Designing the space of transportation: railway planning theory in nineteenth and early twentieth century treatises

Abstract

This paper investigates the multi‐layered evolution of planning ideas informing early railway construction. It shows how railways, by affecting the territory at large, engendered quite unprecedented regional and urban planning problems, as well as landscape architectural problems, at a time when the corresponding disciplines were far from established. Hence, knowledge was being built up in reaction to contemporary practice and was then transposed into guidelines meant to inform further practice. In the light of several railway, architectural, and urban planning treatises of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, from the British, French, German, Belgian and American contexts, the paper highlights the emergence of an increasing awareness that railway planning and design could not be dealt with in terms of pure transportation problems, but that mobility infrastructure engendered a multitude of spatial ‘side‐effects’ at all scales. This process is illustrated by the way in which ‘internal’ design concerns, as present in the early railway treatises of the mid‐nineteenth century, are gradually complemented by ‘contextual’ concerns to railway design within the growing theoretical corpus of urban and regional planning literature around and after 1900.

Notes

1. W. Schivelbusch, The railway journey: the industrialization of time and space in the nineteenth century. Spa: Berg Leamington, 1986, chapter 2. Schivelbusch shows that unlike previous means of transportation, the railway brought the route and the means together, challenging the previous liberal state of affairs when the route and the means existed independently.

2. A. Coulls, Railways as World Heritage Sites. Occasional Papers for the World Heritage Convention, ICOMOS, 1999, p. 5. The paper develops assessment criteria for railways ‘intended partly to correct [such] “lococentrism”, facilitating the undertaking of more detailed studies that will comprehend individual railways as fully contextualised sites’.

3. R. Roth and M.‐N. Polino (eds), The city and the railway in Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003. For another excellent collection of essays studying railways at the confluence between technology and culture see also G. Dinhobl (ed.), Eisenbahn/Kultur – Railway/Culture. Vienna: StudienVerlag, 2004.

4. R. Roth, Interactions between Railways and Cities in Nineteenth‐Century Germany: Some Case Studies, in R. Roth and M.‐N. Polino (eds) ibid., pp. 3–27; H. Schmal, Cities and Railways in the Netherlands between 1830 and 1860, in R. Roth and M.‐N. Polino (eds), ibid., pp. 29–44.

5. M. Tanase, Railways, Towns and Villages in Transylvania (Romania): Impact of the Railways on Urban and Rural Morphology, in R. Roth and M.‐N. Polino (eds), ibid., pp. 45–59.

6. I. V. Nevzgodine, The Impact of the Trans‐Siberian Railway on the Architecture and Urban Planning of Siberian Cities, in R. Roth and M.‐N. Polino (eds), ibid., pp. 79–103.

7. V. Hastaoglou‐Martinidis, The Advent of Transport and Aspects of Urban Modernization in the Levant during the Nineteenth Century, in R. Roth and M.‐N. Polino (eds), ibid., pp. 61–78; A. Giuntini, Downtown by the Train: The Impact of Railways on Italian Cities in the Nineteenth Century – Case Studies, in R. Roth and M.‐N. Polino (eds), ibid., pp. 119–135.

8. N. McAlpine and A. Smyth, Urban Form, Social Patterns and Economic Impact arising from the Development of Public Transport in London, 1840–1940, in R. Roth and M.‐N. Polino (eds), ibid., pp. 169–82; H. Campbell, Railways Plans and Urban Politics in Nineteenth‐Century Dublin, in R. Roth and M.‐N. Polino (eds), ibid., pp. 183–201; P. E. Swett, Political Networks, Rail Networks: Public Transportation and Neighbourhood Radicalism in Weimar Berlin, in R. Roth and M.‐N. Polino (eds), ibid., pp. 221–35; D. Drummond, The Impact of the Railway on the Lives of Women in the Nineteenth‐Century City, in R. Roth and M.‐N. Polino (eds), ibid., pp. 237–55.

9. See A. Sutcliffe (ed.), The Rise of Modern Urban Planning 1800–1914. London: Mansell, 1980, or the volumes of the collection by R. LeGates and F. Stout (eds), Early Urban Planning. London: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1998.

10. J. R. Kellett, The Impact of Railways on Victorian Cities. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969.

11. Ibid., chapter II, ‘Did the Victorians count social costs?’.

12. The extensive bibliography provided by each article in R. Roth and M.‐N. Polino (eds), op. cit. [3], is an evidence hereby.

