prose that derives

uch of its creative impulse from associationsth literature, poetry, painting, and philosophy,well as architecture. WhileCollage Cityis on thee hand, totally committed to architecture as anginal reference point, there is also an ingrainedssimism and a deeply held sense of failureout its accomplishments, an observation whichn nonetheless be welcomed as a positiventribution. This paradox of celebration andlure that exists throughout the work is clearlypressed at the outset:

The city of modern architecture (it may also becalled the modern city) has not yet been built.In spite of all the goodwill and the goodintentions of its protagonists, it has remainedeither a project or an abortion; and, more andmore, there no longer appears to be anyconvincing reason to suppose that matters willever be otherwise. For the constellation ofattitudes and emotions which are gathered

together under the general notion of modernarchitecture and which then overflow, in oneform or another, into the inseparably relatedfield of planning, begin in the end to seemaltogether too contradictory, too confused and

feebly unsophisticated to allow for any but themost minor productive results (Rowe andKoetter, 1979)

Collage City is fundamentally a critique of urban-ism defined as the relationship between architec-ture and planning. But the sense of failure thatpermeates the text is both unnecessary andmisplaced. The reason for this is manifest that

architects are not responsible for the failure of themodern city (if indeed it is failing) and anyperceived failure emerges from the modernistarrogance that places architects at the centre of theworld. Clearly architects are not responsible forthe production of urban space, which is essen-tially an economic and political process. Eventheir overall role in manufacturing built form isminimal, given that architects are only involved insome 15% of all construction processes. The idea

that cities are composed of fragments as in theFrench concept of bricolage has exalted claims together these fragments create a conceptualframework for our experience of the city as aform of phenomenological cubist collage, in ourindividual and collective consciousness. Eachfragment was a lived world, the product ofhistory, which could be inhabited. The differences

between fragments and their inhabitants made forthe diversity and vibrancy of city life (Shane,

2000). Whether one could ever examine a phe-nomenological cubist collage sufficiently to ren-der even a bit of it operational is open to question.In addition, Collage City presents no manifestos,theories, methods or taxonomies that wouldactually assist in building some encompassingvision of architecture or urban design, nor is thereany material presented that might support theconcepts. Its central thesis that the building ofcities occurs in fragments that assemble into a

collage of parts, each with its own identity, flies inthe face of most urban geography as to how citiesgrow and change. Also the book has no outcome,even the title Collage City and what to do with itremains a mystery. Ultimately the work is both aeulogy on modern architecture and a sermon onits demise, conflating in the process, architecturewith urban design.

Given the free-floating nature of Collage City,

Gosling and Maitlands Concepts of Urban Design(1984) is much more highly structured. In contrastto Goslings article discussed above, the book hasmuch greater intellectual scope and depth. None-theless, it maintains the same basic relationship to

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odern architecture as the source of all inspira-n for urban design, and in the very first chapter

ere is an immediate reference to urban designng a question of physical scale and of theperialist assumptions of architecture beyond

at of the individual building

We have suggested that urban design is con-cerned with the physical form of the public realm

over a limited physical area of the city, and that ittherefore lies between two well establisheddesign scales of architecture, which is concernedwith the physical form of the private realm of theindividual building, and town and regionalplanning, which is concerned with the organisa-tion of the public realm in its wider context(Gosling and Maitland, 1984, p. 9)

e book proposes a tripartite division of theorychapter two into:

Natural ModelsUtopian modelsModels from the Arts and Sciences.

natural models the authors basically meanudal or pre-feudal settlement forms that haveown organically on the basis of location,ography, defence, religion, ownership, naturalasters, wars, etc, either in toto or in various

mbinations. Utopian models translate intoveral different forms, but in essence refer toaces that can exist only in the imagination:

So also Campanella, Bacon, Fourier, Le Corbu-sier, Wright and Howard all devised theirutopian models during periods of eitherenforced or voluntary obscurity and isolationyyywe could add the profound philoso-phical objections of Karl Popper to utopianism,namely that it is historicist in nature, unscien-

tific, oppressive, unable to learn from itsmistakes, and based upon a number of doubt-ful propositions, such as the colossal assump-tion that we need not question the fundamentalbenevolence of the planning Utopian engineer(Gosling and Maitland, 1984, p. 32)

any of the utopias discussed are also included inentire book on the subject by C.A. Doxiadis

66), who felt compelled to add a few moretopias

aces) of his own (dystopia, eftopia, entopia).

