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Abstract
This article scrutinizes the travel of planning ideas between Western Europe and America in the post-war decades by employing the 1958 International Seminar on Urban Renewal as a case study. As a joint venture between the International Federation for Housing and Planning and James M. Miller, a planning professor from Columbia University, this meeting was the first transatlantic conference after 1945 principally intended to (re-)introduce American planners to European reconstruction efforts. Therefore, the seminar testifies to an emerging interest of the wider US professional public in West European planning during the 1950s. When American planners struggled with deteriorating downtowns and suburbanization, they turned to Europe, where cities experimented with pedestrianization, mixed-use zoning and comprehensive planning in order to build their razed city centres anew. Although Americans were relatively unsuccessful in implementing these ideas in their cities, the events surrounding the 1958 seminar show that, even during a period of US hegemony, transatlantic connections were more than a mere ‘Americanization’ of European practice. Thus, this article argues for viewing transnational connections in the post-war North Atlantic World as a circular flow of ideas, in which Europeans and Americans alternately acted as borrowers and lenders, according to their variable perceptions of each other.
Acknowledgements
A preliminary version of this article was presented at the conference ‘More Atlantic Crossings? Europe's Role in an Entangled History of the Atlantic World, 1950s–1970s’, held at the German Historical Institute, Washington, DC, in June 2012, organized by Mary Nolan, Daniel T. Rodgers and Jan Logemann. I would like to thank the conveners and participants of this seminar, Carola Hein and the anonymous readers of this journal for their helpful suggestions.
Notes on contributor
Phillip Wagner is currently finishing his Ph.D. dissertation at the Humboldt University of Berlin. As a fellow of the ‘Studienstiftung des deutschen Volks’ (German Academic Foundation), he has received research grants from the German Historical Institutes in London and Washington, DC. He has published on architecture and local government in Berlin around 1900 as well as on the history of the IFHP in the context of transnational urbanism.
Notes
1 Ward, “Learning from the US” and Cody, Exporting American Architecture, 122–135.
2 Ewen, “Lost in Translation” and Nasr and Volait, “Introduction.”
3 Shoshkes, “Martin Meyerson and Jacqueline Tyrwhitt” and Shoshkes, “Jacqueline Tyrwhitt”.
4 Mumford, Defining Urban Design.
5 Klemek, Transatlantic Collapse.
6 In this text, Northwestern Europe is highlighted for its alliance with the USA and its similar background (industrialization, urbanization and discourses on social reform). US connections to nations beyond the iron curtain, and even to the politically unstable and less prosperous societies in Southern Europe, would have required a different study.
7 Between the date of its inception (1913) and 1960, the Federation frequently changed its (tri-lingual) title. As in 1958, the organization called itself IFHP, I stick to this name. For an introduction to the its history, cf. Wagner, “Segregation planen”; Riboldazzi, Un' altra modernità and Saunier, “Sketches from the Urban Internationale”.
8 For the story of ASPO and IFHP from the 1930s to 1950s, cf. Saunier, “Selling the Idea”.
9 Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings.
10 Cf. letters and memorandums in American Society of Planning Officials Records, #3247. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca (hereafter ASPO Records), box 39, folders 6–9, 15 and Charles S. Ascher Papers. Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York (hereafter Ascher Papers), box 90, folder IFHP HQ.
11 Ascher to Van der Weijde, February 01, 1951, Frederic J. Osborn Archives. Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, Hertford, folder H 7.
12 Judt, Postwar, 13–128.
13 Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings, 502–508.
14 For contemporary commentary, see Crane, “Housing”; also cf. Harris and Giles, “Mixed Message” and Ekbladh, Great American Mission.
15 Many of these ideas shared a transnational legacy as they came from European practice, were adapted to American contexts in the interwar years and were finally exported to Europe under the different political contexts of the post-war decades. Compare the telling case study on the New York Museum of Modern Art and its planning exhibitions: Hein, “Museum for Modern Art”. For the larger picture, see Ward, “Learning from the US”.
