"Modernism with a Soul": Designing and Building Communities for Corporate and Civic Life.

This essay explores how film, feature and documentary, can offer a new perspective on modernist architecture, industrial design, and urban planning. Through the lens of two young directors, Kogonada and Davide Maffei, it traces the histories of two twentieth-century company towns: Ivrea, Italy, headquarters of Italian business machine giant Olivetti, and Columbus, Indiana, U.S.A., home to Cummins Inc., a global leader in diesel engine design and manufacturing. Adriano Olivetti and J. Irwin Miller shared the conviction that modernist architecture and design had a decisive role to play not just in the economic health of their respective firms but in the civic health of their surrounding communities. These companies have long abandoned the corporate idealism of their founding patrons. In film, Ivrea and Columbus have become architectural time capsules that raise important questions about the transformative power of architecture and design in the face of an increasingly competitive global economy.

Las relaciones entre higienismo y urbanismo en la obra de Felipe Hauser / The relationship between hygienism and urbanism in the work of Felipe Hauser

La obra del médico higienista Felipe Hauser (1832-1925) se inscribe no solo en el contexto de la medicina social, sino también del urbanismo y del planeamiento urbano, en-tendidos estos últimos como disciplinas modernas que surgen en el período intersecular, del XIX al XX, interesadas en adecuar el hábitat de las ciudades a las necesidades de su población. Este trabajo parte del contexto social y cultural europeo de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX en el que se desarrollan la formación y la experiencia práctica de Hauser, en relación con el auge de la geografía médica y de los postulados higienistas. Asimismo, una vez establecido en España, a partir de 1872 y coincidiendo con la etapa histórica de la Restauración, la reflexión se articula a partir de la contextualización y relectura de sus principales publicaciones y del análisis de la evolución de las mismas, tanto desde el punto de vista metodológico como en cuanto a contenidos y enfoques. De esta manera, progresivamente, iremos constatando cómo su interés por la medicina social y la salud pública le lleva a enlazar, de forma cada vez más evidente, con los planteamientos incipientes del urbanismo moderno, en tanto que saber global y aplicado sobre la ciudad, a partir de proyectos de ordenación fundamentados en el diagnóstico de los principales males de la vida urbana (AU)

Astronomical aspects of Group E-type complexes and implications for understanding ancient Maya architecture and urban planning.

In the 1920s, during the first archaeological excavations at Uaxactún, Petén, Guatemala, an architectural complex named Group E was interpreted as an ancient Maya astronomical observatory, intended specifically for sighting the equinoctial and solstitial sunrises. In the following decades, a large number of architectural compounds with the same configuration have been found, most of them in the central lowlands of the Yucatan peninsula. The multiple hypotheses that have been proposed about the astronomical function of these complexes, commonly designated as E Groups, range from those attributing them a paramount role in astronomical observations to those that consider them merely allegorical or commemorative allusions to celestial cycles, without any observational use. This study, based on quantitative analyses of a reasonably large sample of alignment data, as well as on contextual evidence, shows that many of the previous hypotheses cannot be sustained. I argue that E Groups, although built primarily for ritual purposes, were astronomically functional, but also that they had no specific or particularly prominent role in astronomical observations. Their orientations belong to widespread alignment groups, mostly materialized in buildings of other types and explicable in terms of some fundamental concerns of the agriculturally-based Maya societies. I present the evidence demonstrating that the astronomical orientations initially embedded in E Groups, which represent the earliest standardized form of Maya monumental architecture and whose occurrence in practically all early cities in the central Yucatan peninsula attests to their socio-political significance, were later transferred to buildings and compounds of other types. Therefore, it is precisely the importance of the astronomically and cosmologically significant directions, first incorporated in E Groups, that allows us to understand some prominent aspects of ancient Maya architecture and urbanism.

