Alice Garello

Contemporary City Review

The origins of Modern Town Planning

By Leonardo Benevolo

Modern urban planning dont begin together with the technical and economic processes of the industrial town, but later on
when the quantitative effects of the transformation need repairer works.
The first great changing produced by the industrial evolution is the increasing of the population, which takes to a different
distribution of the people on the land.
England 1760-1830: inventions like the steam machine by Watt and the coke by Darby made possible a huge increase of the
industrial production, with the following moving of families from the agricultural settlements in the South to the mining once in
the North and in the Middle.
Suddenly new towns grew.
At the same time, due to the trade, the communication system was renewed, that took to grows of some cities, especially
London. Benevolo, showing the great technological process, shows us an image of the city which is quite different from the old
town, which used to change slowly and maintain its architectonical plan.
This radical and almost sudden changing of the cities took to the need of new settlements, without any adequate control and
planning. Its at this point that Benevolo introduced us for the first time into the subject of urban suburbs, ready to settle the
families who left the country to join the industrial settlement. The new emerging figure is that of jerrybuilders, the private
wildcatter.
By detail description of the suburbs of Manchester and the stories of true people, Benevolo deals with the theme of a
disastrous hygiene building. The accuracy of the reports and the presence of urban drafts related to the distribution of the
accommodations in the area, takes us to a narrative realism next to the urban essay. From the slums of Manchester we shift to
the description of cottages and to a different way of building, a popular building production.
The industrial city, which must hold at the beginning of the 1800s the serious social conflicts of XIX century, is quite different
from this small neglected world. Referring to historical facts Benevolo deals with the first work movements, in which urbanism
is involved because it is unable to control the balance of the settlements. The goal of urbanism is not a perfect shape to realize
but it is a sequence of partial alterations. It is in this time that the double aspects of modern urbanism, scientific and moralist,
emerge: from one side the problems of modern urbanism are brought into interest starting from a global ideological model,
from the other side single technical needs connected to the development of the industrial town are taken into consideration.
However the two different meanings tend to join and integrate each other.
Starting from this point Benevolo divides the text into two parts: the first one deals with the XIX century utopie, the second one
deals with the theoretical experiences which have changed the traditional balance of the land use.
By Benevolos bibliography description, Robert Owen represents the figure of the self-made man, even if Benevolo itself
realized that it is only an abstraction, as the surrounding conditions are seriously determinant for the inhabitants. To improve
this situation, we need to start from the environment, which should be built following the mens needs. Here is Owens idea,
experimented in the spinning mill in New Lanark, where a number of improvement in the workers treatment were introduced:
better salaries, reduction of working time, better houses and a particular services center called Institution for the Education
of the Character, in which study and amusement were introduced into the life of the workers. Owen starts from the reason of
unemployment and presents his utopia as universal remedy. His program, rigid and binding, starts the beginning of modern
socialism. All the numbers needed to realize such program are listed with the highest precision, from the number of people, to
the arrangement and dimension of building lots, to the economical side. The attempt to shift from theory into practice soon
showed the weakness of Owens plan. He bought a land in America, built up a village named New Harmony but his experiment
failed due to the economic difficulties.
The origin of modern urbanism idea comes from, both in France and England, the dark age of the postwar period and
Restauration. It is in this time that the social theory of Saint-Simon appears. It is based on the ruling role by the industriels,

that means the technicians and the working-class instead of the ancient ruling class. Nevertheless neither Saint-Simon nor his
followers considered urbanism with the least technic precision.
Fouriers idea is quite different; he considers immoral and absurd a society based on the competition of classes, but he
considers the union of the efforts the best way to reach a universal harmony. Benevolo shows us Fouriers theory in details
and highlights how such description surprisingly preempts the XIX century building rules. Following Fouriers idea Godin
realized his Familisterio, based on cooperative principles. Benevolo underlines how such program is close to the ideal which
will be the basis of the unit dhabitation of Le Corbusier.
During the 89 revolution, when the basis of the future equalitarian society are set, the urban aspect was taken into
consideration. Benevolo introduced Buonarroti, the third important source of the French utopia, together with Saint-Simon and
Fourier. Buonarroti was also the direct inspirer of Etienne Cabet, who wrote Voyage en Icarie, an utopic novel in which he
describes a fantastic country Icaria and its capital, Icara. From this novel Cabet started his own political program which is
realized when he bought a land in Texas to use for hi experimentation, but the revolution stopped the experiment. Cabet tried
again in Illinois, where he managed to realize his ideal city, but following conflicts inside this movement the lot was divided.
At this point Benevolo underlines how the solution to the problems of the modern town are abstract and dont meet the true
social and economic development.
However Owens, Fouriers and Cabets description give a great deal of ideas which are considered the starting point of urban
experience of modern architecture.
During the years of industrial revolution mostly of urban building were realized by private enterprise and the State limited its
role to a generic supervision. In France the ancient rgime has left a good mobility system and the Restauration mainly
improved the secondary mobility. For this reason modern urban legislation found out difficulties about laws regarding railway
networks and public works. The only important consequence was the revision related to the expropriation law, made simpler
for the State. But the sanitary problem took to the primary necessity to carry out a sanitary legislation. The first act was the
Public Health Act (1847), which established the General Board of Health in England.
The revolution of 48 marked a crucial point in the history of modern urbanism, pushed by the social awareness of the working
class about its conditions of life and work. The Manifesto of Marx and Engels is the base of this new debate. The answer of
urbanism is the reinforcement of technical system. The first huge urban works in European cities were realized: the grandtravaux of Haussmann in Paris, the restoration of the Ring of Vienna, the enlargement of Firenze and the transformation of
Great London. They are the work of a new class of scientific and competent planners. Actually Benevolo underlines how
urbanism comes within a new European conservatism, in which the political stability of the country is decided by an organic
policy of public works.
Benevolo introduced us into the environment of life and work of the modern industrial community through the images of C.
Dickens, Sue and Disraeli, in opposition to the ugly description of the slums. From Disraelis idea come from public housing,
financed by private entrepreneur or by the State. The laws about subsidized housing comes from the reforms caused by the
popular riots of 42 and 48.
In France as well the building experience of the second empire starts from the same political worries; Luigi Napoleon, educated
in England, knew the English laws. For this reason he appropriated a sum of money as help to the building of popular housing
and directly financed the building of residential housing. But private enterprise went on building slums around Paris.
In other European countries started such initiatives as well together with the traditional ideas of the city planning based on
geometric shape and ideal models. The close bond between Haussmann and Napoleon let the elaboration of technical or
administrative acts, in favor of the definition of urban prototype.
Through a series of historical references, naturalistic novels and architectural experience Benevolo is able to collect in his
work all the different roots of modern urbanism, whose origin are much more complex than the simple industrial revolution.