PDF College 1 Cor Wagenaar Urbanism Health

Origins of the healthy city

How architecture and urbanism can contribute to public health

A collection of strategies, theories and philosophies, 1750-2000

Architecture, Urbanism & Health


Statistics (18th

century):

Mortality in rural

areas: 1 / 40

Mortality in cities:

1 / 25


Hundreds of

country estates...



Hygienic revolution: sewage, water

supply: a fundamental reversal

Note: tremendous growth of the urban

administration

Note: contradicts the dominant

political philosophy of Laissez-Faire

liberalism

Note: results in healthier cities


W.N. Rose

Waterproject Rotterdam 1843 -

September 17: Enlightenment & Hygienic Revolution



Crowning the hygienic

revolution in the Netherlands:

*the Public Housing Law of

1901

-assessment of existing housing

conditions

-specifications for new public

housing nieuwe volkshuisvesting

-financial regulations

-Very close link between Public

Housing and Urbanism

*the Public Health Law of 1901

-introduction of municipal health

committees made up of medical

doctors and architects


H.P. Berlage

Amsterdam

Southern

Expansion Plan,

1917:

Public Housing as

the Heart and

Soul of the City


Architects and Urbanists as

Medical Doctors...

Best Cases


1918-1924

Symptoms: diseases related to

living and working conditions;

alcohol, overburdening

Diagnosis: housing shortage,

lack of leisure time, lack of

recreation facilities, chaotic

conditions thanks to the lack

of zoning


Therapy

1918-1924

Two models

-the Garden City

-the Compact City made

up of Large-scale Urban

blocks



Therapy 1

1918-1924

-the Garden City

-Advantages:

-inexpensive housing

-green environment



Therapy 2

1918-1924

-Tenement Blocks

-Advantages:

-relatively inexpensive

sewage and water supply

systems

-collective facilities


1918-1924

In the meantime:

'Administrative revolution'

-Office jobs in England:

0,8 %; in 1851, 7,2 % in 1921

Shift from physical to

administrative jobs

Less hours of work

More time for leisure

and recreation


1924-1944

Symptoms: diseases related to


alcohol, overburdening

Diagnosis housing shortage,

lack of leisure time, lack of

recreation facilities, chaotic

conditions thanks to the lack

of zoning, lack of scientific

knowledge



1924-1944

Therapy 1: Modernism: light,

sun, fresh air; sports, leisure;

elimination of everything that

can be seen as superfluous



Sports, ‘Body Culture’, Health...




Public Housing


A sharp break with the past...


Modern mythology:

-Modernism’s claim of being the first movement to promote

health is untenable

-Although the twentieth-century city can be classified as modern,

this does not imply that it is necessarily healthy

An attempt at reconstructing the links between architecture,

urbanism and health



Advantages:

-Based on Surveys

-Harmonious interplay of

Cities and Landscapes

-Merger of Garden City

Movement and Urban Reform

Movement

-Zoning: Cities with Offices,

Administrative and Cultural

Facilities; Industries near

Infrastructure; Working Class

Housing near Industries

-Green Wedges

-Typical for Holland:

Landscape Conservation

Therapy 2

1924-1944

-The Regional City


W.G. Witteveen: General

Expansion Plan for

Rotterdam (1927)


C. van Eesteren, General

Expansion Plan for

Amsterdam (1934)


J.M. de Casserres: General

Expansion Plan for

Eindhoven



September 24: Public

Housing, the Garden

City, Tenement Blocks,

Modernism, the

Regional City

1924-1944

In the meantime:

Founding in 1928 of the

Congrès Internationaux

d'Architecture Moderne

(CIAM)

Propaganda for the

functional (healthy) city

Chartres d'Athenes:

separation of living, working,

recreation and traffic


1924-1944

In the meantime:

Depression

Mass Unemployment

(and mass recreation)

Segregation &

desintegration

Processes of

improving hygiene and

providing public housing

virtually stop


1924-1944

(In the meantime:)

Emergence of totalitarianism

End of European

modernism


In the meantime:

World War II

-Casualties:

.Sovjet Union: 23.954.000

.China: 15.000.000

.Germany 7.728.000

.Poland 5.720.000

.Engeand 449.800

.United States 418.500

.Netherlands 301.000


In the meantime:

