Anti‐urban ideologies and planning in France and Switzerland: Jean‐François Gravier and Armin Meili

Abstract

Jean‐François Gravier and Armin Meili were two leading pioneers of planning in France and Switzerland. Gravier was the famous author of Paris et le désert français, first published in 1947; Meili was the author of the first national conception of planning in Switzerland and was very active in planning policy in the 1940s. Each has deeply influenced the implementation of planning policy in his country and both have constructed their theories around a criticism of the city: Paris for Gravier; big cities, in general, for Meili.

This paper first describes the recurrent critiques of the city in the thoughts of these authors. From sterility to unhealthiness, they combine moral and physical criticisms. Although they belong to different countries and different political cultures, their thoughts take root in surprisingly common backgrounds based on the strength of ruralism and the political context of fascism. Finally, an analysis of their similar propositions concerning town and country planning policies is offered. The lessons of Gravier and Meili are based on different myths which the article will attempt to analyse.

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank Igor Reinhart for his help in translating the works of Armin Meili, and Nga Scott for correcting the text so carefully. Grateful thanks also go to the anonymous referees for their valuable comments.

Notes

1. J‐F. Gravier, Paris et le désert français. Paris: Le Portulan, 1947; second edition 1953, under the same title, with much larger success; then 1972. All quotations are taken from the 1972 edition unless otherwise indicated.

2. Surprisingly enough, Gravier’s book seems never to have been reviewed in a French geographical journal, although Les Annales de Géographie, the most famous one, acknowledged its publication in 1953.

3. Allgemeines über Landesplanung. Die Autostrasse 2 (1933) 1. In this article Meili draws the first zoning plan of Switzerland.

4. Meili’s ideas are extracted from four main articles: A. Meili, Landesplanung in der Schweiz. Separatabdruck aus der Neuen Zürcher Zeitung, Zeichnungen vom Verfasser (1941) ; A. Meili, Bases sociales et éthiques de l’aménagement du territoire national. BTSR (1942) 271–4 ; A. Meili, Le plan d’aménagement national. BTSR (1943) 95–9; A. Meili, Zürich, Heute und Morgen. Wille oder Zufall in der baulichen Gestaltung. Separat druck aus der Neuen Zürcher Zeitung (10–15 Dezember 1944) Buchdruckerei Neue Zürcher Zeitung (1945).

5. See the special issue on Deurbanization and villagization. The International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 4 (1980); see also: A. Lees, Cities perceived, Urban Sociology in European and American thought 1820–1940. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985. On history of anti‐urban thoughts in Switzerland see J. Salomon Cavin, La ville, mal‐aimée. Lausanne: PPUR, 2005.

6. J.‐J. Rousseau (1765) L’Emile ou de l’Education. Electronic edition, Gallica, p. 30.

7. Séance du Conseil national, 4 juin 1941, AFB, E27, 23460, Bd1. Quoted by F. Walter, Fédéralisme et propriété privée. DISP (1985) 21–7.

8. H. F. K. Günther, Die Verstädterung (1936); Das Bauerntum (1939). He laments the death in cities of families whose names have disappeared. This old argument was probably taken from G. Hansen (1889) Die drei Bevölkerungstufen. It has little value because the authors forget that women lose their family name when they marry, and also many families disappear, not because they died out, but because they migrated to other cities. The sophism was exhibited by Pr Dr E. Keyser (1953) Grundfragen städtischer Bevölkerungsgeschichte, who recalls also that during the Middle Ages, when one of the many epidemics happened, farmers took refuge in cities while wealthy city‐dwellers escaped to other cities.

9. A. Meili, Meine Saga. Erinnerungen, Teil 2, Verona: Mondadori, 1954, pp. 196–7.

10. Webster, second edition, p. 1002.

11. F. Walter, Les conséquences des guerres sur la gestion urbaine et territoriale en Suisse, in R. Hudemann and F. Walter (eds) Villes et guerres mondiales en Europe au XX^e siècle. Paris: L’harmattan, 1997, pp. 217–33.

12. G. le Bon, Psychologie des foules. Paris: F. Alcan, 1895 (1906); J. Ortega y Gasset, La révolte des masses. Paris: Delamain et Boutilleau, 1929.

13. F. Walter, op.cit. [7].

14. For example, G. Feder, Das Program der NSDAP. München: Vlg F Eher, 1933, p. 10.

15. G. Feder, an architect, created in November 1919 a Movement to eliminate Interest Lending (Kampfbund zur Brechung der Zinsknechtschaft). He was later charged by Hitler with writing the programme of the Nazi party.