A cidade no pensamento brasileiro, do século XVI ao século XX / The city in Brazilian thought from the 16th to the 20th century

A afirmação do pensamento urbanístico moderno no Brasil não pôde deixar de enfrentar visões persistentes a respeito do papel das cidades na vida nacional, do caráter, relevância ou validade de nosso processo de urbanização, dos vícios e virtudes do mundo urbano. Para elucidar algumas dessas visões, podemos recorrer a textos formadores da consciência local, dos cronistas coloniais redescobertos no século XIX à emergência de uma concepção dominante de "cultura brasileira" na obra de Gilberto Freyre. Ao longo dessa trajetória transparecem diferentes enfoques, imagens e projeções, em que o mundo urbano é visto ora ostentando sua imponência oficial, ora exibindo suas mazelas morais e físicas, mas na maioria das vezes desaparecendo em favor do quadro predominante de um país "essencialmente" rural.

The assertion of modern urban planning in Brazil cannot evade persistent visions of the role of cities in the country's life, of the relevance, validity or character of our urbanization process, or of the vices and virtues of the urban world. In order to elucidate some of these visions, we may consult formative texts of local knowledge ­ from colonial writers rediscovered in the 19th century to the emergence of a dominating notion of "Brazilian culture" in the work of Gilberto Freyre. Along this trajectory different images and projections can be seen in which the urban milieu is regarded either as the imposing official space of Europeanization, or as displaying its physical and moral deficiencies, although more often simply disappearing in favor of the prevailing image of an "essentially" rural country.

Growing Canopy on a College Campus: Understanding Urban Forest Change through Archival Records and Aerial Photography.

Many municipalities are setting ambitious tree canopy cover goals to increase the extent of their urban forests. A historical perspective on urban forest development can help cities strategize how to establish and achieve appropriate tree cover targets. To understand how long-term urban forest change occurs, we examined the history of trees on an urban college campus: the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. Using a mixed methods approach, including qualitative assessments of archival records (1870-2017), complemented by quantitative analysis of tree cover from aerial imagery (1970-2012), our analysis revealed drastic canopy cover increase in the late 20th and early 21st centuries along with the principle mechanisms of that change. We organized the historical narrative into periods reflecting campus planting actions and management approaches; these periods are also connected to broader urban greening and city planning movements, such as City Beautiful and urban sustainability. University faculty in botany, landscape architecture, and urban design contributed to the design of campus green spaces, developed comprehensive landscape plans, and advocated for campus trees. A 1977 Landscape Development Plan was particularly influential, setting forth design principles and planting recommendations that enabled the dramatic canopy cover gains we observed, and continue to guide landscape management today. Our results indicate that increasing urban tree cover requires generational time scales and systematic management coupled with a clear urban design vision and long-term commitments. With the campus as a microcosm of broader trends in urban forest development, we conclude with a discussion of implications for municipal tree cover planning.

Practical integration: The art of balancing values, institutions and knowledge - lessons from the History of British Public Health and Town Planning.

The paper uses two historical examples, public health (1840-1880) and town planning (1945-1975) in Britain, to analyse the challenges faced by goal-driven research, an increasingly important trend in science policy, as exemplified by the prominence of calls for addressing Grand Challenges. Two key points are argued. (1) Given that the aim of research addressing social or global problems is to contribute to improving things, this research should include all the steps necessary to bring science and technology to fruition. This need is captured by the idea of practical integration, which brings this type of research under the umbrella of collective practical reason rather than under the aegis of science. Achieving practical integration is difficult for many reasons: the complexity of social needs, the plurality of values at stake, the limitation of our knowledge, the elusive nature of the skills needed to deal with uncertainty, incomplete information and asymmetries of power. Nevertheless, drawing from the lessons of the case studies, it is argued that (2) practical integration needs a proper balance between values, institutions and knowledge: i.e. a combination of mutual support and mutual limitation. Pursuing such a balance provides a flexible strategy for approximating practical integration.

