Garden Cities - Past, Present & Future - By Azarya Ashadi Putra Halim
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GARDEN CITIES - PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE
In the middle of the 18th century, the „Industrial Revolution‟ changed the
procedure of manufacturing in Europe. Not only the hand production was
changed into machine, but the „Industrial Revolution‟ also changed the behavior
of human, which affected the structure of European cities. People from the
countryside moved to the cities to find jobs and looking for more money than
from just being farmers (Howard, 1902). As a result, the population in the cities
were increased but the space to provide people to live was not growing. This
made the quality of living in cities deteriorate. In 1898, the Garden Cities
movement emerged, pioneered by Ebenezer Howard. This movement, for more
than a century, has captured city planner‟s attention to designing a city, and
became the theory of Urban Design and Urban Planning.
This assignment will Illustrate the emerging process of the Garden City
theory, explanation of the definition, description of its application in different
countries, and will explore the connection between this theory in the past,
present and future development of the city.
According to Carol (1988) in 800BC, ancient Greece had entered the
Archaic civilization. This was the first civillized urban design that influenced by
religion (Priatmodjo, 2010). Since this happened, people at that time had been
craved for greater strength above them, therefore every building, and even a
city are built to honored God‟s work. Consequently, all of the development of
cities from ancient Greece during 800BC until Medieval Europe in 15th century
had been affected by religion (Priatmodjo, 2010).
Afterwards, the war was dominating the world and most of the countries
wanted to conquer other countries. Therefore, all of these countries had to
defend their cities. In that case, the fort city concept was born to protect their
cities (Priatmodjo, 2010).
Finally, the „Industrial Revolution‟ began in the 18th century, and this
revolution affected the structure of cities. In the past, the majority of work was in
the agricultural fields in countryside, but after the „Industrial Revolution‟,
villagers were moved to towns to get better jobs and salary (Howard, 1902).
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However, they did not realize that the quality of their living were getting worst.
Howard (1898) states that people in towns were increasing and made their
house contaminated by pollution, filth with dirt and poor drainage.
According to Rhodes (1891) cited in Howard (1898), the population of
old people in Lancashire and other manufacturing districts above sixty years old
were about 35 per cent. However, in the agricultural districts in countrysides had
60 per cent of old people. This circumstance gave an answer to that the qualitiy
of old people‟s life in the towns were low.
At the crossroads of choosing which side is the best between town and
countryside, Howard (1902) illustrates that towns and countrysides were
attractions, and each city was likened to a magnet. The strength of the magnets
depended upon the positive affection in each city. Diagrams of „The Three
Magnets‟ (Appendix 1) that illustrated town and countryside‟s advantages and
disadvantages might be the answer to them to make a perfect combination.
The Town Magnet (Appendix 1), had the advantages of high salary and
better work opportunities, but these advantages were equal to the price of
goods and rents. Furthermore, there were a lot of social opportunities,
amusements, as well as the distances from home to the work place was not
very far, states Howard (1902). However, because there are a lot of fine public
buildings, the sunlight began to shut out and the air quality was poor (Howard,
1902).
The Countryside Magnet (Appendix 1) claims to be the origin of the
adorableness and prosperity itself, this is because of the freshness of the air,
the scent of the trees and grass, the beautiful landscape and rippling water.
However, the Countryside Magnet appeared as a large place, therefore, it will
be threatened by trespassers, lack of society and lack of capital. As a result,
rents and the price of goods were low (Howard, 1902).
Referring to the previous paragraph, it was very difficult to choose one
of those two magnets. Either none of Town Magnet or Countryside Magnet
could make better cities for people. While the Town Magnet was a figure of
social networks and opportunities, the Countryside Magnet had the images of a
beauty and grace from God. Therefore, “Town and country must be married,
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and out of this joyous union will spring a new hope, a new life, a new
civilization.” (Howard, 1898:10). This statement was the starting point to Town-
Country Magnet, which made the Garden Cities possible.
