II</ IIW I H JC li ON
INTRODUC TI ON
11'11 11 in 1Hll lll 'll ll nws 111 l'l'l',lll'd 1o locn I ion, cl imate, defence and other considerations. llt'yo nd 1hot poi nt , fun r l iono l, eco no mic, political and religious factors generated t' II OI'IIIOUS <.' Oillp lc xity i11 th e way c ities worked and how they developed. While ci t·ics co nl'i nu ed to g row physically, real knowledge of their social Ol'l',llllisnli o n had to wait un til the development of modern social science in the 11 ill l' lcc nth ::1 nd ea rly twentieth centuries, when the full consequences of capitalist dt•vt• lopment w as exposed in such epic writing as Marx's three volumes of ( ,'a pita/ ( 1894), George Simmel's The Philosophy of Money (1900), Freud's ,'ioiliscllion and its Discontents (1930) and Max Weber's Economy and Society ( 19oH ). Ta ken together, the penetrating analysis of society that emerged categoril'n ll y de mon strated that urban life in its full complexity could only be explained thi'OI I!J,h the invisible web of economic and social processes. With such immense tlll l' ll cc tua l activity taking place in the social sciences, it became undeniable that lil t• phys ica l world was an ephemeral product of much deeper and enduring lo1Tt:S. It was also true that none of these great thinkers were concerned with Npn cc or c ities, let alone urban form. Nonetheless, many considerations inherent Io 1hesc treatises were symbolically represented at the fin de siecle when Vienna ht 'l'l llll e the intellectual epicentre of European thought.
'J'h c co nflict between two great Viennese architects, Camillo Sitte and Otto Wng nc1; o ver the design of the city centre enclosed by Vienna's Ringstrasse, 111 ho lica ll y represented two alternative visions of the twentieth century. Almost t•x nt.: ll y one ce ntury ago, the concept of the public realm expressed in urban d!'si l\11 bccnme directly linked with emergent concepts of the modern world. The inrt' pli o n of urban design as social process therefore became condensed as pl'll xis, something different from architecture, but also something different l1'0 111 rhe pro fes sion of town planning which did not become institutionalised 11111 il 19 14 as the Royal Town Planning Institute in London. From the fin de ,ft'.l'f!', tl i'C h itectu re and urban planning progressed as independent professions, 111d Ul' h:m des ign was born as a process of major social consequence. In nd dit·ion , the se minal textbook on urban design was brought into existence hy Ca mill o Sitte in 1889, namely The Art of Building Cities: City Building l f't' lll'rlillg to its Artistic Fundamentals. Although Marcus Pollio Vitruvius l1111 l wl"irrc11 hi s ten books on architecture (De Architectura) in Rome i11 lil t• first cc nt·ury BC (fi rst published in 1471), it had taken some 2000 years lw 11 lvx l of overw heln1ing co nsequence to emerge regarding the built form of the l'i I Y• I >t·.~ rlilt• this nt·w uwnl'l' IH'Ss of urbo n for m ns sot: inl proct·ss, ilw orgnnisa tion 11 / t' llil'N WliH Still I'OII it'ivt•d liS fl w SOft• dOillllill nf tii'I 'IJ ill 'li N Wt• ll i1110 the
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Pruitt-Igoe housing estate in St Louis, USA, on 15 July 1972 inspired Ch nrl t• Jencks to announce the symbolic death of modernism and the rise of a new eHH lf postmodemism. By that time it had become obvious that the physical dell'' 1ninism of modern architecture could not be relied upon to resolve cornph•x social issues. Many disasters had followed from this approach in other coun tr ieN, or example the entire system of 'new towns' in Britain, abandoned as gov<.' t'll tll Cnt policy after three-quarters of a century, and the failure of high-rise, high density residential development in social housing from the late 1950s (Dunl cnv y 1981 ). Other great planning disasters (which in most cases were actually an:hi ll'etural disasters) have been documented in a book by the same name by Pt'l\'1 ll nll (1982). At that point it became abundantly clear that cities, the puhli1 l'l•n lm and projects beyond the level of a few related buildings lay well bcy<)IHI I Il l' reach of an architectural education, and that a different kind of knowled gt• wns required in order to accommodate the design of cities.
Synopsis of the book Ill tr yin g to obviate the inherent physical determinism of architectural and udm tl 1 have adopted a particular approach outlined in the preface. In o rd ct• to 11111k e my aims explicit, I also need to be clear about the content of this book :111d li Npnrtic ular orientation. This can be done by locating it in relation to four l ~,; vv l nl kno wl edge that are required by urban designers. dt •s i ~ n ,
'I 'he theoretical, philosophical and contextual foundation of the di sci pi i IIi' 11 11d the meta-programmes that both inform and legitimise practice . ' l'he lc!!a l, financial and administrative context within which the di sd pli1H' opc rn tcs . ' l ~·c hn o l ogi e s of space and form. ( :nst studi es of urban design practice.
1'1d r-~ hook is categorically about the first of these levels, for a variety of rt:n SOII ,, It tHhipl s t'h e position of how to understand urban design rather th a n how lo d11 1 •,o w hil e thi s volume is a text, it is one th at dea ls with theory r:l l'fl (' t' il u111 111 111 I iL't' in the context of 'Western' urba nis:1 tion. 1t docs not, for cx::~ mp lt:, lt 'y I 11 111'.1\l''l l how we should incorporMc tH )IHWxiN I proct ~SIWS i1110 d v~o~ig 11 . ltt.~ l i ' lld , 11 lu,l·a,1 1111 the foundat ion for ge ndL'I'n l pnH'Iitt 'l• wi lhllll '11pitnliNI Hol"it•ty, lltHIItu w thi N I111 1J llfl't.•ctcd the spati::tl :nHI I•)' Itlhll lll ,, 1111111111 ' cd ttlll tllil •N, ' I'I111 N ilu• lu111l 111\1\I'"' N() II(' poss ibl e stru t: llll'l' 1111 lit filii ill f' lil t I I "II III I' Iiii i 1111 ~ 1 1 1 ' '' it mv lc •d p.t' lilt) ~t llllN II'Illt' lh :t l l'l' lnl(•s :t il t. lllt ·e~ ljii L' ttl IQftlllii! JI 11111 i'f I• lit 1 1111u 111 illlt ll tc IU il ll )' to lt t• l't'll( di sr ip lill t', 1'-~ll tl ftllll l dH'ii' tilt llilii i Wt t)'ll Ii i litLit ilqtli tt ll dli 11 ~ 1 . ' l'lu• ll' lill': tl l't' IINO II ltll till li jH!!;i i illi l llj ili •il \\o llllt • i!io 1 (t lli i'i illlf(1 it"-\t_l l lilt llllttlll d '" "'"'' oil I l l 'l l .. fll l [il!l \ 1 "wr II I 11\f I IIi 1111 11 II iii iilii·~ i liiil il lr• l i I fli"ltfttllilll Ill fllllot \\1 111\ 1hili il ol iiil "lll~, I "Ill
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