ABSTRACT
This paper explores how local culture may curb the homogenizing forces of globalization in the diffusion of planning ideas. Given that the built environment is constructed both physically and culturally, this paper draws a comparative case study of territorial planning and the creation of new towns in Israel and Brazil in the mid-twentieth century. The private colonization scheme in northern Paraná state, in Brazil, and the Physical Planning in Israel were both based on widely influential ideas collected in the Greater London Plan 1944. Although the resulting regional strategies were similar, their urban forms differed largely due to their unique modes of being-in-the-world. While the Israeli new towns acclimatized the physical aspects of garden cities for ideological reasons, the Brazilian new cities stuck to a more practical gridiron layout. As a conclusion, this study illustrates how culturally sensitive projects gave local form to ideas and models that had been diffused through global interconnectivity.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Karin Schwabe Meneguetti, Gislaine Elizete Beloto and the reviewers for their constructive feedback on the draft of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Healey and Upton, Crossing Borders.
2 Wakeman, Practicing Utopia, 9.
3 Sorensen, “Urban Sustainability,” 135; Ward, “Cities as Planning Models.”
4 Sutcliffe, Towards the Planned City; King, Urbanism; Ward, “Re-Examining;” Nasr and Volait, Urbanism: Imported or Exported?; Leme, Urbanismo no Brasil; Almandoz, Planning; Ward, “Transnational Planners;” Healey and Upton, Crossing Borders; Friedmann, “Crossing Borders;” Healey, “Transnational Interaction;” Healey, “The universal;” Ward, “Cities as Planning Models;” Wakeman, Practicing Utopia; Sandoval-Strausz and Kwak, Making Cities Global; Hein, “Crossing Boundaries;” Ward, “Planning Diffusion;” Freestone and James, “Learning from LA;” King, “Exporting Planning;” Home, “Global Systems.”
5 DeVereaux and Griffin, “International, Global, Transnational;” Smith, “Transnational Urbanism Revisited.”
6 Smith, “Transnational Urbanism Revisited,” 4.
7 Sanyal, Comparative Planning Cultures; Taylor, “Rethinking Planning Culture;” Knieling and Othengrafen, “Planning Culture;” De Vries, “Planning and Culture Unfolded.”
8 Hein, “Crossing Boundaries.”
9 Wakeman, Practicing Utopia, 55, 58, 80 and 110; Healey and Upton, Crossing Borders.
10 Healey, “The Universal.”
11 Sharon, Physical Planning in Israel.
12 Abercrombie, Greater London Plan 1944.
13 Rego, “A Tropical Enterprise.”
14 Companhia, Colonização; Rego, “A Tropical Enterprise.”
15 Zaidan and Kark, “Garden Cities;” Hysler-Rubin, “Arts & Crafts;” Meller, Patrick Geddes.
16 Zaidan and Kark, “Garden Cities;” Wakeman, Practicing Utopia, 110.
17 Kauffman, “Factors.”
18 Wilkof, “An ‘Ordinary Modernist’?;” Nitzan-Shiftan, “Contested Zionism – Alternative Modernism.”
19 Zaidman and Kark, “Garden Cities,” 67; Nitzan-Shiftan, Epstein-Pliouchtch and Alon-Mozes, “Richard Kauffmann;” Kauffmann, “Factors;” Kauffmann, “Planning.”
20 Sharon, Kibbutz+Bauhaus; Schüler, “Forms, Ideals, and Methods;” Yiftachel, “From Sharon to Sharon,” 81; Sharon, Arieh Sharon Online Archives. See also Bauhaus100, Bauhaus Kooperation.
21 Nitzan-Shiftan, “Contested Zionism – Alternative Modernism,” 154.
22 Troen, Imagining Zion, 143.
23 Wakeman, Practicing Utopia; Sharon, Kibbutz+Bauhaus, 79; Sharon, “Planning in Israel;” Sharon, Physical Planning in Israel; Yiftachel, “From Sharon to Sharon,” 87; Tzfadia and Yacobi, Rethinking Israeli Space, 11.
24 Troen, Imagining Zion, 193.
25 Gold, The Experience of Modernism, 194–5.
26 Sharon, “Planning in Israel,” 67; Spiegel, New Towns in Israel, 26.
27 Schwake, “Settle and Rule.”
28 Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape.
29 Said, Culture and Imperialism, 7.
30 Efrat, “Mold,” 77; Schwake, “Supply-Side Territoriality;” Yacobi, Constructing a Sense of Place.
31 Yacobi and Tzfadia, “Neo-Settler Colonialism;” Tzfadia and Yacobi, Rethinking Israeli Space; Schwake, “The Community Settlement;” Yacobi, “Architecture, Orientalism and Identity;” Yiftachel, “From Sharon to Sharon.”
32 Allweil, Homeland; Wakeman, Practicing Utopia, 109; Nitzan-Shiftan, “Contested Zionism – Alternative Modernism;” Efrat, “New Small Towns;” Cohen, The City; Spiegel, New Towns in Israel.
33 Yacobi and Tzfadia, “Neo-Settler Colonialism,” 4.
34 Yiftachel, “From Sharon to Sharon,” 87.
35 Sharon, “Planning in Israel,” 66.
36 Brutzkus, “The Scheme,” 304–5.
37 Sharon, Physical Planning in Israel, 4.
38 Efrat, Urbanization in Israel, 141; Cohen, The City, 37; Efrat, “New Small Towns,” 239; Efrat, “New Development Towns,” 248; Spiegel, New Towns in Israel, 19; Sharon, Physical Planning in Israel.