World War II

-Destruction


1944-1960

Symptomen: diseases related to


alcohol, overburdening, mental

disruption, existential crisis

Diagnosis: housing shortage, lack

of leisure time, lack of recreation

facilities, chaotic conditions

thanks to the lack of zoning, lack

of scientific knowledge, social

isolation, living an incomplete life



Therapy

1944-1960

Reconstruction

-The Structured City (Housing

as a catalyst for New Ways of

Living)

Advantages:

-hierarchical composition

-living in a green environment

-more safety during air raids


Therapy

1944-1960

Advantages:

-the wholeness of life

-functionalism vs. waste

-living as an educational device

-each level marked by a center

-Radical break with the

previous concept:

-end of landscape conversation

-end of compact city ideals

-Suburbia


Population: facts & forecasts C

BS

1946:

1970:

10.6

38.8

80

Rij

ksd

ienst

vo

or

het

Nat

ional

Pla

n c

a.

1950:

1970:

12.0

00.0

00, 2000:

15.0

00.0

00

CB

S c

a. 1

965

, 2000:

20.0

00.0

00

9,4

23.0

00

10.1

14.0

00

12.3

77.0

00

1.0

00.0

00 /

25

(40.0

00)

5.0

00.0

00 /

50

(100.0

00)

7.5

00..

000 /

35

(215.0

00)

Persons per family

1950: 3,93

1965: 3,30

2000: 2,30

1946 forecasts: 10.178

housing units / year





(actual numbers of newly

built housing unites >60.000

/ year since 1953: effects of

shortages, slum clearance,

replacement, etc.)

(2011: 16 654 455)

(forecast 2040: 17 840 780)

(1.000.000 / 30: 34.483)

(15.674)


1944-1960

Therapy:

Structured city / living

Suburbia / commuting

Note: Radical cesure:

-end of the compact city

-end of landscape preservation


Urbanization < 1950 Urbanization > 1950


In the meantime:

Explosion of private car ownership

1924: USA 142 / 1000 NL: 2,8 / 1000

1 car for every 7 citiziens 1 / 350

End 1920s: Wassenaar 53,5 / 1000 Zegwaard 36 / 1000 Moerkapelle 28 / 1000 Zoetermeer 28 / 1000

Den Haag 18,6 / 1000 Rotterdam 9,4 / 1000


In the meantime:

Explosion of private car ownership…

A nightmare of urban planners

*The car ruins the way cities are seen and experienced

H.P. Berlage 1931: ‘‘The city, that used to be the apix of culture with a soul of its own, has rapidly

turned into a moster that nobody can deal with. Because traffic, which is impossible to contain, ra es

through it with an ever greater fury.

Elbert Peets, 1937: ‘The automobile has taken the city unto itself, destroying the possibilty of any

full human experiencing the city as an esthetic whole’ (‘the dragon traffic’)

*Planning

-The car has no fixed tracks, follows no fixed timetables cannot be planned, defies

rational settlement and zoning patterns

Exception: Martin Wagner, 1929: 'Only the car can give the individual easy access to the

countryside, to nature, and to physical recuperation.’ The car liberates the inhabitants of the American

metropolis ‘from place and time’


The Car!!!


Consequences

Old urban centers are force to compete with

surburban shopping facilities:

-they are adopted for car use

-increasing scale

-tabula rasa urban renewal


In the meantime:

Most jobs are now office jobs (january 1981:

>50% of all jobs in the US)

Quickborner Team (Wolfgang & Eberhard

Schnelle): invention of the ‘office landscape


In the meantime: Development of conditioned spaces

(closed boxes): music, light, color

Interior decoration of shops aims at

manipulatint people’s feelings


There is nothing to do in suburbia

1960-1985

Symptoms: boredom & stress


Diagnosis

1960-1985

Conferences prove that in

Suburbia

-the number of ulcers increases

by 40%

-days lost by illness increase by

100%

-30-50% of all complaints are

of a pychosomatic nature and

are caused by the environment

-noise

-housing shortage

-collective housing typologies


1960-1985

How bad is it? Living in

Suburbia causes more mental

diseases than experiencing an

air raid in a historical city

(1957)