e third category of models from the arts andences is really a catch all for everything lefter from the other two categories. The authors

suggest that two predominant processes are atwork, namely analogy and translation. Hence wefind a disparate collection of influences fromarchitecture, mathematics, semiotics, psychology,anthropology, ecology and other disciplines.These are rapidly set aside in favour of a retreatto the Bauhaus at Dessau (Siegfried Giedion,Paul Klee, Gyorgy Kepes, Laslo Moholy-Nagyand others) as the initiator of the whole trend

towards serial vision. This was to become one ofthe most dominant forces in picturesque urbandesign exemplified in the work of, for example,Philip Thiel, Donald Appleyard, Kevin Lynch,and Gordon Cullen. Later in chapter four, Goslingand Maitland give eight potential directions forthe future (which is now with us twenty yearslater) as follows:

Urban Design as Political Statement

Urban Design as Technique Urban Design as Mediation Urban Design as Private Display Urban Design as Public Presence Urban Design as Theatre Urban design as the Guardianship of Urban

Standards Urban Design as Collage.

Despite the popularity of Concepts in UrbanDesign, based upon a singular contribution to

the field, the analytical position sketched out inthe appendix is somewhat more enlightening(Javier Cenicacelaya Marijuan, 1978). Marijuansuggests a series of approaches to urban designconsolidated into three broad groups:

Dependent on a particular politico-culturalsystem

Marxist Utopian

Capitalist

Related to a variable politico-cultural system Mathematical, economic Descriptive, functionalist Morphological Historical

Not dependent on any politico-cultural system Perceptual

While Concepts of Urban Design constituted anheroic attempt to consolidate the diversity ofurban design practices, it remained seriouslyconfused as to how the design of urban formfitted into any larger paradigm in economics,

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litics, social science, or even a reasonablyherent social theory of architecture. Many ofe examples given in the eight potential direc-ns for the future are themselves utopian, but

any of the projects illustrated, both fantasy andality, are nonetheless brilliantly conceived andgenious in their synthesis of complex physicalsign problems. The central hiatus is that noatter how ingenious the examples, they do not

d up to a satisfactory explanation of how urbanm comes about. Despite the avalanche ofativity displayed in the chosen examples, the

ork as a whole remains deeply empiricist andtoricist in its message. This is most clearly

monstrated in the relationship between theoposedTheories of Urban Design in chapter one,d the Directions for the Future in chapter four,

here the designated theories bear no relation tohere urban design may be heading. Somehow

e future became totally unplugged from devel-ment as a continuum, and the seeming detach-

ent of the production of urban form from theproduction of society remained intact.

ger Tranciks Finding Lost Space (1986) comeso years afterConcepts of Urban Design(1984). Hegins with the five causes that he says haventributed to the lost space of our cities, spacesat have basically disappeared from the drawing

ard because of urban dereliction in some formanother. He denotes these as our failure to dealth the automobile; the Modern movement insign; zoning and urban renewal practices ofban planning; the denial of responsibility fore public realm, and the problem of abandonednd in and adjacent to central business districtsAmerican cities. While this is no doubt true, thebitrary collection of problems, no matter howcurate, does not constitute theory in any mean-

gful sense. Despite this, Tranciks book makesinvaluable contribution to the process of

cumenting in some coherent manner, theysical manifestation of space in the 20th

ntury and the designers concern with what heers to as Three Theories of Urban Spatial Design.denotes the three theories as:

Figure Ground Theory

Grid

Radial concentricAngularAxialCurvilinearOrganic

Linkage Theory

Group formMegaformCompositional form

Place Theory

Figure ground theory is basically a two-dimen-

sional concept allied to the idea ofGestahltwhereblack and white, positive and negative, solid andvoid or in Taoist terminology, Yin and Yang, areformed by opposites that define the other. TheGestalt concept has had many applications, and isprobably best known in relation to the psy-chotherapeutic method developed by Fritz Perlsand his wife Laura in the 1940s, and the Gestalttheoretical psychology of Hans-Juergen Walter. Inurban design the figureground concept consti-

tutes the fabric of the city where a harmoniousground plan may be arrived at through a balancingof spatial relationships and contexts in order togenerate requisite variety within a larger whole.The classic application of this idea (and also theepitome of contextualist principles) was GianBattista Nollis 1748 map of Rome. Rowe andKoetter resort to the use of this idea throughoutCollage City (see, eg, pp.74, 75, 82, 131, 168171),and a special issue of the Architectural Design was

devoted to Nollis plan in 1979.