La maquinaria social y las ciencias humanas. Pensionados de la junta para la ampliación de estudios en la europa de la razón tecnocrática / Social machinery and the human sciences. The junta para la ampliación de studios scholarships in the technocratic europe

La creación de la JAE y su política de pensiones promovió no solo los elementos integrantes del discurso oficial, sino otros intereses ligados a los enfoques tecnocráticos de los problemas sociales difundidos en la Europa de la modernidad. En este estudio exploramos este segundo efecto, no reconocido suficientemente, mediante el examen de la trayectoria y propuestas de diversos pensionados que viajaron entre 1909 y 1932 a Alemania, Inglaterra, Bélgica, Suiza y Francia (AU)

The establishment of the JAE and the scholarship policy supported by this institution promoted not only the well-known scientific renovation, but other values related in this case to the technocratic views of social problems. The present study is aimed at exploring this second effect, a relatively unattended topic, by the examination of the concerns and purposes of various scholarship holders who traveled between 1909 and 1932 to Germany, England, Belgium, Switzerland, and France (AU)

'Mafia Baroque': post-socialist architecture and urban planning in Bulgaria.

This paper traces the reception of the architectural style known as 'Mafia Baroque' within the professions of architecture and urban planning in Bulgaria. The debate within these professions was strongly linked to the general decline of power among former intellectual elites and the specific decline of architects and planners, who were sidelined as arbiters of 'good taste' and disempowered as regulators of urban growth. The reaction to this style also highlights the rise in public concern over corruption and organized crime and dissatisfaction with post-socialist urbanization. This paper chronicles the extent of changes in construction and regulation in Bulgaria during the 1990s and argues that planners and architects were challenged not only by their professional marginalization but also by a deeper embarrassment over cultural change. It then relates this debate to broader post-socialist anxieties over insufficient regulation of urbanization and fear of failing to meet Western European goals for economic and political change.

City, region, and in between: New York City's water supply and the insights of regional history.

Urban historians have greatly expanded their geographical purview in recent years, incorporating suburbs and hinterlands into their analysis of social and environmental change. Urban environmental historians and suburban historians have played a critical role in the regionalization of urban history over the last decade. This case study of the development of New York City's water supply reveals the benefits of taking a regional approach to urban history. From the New York Public Library to Central Park's Great Lawn to neighborhood parks, the New York City landscape bears the traces of the continuous development of the city's water network. Expansion of the water system in rural hinterlands enabled municipal officials to put urban reservoirs to new uses, creating some of the city's most beloved public spaces. The rehabilitation of urban infrastructure underscores the intimate linkages between rural development and the urban built environment.

From the "Phoenix of Legends" to the "Ultimate Monument" of the times: stadia, spectators, and urban development in postwar Paris.

This article analyzes the renovation and construction of the Parc des Princes and the Stade de France in post-Second World War Paris. The history of the two stadia testifies to a shift in the envisioned role of stadia in the Parisian basin between the late 1960s and the end of the twentieth century and stands as evidence for the emergence of new urban planning actors. Both stadia were also critiqued as symbols of broader problems with Parisian urbanization, notably as manifestations of anti-democratic planning processes. At the same time, the Parc and the Stade also reflected an emerging consensus over the role of spectator sport in society, accompanied by attempts to re-envision mass sporting spectatorship as a more democratic and familial practice. This article thus situates the two stadia within the history of Parisian urbanization and within broader global urbanizing processes.

Urban shrinkage in Germany and the USA: a comparison of transformation patterns and local strategies.

