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ABSTRACT
This article takes a brief look at the history of modern Central European planning, especially spatial planning in Czechoslovakia. It is primarily focused on urban and regional planners, planning ideas, concepts, and projects that can be considered ‘organic’. Several important planners (all males) who kept pace with the most current European and US trends (e.g. Vladimír Zákrejs, Jindřich Kumpošt, Bohuslav Fuchs, Alois Mikuškovic, Ladislav Žák, Karel Honzík, and Emanuel Hruška) are discussed. The text also mentions some of the driving forces of the time, which had a fundamental impact on organic approaches in planning, including the institutionalization of urban and regional planning. Attention is also given to various international influences and the transfer of ideas that have not yet been adequately analysed. In conclusion, there are some reflections on the significance of organic modernity that succinctly express the atmosphere of that time as well as the efforts of the mentioned planners and thinkers. The main message is to show the close connection between early modern urban planning and the phenomenon of organicism, or rather, organic modernity.
Acknowledgements
This work is based on my dissertation Eco-Friendly Tendencies in Czechoslovak Urban and Regional Planning from 1918 until 1968, which was extended, supplemented, and published as Organic Modernity: Eco-Friendly Tendencies in Czechoslovak Urban and Regional Planning (1918–1968) (in Czech). Special thanks to Šárka Roušavá, Michael Hebbert, and the reviewers for their thoughtful comments and directions.
Notes on contributor
Jan Dostalík is an assistant professor at the Department of Environmental Studies of Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. He has received degrees in art history, environmental studies, and economics, and worked for three years as a planner for a private urban planning firm. He specializes in the history of architecture and urban and regional planning in the twentieth century, including overlaps into the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. He is particularly focused on the environmental and social aspects of architecture and urban and regional planning, as well as environmentally friendly spatial theories and practice.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 James S. Scott calls this approach, or ideology, high modernism (Scott, Seeing like a state, 4–6, 103–16).
2 For example, Rosen and Tarr, “The Importance of an Urban Perspective”; Bernhardt, Environmental Problems; Massard, Guilbaud, and Thorsheim, “Cities, Environments”; Mauch, Notes from the Greenhouse.
3 For example, Clark, The European City; Zutz, “Wege grüner Moderne”; Brantz and Dümpelmann, Greening the City; Lemes de Oliveira, “Green Wedges.”
4 Haney, When Modern Was Green.
5 Botar and Wünsche, Biocentrism and Modernism.
6 Dostalík, Organická modernita.
7 Botar, “Defining Biocentrism,” 24; or Mehmood, “On the History,” 69–73.
8 Švácha, “Architektura čtyřicátých let,” 33.
9 Schalk, Imagining the Organic City, 192.
10 Zákrejs, “Budoucnost Šárky.”
11 For example, Žák, “Otázky krajinného plánování.”
12 For example, Baumeister, Stadterweiterungen in technischer, baupolizeilicher und wirthschaftlicher Beziehung; Stübben, Der Städtebau; Koch, Gartenkunst im Städtebau.
13 Sitte, Der Städtebau, 111.
14 Howard, To-morrow.
15 For example, Madlmayr, “Krása našeho domova”; Howard – Táborský, “Zahradní město – co to je?”; Zákrejs, “Letchworth, zahradní město.”
16 Rollins, A Greener Vision of Home; Pelikán, Pojetí krajiny, 10.
17 Zimmler, Havelková and Hozák, Moje inženýrské paměti.
18 Zimmler, “Několik úvah o úpravě,” 22–3.
19 Zákrejs, “Regulační plány”; Zákrejs, “Budoucnost Šárky.”
20 Zákrejs, “Budoucnost Šárky,” 52–3.
21 Dvořák, “Ústav pro stavbu měst,” 135–6.
22 Madlmayr, “Krása našeho domova a umění stavitelské.”
23 The history of the project is described in Janáč, European coasts of Bohemia.
24 (na), “Vytrvalé snění o velkém průplavu,” 1.
