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The Independent Plans for London

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Planning London for the Post-War Era 1945-1960

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Abstract

Besides the lack of officially executed plans for London in the first half of the twentieth century, various bodies had devoted time, energies and money to the task of presenting their own ideas on the re-planning of London. The examination of these plans will be the task of this chapter. Their value lies in the fact that they presented a variety of ideas, which were known only in town planning circles and which, by obtaining publicity, refreshed the whole attempt to re-plan London. Particularly, the submitted plans during the 1940s prepared by three independent bodies by the Modern Architects’ Research Society (MARS), the Royal Academy (RA) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)—especially the London Regional Reconstruction Committee (LRRC)—are presented in this chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Architects had been prominent, for similar reasons, in the First World War. The London Society, formed in 1912 to contribute to the debate on the urban planning of London with the aid of architects who were out of work. The survey paid close attention to roads and local industry. The work was not completed for the whole of London, but the results were put on a map (Aston 1921).

  2. 2.

    The committee membership was very distinguished, including Holford, Sharp, Ralph Tubbs , Maxwell Fry and Gibbert, the head of the Architectural Association (AA) School of Architecture (Anonymous 1942a, p. 240). The chairman was Arthur Korn.

  3. 3.

    The influence of the MARS Group was also spreading overseas. In addition to the Australian MARS, ARGIT (The Architectural Research Group in Toronto) had been set up in Canada and an organisation called TECNE had appeared at that period in Argentina (Anonymous 1942a, p. 240).

  4. 4.

    Johnson-Marshall (1966, p. 48–50), who was a contemporary of these events, presents a different picture. The MARS plan, according to him, dates from 1939. His selection of plans, which are much more clearly reproduced than those of Korn and Samuely, includes a layout for one of the neighbourhood units which are intended to make up the Boroughs. The concept is visibly a modified Radiant City superblock, with what looks like an awkward attempt to retain the zig-zag nature of Le Corbusier’s early redents by using south-oriented slab blocks with stubby, North-South wings. There is no hint of mixed development in these layouts, which again suggests a pure CIAM influence, given that missed development was common currency in the national planning debate by 1942.

  5. 5.

    The outstanding architect-planner on the committee was Patrick Abercrombie. Other members included Lord Keynes and Lord Esher. This was a powerful committee (Esher 1981, p. 95).

  6. 6.

    Some of the comments of The Observer and The Sunday Times were published in The Architects’ Journal, 96, 22 October 1942, p. 261.

  7. 7.

    Austen Hall’s statement included the following (The Times, 18 October 1942): “[…] This is an attempt to bring the architect into planning in its earliest stages. The traditional method is for the engineer to build his road and then leave the architect to make what he can of it. But by then it is usually too late for the architect to do anything effectively […]”.

  8. 8.

    Arthur W. Kenyon was appointed as chairman, while the remaining members of the committee were Henry V Ashley, Robert Atkinson , Henry Braddock , J Murrey Easton , W Curtis Green , Stanley Hamp , Frederick R Hiorns, Charles Holden, HV Lanchester , S Rowland Pierce and Verner O Rees . A Brian O’Rorke served on the committee from its inception until March 1942; when upon his resignation H. Braddock was elected to the Committee (LRRC 1943, p. 4).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Technical University of Crete, Athens, Greece

    Emmanuel V Marmaras

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  1. Emmanuel V Marmaras
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Correspondence to Emmanuel V Marmaras .

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Marmaras, E.V. (2015). The Independent Plans for London. In: Planning London for the Post-War Era 1945-1960. Springer Geography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07647-8_10

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