16. A. Sauvy, Histoire économique de la France entre les deux guerres. Paris: Fayard, vol. 1, 1965, p. 505.

17. Actually, productivity in Paris is 35% higher than the French average; see M‐P Rousseau, La productivité des grandes villes. Paris: Anthropos, 1998.

18. See F. Walter, op. cit. [7].

19. H. Siegenthaler (dir), Statistique historique de la Suisse. Zurich: Chronos, 1996.

20. Sources: Paul Bairoch, De Jéricho à Mexico. Villes et économie dans l’histoire. Paris: Gallimard, 1985, p. 399 and ibid.

21. A.‐M. Thiesse, La création des identités nationales. Paris: Seuil, 2001.

22. See Jacques Gubler, Nationalisme et internationalisme dans l’architecture moderne de la Suisse. Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme, 1975; and J. Salomon, Les Suisses et la ville, un rapport ambigu illustré par les expositions nationales. Acta Geographica 114 (1998) 33–48.

23. Cf. novels by C.‐F. Ramuz in Switzerland, by M. Pagnol, J. Giono or H. Pourrat in France.

24. Quesnay, Tableau économique. Versailles, 1778; Marquis de Mirabeau, Economie rurale. 1781; Du Pont de Nemours, Physiocratie. Leyde, 1768.

25. Philippe Pétain, (22.08.1940) Déclaration à la presse américaine: ‘France to‐morrow will be at the same time very new and very old. It will become again something it should never have ceased to be, a nation mainly agricultural. Like the giant, it finds back its forces when it comes back in touch with the land’. Philippe Pétain, Appel du 25 juin 1940. in P. Pétain, La France nouvelle. Paris: Fasquelle, 1940: ‘I hate all the lies which have hurt you so much. Land, itself, does not lie’.

26. F. Walter, La Suisse urbaine. Genève: Zoé, 1994, p. 422.

27. E. Laur, Le Paysan suisse. 1940 (quoted in F. Walter, ibid., pp. 433–4).

28. ‘Il s’agirait de placer les agglomérations aux endroits les plus habitables, sans pour autant nuire à l’agriculture. Il faudrait les distribuer, non plus le long des routes principales mais dans des lieux plus tranquilles’.

29. J‐F. Gravier, Régions et nations. 1942 (quoted in Isabelle Couzon, La place des villes dans le discours des aménageurs des années 1920 à la fin des années 1960. Cybergeo 37 (1997)).

30. I. Provost, Paris et le désert français, histoire d’un mythe. Thèse: Université d’Evry, 1999, p. 216.

31. Main territorial planning body in France, reporting to the Prime Minister. It was created in 1963, to oversee territorial planning in France.

32. The main French farmers’ union built in the 1940s on the ‘corporatist’ principle (farm workers and rich landlords are mixed in the same union) in contrast with the class struggle principle of Marxist unions, opposing workers and landlords.

33. Rapport de la Cour des Comptes, 1995.

34. Charles Linsmayer, Wie die Landi zum ‘Nationalen Heiligtum’ wurde. Der Bund 273 (1997).

35. Armin Meili, Erinerungen. Verona: Mondadori, 1954, vol. 2, p. 273.

36. J.‐F. Gravier, op.cit. [1], ed. 1972, p. 28, for instance.

37. Comité du Plan, Une nouvelle France, ses principes et ses institutions. Paris: Fasquelle, 1936: ‘it has been clearly, distinctly and convincingly proved that the so‐called liberal economy, nowadays, is unable to satisfy, even partially, the material needs of the nation’, p. 13.

38. Ch. Maurras, Mes idées politiques. Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme, 2002, p. 134. The words forebode the famous Nazi motto: ‘Blut und Boden’.

39. A. Carrel, L’homme, cet inconnu. Paris: Plon, 1935. Carrel wrote: ‘We will get rid of madness and crime only by a better knowledge of man, by eugenics … Managing less dangerous criminals with the whip would probably suffice to insure order. As for the others, who have murdered, killed children …, an institution for euthanasia provided with adequate gases would dispose of them in a human and economical way’ (p. 435).

40. A. Drouard, Une inconnue des sciences sociales: la fondation Alexis Carrel, 1941–45. Paris: Ed MSH, 1992.

41. See, for Italy: Anna Treves, Fascisme et urbanisation en Italie. L’Espace géographique 2 (1981) 115–24 and, for Germany: D. Schubert, Grossstadtfeindschaft und Stadtplanung. Neue Anmerkungen zu einer alten Diskussion. Die alte Stadt 1 (1986) 22–41. For Germany and France: Bernard Marchand, Nationalismus und Grossstadtfeindschaft. Die Alte Stadt 1 (1999) 39–50.

