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ABSTRACT
This is a study in the practice of postwar urban design in Toronto, Canada, based on archival documents and interviews with participants. The narrative begins with the hiring of one British-trained architect/urban designer, Raymond Spaxman, by the City of Toronto Planning Board in 1966. Spaxman then set up a new division of staff that he filled with five or six other architect/urban designers of various national and institutional origins. The study describes the work carried out by these urban designers, identifies the principle themes apparent in it, and relates this to published literature on the founding principles of postwar urban design. In most ways, the study's findings fit the current understanding of the early discipline – concern for pedestrians, sympathy for historical preservation – but in others not – it was different from but not antagonistic towards planning. The findings are then considered as an example of the international transfer of postwar planning ideas. The process of idea transfer in this case looks to have been more chaotic, and less definable, than existing paradigms suggest, but this might have been fairly common in second-rank, immigrant-receiving cities.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Richard White is an independent historian and longstanding part-time lecturer in Canadian history at the University of Toronto Mississauga.
Notes
1 Marshall, “The Elusiveness of Urban Design.”
2 Marshall, “The Elusiveness of Urban Design,” 55; Brown, “Urban Design at Fifty,” 82; and Krieger, “Where and How Does Urban Design Happen?” 129.
3 Orillard, “The Transnational Building of Urban Design” offers new, original insights.
4 Larice and Macdonald, Urban Design Reader, Part One.
5 Mumford, Defining Urban Design, 102–13; Mumford, “The Emergence of Urban Design”; “The First Urban Design Conference.”
6 Laurence, “The Death and Life of Urban Design.”
7 White, Planning Toronto.
8 Shoskes, “Jaqueline Tyrwhitt,” 74–7, 89–90.
9 CTPB, “Plan for Downtown Toronto”; also Toronto, Advisory Committee on the Urban Renewal Study, “Urban Renewal”; and CTPB, “Plan for the Don.”
10 Stephenson, On a Human Scale, 164–6.
11 There is no published biography of Spaxman; personal details here are drawn from interviews and follow-up correspondence.
12 CTPB, “The Changing City.”
13 City of Toronto Archives, City of Toronto Planning Board Minutes, 14 May 1968, “Central Area Division: Objectives.”
14 Personnel records are not extant; Spaxman, email to author, 4 April 2017.
15 Interviewee recollections; educational backgrounds are not on record.
16 They are identified in this study as either ‘Central Area planners’ or ‘urban designer(s)’, depending on context.
17 CTPB, “On Foot Downtown”; Coombes had been initially trained as an architect in Sydney, Australia.
18 City of Toronto Archives, CTPB Minutes, Meeting of 17 August 1971, memorandum, 16 June 1971, “The Future of Dundas Street.”
19 CTPB, “South-East Downtown Urban Renewal Scheme.”
20 ibid., Figures 11 and 12.
21 Coombes interviews.
22 Okamoto, Urban Design Manhattan.
23 Crombie, Coombes, Hefferon interviews.
24 CTPB, “Central Area Plan Review: Proposals”; the only significant study of this is Frisken, City Policy-Making.
25 CTPB, “Central Area Plan Review: Principles,” 54.
26 CTPB, “Central Area Plan Review: Proposals,” Section B6 and Introductory Summary, 7–8.
27 CTPB, Design Guidelines Study Group, “onbuildingdowntown.”
28 Ontario Municipal Board, “Central Area Plan: Decision”; Feldman and Goldrick, Politics and Government of Urban Canada, 235–54.
29 Mumford, Defining Urban Design, Passim.
30 Orillard, “Tracing Urban Design's ‘Townscape’ Origins’” is an important exception; Cullen, “Introduction,” in Larice and Macdonald, Urban Design Reader.
31 Mumford, Defining Urban Design, 149, restated in “The Emergence of Urban Design”; also “The First Urban Design Conference: Extracts.”
32 Marshall, “Josep Lluis Sert's Urban Design Legacy,” 117; Mumford, Defining Urban Design, 143–4; “The First Urban Design Conference: Extracts,” comments by Rodwin, 7, and Bacon, 12–13; Barnett, An Introduction to Urban Design, 12 includes rural areas in his definition of the discipline.
33 Mumford, Defining Urban Design, Passim, but especially 80–99; CTPB, “Central Area Plan Review: Principles,” 53.
34 CTPB, “Central Area Plan Review: Proposals,” B 3-31.
35 This is clear in CTPB, “Open Places in South Midtown.”
36 CTPB, “Central Area Plan Review: Principles,” 53.
37 CTPB, “South-East Downtown Urban Renewal Scheme,” Figure 19; CTPB, “Central Area Plan Review: Principles,” 52; and Barnett, An Introduction to Urban Design, 37–53.
38 Read Voorhees & Associates, “Central Area Transportation Study” and White, Planning Toronto, 296–97, 342–57.
39 CTPB, “Central Area Plan Review: Principles,” 17–27.
40 Relph, The Modern Urban Landscape, 229–31; Brown “Urban Design at Fifty,” 76–7; and Taylor, “Legibility and Aesthetics in Urban Design.”
41 Marshall, “Josep Lluis Sert's Urban Design Legacy,” 113; Bacon, “Upsurge of the Renaissance,” 7; and Barnett, An Introduction to Urban Design, uses this comprehensive definition throughout.
42 Marshall, “Josep Lluis Sert's Urban Design Legacy,” 111; Sorkin, “The End(s) of Urban Design,” 156; and Jacobs and Appleyard, Introduction to “Towards an Urban Design Manifesto,” 218.
43 Sommer, “Beyond Centres,” 143.
44 Mumford, Defining Urban Design, 176–93.
45 Arnstein, “A Ladder of Citizen Participation.”
46 Wakeman, “Rethinking Postwar Planning History,” 155.
47 Marshall, “The Elusiveness of Urban Design,” 55.
48 Laurence, “The Death and Life of Urban Design” suggests this.
49 CTPB, “Open Places in South Midtown.”
50 CTPB, Core Area Task Force, “Report and Recommendations”; Crombie and Sewell interviews.
51 City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 200, Series 1465.
52 King, “Writing Transnational Planning Histories.”
53 Joch, “Must Our Cities Remain Ugly?” 179–80.
54 Hein, “The Exchange of Planning Ideas” 146.
55 Ward, “Re-examining the International Diffusion of Planning.”
56 Ibid., 49.
57 Ibid., 45.
58 White, “Toronto, An American City.”
59 Wakeman, “Rethinking Postwar Planning History.”