So architects have used the concept of Gestahlt forcenturies as a method of seeing their designsmore clearly. In essence, what it does is reversethe impact of the visual image which usuallydelineates buildings over spaces, akin to produ-cing a negative image of this page, whereby theletters appear as white shapes, but in fact aredefined by the black background. In the figure

ground relationship, the spaces tend to predomi-nate, thus heightening the impact of the publicrealm. Trancik defines this situation well in regardto Nolli where he says In Nollis map the outdoorcivic space is a positive void and is more figuralthan the solids that define it. Space is conceived asa positive entity in an integrated relationship withsurrounding solids. This is the opposite of themodern concept of space where the buildings arefigural, freestanding objects, and space is an

uncontained void. In Nolli the void is figural(Trancik, 1986, p. 98). He then enunciates six typo-logical patterns of solids and voids (grid, angular,curvilinear, radial concentric, axial and organic asa method whereby some more analytical rigour

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n be obtained. Much of this is a restatement ofmillo Sittes writing of 1889 (see also Collinsd Collins, 1986).

e second element in his equation is what hems linkage theory or:

the organization of lines that connect the partsof the city and the design of a spatial datum

from these lines that relate buildings to spaces.The concept of datum in spatial design isanalogous to the staff in music, upon whichnotes are composed in an infinite number ofways. The musical staff is a constant datum,providing the composer with continuous linesof reference. In urban spatial design, thedeterminant lines of force on a site provide asimilar kind of datum from which a design iscreated (Trancik, 1986, p. 106)

e subgroups identified here are what aremed Groupform arising from an incrementald historical accumulation of urban fabric,ually organically structured on the basis ofads, pathways or open space armatures. Mega-m is the artificial version of groupform, whererarchic linear frameworks are consciously

signed and imposed on the landscape. Thessic version of this design idiom is Candilis,ic and Woods famous project for Toulouse-

Mirail in France, or Kenzo Tanges unrealizedoject for Tokyo Bay. Compositional Form isrived from functionalist planning methodsch as those advanced by Ludwig Hilberseimer,

Corbusier and other modernist architect-anners, whereby the actual two dimensionalaphic organization of space is implied ratheran overt, in other words it plays a secondarye to the architects chosen building blocks.

e third category is what Trancik calls Placeeory(undefined, not to be confused with Walterristaller) where he proposes a theory of placerived from its cultural or geographic context;

or designers to create truly unique contextualaces, they must more than superficially exploree local history, the feelings and needs of thepulace, the traditions of craftsmanship and

digenous materials and the political and eco-mic realities of the community (Trancik, 1986,

114). There are no subgroups in this section andeanings must be inferred in reference to anectic grouping of various theorists and practi-g architects, for example, the work of Alison

d Peter Smithson, Herman Herzberger, Kevin

Lynch, Leon Krier, Hans Hollein, Lucien Kroll,and Donald Appleyard. The book concludes withfour urban case studies that serve as laboratoriesfor the spatial design theories enunciated above(Boston, Washington D.C., Gothenburg, Sweden,and Byker in Newcastle, England).

Overall Tranciks book is interesting and usefulwith a clear exposition of the ideas through which

he configures his approach to urban design.However, it sustains the normal practice ofrecycling the concepts and practices of Modern-ism, all of which embraced the philosophy ofphysical determinism while paying lip servicenow and then to social and other factors. DespiteTranciks promotion of three theories of UrbanDesign in figure ground, linkage, and spacetheory, each fails to rise above a fairly rudimen-tary attempt to justify urban design theory solely

in terms of its spatial arrangements. Nor do theyconstitute theory in any meaningful sense, beinglargely detached from any larger picture ofsociety, explanations as to how such forms comeabout, or indeed to any substantial theory withinthe related disciplines of architecture or urbanplanning. Figureground is not so much a theoryas an interesting graphicvolte-facewhich allows amore accessible analysis of the public realm interms of its spatial organization. There are no

assumptions of any significance that can be madefrom figureground relationships apart fromthrowing geometry, form, and structure intohigher relief, none of which means anythingwithout some supporting concepts.

Questions also need to be asked about howparticular forms of space are more functionallysuited to specific uses, what psychological orphysiological assumptions can be formed on the

basis of specific two-dimensional shapes on aplan, or how social meanings might be trans-mitted and recognized on the basis of Gestaltrelationships. The same is true of linkage theoryand hierarchic structures, which demand similarlevels of explanation as to efficiency in use andflexibility in organization. Taken together, the firsttwo theories, figure ground and linkage, areuseful devices used by designers that have someinteresting historical and contemporary referents.

