The Evolution of American Urban Design: A Chronological Anthology (Academy Editions)

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The Evolution of American Urban Design: A Chronological Anthology

David Gosling, Wiley Academy, 2003

David Gosling's last book, published posthumously and also credited to his daughter Maria Cristina, is very much a personal testament about American urban design. It is subtitled 'A Chronological Anthology' and it is important to emphasise that it provides an overview of the major influences in urban design literature and therefore does not equally cover developments in urban design practice.

The book looks at each of the decades from 1950 to 2000 and concludes with Gosling's views on the urban future. The introductory chapter on urban design definitions refers to the Bauhaus influences, followed by such interpretations as the city as image and the city as sequences. It ends by defining an urban design plan as the amalgam of the public realm and the private realm, and recognising that public response is an essential part of the design process.

Gosling sets the 1950-60 decade within a wide cultural background of music and film and refers to the emergence of urban design in a course at Harvard in 1953, followed by courses at Philadelphia and Berkeley. Throughout the book he refers to the Progressive Architecture (PA) Design Awards as a reflection of the changing nature of projects - one of the first awards involving urban design being given to proposals for the Back Bay Centre in Boston. Kahn's proposals of 1952/3 for Central Philadelphia are seen as the first radical urban design plan of this era.

In the 1960-70 decade he makes extensive reference to the work of Kevin Lynch in whose studios Gosling participated along with Donald Appleyard. Although he did some work on Cullen's sequential approach, Lynch did not appear to acknowledge Cullen's contribution to urban design. His two years at Yale working with Christopher Tunnard enabled many of the ideas of Lynch, Kepes and Cullen to be investigated and resulted in work on the Hill District and on turnpike design. The decade also included Jane Jacobs' seminal work, early work by Christopher Alexander, the first R/UDAT by the AIA, the emergence of the shopping mall and the beginning of new communities such as Reston.

The 1970-80 period includes Christopher Alexander's main works, Lynch's continued contributions, Sennett, Newman, Habraken, Rowe and Koetter and the schemes in San Francisco, Kresge College and Boston.

Community Design Centres are seen as a key contribution to the 1980-90 decade. Rowe and Koetter, Jonathan Barnett, Alexander, Greenbie, Trancik, Allan Jacobs, Venturi, Tschumi and Koolhaas are included with a wide range of PA Awards ranging from Ithaca to Mission Bay.

The 1990-2000 period is concerned initially with the central city versus the edge city identified in Joel Garreau's book; other authors mentioned include Alex Garvin, Jon Lang and Sorkin, Gandelsonas, Kostoff and Morrish. Developments such as Cincinnati's campus with the Eisenman building, and work by Gehry and Meier are cited. The final section includes work by the author in Cincinnati and his competition submission for Minneapolis. The New Urbanism as described by Katz is included although earlier books by Duany do not figure.

In the Conclusions Gosling is concerned about the problem of homelessness which is rarely addressed in an urban design scenario; he also examines the impact of computer technology on future cities and society. His postscript is that urban design is the relationship of buildings to each other, and to the skeletal forms of urban structure or the public realm. But he believes this to be meaningless unless the economic and social needs of the population are addressed. One could not disagree with that statement as many books on urban design fail to address such issues except where public agencies are involved in providing policies and guidelines for development in their areas.

Those who spent time in graduate study in the United States will find many points of interest and David's three years at MIT and Yale are well documented. In his introduction he maintains that "unless urban designers are also the architects of the ultimate built form, it is unlikely that the plans will be implemented." Whilst one has sympathy with this view, it can be interpreted to mean that urban design is seen solely as product rather than process; carried to its extreme it would be seen as 'big architecture'. Many individual projects are included in the book but because of his terms of reference only a limited number of urban design policies are included, from places such as San Francisco, Portland or Seattle. The most valuable parts of the book are those that describe David's own personal experiences: studios with Kevin Lynch, contact with other people at MIT like Gyorgy Kepes, work with Christopher Tunnard at Yale, references to the work and philosophies of Gordon Cullen and projects and schemes at Cincinnati, are all described in their personal impact on his own professional life. The downside is that there are insufficient illustrations to illuminate the points he makes about so many authors and architects. By contrast, Scully's book on American Architecture and Urbanism is highly illustrated and nothing could compare with David's own book on Gordon Cullen. Nevertheless, for those who seek a commentary on the literature of the past 50 years in the US, this will be a useful reference to be seen alongside the work of many public authorities whose publications deserve equal study in depth.

(This review was first published in Urban Design Quarterly 89, Winter 2004and is reproduced with the Editor's kind permission)