OSU masthead and toolbar
Online Exhibition:
The John P. Schooley Collection
1969 Urban America Tour: Housing and New Towns
This collection of images was taken in 1969 by John P. Schooley, Jr., FAIA during an Urban America tour of Europe's New Towns. Urban America tours allowed architects and planners to tour new residential developments, suburban planning areas, and meet professionals involved in their planning and continued development.
The tour group visited housing and neighborhoods in Stevenage, Harlow, and Welwyn Garden City in England; Farsta and Skarholmen in Sweden; Tapiola Garden City in Finland; and Leningrad/Moscow in the Soviet Union.
John P. Schooley, Jr., FAIA is an alumnus of the Knowlton School of Architecture '51, and Chairman Emeritus of Schooley Caldwell Associates.
» See all the 1969 Urban America tour photos
» Download the 1969 Urban America tour itinerary
Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England:
Stevenage is located 20 meters north of London between Letchworth and Welwyn
Garden City. Originally a small market town, Stevenage has rapidly grown
into Britain's first solely-pedestrian commercial center with
an area of 2,532 hectares (6,256 acres) in the heart of the commuter belt.
The town has businesses related to electronics, light engineering, aerospace, information technology, pharmaceuticals and financial services.
The New Towns Committee headed by Lord Reith (appointed in 1945) concluded that New Towns were best created by government-sponsored corporations financed by the exchequer. The resulting bodies were known as development corporations and they were able to acquire land within a defined area.
The committee?s conclusions were embodied in the New Towns Act of 1946 and immediately put into use with the designation of Stevenage (11 November 1946), the first New Town.
Of the eleven New Towns designated in Britain between 1946 and 1955, eight were London ?overspill,? or satellite towns, and were welcomed by the London County Council.
View of commercial center in Stevenage, England
View of residential area in Stevenage, England
Located southeast of London, Harlow New Town was planned by Sir Frederick Gibberd in 1947 as one of London's eight post-World War II new towns.
It is renowned for having Britain's first pedestrian precinct in the town center and for a notable collection of modern sculpture, including Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Lynn Chadwick. The area's valleys were retained to form a park system and housing was designated for the surrounding hilltops.
The town was designed to accommodate 80,000 people and now has a population of 90,000.
View of residential area in Harlow, England
Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England:
Ebeneezer Howard, a British city planner, published his first book "To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform" in 1898. A surge in The Garden City movement evolved following the second edition of his book, which he renamed "Garden Cities of Tomorrow" published in 1902.
Practical demonstrations of the idea were attempted at Letchworth, 30 miles from London, in 1903 and Welwyn Garden City (also known as WGC), 20 miles from London, in 1919.
Both depended solely on private capital, with investors accepting a 5-per-cent limitation on dividends. All surpluses above this were to be directed back "for the benefit of the community."
» See Welwyn Garden City images
General view of commercial center in Welwyn Garden City, England
Farsta is known as an "A.B.C. town", an acronym derived from the Swedish words for work (arbete), housing (bostader), and central place (centrum).
Other examples of A.B.C. Towns are Vallingby (the first ABC suburb), Skarholmen, and Hogdalen. They are major metropolitan sub-centers (high-density suburbs of 25,000 to 30,000 residents) located on the metropolitan transportation network and are surrounded by greenbelt open space.
Located six miles southeast of Stockholm, Farsta center was started in 1957 and the district had about 60,000 residents by 1964.
Three-quarters of the population live in dwellings built on municipally-owned land in detached villas and other small houses, as well as in apartment houses which, to a large extent, have been built and managed by the municipality's own housing companies.
General view of residential area in Farsta, Sweden
Skarholmen, Stockholm, Sweden:
Skarholmen is another example of an A.B.C. Town, located on Stockholm's metropolitan transportation network.
Skarholmen's center was planned in 1964.
Due to topography and serious housing shortages, Skarholmen has many high-rise apartments within walking distance of the center and mass transit stations. On a steep hillside just above the center are tiers of rectangular eight-story apartment houses. Long stairways, escalators, and elevators connect Skarholmen's center to the hill.
View of stairway connector in Skarholmen, Sweden
Tapiola Garden City is a suburban town with 17,000 inhabitants outside the City of Espoo, near Helsinki.
It was developed by the private, non-profit enterprise group Asuntosaatio (the Finnish Housing Foundation). Without the support of the state or local authorities, they began to plan the town in 1951.
The person primarily responsible for the realization of the project was lawyer Heikki von Hertzen. He had previously supervised the pre-planning of Tapiola in the mid-1940s with Otto-Iivari Meurman, a Professor of City Planning who had drawn the first plan for the area.
The area was divided into a town
center (designed by architect Aarne Ervi) and three residential
neighborhoods (Eastern, Western and Northern) with 5,000 to 6,000 residents
each.
The design and architectural quality of Tapiola has received world-wide acclaim and has influenced the development of American towns such as Reston, Virginia and Columbia, Maryland.
Architects who designed the residential buildings include Aulis Blomstedt, Kaija and Heikki Siren, Viljo Revell, Alvar Aalto, Osmo Sipari, Raili and Reima Pietila, and Jorma Jarvi.
» See Tapiola Garden City images
Housing in Tapiola Garden City, Finland
Town Center in Tapiola Garden City, Finland
A tour to Leningrad and Moscow - the cultural and intellectual centers of the Societ Union - was also included in the 1969 Urban America Tour.
It included presentations by city officials on the general plan for community development in Leningrad and on Moscow Regional Plan as well as visits to satellite towns near Moscow.
Ivan the Great Bell Tower complex and Assumption Cathedral, Kremlin, Moscow
Site Help | Copyright Information | Give to the Digital Library