City visions 1910 / 2010 : Urban planning in Berlin, London, Paris and Chicago 1910 and 2010

Titre

Sujet

Description

The exhibition City Visions 1910 | 2010 is a celebration of the anniversary of the General Town Planning Exhibition. It compares two key moments in time: The years around 1910 and 2010.

1910
The planning exhibition of 1910 presented the summation of contemporary urbanist thought and knowledge. It was the first time that an exhibition had given a comprehensive account of the reality of the built environment of metropolitan areas in the industrial age. The aim was to find solutions ‘for the demands of traffic as well as beauty, public health and economic efficiency’. The main message was that the problems of large cities could only be overcome with a multi-disciplinary approach.

2010
A hundred years later today’s agenda in the post-industrial metropolis is determined by a sustainable design approach. The big themes have remained the same to some degree; their context has changed dramatically, however. A new understanding of urban development is finding its way into town planning strategies, which are often broad in approach and controversial in design. At the same time new problems that threaten the integrity of cities are emerging such as a dramatic weakening of the influence of the public sector, the encroachment of private
companies on the public realm and new forms of social polarisation as a result of de-industrialisation and immigration.

Berlin | Paris | London | Chicago
The exhibition concentrates on Berlin, Paris, London and Chicago, four outstanding metropolitan cities, whose approaches to town planning attracted a lot of attention in 1910 as it does today.

Berlin
In 1910 Berlin was trying to find answers to the challenges of unplanned growth in the industrial age. 100 years later Berlin is considered a model city of the post-industrial society.

Paris
Paris in 1910 was characterised by the big plans and visions of Eugène Hénard. Today’s Grand Pari(s) initiative marks an era of a new national urban development policy.

London
Previously Greater London was the birthplace of the Garden City Movement, which aimed to decentralise the metropolis in an orderly way. Today it has become the model of a renaissance of urban centres.

Chicago
In Chicago the world famous plan of Daniel H. Burnham was introduced in 1909. This aspired to enhance a city seen as lacking in beauty. Chicago Metropolis 2020 presents itself as a new strategic plan to develop a sustainable metropolitan region.