The Garden City was a utopian city, which was surrounded by
residential, industrial and agricultural area in the same proportion or called The
Green Belt (Howard, 1902) (Appendix 2). The Garden City usually called an
independent city because of the comprehensiveness of every function. In
Howard‟s (1902) explanation, this city was divided into six boulevards with six
equal wards (Appendix 3). Each ward had a different center which comprised a
town hall, concert hall, theatre, library, hospital and museum gallery. All wards
were also divided into five avenues. The first avenue was filled with an industrial
area in the inner ring, and an agricultural area in the outer ring. The third
avenue was the grand avenue that lies between the second and fourth
avenues. which was the residential area. Finally, the fifth avenue was for the
crystal palace. “Crystal Palace is a public park, contains 145 acres, which
includes ample recreation ground within very easy access of the people”
(Howard, 1898). This buildings were standing in the outer side of the central
park, beside the center of the Garden City.
The first complete Garden City in the world was Letchworth in England
(Howard, 1965). Before the Garden City was built in Lecthworth city, this city
only had a small population, but after the year of 1900, the population spiked
from under 100 people to 5000 people in just 10 years (University of
Portsmouth, 2009). This phenomenon proved that the theory of the Garden City
was a success. The application of the Garden City Theory in England not only
stopped at Lecthworth city, because Welwyn city in England also imitated the
Letchworth city‟s planning (Eserin, 1995).
After successful application of the Garden City in England, this theory
had developed cities in other countries in Europe. As in 1904, George Benoit-
Levy published a translated version of Howard‟s book called, La Cite Jardin, in
France. This book had affected many people in France, and has been used by
Architects in France such as, Raoul Dautry and Marcel Auburtin to propose a
new design in north east of Paris. The idea was to make a satellite city around
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the sub-urban area of Paris, so the population of Paris will decrease. This
theory was the answer to Paris‟s population problems (eds Ward 1992).
“In Japan, the English expression garden city is translated as den-en
toshi ... However, if we look at the expression carefully, it can be seen to be a
mistranslation. The word toshi is a proper translation for city, ... Den-en arouses
a great nostalgia for the countryside in most Japanese.” (eds Ward 1992:69).
The same problem happened with another translated book, that had the same
content as den-en toshi. The writer of that book, seemed to have troubled to
translate Garden Cities into Japanese, because the title of his book, den-en teki
toshi meaning country-like city (Sennett, 1907). As a result, there was a different
approach of the design between the original Garden Cities, and the Japanese
version of a Garden Cities. Besides the misunderstanding about the language
of the translation in the Garden City‟s book, this theory has made a positive
influence in several cities in Japan. For example, the city of Osaka has the
same problem as other big cities, because this city was very noisy, too crowded
and filled with smoke. To address this issue, the Government of Japan decided
to make a satellite city in Osaka. Hence, the new population that grew in Osaka
could stay in the satellite city (eds Ward 1992).
It is the same as Nazi sub-urban growth. Due to the „Industrial
Revolution‟, suburbanization of cities in Germany had increased significantly
and was threatened “the traditional homely character of native German town,
which was in danger of being overwhelmed by mass suburbanization” (eds
Ward 1992:89). To deal with this problem, Germany‟s urban planners made two
strategies. The first strategy involved decentralization, which was the main idea
of the Garden City‟s concept (eds Ward 1992). This strategy was used to make
other capital suburban area, so the people who moved to town can be reduced.
The second and more extreme strategy was inner colonization (Brenning,
1901). This action was discouraging people to move to the town by using
several different approaches. One approach was to improve the agricultural
living standard in the countryside. The next approach was to distracted of the
migration flow to suburban area which had a reasonable distance to town. The
third approach was to make the foundation of new form of Garden Cities outside
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the main town, to support agricultural area (eds Ward 1992). The Garden City
theory might not have a huge impact in Germany, but this theory has made a
major influence to Germany‟s urban designers.
