Visual planning and urbanism in the mid-twentieth century

13-15 September 2007
The early to mid-twentieth century was a time of intense debate over the future of cities and the form and appearance that they might take. In the UK the Garden City Movement, with a tendency towards lower densities and decentralisation, was an important influence. Internationally the radical reformation of the city was being promoted by Le Corbusier and others. Other radical models were promoted including ideas of linear cities or Frank Lloyd Wright's radical decentralisation of Broadacre City. In amongst these grand concepts we can discern a strand of more practical urbanism, modernist in flavour but historically informed, seeking to recover positive conceptions of the city and town after the perceived deprivations of the nineteenth century. One manifestation of this was the UK townscape movement, with its emphasis on pictorial composition.

This conference will consider some of the key ideas of visual planning and the urban of the period, with a particular focus on the advocates of visual and three-dimensional planning as a means of achieving a reformulated twentieth century urbanism.

The keynote speakers at the conference will be Professor Stephen Ward, Oxford Brookes University and Dr. Heleni Porfyriou, Centro di Conservazione delle Opere d'Arte, Rome.

The conference forms part of a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, "Town and Townscape: The Work and Life of Thomas Sharp". Thomas Sharp was a key figure in the town planning profession in the mid-twentieth century and a major influence on thought about planning and design and as such his work will be one of the themes of the conference.

Provisional Conference Themes
Visual planning and urbanism in the UK including the townscape movement. The significance of the picturesque and visual to English design and architecture has been noted by writers across the generations. In the 1940s this developed into the idea of townscape through Sharp's work, such as his Oxford Replanned and The Anatomy of the Village and through a series of articles published in the Architectural Review. Initially this came from contributions written by the owner H. de C. Hastings, influenced by Pevsner and led from 1949 to Gordon Cullen's Townscape Notebook, which culminated in his 1961 book Townscape. This theme will consider the anatomy of the development of this movement.

Visual planning and urbanism: international perspectives.
This theme will place the English focus on the visual and ideas such as townscape in a broader European and global context and tradition of urbanism in the twentieth century from Camillo Sitte onwards. Papers are anticipated dealing with these issues within the context of Italy, Spain, Germany, Greece, France, Japan and India.

The work and life of Thomas Sharp
A key figure in these debates, in the UK context at least, was Thomas Sharp. Labelled by Gordon Cherry as 'The Man Who Dared to be Different', Sharp was never part of any movement as such but was a powerful voice in the period with forthright views (and criticisms of others!) whose significance was widely acknowledged by his peers. An originator of ideas of townscape he was also a passionate urbanist. Virulently anti-garden city and suburb he was almost equally dismissive of Corbusian-type abstract models. He promoted a practical urbanism, which whilst drawing strength from Enlightenment models was fundamentally modern in character. A planner as well as a writer one of his best known legacies was the series of 'reconstruction plans' prepared for historic cities in the mid-to-late 1940s.

Legacies
Some papers will explicitly address the contemporary legacy of mid-twentieth century visual planning; both in the conceptual borrowings made by the New Urbanists and others and in the rapidly disappearing physical legacies of the period.

Provisional Programme
Paper presentations will be all day 13 and 14 September. On Saturday 15 there will be alternative field visits to Durham, to look at the influence of Thomas Sharp on one of the cities where he had a long-standing professional involvement, or the partially completed villages in Northumberland designed by Sharp for the Forestry Commission.

Call for papers
The call for papers is now closed. This will be a tightly focused conference, with no parallel sessions. Full papers are not required but those submitted by 3 August will be made available to all conference delegates. We intend to publish selected papers in book form.

For any enquiries contact Laura.Fernandez@ncl.ac.uk.

Conference Venue
The conference will be held in rooms at Castle Leazes, Newcastle University.

Registration
Registration before 15 June is £50 (£25 for students) to include any include any conference materials, refreshments and the conference dinner (on the evening of Thursday 13 September). After 15 June registration is £75 (£35 students).
University accommodation is available on-site for £22/ night inclusive of breakfast. There maybe a modest supplementary charge for the field trips.
There will be a maximum number of delegates at this conference. A number of places have been reserved for speakers; thereafter the allocation of places will be on a first come first served basis.
To register follow this link

Other Information
Newcastle is a fabulous city to visit. The following links give an introduction, some practicalities and some information on alternative accommodation to the rooms in University offered.

Visiting
http://www.visitnewcastlegateshead.com/

Staying
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/library/sharp/hotel_rates.xls

Travel
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/travel/info

City Map
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/travel/maps/navigator.php

City and Approaches
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/travel/maps/citymap.php