16 The first post-war visitors in Sweden were community planner Clarence Stein and Donald and Astrid Monson (Detroit Planning Commission). See Andreas Joch's text in this issue and Ward, “Learning from the US”.
17 Besides Great Britain, the study tour went through Benelux and Scandinavia. See the untitled leaflet in IFHP Archive, The Hague (hereafter IFHP), box 22, folder J. Marshall Miller–Royement.
18 Ascher, Charles S. Draft for brochure on IFHTP, December 22, 1954, Ascher Papers, box 93, folder IFHTP USC Promotion.
19 Conference on Ways increasing US Participation in International Housing and Town Planning, Washington, June 06, 1954, ASPO Records, box 39, folder 35.
20 Miller, James M. Greetings from the American Institute of Planners, undated (1954), IFHP, box 22, folder J. Marshall Miller–Royement.
21 Ascher to O'Harrow, January 14, 1955, Ascher Papers, box 93, folder IFHP USC Promotion.
22 Conference on Ways increasing US Participation in International Housing and Town Planning, Washington, June 06, 1954, ASPO Records, box 39, folder 35.
23 Ascher to van der Weijde, May 1955, ASPO Records, box 39, folder 34.
24 Van der Weijde, Where does the Federation stand today? August 1957, Ascher Papers, box 84, folder IFHP–Bur.–65.
25 Twenty-eight persons visited the Vienna meeting in 1956. Nineteen took part in the 1958 Liège congress, while still 10 were present at the council meeting in Berlin, 1957.
26 Cf. press releases in ASPO Records, box 39, folder 29, folder 39 and box 40, folder 18; Ascher Papers, box 90, folder IFHP HQ–1960.
27 Biles, Fate of Cities, 47–81; Ward, Planning, 85–88; Scott, American City Planning, 536–541, 551–553.
28 Untitled Memorandum on Congress of IFHP in Vienna, July 1956, ASPO Records, box 40, folder 4.
29 Ibid.
30 Ward, Planning, 188 (number); Jackson, “Transnational Borderlands.”
31 Hardwick, Mall Maker.
32 Klemek, The Transatlantic Collapse, 68–74; 92–94.
33 Cf. letters from Miller in ASPO Records, box 40, folder 4; Ascher to van der Weijde, December 12, 1956, Ascher Papers, box 93, folder USC Communication; on his career, cf. Miller, Lake Europe, 109 and Hein, The Capital of Europe, 54–57, 184.
34 Miller to O‘Harrow, July 17, 1957, ASPO Records, box 40, folder 4.
35 Logemann, ‘Where to Shop,’ 58. In 1955, 21 German cities had opened pedestrianized business districts. Ward, Planning, 253.
36 Miller to O‘Harrow, July 16 and July 17, 1957, ASPO Records, box 40, folder 4.
37 Ibid.
38 Miller to O‘Harrow, July 16, 1957, ASPO Records, box 40, folder 4.
39 Ibid.
40 Anonymous (Van der Weijde, Henk), Brief account Miller affair, September 9, 1959, ASPO Records, box 40, folder 18.
41 Miller to O‘Harrow, September 06, 1957, Ascher Papers, box 86, folder IFHP–Berlin–1957; Miller to Bureau of the IFHP, June 15, 1959, IFHP, box 22, folder J. Marshall Miller–Royement.
42 Ward, “Learning from the US,” 96; Van der Laar, Stad van formaat, 451–481 and McCarthy, “Redevelopment of Rotterdam.”
43 For the contribution of these planners to the congress, cf. Miller, New Life for Cities, 88–90, 95–97, 118–123, 169.
44 Ibid., 15.
45 According to Federation secretary Henk van der Weijde, Miller deemed the seminar his ‘personal affair’, being convinced that the Federation had ‘no real say in this matter.’ Cf. Anonymous (Van der Weijde, Henk), Brief account Miller affair, September 9, 1959, ASPO Records, box 40, folder 18.
46 One witness dismissed Miller for the ‘one-sidedness’ of his arguments and his ‘priggish’ behaviour towards the Dutch authorities. Bakker Schut to Van Derpool, August 2, 1960, IFHP, box 22, folder J. Marshall Miller–Royement.