In the meantime:

The (myth) of living naturally (not bound

by conventions and bourgeois ways of

life)

Counter culture: rebellion against an

allegedly coercive society


In the meantime:

Dennendal: mentally retarded people live a

more natural life than ‘healthy’people

clash counter culture / authorities


In the meantime:

Merger counter culture and youth

movements (conflict of generations)



Therapy

1960-1985

Therapy: the cozy city


F. van Klingeren, Karregat


Inner cities: end of ‘city formation’processes


Old neighborhoods: end of tabula rasa urban

renewal kaalslagsanering


Cauliflower housing estates: the car under control


October 1: Reconstruction, the structured city, the

cosy city


In the meantime:

Economic crisis and the death of industry

Context: Economic Crisis, dying industries

-Uneumployment 1984: 17 % (822.400 people, as opposed to 210.000 in 1979)

-End of babyboom: 170.000 newborns in 1984, as opposed to 239.000 in 1970

-Public sector: 70 % in 1984, as opposed to 45 % in 1965

-Shipbuilding and textile industries largely lost…

The big change…

-Welfare State: redistribution of

money to those in need of support

-Global Capitalism: investment in

economic sectors that are

potentially strong; budget cuts in

social security


1985-2010 Symptoms: overburdening, existential

crisis, social insecurity, dissatisfaction,

concern about worldwide terrorism

Diagnosis: lack of individual means of

expressions, lack of urbanity, lack of

sustainability, lack of economic

opportunities; unlimited connectivity,

need to face the entire world



1985-2010

Therapie:

The (re-)creative city

Advantages

-The city as catalyst of economic

activities

-Culture as economic booster (<2005)

-Identity as a distinguishing device in a

global competition


Inner cities: rewinding the processes of ‘city

formation’


Inner cities / new urbanity: strengtening

perceived qualities


Abandoned areas near inner cities:

densification


New housing estates: Vinex


In the meantime:

Sustainability: human interventions should

not have lasting effects on the ecology

-sustainable building technologies

-renewable energy

(Note: catastrophic effects for the landscape

and for architecture


In the meantime:

Sick Buildings: return of health problems

that are associated with physical, material

causes

Computer: pollution, rsi


In the meantime:

Disadvantages of former innovations in

offices:

-’flat’ hierarchy: less opportunities to get

promoted

-computer: software coerces employees

-emergence of new office concepts

Cycle of movement: 7 years

Creative cells, fractals, guerilla workers


In the meantime:

Evidence Based Design: manipulation of

the built environment in order to achieve

specific results (especially in hospitals)

-medical outcomes (length of stay, use of

medicine

-patient satisfaction ('litigation')

-in urbanism: making people independenf of

the car


In the meantime:

Global dimension of environmental

problems

-concept of 'footprints'

Compensatory mechanisms: CO2 pollution

compensated by forestation


In the meantime:

Healthy Ageing

Most health problems > 40

Aim: extension of healthy


Time where ageing starts:

about 40...

Ideal curve

Present curve


Trends A. Ageing starts earlier

B. Life expectancy increases


Gezondheid en de ‘moderne stad’

Trends

Ageing starts at a a younger age

Life expectancy is still increasing

Strategies A. Keep them out of the

system

B. Analyze the causes of

ageing


B. Analyze the causes of ageing

Eriba: European Research Institute on the

Biology of Ageing

*genetic factors

*Lifestyles

-Environmental factors (back to

the origins of modern healthcare


In the meantime:

Lifelines: data of 165.000 people who are monitored for at least 30 years

Aim: analysis of the relations between lifestyles and ageing

interest for the effects of architecture and urbanism


B. Analyze the causes of ageing


October 8: the recreative city, the creative city, healthy cities,

healthy ageing


Summary

Symptoms... Complaints related to the living en working

environment, overburdening, boredom, stress, existential crises,

dissatisfaction, lack of social security, etc.


Summary

Therapy...

Garden cities/urban blocks; regional city, structured city, cosy city,

recreative city, creative city, etc.



A long and continuous tradition


Documents

PDF College 1 Cor Wagenaar Urbanism Health