13. D. Lardner, Railway economy: new art of transport, its management, prospects and relations, commercial, financial and social: with an exposition of the practical results of the railways in operation in the United Kingdom, on the Continent, and in America. London: Taylor, Walton and Maberly, 1850.

14. N. Wood, A practical treatise on rail‐roads, and interior communication in general: containing numerous experiments on the powers of the improved locomotive engines, and tables of the comparative cost of conveyance on canals, railways, and turnpike roads. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1838, 3rd edn, with additions; P. Lecount, A practical treatise on railways, explaining their construction and management, with numerous woodcuts and ten plates: being the article “Railways” in the seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, with additional details. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1839; S. Ch. Brees, Fourth series of railway practice: a collection of working plans and practical details of construction in the public works of the most celebrated engineers: comprising roads, tramroads and railroads, bridges, aqueducts, viaducts, wharfs, warehouses, roofs, and sheds, canals, locks, sluices & the various works on rivers, streams, &c., harbours, docks, piers and jetties, tunnels, cuttings and embankments, the several works connected with the drainage of marshes, marine sands, and the irrigation of land, water‐works, gas‐works, water‐wheels, mills, engines. London: John Williams, 1847; G. Drysdale Dempsey, The practical railway engineer: a concise description of the engineering and mechanical operations and structures which are combined in the formation of railways for public traffic, embracing an account of the principal works executed in the construction of railways to the present time, with facts, figures, and data, intended to assist the civil engineer in designing and executing the important details required for those great public works. London: John Weale, 1855.

15. A. Perdonnet, Traité élémentaire des chemins de fer. Paris: Langlois et Leclercq, 1855–6. Perdonnet’s treatise second edition was published by Langlois et Leclercq as well, in 1858–60, while a third edition, ‘corrigée considérablement’ was published by the Garnier brothers in 1865.

16. H. Von Waldegg, Handbuch für spezielle Eisenbahn‐Technik. Leipzig, 1870.

17. Meyers Konversationslexikon. Bibliographisches Institut Leipzig und Wien, 1885–92, Vth volume, pp. 428–68. Available online at http://susi.e‐technik.uni‐ulm.de:8080/Meyers2/seite/werk/meyers/band/5/seite/0428/ (accessed 18 July 2006).

18. See A. Picon, L’Invention de L’Ingénieur Moderne: l’Ecole des ponts et chaussées, 1747–1851. Paris: Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées, 1992; as well as A. Picon, Le corps des ponts et chaussées. De la conquête de l’espace national à l’aménagement du territoire. Available online at http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/people/faculty/picon/corpspc.html (accessed on 17 July 2006).

19. A. Perdonnet, op. cit. [15], Vol. 1, p. 101.

20. Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 31.

21. C. Sitte, Der städte‐Bau nach seinen künstlerischen Grundsätzen. Wien, 1889.

22. I. Cerdà, La théorie générale de l’urbanisation. Présentée et adaptée par Antonio Lopez de Aberasturi. Paris: Seuil, 1979 (first published 1867). Cerdà’s Teoria, which chronologically considered the first theoretical definition of urbanism as a science, has long remained unknown to French‐ and English‐speaking audiences, as the first French translation was published only in 1979 and the first English one only in 1999. Even the second Spanish edition came out only in 1971. It was through the concrete realization of Barcelona’s extension, although an incomplete and transformed application of his plan from 1859, that Cerdà became famous.

23. A. Soria y Mata, The Linear City, in R. LeGates and F. Stout (eds), op. cit. [9], vol. 1 (first published 1892).

24. Although he started by studying architecture, Cerdà (1815–76) quit these studies before receiving his diploma and enrolled in the Madrid Ecole des ponts et chausses, from where he graduated in 1841 and conducted important road works between 1841 and 1848. (I. Cerdà, op. cit. [22], p. 38). Arturo Soria y Mata (1844–1920) was trained as a road and railway engineer and established the first horse tramline in Madrid in 1875 (http://web.tiscali.it/icaria/urbanistica/utopie/soria.htm (accessed 19 July 2006).

25. J. Stübben, Der Städtebau. Darmstadt, 1890. Revised later editions followed in 1907 and 1924.

26. A. Sutcliffe, Towards the Planned City: Germany, Britain, the United States, and France, 1780–1914. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1981, pp. 29–30.