47 Pierre-Yves Saunier has suggested that Miller's central aim was to boost his recently created company Books International by publishing the 1958 seminar accounts. Email to author, June 19, 2012.
48 Miller, New Life for Cities, 20.
49 Ibid., 19. Drawing these comparisons, Miller was probably not aware that Stosberg acted as planner in Auschwitz until September 1943.
50 Miller, New Life for Cities, 22.
51 Ibid., 33.
52 Ibid., 194–195.
53 Ibid., 8.
54 Klemek, Transatlantic Collapse.
55 Miller, New Life for Cities, 54f.
56 Ibid., 221 (quoted from an article which also appeared in The Courier Journal (Louisville), October 8, 1958).
57 Miller, New Life for Cities, 7. In 1963, Miller expanded on his idea of mixed-use zoning when he developed his proposal for ‘Lake Europe’ as the capital for Europe. Cf. Hein, The Capital of Europe, 54–57.
58 Miller, New Life for Cities, 56. For a conceptual history of organic planning, see Meller, Geddes, which traces the career of biologist-cum-planning theorist Patrick Geddes who first established organicist notions of planning in the early twentieth century.
59 Miller, New Life for Cities, 57.
60 Ibid., 7.
61 Klemek, Transatlantic Collapse, 83–90 and Orillard, “Tracing”.
62 Orillard, “Tracing,” 293–296.
63 For Clay as an advocate of the ‘townscape’ doctrine, cf. Orillard, “Tracing,” 297f.
64 Miller, New Life for Cities, 57, 4.
65 Domhardt, “Garden City Idea”.
66 Shoshkes, “Jacqueline Tyrwhitt,” 282 (all quotes). Tyrwhitt adapted the organicistic notions of Geddes in her theory of ‘urban constellation’.
67 Mumford, Defining Urban Design.
68 The eighth CIAM (1952) was called ‘The Heart of the City: Towards the Humanization of Urban Life’.
69 Klemek, Transatlantic Collapse, 129–160.
70 Cf. a special issue on European planning of the Journal of American Institute of Planners 4/62; Grebler, Urban Renewal; Burchard, Voice of the Phoenix.
71 Cf. Morris and Zisman, “Pedestrian”.
72 Van Ginkel, “Form of the Core”.
73 Scott, American City Planning, 573–580.
74 Compare, for instance: Morris and Zisman, “Pedestrian”; Weiss, “Downtown Pedestrian Mall Experiment”.
75 Worldcat.org. Accessed August 01, 2013.
76 Dyckmann, “American Urban Romanticism,” 277.
77 Scott, American City Planning, 531; Brambilla and Longo, Learning from Baltimore.
78 Van Ginkel, “Form of the Core,” 66; Weiss, “Downtown Pedestrian Mall Experiment,” 67. Surprisingly, even Jacobs lauded Charles Center as the ‘new heart’ of Baltimore. Jacobs, “New Heart for Baltimore”.
79 Miller and Giglierano, “Downtown Housing”.
80 Jackson, “Transnational borderlands”; Ward, Planning, 256–259.
81 Weiss, “Downtown Pedestrian Mall Experiment,” 70.
82 Logemann, “Where to shop,” 60.
83 Literature on Cincinnati's skyways is scarce. I obtained information from Alltucker, Ken. ‘Downtown Skywalk falls into Disfavor.’ The Cincinnati Enquirer, June 1, 2003. Accessed January 02, 2013. http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2003/06/01/loc_skywalk01.html.
84 Miller and Giglierano, “Downtown Housing,” 183–186.
85 Klemek, Transatlantic Collapse, 202–216; Ward, Planning, 259–260, 266–268.
86 Brambilla and Longo, For Pedestrians Only.
87 Only long-standing supporters of public housing such as Feiss and Pomeroy pointed to the European superiority in this area. Cf. Pomeroy's statement in New York Times, 5 October 1958 and the second chapter of this essay.