Towards garden city wonderlands: new town planning in 1950s Taiwan

This article explores the historical context, process and result of introducing and implementing ‘new’ town planning in early post‐war Taiwan. The two so‐called ‘garden cities’ are examined: Jhong‐Sing New Village and Yonghe City, both of which were formulated in the mid‐1950s by the same group of local planners. It reveals that the assumed necessity of importing Western planning paradigms arose from the abrupt escalation of urban concentration caused by the late 1940s mass migrations from China. To cope with this unprecedented population growth, planning profession was swiftly established. The novice planners, in search of a reference for developing ‘new’ towns to decentralise excessive urbanisation, modelled their ‘new’ town planning on English suburban morphology. In the absence of an input of external expertise, the planners appeared to mistake aesthetic order and pastoral imagery of low‐density residential development in England as practically viable solutions to the pressing urban problems in Taiwan. In a false hope that adopting Western ideas and practices would quickly lead the island to a better world, Taiwan initiated the importation of planning paradigms. This planning transfer not only evidently manifests a mode of ‘borrowing’ in post‐colonial countries in international diffusion but also re‐articulates the disseminating nature of modern planning and the existence of one‐direction flows characterising the global dynamics of diffusion in the twentieth century.     

西安市五六十年代居住建筑研究

通过对西安市铁路局家属区内五六十年代的居住建筑所在环境进行的调查研究,分析了五六十年代居住建筑所处的现状和存在的问题,提出了一些有关基本保护的方法,对我国其他城市和地区存在的近现代居住建筑所面临类似问题的研究有所借鉴。     

Louis I Kahn @ 40s: Architecture in the 1950s

Starting with the particularities of the postwar American architecture, this paper aims to discuss Kahn's recoding of what might be called the culture of building, for example, themes internal to the formation of the disciplinary history of architecture. Additional attention is given to Kahn's discourse on monumentality pronounced in 1944. Emphasis is also placed on Kahn's concern with structure and ornament, but also the tectonic. The paper then presents an historical analysis of Kahn's design for the Philadelphia City Tower and the Yale University Art Gallery, arguing that in spite of, or rather because of postmodern conditions, the project of modernity should be considered neither as a perfect past, nor a phenomenon that is working towards its completion. Modernity should rather be considered a project whose periodic crisis is endemic to architects’ ongoing recoding of the culture of building.     

Housing demand in the urban fringe around Kumasi, Ghana

This research utilizes empirical data to explore the sources of demand and their effects on urban fringe housing around Kumasi, Ghana. The research found that housing demand on the urban fringe has accelerated due to changing values ascribed to traditional rural and modern urban locations and to preferences for single-family homes, strengthened by the Ghanaian expatriate housing demand back home. This demand was expressed in a context of uncertainty created by a complex institutional system, which reinforced the attractions of the fringe locations. These results provide a perspective on urban fringe housing demand that differs from those developed in Western cities and the approaches recently used in accounting for change on the fringes of some South-east Asian cities. The paper concludes that more needs to be done to understand the institutional factors and the way that they influence a drawn-out construction process to account more fully for the mosaic of housing structures scattered haphazardly on the fringes of Kumasi.     

The Australian construction industry: is the shadow economy distorting productivity?

Estimates of the size and change in the Australian construction industry shadow economy value over time are provided and applied as a quality adjustment to Australian construction industry productivity growth from 1985 to 2012. The results indicate that the Australian construction industry shadow economy is growing and that by adjusting for the shadow economy, distortion is removed from construction industry productivity growth estimates. The findings create significant scope for future research into the estimation and the effect of shadow economic activity on productivity growth, not just in Australia but in other countries as well.     

唤回记忆:北京院20世纪50年代的“八大总”

引子: 我们要动笔写北京市建筑设计研究院(BIAD)20世纪50年代"八大总"题材的文章是酝酿多年的愿望,虽由于工作的原因、我们先后与张鎛、张开济、赵冬日、华揽洪、顾鹏程有过接触,但至少还有三位大师未曾蒙面.十年前的1999年主办"与共和国一同走来"的展览时,曾将院内历届副总建筑师,副总工程师以上的专家作过介绍,进一步了解到建院历史上曾颇有名望的"八大总"及院内"一百单八将"的说法;2004年院庆五十五周年,我们承办"在共和国旗帜下--讲述建院的五十五个故事"展览时,又将"八大总"作为一个"故事"专门讲述.     

Cold-War conciliation: international architectural congresses in the late 1950s and early 1960s

Following the downfall of fascism in World War II, the old alliance of modernism and socialism dispersed, as architecture was sucked into the confrontation of the Cold War. In response, a new type of international architectural organisation emerged, shaped not by utopian idealism but by cultural diplomacy and international goodwill, along with consensual policy objectives, such as advancement of the architect's professional status. The most influential international organisation of architects — the ‘United Nations’ of architecture — was the Union Internationale des Architectes/International Union of Architects (UIA/IUA), a Paris-based society headed by the Hungarian-born Pierre Vago. Although only a small organisation, like many NGOs in symbolic areas of cultural activity, the UIA exploited the polarisations of the Cold War, carving out an influential mediating niche for itself. This paper focuses on the UIA congresses during the period of greatest Cold War instability — Moscow, 1958; London, 1961; Havana/Mexico City, 1963 — showing how the first and third projected the Union into hotbeds of Cold War instability.     

