Ebenezer Howard – Garden city theory

Prepared by: Vaibhav A. Patel, 1st sem, MURP,

Department of Architecture, Faculty of Technology & Engineering, The M.S.University of Baroda, Vadodara. Year 2014 – 15 Subject: Evolution of Settlements and Planning Process.

Introduction

• Sir Ebenezer Howard (29 January 1850 – 1 May 1928) is known for his publication Garden Cities of To-morrow(1898), the description of a utopian city in which people live harmoniously together with nature.

• Howard is believed by many to be one of the great guides to the town planning movement, with many of his garden city principles being used in modern town planning.

• Garden city, the ideal of a planned residential community Howard’s plan for garden cities was a response to the need for improvement in the quality of urban life, which had become marred by overcrowding and congestion due to uncontrolled growth since the Industrial Revolution.

• Howard’s solution to the related problems of rural depopulation and the runaway growth of great towns and cities was the creation of a series of small, planned cities that would combine the amenities of urban life with the ready access to nature typical of rural environments. Following is the diagram suggesting garden city concept known as the three magnet diagram.

Three magnet concept

•The main features of Howard’s scheme were: (1) the purchase of a large area of agricultural land within a ring fence

(2) the planning of a compact town surrounded by a wide rural belt

(3) the accommodation of residents, industry, and agriculture within the town

(4) the limitation of the extent of the town and prevention of encroachment upon the rural belt (5) the natural rise in land values to be used for the town’s own general welfare.

Garden City, which is to be built near the centre of the 6,000 acres, covers an area of 1,000 acres, or a sixth part of the 6,000 acres, and might be of circular form, 1,240 yards (or nearly three-quarters of a mile) from centre to circumference It would be privately owned by a small group of individuals; this company, in retaining ownership, Only a fraction of the tract’s land would be built upon by the town’s 30,000 inhabitants; the rest would be used for agricultural and recreational purposes.

Six magnificent boulevards--each 120 feet wide--traverse the city from centre to circumference, dividing it into six equal parts or wards In the centre is a circular space containing about five and a half acres, laid out as a beautiful and well- watered garden; and, surrounding this garden, each standing in its own ample grounds, are the larger public buildings. The rest of the large space encircled by the 'Crystal Palace' is a public park, containing 145 acres, which includes ample recreation grounds within very easy access of all the people.

Passing out of the Crystal Palace on way to the outer ring of the town, It will cross Fifth Avenue--lined, as are all the roads of the town, with trees--fronting which, and looking on to the Crystal Palace, It is found a ring of very excellently built houses, each standing in its own ample grounds and continue to walk, the houses are for the most part built either in concentric rings, facing the various avenues 'Grand Avenue'. This avenue is fully entitled to the name it bears, for it is 420 feet wide, and forming a belt of green upwards of three miles long, divides that part of the town which lies outside Central Park into two belts. It really constitutes an additional park of 115 acres--a park which is within 240 yards of the furthest removed inhabitant. In this splendid avenue six sites, each of four acres, are occupied by public schools and their surrounding playgrounds and gardens

• On the outer ring of the town are factories, warehouses, dairies, markets, coal yards, timber yards, etc., all fronting on the circle railway, which encompasses the whole town, and which has sidings connecting it with a main line of railway which passes through the estate.

• If Garden City will suppose reach to a population of 32,000. How shall it grow? How shall it provide for the needs of others who will be attracted by its numerous advantages?

It will grow by establishing under Parliamentary powers probably--another city some little distance beyond its own zone of 'country', so that the new town may have a zone of country of its own. the inhabitants of the one could reach the other in a very few minutes; for rapid transit would be specially provided and thus the people of the two towns would in reality represent one community. Letchworth was developed and owned by a company called First Garden City Ltd. which was formed in 1903, based on the ideas of Howard Welwyn was an area of woodlands and open fields before the garden city was constructed. Welwyn was Howard's second Garden City after Letchworth.