27. R. Baumeister, Stadt‐Erweiterungen: in technischer, baupolizeilicher und wirthschaftlicher Beziehung. Berlin: Ernst & Korn, 1876.

28. Collins and Collins showed how Sitte’s ideas had served Stübben as reference for completing his own oeuvre: G. Collins and C. Crasemann Collins, Camillo Sitte and the birth of modern city planning. New York: Phaidon Press, London: Random house, 1965, p. 76.

29. J. Stübben, op. cit.[25], p. 213.

30. C. Mulford Robinson, Modern Civic Art or The City Made Beautiful, in R. LeGates and F. Stout (eds), op. cit. [9], vol. 3 (first published 1903).

31. N. P. Lewis, The planning of the Modern City. A Review of the Principles Governing City Planning, in R. LeGates and F. Stout (eds), op. cit. [9], vol. 5 (first published 1916, New York and London)

32. L. Hercher, Grossstadterweiterungen: ein Beitrag zum heutigen Städtebau. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1904; E. Fassbender, Grudzuge der modernen Stadtbaukunde. Leipzig and Vienna, 1912.

33. A. Sutcliffe, op. cit. [26], pp. 103, 125.

34. His first book was The Improvement of Towns and Cities, Or the Practical Basis of Civic Aesthetics, published in 1901.

35. P. Abercrombie, Town and Country Planning, in R. LeGates and F. Stout (eds), op. cit. [9], vol. 8 (first published 1933).

36. I. Cerdà, op. cit. [22], title page, ‘Ruralisez la ville/Urbanisez les campagnes’.

37. P. Abercrombie, op. cit. [35], p. 177.

38. Ibid., p. 179.

39. J. Batchelor, John Ruskin. No Wealth but Life. A Biography. London: Pimlico, 2001, p. 252:

There was a rocky valley between Buxton and Bakewell, once upon a time, divine as the Vale of Tempe; you might have seen the Gods there morning and evening … . You cared neither for gods nor grass, but for cash … . You Enterprised a Railroad through the valley – you blasted its rocks away, heaped thousands of tons of shale into its lovely stream. The valley is gone, and the Gods with it; and now, every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half‐an‐hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton; which you think a lucrative process of exchange – you Fools Everywhere.

40. L. Cloquet, Traité d’architecture. Paris et Liège, 1898–1901.

41. For Cloquet’s life and oeuvre, see P. Goditiabois, Ingenieur Louis Cloquet (1849–1920). Architekt tussen Monument en Stad. Unpublished dissertation, Architecture Department, Catholic University Leuven, 1987.

42. J. Durm (ed.), Handbuch der Architektur. Darmstadt, 1890.

43. L. Cloquet, op. cit. [40], vol. V, p. 133, author’s translation, original in French: ‘… les ponts, les combles de grande ouverture, les halles de station et les palais d’expositions, c’est‐à‐dire les produits les plus caractéristiques de l’art de notre temps’.

44. I. Cerdà, op. cit. [22], p. 73.

45. Ibid., p. 71.

46. Ibid., p. 125.

47. Ibid., p. 57.

48. Ibid., p. 149, author’s own translation, original in French:

Tout bien considéré, la vie urbaine se compose de deux éléments essentiels qui recouvrent toutes les fonctions et tous les actes de la vie. L’homme repose, l’homme se meut: c’est tout. Il n’y a donc que repos et mouvement. Tous les actes du repos ont lieu dans les volumes finis occupés par la construction; tous les actes concernant le mouvement ont lieu dans les espaces indéfinis appelés voies.

49. Ibid., p. 130, author’s own translation, original in French: ‘Il décrit avec une simplicité remarquable la position de l’espace qu’il désigne, et révèle à la fois l’origine et la cause de son existence’.

50. Ibid., p. 69.

51. C. Sitte, op. cit. [21], pp. 118, 145.

52. A. Picon, op. cit [18].

53. A. Perdonnet, op. cit. [15], Vol. 1, p. 57.

54. Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 57–8.

55. Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 74.

56. Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 69.

57. See, for example, also A. de Formanoir, Des chemins de fer en temps de guerre. Bruxelles, 1871; H. L. W. von Hauptmann, Die Kriegführung unter Benutzung der Eisenbahnen und der Kampf um Eisenbahnen. Leipzig, 1882; T. Hoffmann‐Merian, Die Eisenbahnen zum Truppentransport und für den Krieg. Basel, 1871.

