nearest to gwing it some practical signifi- cance in governmental practice.

Perhaps this may be true. But at heart Holford remained a Liverpool trained architect. His ideas on civic design owed much more to classical and neo-classical influences than the ideas of Camillo de Sitte, for example. But his architectural and civic design work was concerned with local scale and problems of redeveloping central areas. The Redevelopment of Central Areas handbook published by the planning ministry remains a pioneer- ing and important contribution. But once again this was a team effort, rightly but narrowly conceived within a practical and bounded policy framework. The theoretical content and explicit rationales underlying the designs are nowhere set out systemati- cally.

He facilitated the emergence of rule of thumb methods for the redevelop-

ment of cities which for the most part have made little impact on their architectural or environmental quali- ty. But if his herculean labours appear to have been often in vain, and his successes - notably the partially com- pleted St Paul’s Precinct - limited and few, we would do well to recognize he is not alone. We need only look around and examine the work of others to recognize the extent of cur- rent disillusionment with the quality of much design and existing procedures for planning.

The authors are surely right in concluding that Holford’s gifts re- quired and perceived a vital city- building culture in terms of built form. The classical and platonic ideal, assi- duously fostered by the Beaux Arts tradition, often conflicted with the evolutionary and adaptive approach advocated by his friend Lewis Mum- ford. In this respect at least he was

Urban design manual FUNDAMENTALS OF URBAN DESIGN

by Richard Hedman with Andrew Jaszewski

Planners Press, American Planning Association, Washington, DC, 1984

Expectations of a book written on urban design by Richard Hedman should inevitably be high. Hedman was appointed by the San Francisco Department of City Planning in 1968 to lead a team producing the first definitive urban design plan for San Francisco. The resultant plan of 1970 received international acclaim.’

During the decade that followed Design Guides became a fashionable planning instrument, with the 1973 Essex design guide2 generally re- garded as the most successful in this country. Not that the concept of de- sign guides is particularly new. The idea of urban design as a form of development control has a long his- tory. One of the earliest recorded building laws is a statute of 1262 regulating the form of houses fronting the Piazza de1 Campo ‘in Siena, and in the following century a further regula-

CITIES August 1986

tion enforcing compatibility of win- dow design with that of the Palazzo Pubblico was adopted.

Recent design guides have generally taken a positive rather than negative attitude towards development control and sought out those aspects of city development which might be encour- aged and those which should be sup- pressed. This approach was adopted by Richard Hedman when he was leading the urban design team in San Fransisco. The Department of City Planning prepared city-wide ‘urban design guidelines’ as a framework for more detailed urban design plans at district and neighbourhood levels. The framework depended first upon an analysis of the city as a set of fairly discrete ‘design units’, identifiable by the distinctive natural or man-made character peculiar to each. This defini- tion of ‘visual districts’ indicated the qualities of each part of the city which could be enhanced and urban design guidelines were then formulated to achieve this under specific headings, such as ‘Urban Design Guidelines for Open Space and Landscaping’ or ‘Urban Design Policy for Protecting Street Views and Street Space’, and so

Book reviews

typical of a generation of architect- planners. With hindsight, it appears that here was a social rather than an individual tragedy. In conventional terms his career had been a triumphal progression. His frustrations and fai- lures were more a commentary on the soil which he had to work. One must agree with the view that it was ‘both his tragedy and ours’ that it ‘was ultimately so barren’. Perhaps the esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries was not entirely mis- placed. By the 1960s the times were out of joint and the new problems which required new thinking were simply not for him.

Professor Edgar A. Rose Centre for Urban and

Regional Studies University of Birmingham, UK

on. Such an approach, permitting exceptions but offering a consensus view of the particular qualities of a city which each new development should respect, offered a flexible form of urban design control,

Fundamentals of Urbun Design is therefore something of a disappoint- ment. Instead of building upon the achievements of the 1970 San Fransis- co strategies, Hedman appears to have covered much of the same ground again. In the intervening period many urban design plans and urban design theories have been produced. The work of the European rationalists some 10 years ago, with their refer- ences to urban morphology and the historical precedents and lessons of the 18th and 19th century European City, culminated in the writings of both Leon and Robert Krier.’ Robert Krier’s polemical works, such as On Architecture published in 1982. offer a vivid, albeit narrow, vision of the detailed design of both public and private realms in cities. The drawings and photographs of Andrew Jaszewski in Hedman’s Fundumentals of Urban Design lack Krier’s visual drama and sense of purpose. This is not to say that Jaszewski’s illustrations lack clar- ity. Chapter One on ‘Context and

253

contrast conWins same cxccllent

double-page street elevations refer-

ring to the criteria established by

I Idman. including the importance of

shadow patterns and building silhou-

ette. It is more that an uneasy tone of

naivety pervades the work with occa-

sional statements of the obvious, as in

the illustrations on pp 2425 dealing

with ‘Effective contrast’ which. in this

p;trticul:ir CIISC. arc also badly drawn.

US terminology

It is difficult too to fully under~tancl

US terminology. such as the chapter

entitlccl ‘Beautification and recrea-

tion’. ‘Beautifying with tree\’ and the

iiced for ;I tree plan (oi- planting

progranini~. or landscape proposal’?)

;is part of the urban de+y proces i\.

one would have thought. totall!; oh-

\ ious.