25 Madlmayr, “Vodní hospodářství a ochrana přírody.”
26 See more details in Wagner, “Facilitating Planning.”
27 See Petz, “Robert Schmidt.”
28 Fierlinger, “Stavební poměry v průmyslových krajinách.”
29 Zákrejs, Methodické řešení plánů upravovacích, 10–11, 16.
30 Chochol, “Perspektivy urbanismu.” Available in German: Lampugnani, Frey, and Perotti, Anthologie zum Städtebau, Band II.2, 1168–73.
31 Le Corbusier and Pierrefeu, La Maison Des Hommes.
32 See Platzer, “CIAM and the Central Europe”; Hanáčková, “Česká skupina CIAM”; Pražanová, Česká urbanistická tvorba.
33 Pražanová, Česká urbanistická tvorba, 45.
34 Milyutin, Socgorod.
35 The most cited work of Lewis Mumford became the book Technics and Civilization (originally published in 1934, in the Czech translation in 1947).
36 Cf. Honzík, “Biotechnics.”
37 Pražanová, Česká urbanistická tvorba, 45.
38 Fuchs and Kumpošt, Cesta k hospodářské obrodě.
39 Ibidem, 97.
40 Baťa et al., Budujme stát.
41 See Pražanová, Česká urbanistická tvorba, 44–5.
42 Czech architect and historian Jiří Hrůza noted about this book: “The level and content can in that year be compared with what is now a classic work by P. Abercrombie: Town and Country Planning” (Hrůza, “Kalendárium,” 38).
43 Mikuškovic, Technika stavby měst.
44 Říha, Vesnice – půda a plán.
45 Kubík, “Za ochranu a zvýšení krásy kraje”, 8.
46 See Němec, “Hitler’s ‘Generalsiedlungsplanung Ost.’”
47 See more details in Hořejš, Protektorátní Praha.
48 Pražanová, Česká urbanistická tvorba, 72–4.
49 Hollow, “Utopian Urges,” 569.
50 Stavba měst a venkovských sídel [Building of urban and rural settlements] (1927–1934) and Město: měsíčník pro technicko-hospodářskou práci obcí, měst, okresů a zemí [City: monthly for technical and economic work of villages, cities, counties and lands] (1947–1950).
51 Šebek and Vaněček, Technické stavby a ochrana přírody, 12.
52 Semrád, “K současnému stavu architektury a urbanismu,” 1.
53 Honzík, “Obyvatelné město,” 120.
54 Cf. Gehl, Cities for People.
55 Dvořáková in Honzík, Beyond the Horizon of Objectivity.
56 Žák, Obytná krajina, 136.
57 Žák, “Otázky krajinného plánování.”
58 Dostalík, “Die pannaturalistische Utopie Ladislav Žáks,” 48.
59 Žák, Obytná krajina.
60 For example, Klika, “Biologicko-botanický podklad”; Klika, Plánujeme s přírodou; Klika, “Úkoly krajinné biologie.”
61 Klika, “Biologicko-botanický podklad.”
62 Hruška, Krajina a její soudobá urbanizace.
63 Honzík, “Obyvatelné město”; Honzík, Necessismus.
64 Říha, Země krásná.
65 See more in Dostalík and Ulčák, “Biologický universalismus”; Dostalík, Organická modernita.
66 Ježek, “Za novou krajinu.”
67 Beck, Risikogesellschaft.
68 Bauman, Liquid Modernity.
69 Especially this kind of modernity is described by Kimberly Zarecor in her book Manufacturing a Socialist Modernity.
70 Choay, L’urbanisme, utopies et réalités; Schalk, Imagining the Organic City, 14.
71 Botar and Wünche, Biocentrism and Modernism.
72 In recent years, this organic stream has gained in strength. An illustrative example is Timothy Beatley’s book Biophilic Cities.
73 Dostalík, Organická modernita.
74 See more details in Dostalík, Organická modernita, 111–43.