58. A. Perdonnet, op. cit. [15], Vol. 1, p. 99.

59. Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 81–95.

60. Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 100.

61. J.‐F. Vanderlinden, Cours de construction de génie civil: notes sur les voies de communication par terre. Ghent, 1909, p. 11.

62. Ibid., p. 96.

63. P. Abercrombie, op. cit. [35], p. 188.

64. Ibid., p. 196.

65. Ibid., p. 205.

66. Ibid.

67. Ibid., p. 235.

68. Ibid., p. 231.

69. J. Stübben, op. cit. [25], p. 217.

70. Ibid., p. 218.

71. Ibid.

72. C. Mulford Robinson, op. cit. [30], p. 77.

73. Ibid., pp. 60–1.

74. Ibid., p. 79.

75. Ibid., p. 80.

76. P. Abercrombie, op. cit. [35], pp. 81–2.

77. A. Perdonnet, op. cit. [15], Vol. 1, p. 113.

78. J. R. Kellett, op. cit. [10], chapter I.3, I.4.

79. H. Campbell, Railways Plans and Urban Politics in Nineteenth‐Century Dublin, in R. Roth and M.‐N. Polino (eds) op. cit. [3], pp. 183–201.

80. J. Stübben, op. cit. [25], pp. 214–15.

81. N. P. Lewis, op. cit. [31], p. 66. Lewis gave the example of joint municipal and national enterprises that acquired port land before prices reached a speculative level, equipped it with inland and water transportation facilities as well as with warehouses and industrial spaces, in order to lease or sell them thus developed, under quite strict conditions, inhibiting speculation. This was both economically and spatially profitable for cities, as such big infrastructural works were done in a coherent manner and may even occasion other public utility amenities, such as the Antwerp ‘promenoirs’, elevated over dock sheds (ibid., p. 58).

82. Ibid., p. 56.

83. Ibid., p. 55, quoted by Lewis from the report of the London Traffic Branch of the Board of Trade, 1913.

84. A. Soria y Mata, op. cit. [23], p. 9.

85. See, for example, the bibliography given by Cloquet in the chapter on railway stations of his Traité d’architecture, L. Cloquet, op. cit. [40], pp. 515–16.

86. I. Cerdà, op. cit. [22], p. 69, author’s own translation, original in French: ‘Indépendance de l’individu au foyer/Indépendance du foyer dans la ville/Indépendance des mouvements dans la vie urbaine …’.

87. A. Perdonnet, op. cit. [15], Vol. 2, Chap. IX; L. Cloquet, op. cit. [40], Vol. IV, Chap. 10.I

88. A. Perdonnet, ibid., Vol. 2, p. 30.

89. Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 117.

90. C. Mulford Robinson, op. cit. [30], pp. 61–2. Robinson explained this architectural weak point by the fact that people tend to regard railways as the mere development of the stage‐coach and the railway station as a more sophisticated road house, unaware of the complete novelty of the railway.

91. Ibid., pp. 65–6.

92. N. P. Lewis, op. cit. [31], pp. 159–60.

93. A. Perdonnet, op. cit. [15], Vol. 2, pp. 112–18.

94. L. Cloquet, op. cit. [40], vol. V, pp. 141–2, author’s own translation, original in French:

L’architecture courante de notre époque manqué d’originalité et surtout de sincérité, parce qu’il s’est établi un divorce entre la construction et la décoration. … L’artiste affolé suit avec peine la marche vertigineuse du constructeur … Le constructeur marche à pas de géant et n’a pas le temps d’initier l’artiste au sens intime de ses conceptions. Il faudrait que l’ingénieur portât en croupe l’artiste avec lui.

95. C. Mulford Robinson, op. cit. [30], p. 69.

96. Ibid., p. 67.

97. N. P. Lewis, op. cit. [31], pp. 154–5.

98. C. Mulford Robinson, op. cit. [30], p. 72.

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Cristina Purcar

Cristina Purcar trained as an architect at the Technical University of Cluj (Romania), graduating in 2000. Since 2003 she has held a Master in Conservation of Historic Towns and Buildings from the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation of the Catholic University Leuven. She has been working as a research assistant at the Department of Architecture, Urban Design and Planning there since December 2003. She is currently researching on the planning history and territorial impact of railways with a focus on Transylvania (Romania). She participated in several urban rehabilitation projects conducted by the Council of Europe in Central and East European countries and part‐time assists the Conservation programme at the Raymond Lemaire Centre.