Wscwhere in the hook. the gre;lt

historical esanipl~s of Europe such ;i4

fhc Piazza dcl Camp0 in Siena or the

Piazza San Marco in Venice arc malv-

sed in the chapter on ‘Spatial dcfiili-

tion’ but without thr scholarship of

Kevin Lynch in hi\ semimrl woi-ks

some 25 y’;“-’ ago.’ .laszewski’\

photogr~rphs v;Irv considerablv in

quality and relevance. with 0cciision;il

evocative illustrations of the Boston

and San Francisco \kvline. hut son16

c~-~Is\ photogaphs of shopping centres

in other sections.

Pcrh;ips, instead of ;ittcnipting to

product an urban design iiiaiii~al on

such ;i sili;ill xalt‘. a more generalized

;ippro;ich to the urban landscape

might h:ice resulted in ;I more powci’-

ful \\ol-k. Professor Barrio <;recnbie’s

beautiful volume .(;I)c,(~csi might have

\er\d ;IS ;I model. This impressive

work in\cstigates urban \pacc in vii-

i-ious c:itegories. ranglnp from hoiiic.

street ;ind village space to m:irket

place\ and park\. giving :I thematic

conslstenq with the most apposite of

illustrations.

It is not clear whether ~~‘lr/ltll/l/~c,rrrtr/,\

o!’ li~?~r/r I)c+q/i W;IS prodtIc& ;I> such

;I brief \olunic bccausc of lhr euigen-

tic’s of the publishers. but the contents

\c‘ciii to be fai- It’s\ d&ailed th:in the

S~ii Fransisco Pl;inning Dep;irtnient

urban design documents referred to

earlier in this rc’\ icw. The clu;urcI i\

254

not with the broad structure of the

book. but with the brevity with which

each issue is addrcsssecl. whether in

written or illustrative form. Richard

Hcdman has many valuable things to

say, ;md much information and experi-

ence to pass on which is of the greatest

importance to the growing number\ of

specialists in urban design across the

world. The publisher‘s note on the

back cover states that the book ‘is for

those architects, urban designers zmtl

city pl:tnners quietly working without

fanfare in small and medium s&d

cities where the greater part of this

nation’s growth is occurring. FIcrt: is

whet-e the steady pursuit of solid. well

founded design policies and principle4

can hacc far more influence than that

of highly publicized projects‘. But if

the book is to have an implied USC’ as

an everyday m;~nual rather than ;I

piece of polemical theory then the

everyday planner and urban rlc\igner

is in need of more information. In the

pcniiltiniatc chiiptcr. prcscntation

methods are dismissed in four pages.

illustrated b) four photographs to

include the import;ince of elevations.

persptzctivc tlrawing4. axonomctrics,

lllOd~l\ and photomollt~l~e. Rut no

nicntion i\ made of the iiioi-r advancecl

and often relatively inexpensive tech-

nique\ which have been in use in the

last IO year\: techniques such as video

film and animation or. more amhi-

tiou\lv. computer grneratetl perypcc-

tivcs and computer generatrd anini:t-

tion techniques. overlay graphic tech-

niques and the use of air brush render-

ing and computer-aided urban end

topographical modelling.

The basis of the authors‘ t’xtcnsivc

experience could be of immense value

to the professionals in the field if their

work were expanded greatly to pro-

duce a drawing board m;mu:~l. I agree

with Hedman when he says there is ;m

urgent need to integrate the teachins

of urban design in architecture but I

do not agree that it is necessarily the

province of ;Irchitects ;~lone. The

emerging urban design profession

needs to bridge the growing gulf be-

tween the architectural and planning

professions and develop the cxperti\c

to achieve this.

Professor David Gosling

Depafiment of Architecture

University of Sheffield, UK

‘San Francisco Department of City Plan- ning, Preliminary Report No 8. Urban Design Plans, 1970. ‘County Council of Essex, A Design Guide for Residenbal Areas, 1973. 3L. Krier and Leon Krier, Drawings 7967- 7980, Archtves d’Architecture Moderne, Brussels 1982, and R. Krier, Urban Space, Academy Editions, London, 1979. 4K. Lynch, The Image of the City, MIT Press, Harvard, MA, 1960. 5B.B. Greenbie, Spaces: Dimensions of the Human Landscape, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1981.

City images of the literati CITIES PERCEIVEC: URBAN

SOCIETY IN EUROPEAN AND

AMERICAN THOUGHT, 1820-l 940

by Andrew Lees

Manchester University Press, Man-

chester, 1985, 369 pp, f25.00

This book is ;I fruly magisterial survcb

of the contribution of the rise of great

cities in the 19th anti 70th centuries to

man‘s cultural and intellectual worlds.

Professor Lees seeks to ‘understand

how articulate mm and women pcr-

ccivetl ad evaluated what was hap-

pcning in the countries in which the

lived as ;I result of urban growth’. The

‘perceptions’ arc those revealed in

more than ;I thousand book\ and

articles drawn from across ;i wide

literary spectrum. from profcssionA

concerned with city design and admin-

istration through groups such as the

clergy to the imaginative writings ot

novelists and poets. The range of

writings is incrediblv large but the

book by definition ii concerned onI>

with images transmitted from the liter-

ati. It is well illustrated with conten-

porarp prints but again it is the written

r&her than the visual response which

is the \ubjcct of analysis. The ‘Europe‘

of the book is re\trictetl to the IJK.

France and FK (;ermanv.

CITIES August 1986