Modern Urban Planning and Modernist Urbanism (1930–1950)

Abstract

The different names used to call the new modern visions that appeared around the middle of the nineteenth century in association with each European country (Town Planning, Stadtebau, Urbanisme, Urbanistica, Urbanismo) are proof of the diversity in the approaches and traditions that accompanied the emergence of modernist urbanism. Despite these early approaches, architectural historiography has tended to see the emergence of ‘modernist urbanism’ linked to the avant-garde who reached their climax in the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century. This chapter is based on the interpretations that recent historiography has made of the nature and emergence of modern functionalist urbanism, virtually parallel to the birth of the urban planning as a discipline. After studying the principles laid out in the Athens Charter, applied to some paradigmatic cases, it goes on to consider the impact of functionalist urbanism after the Second World War.