39 Shadar and Oxman, “Of Village and City;” Cohen, The City, 36; Spiegel, New Towns in Israel, 179. See Wilkof, “New Towns, New Nation,” 224.
40 Wakeman, Practicing Utopia, 36.
41 Sharon, Physical Planning in Israel, 3 and 4.
42 Cohen, The City, 3; Sonder, “‘May Be Solved’;” Katz, “The Extension;” Nitzan-Shiftan, “Contested Zionism – Alternative Modernism,” 155; Schwake, “Settle and Rule;” Schwake, “The Community Settlement,” 4.
43 Abramovich, Epstein-Pliouchtch and Aravot, “Imported Modernity.”
44 Zaidman and Kark, “Garden Cities,” 58; Kauffmann, “Planning.”
45 Bigon, “Garden Cities;” Zaidman and Kark, “Garden Cities,” 55; Wilkof, “New Towns, New Nation;” Sonder, “‘May Be Solved’;” Katz and Bigon, “Urban Development;” Shadar and Oxman, “Of Village and City;” Nitzan-Shiftan, “Contested Zionism – Alternative Modernism;” Sharon, Kibbutz+Bauhaus, 62; Brutzkus, “The Scheme;” Cohen, The City.
46 Zvi, “Mold,” 85.
47 Shadar and Oxman, “Of Village and City,” 248–9; Spiegel, New Towns in Israel.
48 Shadar and Oxman, “Of Village and City.”
49 Tzfadia and Yacobi, Rethinking Israeli Space, 23.
50 Wakeman, Practicing Utopia, 33.
51 Kallus, “A Place;” Shadar and Oxman, “Of Village and City,” 250.
52 Zaidman and Kark, “Garden Cities,” 73.
53 Troen, Imagining Zion, 149.
54 Sharon, Kibbutz+Bauhaus; Sharon, Physical Planning in Israel.
55 Troen, Imagining Zion, 203.
56 Avni, Alfasi and Bornstein, “City Profile;” Shadar and Oxman, “Of Village and City;” Meir, “Urban Space.”
57 Spiegel, New Towns in Israel.
58 Oz, In the land of Israel, 29.
59 Ibid.
60 Nitzan-Schiftan, “Contested Zionism – Alternative Modernism,” 158.
61 Allweil, Homeland.
62 See Zvi, “Mold,” p. 87.
63 Spiegel, New Towns in Israel, 58, 140 and 180.
64 Glikson, “Urban Design.”
65 Cohen, The City; Gold, “Modernity and Utopia,” 78.
66 Schwake, “Supply-Side Territoriality;” Yacobi and Tzfadia, “Neo-Settler Colonialism.”
67 Mello, “Problemas de Urbanismo.”
68 O Estado, 1945, 11.
69 Salgueiro and Simões Junior, “Luiz de Anhaia Mello,” 135; Leme, Urbanismo no Brasil; Ficher, Os Arquitetos da Poli.
70 Oliveira, Green Wedge Urbanism, 115; Salgueiro and Simões Junior, “Luiz de Anhaia Mello.”
71 Rego, “A Tropical Enterprise.”
72 Companhia, Colonização.
73 Ibid., 77 and 253; O Estado, 1953, 6.
74 Rego and Meneguetti, “Planted Towns;” Rego, “A Tropical Enterprise.”
75 Macedo, 2011.
76 Companhia, 1975, 79.
77 Macedo, “Maringá,” 350.
78 Rego, “A Tropical Enterprise”, 268.
79 Macedo, “Maringá,” 348.
80 Rego, Ideias Para Novas Cidades, 90.
81 Cancian, Cafeicultura Paranaense, 22.
82 Waibel, “As Zonas Pioneiras,” 389.
83 Moser, Autoimperialismo.
84 Rego, Ideias Para Novas Cidades.
85 Gomes, Olhando Para Dentro.
86 Reis, Imagens de Vilas e Cidades do Brasil Colonial.
87 Trevisan, “Cidades Novas.”
88 Rose-Redwood and Bigon, Gridded Worlds; Mumford, The City in History; Reps, The Making.
89 Leme, Urbanismo no Brasil.
90 Rego, “Brazilian Garden Cities.”
91 Pinheiro, “As Ideias Estrangeiras.”
92 Angotti-Salgueiro and Simões Junior, “Crossing Histories.”
93 Leme, Urbanismo no Brasil; Ficher, Os Arquitetos da Poli; Puppi, Estruturação Sanitária das Cidades.
94 Rego, Ideias Para Novas Cidades; Rosaneli, “Grid Plan.”
95 Lynch, “The Form of Cities.”
96 Macedo, “Maringá,” 351.
97 Bonfato, Macedo Vieira; Macedo, “Maringá.”
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Renato Leão Rego
Professor Renato Leão Rego, PhD, is a Brazilian architect, historian and professor at the State University of Maringá (UEM), Brazil. His teaching focuses on modern architecture and town planning history, and his current research project is related to the construction of new towns in developing countries. He has been Associate Research Fellow at the Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies (CILAVS), Birkbeck College, and Visiting Professor at the Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida. He has published widely on the diffusion of planning ideas in Brazil.