On the other hand, not every city of the countries around the world are
suitable with the Garden City theory. For example, in Australia, the Garden City
theory did not have an enormous impact to the structure of urban design and
urban planning. Instead of building the city with this theory, they only used the
foundation of ideal urban environment, housing principles, and for shaping the
development of metropolitan and regional growth (eds Ward 1992).
As for today, the Garden City theory has changed the face of urban
design and urban planning in the present day. In the past, the decentralization
concept had been used to control the population in the city, but nowadays, this
concept has been applied to save the energy indirectly (Putra, 2013). Urban
designer and urban planner will start to reform the city into sustainable city
which use secondary energy collector like solar panels and wind farms. Instead
of using more space to build another city, they minimized urban form into a
compact city (Putra, 2013). The Garden City concept had not been used to
design the city but to make the district in the city more sustainable.
In the future development of urban design, urban shape will be more
vertical, because “elevator system had incredible success in the creation of
compact and greener cities” (eds Haas 2012:240). The Garden City theory was
changed into the Compact Garden District in the present day, and in the future it
will become the Garden Building, because people will concentrate to design
sustainable buildings to fulfill their needs in one compact building (Appendix 4)
(Putra, 2013).
In conclusion, the Garden City theory has made a significant
contribution to society, the environment and the Urban Design and Urban
Planning fields. Firstly, this theory opens urban designers minds to design a city,
because before this theory had been developed in 1898, urban planners look
upon rural and urban area as two different components, but now they will
cogitate both components as a whole. Secondly, it is an enormous stepping
stone for urban design field, stemming from the ideas of this theory which made
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the city achieve environmental and financial advantages from it. Furthermore,
the Garden City theory could narrow the advantages and disadvantages
between rural and urban area. However, this theory cannot be acknowledge by
every city, especially in cities of developing countries which have insufficient
resources. Anyway there is no denying that the Garden City theory had made
contribution beyond the limitations.
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REFERENCE LIST
Brenning, A 1909, innere kolonisation, Taeubner, Leipzig.
Carol, G. Thomas (eds) 1988, Path from Ancient Greece, Brill, Leiden.
Eserin, Angela 1995, Welwyn Garden City, The History-Press Ltd, Stroud.
Haas, T (eds) 2012, Sustainable Urbanism and Beyond, Rizzoli, New York.
Howard, E 1898, To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, Swann Sonnenschein, London.
Howard, E 1902, Garden Cities of To-Morrow, Swann Sonnenschein & Co. Ltd.,
London.
Howard, E 1965, Garden Cities of To-Morrow, F.J. Osborn (eds), Alden & Mowbray Ltd,, Great Britain.
Howard, E 2003, To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, P. Hall, D. Hardy & C. Ward (eds), Routledge, London.
Parsons, KC & Schuyler, D 2002, Form Garden City to Green City, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Maryland.
Priatmodjo, D 2010, Ideologi Urban Desain, lecture presentation distributed in Architecture Faculty in Tarumanagara University, Indonesia, on 5 November 2010.
Putra, AA 2013, Self Sustain District to fulfill Daily Needs in Banjir Kanal Timur, Academia.edu, accessed 9 January 2015, <https://www.academia.edu/9383263/Self_Sustain_District_to_Fulfill_Daily_Needs_in_Banjir_Kanal_Timur>.
Sennett, AR 1905, Garden Cities in Theory and Practice, Bemrose and Sons Ltd., London.
Sennett, AR 1907, Den-en teki toshi (Country-like City), Shimin, Japan.
Troy, P 1995, Technological Change and the City, Federation Press, Sydney.
University of Portsmouth, 2009, A Vision of Britain Through Time, accessed 12 December 2014, <
http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/unit/10191932/cube/POP_CHANGE>
Ward, S (eds) 1992, The Garden City: Past, Present and Future, E & FN Spon, London.
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APPENDIX LIST
Appendix 1 – The Three Magnets Diagram
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Appendix 2 – Garden City and Rural Belt
Appendix 3 – Ward and Centre of Garden City