But in no sense do they constitute theory in anymeaningful way. The last category place theory, isalmost wholly detached from the first two, andtentatively suggests that cultural and humancharacteristics might have some relevance, with-

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t actually defining what these might be.odernist architects apart, a few sentences arevoted to Phenomenology (Martin Heideggerd Christian Norberg-Schulz), followed by re-ences to Ian McHarg, Kevin Lynch, Donald

ppleyard and Gordon Cullen. While the firsto theories stand as good expositions of designhniques, there is no coherence to place theory,spite the fact that quite a lot could have been

duced even at that time, from the work ofmos Rapoport (1969, 1977, 1981), Jane Jacobs

61), Oscar Newman (1971, 1973, 1976, 1980),rbert Gans (1962), E.T. Hall (1959, 1969, 1976)

d others.

offrey Broadbents book Emerging Concepts inban Space Design (1990) follows the generalttern established above, allocating primacy tohitectural rather than social or other concepts.

the text is a fairly straightforward rendition ofeas, which had already been well expressed, forample in the three previous syntheses dis-ssed above, and in significantly greater detail

individual scholars who have specializedowledge of the selected material. In a very real

nse, this was probably the last book on urbansign that could perform this task, for two mainsons. First, because Broadbents book is the

st of its kind and does not leave much left to be

d within its chosen paradigm. Second, becausee entire deterministic construct of modernistbanism has finally been exhausted of itseological and aesthetic content. The greatanning disasters of modernist architecture

ounted in P. Hall (1982) and Dunleavy (1981)hich came to a catastrophic and symbolic finale

the dynamiting of the Pruitt-Igoe housingate in St Louis Missouri, have slowly givene to a new consciousness. In essence, the

hitectural imagination has had to realize itsnificant limitations, which were impacted by

w knowledge emerging from other disciplinesch as environmental psychology, urban geogra-y and urban sociology. Beyond the design of

dividual buildings, it started to dawn on manyhitects that a wholly different kind of knowl-

ge is required to understand the modern cityd the production of urban form, and that thecabulary of architecture was seriously lacking

this respect.

ban Space Design is therefore symbolic of thed of an era, and it is unlikely that another bookthis kind would require to be written. It reflects

the functionalist philosophy of modernism, ri-tually emptying the production of urban form ofits economic, social, political and symbolic con-tent. This is also reflected in the curious fact that18 years after the emergence of postmodernism,there is no mention of it in the index to Broad-

bents book, although the distinction is madebetween rationalists and empiricists, and neo-rationalists and neo-empiricists. Despite this criti-

cism, there was a kernel of awareness thatsomething important was being ignored. Partone is a fairly straightforward enunciation of thehistorical evolution of urban form emphasizingthe 20th century city. Part three is almostcompletely dedicated to an exhaustive presenta-tion of architectural projects up until the time the

book was written. While both parts recycle thesame historical and contemporary examples, atthe conclusion of part two, which carries over

eight pages into chapter three, there is a brief andbelated recognition that designers might justrequire some additional theoretical assistance.

Under Urban Realities Broadbent discusses thework of a few scholars not directly connected tomodernist orthodoxy Jane Jacobs, ChristopherAlexander, Nicholas Taylor, March and Trace,Peter Cowan, Oscar Newman and Alice Coleman.This collection is a pot-pourri of the scholarship of

the time, a mixture of architects and non-architects that were concerned variously withsocial cohesion, system theory, mathematicalmodelling, environmental psychology, socialhousing and other factors. Their work was notconnected in any meaningful way to mainstreamarchitectural design, but overall it reflected aconcern with the production of humane environ-ments on the basis of at least some scientificknowledge grounded in substantial theory. Simi-

larly, section three begins with a discussion ofideologies. Broadbent offers an extremely briefsummary of the work of Marx and Engels,Charles Baudelaire, and George Simmel, whomhe considers were instrumental to the intellectualfoundation of La Tendenza, probably one of themost theoretically informed of all movements inmodern architecture. Its name derived from itstendency towards an emerging neo-rationalism,later manifested most powerfully in the work of

Aldo Rossi, although the intellectual powerhousebehind the movement was Manfredo Tafuri, ahistorian who became Chairman of the Institute ofHistory at the School of Architecture in Venice in1968. Broadbent is dismissive of what he calls

