Contemporary Town Planning From The Origins To The Athens Charter

Exploring the social origins and history of town planning in nineteenth-century England and France. Carefully documented and copiously illustrated, Origins of Modern Town Planning delves into the social origins and history of town planning in nineteenth-century England and France.The touchstone of Benevolo's research is the relationship between town planning and politics. The twofold origin of the planning concept found expression in two schools of nineteenth-century thought: the Utopians—Owen, Saint-Simon, Fourier—and their active vision of the town as a self-sufficient, coherent organism are contrasted with the specialists and officials who endeavored to remedy each urban defect individually by introducing new health regulations and social legislation into already existing towns. Despite the conceptual difference, however, Benevolo points out the shared ideology which inspired all achievements of thought and action—even the purely technical—and establishes its correspondence in spirit up to the time of modern socialism.

This book is a useful reference in the field of urbanism. It explains how the contemporary city and landscape have been shaped by certain twentieth century visions that have carried over into the twenty-first century. Aimed at both students and professionals, this collection of essays on diverse subjects and cases does not attempt to establish universal interpretations; it rather highlights some outstanding episodes that help us understand why the planning culture has given way to other forms of urbanism, from urban design to strategic urbanism or landscape urbanism. Compared with global interpretations of urbanism based on socioeconomic history or architectural historiography, Urban Visions. From Planning Culture to Landscape Urbanism, aims to present the discipline couched in international contemporary debate and adopt a historic and comparative perspective. The book’s contents pertain equally to other related disciplines, such as architecture, urban history, urban design, landscape architecture and geography. Foreword by Rafael Moneo.

The first history of the Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne traces the development and promotion of its influential concept of the "Functional City."

This book explores the in-depth relationship between historic-cultural heritage and landscape, urban, and regional planning. It analyzes recent cultural and discipline positions and addresses research to interpret legacy values and the necessity for conservation within the urban setting. It also presents a method that helps urban planners to implement the suggestions, based on extensive knowledge of topographic methods and urban archaeology, to enhance the shaping and planning of the historic and present-day city. A rapid evolution of techniques and methods that provide innovative planning instruments and contribute to conservation projects involving cities and territories is now being witnessed in urban planning. Actors involved in the planning process use an organic and multidisciplinary vision of techniques and methods to understand the relation between the historic-cultural goods and their settlement context. Through urban archaeology it is now possible to orient—in a systematic way—interventions in the historic centers of European cities and document the origin and evolution of the urban shape, to reconcile renewal demand and preservation of ancient heritage.