42. D. Schubert, Gottfried Feder und sein Beitrag zur Stadtplanungstheorie. Die alte Stadt 3 (1986) 192–211.

43. M. Rotach, Aménagement national suisse, Conception directrice de l’aménagement du territoire, CK73/Landesplanerische Leitbild CK73. Bern: erarbeitet von der Chefbeamtkonferenz des Bundes, 1973.

44. See the example of the Vaud Canton in J. Salomon Cavin, op. cit. [5], part 5.

45. J.‐L. Piveteau, L’aménagement du territoire en Suisse : repli frileux ou frémissement de reprise? L’Espace géographique 4 (1989) 313–17.

46. J.‐L. Piveteau, Temps du territoire. Genève: Zoé, 1995, pp. 115–43.

47. Although it has been, at times, under the responsibility of other ministries.

48. DATAR, 40 ans d’aménagement du territoire. Paris: La Documentation Française, 2003, p. 8.

49. I. Provost, op. cit. [30], p. 18. It is remarkable, however, that such discussion is proposed by a sociologist but has never been even attempted or considered possible by geographers.

50. E. Howard, To‐ morrow a peaceful path to real reform. London: Swann Sonnenschein, 1898, p. 131.

51. It appears in the book of H. Carol and M. Werner, Städte wie wir sie wünschen. Zurich, 1949.

52. At the same time, Gottfried Feder described the perfect city which would be established all over the Nazi empire: a 20 000‐inhabitant centre in the middle of a rural area (G. Feder Die neue Stadt. Berlin, 1939).

53. F. Walter, op.cit. [7].

54. Ibid.

55. R. O. Paxton, La France de Vichy, 1940–44. Paris: Le Seuil, 1973, p. 249: ‘[In France] antagonism between technocrats and members of the Parliament increases between the two wars. For the experts, elected deputies are at best, dabblers, and at worst ignorant morons. Public service is a “realistic” activity consisted of “doing”, not a “political” process which tries only to “make an impression”’.

56. I. Provost, op. cit. [30], pp. 83, 89.

57. The ratio of built area to land area; a basic planning tool.

58. M. Roncayollo, Histoire de la France urbaine. Paris: Seuil, 1985, conclusion part V.

59. Quoted in I. Provost, op. cit. [30]; declaration to the newspaper Le Monde, 19 February 1997.

60. Economic and social cohesion in the European Union: the impact of member states own policies. Regional Development Studies 29 (1998).

61. See P.‐G. Gerosa, M. Bassand and J.‐B. Racine, L’urbain et l’idéologie, in M. Bassand, D. Joye and M. Schuler (eds) Les enjeux de l’urbanisation en Suisse/Agglomerationsprobleme in der Schweiz. Bern: OEPR, Peter Lang, 1988, pp. 115–33.

62. Conseil fédéral, Rapport sur les grandes lignes de l’organisation du territoire. Berne, 22 may 1996, pp. 31, 44. See J. Salomon Cavin, op. cit. [5], part 6.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bernard Marchand

Bernard Marchand was Professor at the French Institute of Urban Planning, University of Paris‐8 and is presently Principal Professor at the Ecole Nationale des Travaux Publics de l’Etat. He spent several years teaching in foreign universities, in Venezuela (Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas), in the USA (Penn State, Northwestern, UCLA), in Canada (University of Toronto) and in Brazil (Universidade Federal de Rio de Janeiro). He has been working for several years in two areas: mathematical modelling and computer applications in planning; and urban history. His publications include The Evolution of the City of Dream: Los Angeles, 1940–1970 (London: Pion) and Paris, histoire d’une ville, XIXth–XXth [Paris : history of a city] (Paris: Le Seuil, 1994). He is currently preparing a new book on the hostility against Paris in France.

Joëlle Salomon Cavin

Joëlle Salomon Cavin is lecturer of the Institute of Land Use Policies and Human Environment at the University of Lausanne and associate member of the CNRS research laboratory LADYSS at the University of Paris 10. She has studied geography and Urban Planning in Paris. She used to work as an assistant lecturer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne where she received her PhD in 2003. In 2004, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cardiff University, UK. Her research deals with the hostility towards the cities in European thoughts and its influence on Planning. Her study of the Swiss example, La ville, mal‐aimée [The unloved city] (Lausanne: PPUR), was published in 2005.