Many American and European cities have to deal with demographic and economic trajectories leading to urban shrinkage. According to official data, 13% of urban regions in the US and 54% of those in the EU have lost population in recent years. However, the extent and spatial distribution of declining populations differ significantly between Europe and the US. In Germany, the situation is driven by falling birth rates and the effects of German reunification. In the US, shrinkage is basically related to long-term industrial transformation. But the challenges of shrinking cities seldom appeared on the agendas of politicians and urban planners until recently. This article provides a critical overview of the development paths and local strategies of four shrinking cities: Schwedt and Dresden in eastern Germany; Youngstown and Pittsburgh in the US. A typology of urban growth and shrinkage, from economic and demographic perspectives, enables four types of city to be differentiated and the differences between the US and eastern Germany to be discussed. The article suggests that a new transatlantic debate on policy and planning strategies for restructuring shrinking cities is needed to overcome the dominant growth orientation that in most cases intensifies the negative consequences of shrinkage.

Metropolitan fragmentation and neo-localism in the periphery: revisiting the case of Curitiba.

In this paper, the Curitiba-centred narrative on the success of its urban planning experience will be qualified in light of the complexities of its metropolitan development trajectory. It will be claimed that the institutional vacuum that surrounds Brazilian metropolitan areas in general, and Greater Curitiba in particular, has been intensified by the emergence of a competitive and decentralised state spatial regime, which has consolidated a fragmented and neo-localist system of governance. Preliminary empirical evidence will be provided on the challenges that are being faced within the new regime in articulating socio-spatial, economic and environmental strategies in the direction of a more sustainable metropolitan future.

Age 55 or better: active adult communities and city planning.

Active adult, age-restricted communities are significant to urban history and city planning. As communities that ban the permanent residence of children under the age of nineteen with senior zoning overlays, they are unique experiments in social planning. While they do not originate the concept of the common interest community with its shared amenities, the residential golf course community, or the gated community, Sun Cities and Leisure Worlds do a lot to popularize those physical planning concepts. The first age-restricted community, Youngtown, AZ, opened in 1954. Inspired by amenity-rich trailer courts in Florida, Del Webb added the "active adult" element when he opened Sun City, AZ, in 1960. Two years later, Ross Cortese opened the first of his gated Leisure Worlds. By the twenty-first century, these "lifestyle" communities had proliferated and had expanded their appeal to around 18 percent of retirees, along with influencing the design of intergenerational communities.

The new urban politics as a politics of carbon control.

The new urban politics (NUP) literature has helped to draw attention to a new generation of entrepreneurial urban regimes involved in the competition to attract investment to cities. Interurban competition often had negative environmental consequences for the urban living place. Yet knowledge of the environment was not very central to understanding the NUP. Entrepreneurial urban regimes today are struggling to deal with climate change and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon reduction strategies could have profound implications for interurban competition and the politics of urban development. This paper explores the rise of a distinctive low-carbon urban polity­carbon control­and examines its potential ramifications for a new environmental politics of urban development (NEPUD). The NEPUD signals the growing centrality of carbon control in discourses, strategies and struggles around urban development. Using examples from cities in the US and Europe, the paper examines how these new environmental policy considerations are being mainstreamed in urban development politics. Alongside competitiveness, the management of carbon emissions represents a new yet at the same time contestable mode of calculation in urban governance.

The forgotten survey: social services in the Oxford district: 1935-40.

This article describes one of the lesser known social surveys of the first half of the twentieth century in Britain and looks at its origins and its outcomes. Funded by the Rockefeller grant to Oxford University to enhance social studies there, the Oxford Survey published in two volumes in 1938 and 1940 engaged Oxford academics from agricultural economics, economics, statistics, and government, as well as Barnett House members involved in voluntary organizations, adult education, settlements, citizenship, and social work. It was a far-reaching study that aimed to analyse all aspects of public services, in the context of a thorough-going description of the geography, industry, and population statistics of the local area. It was also designed to have national relevance, because of the development of the motor industry in Cowley. The Oxford Survey differed from Booth and Rowntree's exploration of the habits and circumstances of the urban poor. Instead, it had more affinity to surveys of industrial and regional planning and work coming from the Le Play school, in which the act of surveying communities was perceived as a way of enhancing citizenship.