高层建筑空气动力阴影区数值计算

空气动力阴影区是建筑物周围风场所形成的旋涡区域，该区域的存在会影响室内和室外的空气品质。利用三维K－ε紊流模型，对高层建筑物周围风场进行了数值模拟分析，并将计算结果与实验数据进行了对比，二者吻合较好。     

Cold-War conciliation: international architectural congresses in the late 1950s and early 1960s

Following the downfall of fascism in World War II, the old alliance of modernism and socialism dispersed, as architecture was sucked into the confrontation of the Cold War. In response, a new type of international architectural organisation emerged, shaped not by utopian idealism but by cultural diplomacy and international goodwill, along with consensual policy objectives, such as advancement of the architect's professional status. The most influential international organisation of architects — the ‘United Nations’ of architecture — was the Union Internationale des Architectes/International Union of Architects (UIA/IUA), a Paris-based society headed by the Hungarian-born Pierre Vago. Although only a small organisation, like many NGOs in symbolic areas of cultural activity, the UIA exploited the polarisations of the Cold War, carving out an influential mediating niche for itself. This paper focuses on the UIA congresses during the period of greatest Cold War instability — Moscow, 1958; London, 1961; Havana/Mexico City, 1963 — showing how the first and third projected the Union into hotbeds of Cold War instability.     

西安五六十年代居住建筑初探

把时间停留在了中国的二十世纪五六十年代,结合那个年代特殊的背景,探索居住建筑发展的轨迹、特征以及风格,从而让人们能够用公正的视角看待历史,用历史的眼光看待建筑,用平和的态度看待得与失。     

Regional cities: international references in Brazilian regional planning in the 1950s and 1960s

ABSTRACT

A new stage of urban planning emerged in Brazil in the 1950s, with the region as the object of planning. Planners began to recognize the international contribution to the institutionalization of planning and to the development of proposals for Brazilian cities, as well as the connection between planning and urban decentralization ideas. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to delineate the city model that was being proposed within regional scale plans as the result of international urban practices and ideas. Two examples of such plans are presented in this paper: the Regional Plan of Santos (1950) and the Basic Regional Plan for the Coastline of Parana State (1966). As a result of the international references incorporated into these plans, a mixture of urban principles can be identified in these territorial proposals. The regional city model is the predominant principle arising from these plans, derived from the association of two planning scales: urban and regional.     

Dwelling in the metropolis: Reformed urban blocks 1890–1940 as a model for the sustainable compact city

This study examines the architecture and culture of metropolitan dwelling in Europe and North America in the early 20th century as a model for the future sustainable compact city. While architectural historians usually focus on anti-urban housing models, such as the Garden City and the Siedlung, and thus re-emphasise the avantgardist claim of the housing development ‘from the block to the row’, this study focuses on the supposed intermediary step of the urban perimeter block. By examining contemporary sources, such as architectural journals, reports and conference proceedings, a culture of metropolitan dwelling can be reconstructed. Not only were an extensive number of inner-urban block developments, of high architectural quality, realised during that period, but there was also a controversial discourse, which criticised anti-urban models and propagated a metropolitan way of dwelling. This study aims to emphasise the role of metropolitan dwelling within modern housing, and proposes urbanity as a criterion for reconsidering the development of modern architecture.     

大都市周围的“生态城镇”设计——以常州市遥观镇总体规划为例

遥观镇位于常州市近郊．交通发达．区位良好．经济发展迅速、与苏州、无锡、常州、上海、南京等地联系非常密切(图1)。长期以来．受苏、锡、常大都市的带动影响．遥观镇政府在经济上求稳步发展．城镇建设方面不盲目求大．不急功近利．而是注重城镇品质的提高．由此．遥观镇成为常州市具有代表性的小城镇之一．其社会经济发展、城镇建设、生态环境建设均具有一定的示范作用．     

漫话20世纪50年代重庆的三座重要建筑

中华人民共和国正式成立于1949年10月1日,共和国时期的建筑活动也自然是以这个日期为准的.大凡一个国家在立国之初都有一个属于意识形态领域的建筑指导思想左右着主流建筑活动,而这个指导思想往往表现在政府颁发的政策法令上,也更具体地体现在建筑作品上.     

张爱玲《传奇》中的传统文化因素

张爱玲是现代文学史上一位风格独特的女作家,她的传世之作《传奇》,凭借中国文人感时忧生的文化人格,准确把握世态人情,从中国传统文化角度出发,剖析了女性生存的困境和人类无法抗拒的宿命。由于家庭、社会、时代等各方面的原因,以及她对中国传统文化的继承与发展,使《传奇》中的小说,无论是人物及其命运、作品的思想意蕴,还是作品的语言、意象等,无不渗透了传统文化的因素。     

The concept of community in Italian town planning in the 1950s

In Italy, during the post-war reconstruction period and throughout the 1950s, the concept of community served as a focus for different orientations of thought and different viewpoints regarding the practice of town planning. Two of these orientations merit particular attention. The first one, inspired by the theoretical elaboration of the Movimento Comunità , attempted to develop a new conception of town planning as a social science. The purpose of the second, and more pervasive, orientation was to legitimize the institutional role of the town planner while at the same time defining a set of principles and rules for the discipline. The latter was supported by the professional élite, a group which was best represented by the Istituto Nazionale di Urbanistica (National Institute of Town Planning). This article will attempt to clarify how, within the ranks of the latter orientation of thought, the contribution of several authoritative foreign scholars was significantly reduced while at the same time the French literature and Gutkind's ideas were used to define the concept of the città nucleare which alluded to cellular space patterns, and to elaborate an image of community which defined a principle of urban composition.