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amborghini Marxists and bourgeois Marxism,e to a demonstrable ignorance of the develop-

ent of Marxist thought since 1887.

this is not the place to debate his position ins respect, reference can be made to a more

mpathetic critique of La Tendenza by Massimoolari (in Hays, 2000, p. 124). From La Tendenza,oadbent then progresses to a detailed study of

do Rossi and Carlo Aymonimo whose work ispresentative of that school of thought. Apart

m these brief excursions into paradigms notectly related to architecture,Urban Space Design

mains firmly rooted to an architectural defini-n of urban space and form, one that is largelypervious to any external influences. Its basicilosophy is encapsulated in an insightfulotation from Massimo Scolari about modernhitecture in general and the debates held

thin Tendenza in particular

What clearly emerges from this is first of all, anoverall critical vision. One realizes that in theuniversity architecture departments becauseof, on the one hand, the objective marginality oftheir institutional and economic role and thesubsequent lack of development of an explicitdemand for research aimed in this direction,and on the other, the cultural backwardness of

professional arrangements within the disci-pline no comprehensively organized andsystematic work of research has ever beendeveloped that might fit into the whole as away of advancing the dispositions of thediscipline (Scolari in Hays, 2000, p. 135)

is statement could equally apply to urbansign today. Overall, what emerges from anessment of the four major attempts at synthe-ing urban design theory up until 1990, either

holly or partially, is a stunning insistence thatchitecture as art, technology or science repre-nt the only potential pathways. While eachthor attempts to broaden his position in regardthe problem with occasional reference to a

vourite philosopher, to associated disciplinesch as landscape architecture or urban planning,to some enlightened critics such as Jane Jacobs

Alice Coleman, there is an unshakeablemmitment to modern architecture and its

opted ideologies. It is also notable that everyork was written after postmodernism had beenicially christened, and that there is a singularusal to recognize that epochal changes in the

orld economy were affecting society and space

in ways wholly unrecognized by any synthesis. Inaddition, research in other areas such as proxe-mics, environmental psychology, architecturalanthropology, and social theory, is nowhere men-tioned. Here we would have to include manyauthors who had a singular focus on the organiza-tion and design of urban space such as Sommer(1969), Hall (1969, 1976), Proshansky et al (1970),Perrin (1970), Rapoport (1981), Jameson (1988).

Not only this, but the revolution that was takingplace in urban social theory throughout the 1980sthat we will discuss later, goes wholly unrecog-nized. The problem here however, is the danger ofthrowing the baby out with the bathwater, andunwittingly consigning modernist architecturalurban theory to the scrap heap in its entirety,insofar as it provides any substantial explanationof the urban dimension. This is not my intention.

The aesthetics of architecture have an unparal-leled place in all societies, and there is nothing souplifting to the human spirit as direct contact withan architectural masterpiece such as KingsCollege Chapel, Cambridge, the chapel at Ronch-amp or Frank Gehrys Guggenheim museum inBilbao. Indeed, there are many astounding in-sights in the four texts just discussed, and eachhas been selected because at the time it was the

best available attempt at presenting some coher-

ent synthesis of the urban prospect in terms of itsformal arrangements.

In the last instance however, not only have theseideas failed to produce a synthesis, there remainsa general reluctance to accept that modernistideology was on many fronts, a wholesale disasterzone. Not only did it generate an astoundingarray of bad buildings and planning disasters, itexhibited a serious incapacity to accommodatethe explosion of highly relevant theoretical de-

bates and discoveries in related fields. Within thesame period that the above attempts at synthesiswere being set out, four individuals were to stakeclaims to unified theories of urban design invarious areas. Their work in many ways stillrepresents the core of mainstream urban designtheory for many academics and practitioners overthe last half century, and it is to this contributionwe now turn.

Unified theories

Through the analysis of the work of manyscholars and practitioners, the above texts all

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empt some synthesis of urban design theoryth almost exclusive reference to architecture. Indition, there have also been four quite clearempts by individuals to propose theories of

eir own unified theories. The four theories thatefer to are Kevin Lynchs A Theory of Good Cityrm, (1981), Rob Kriers Urban Space (1979),ristopher Alexanders A New Theory of Urbansign (1987), and Bill Hillier and Julienne

nsons Social Logic of Space (1984). Each iscinating and unique, proposing altogetherferent theoretical paradigms for understanding

ban design. In addition and without exception,ch text that embodies the basic argument is b

Cuthbert 2007# - Urban Design...Last 50 Years

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