Whether you know it by name or not, most of America has at one time or another come into contact with New Urbanism. This anti-modernist anti-sprawl post-modern offshoot which has been with us for almost 30 years, since the development of Seaside, Florida in 1980 held a conference in Old Town Alexandria, VA. If you understood the nature of New Urbanism, the fact that their conference was being held in one of the oldest downtowns in virginia is quite the irony.
New Urbanism stands for the creation of artificial suburban (and sometimes urban) downtowns and mixed use communities, something, which like the path to hell, is paved with good intentions. The problem I have always had with the New Urbanist movement is its non-organic nature. Communities get branded before they are built; house styles and strict zoning rules are pre-planned and approved by designers preventing any straying from the ideal image from entering the perfect new (sub)urban town. They also stand in direct opposition to Modernism; instead of drawing on both the strengths and weaknesses of modernism, they look to its failures and piece together historical pastiche architecture in an attempt to meet the needs of the present. Which is ironic, considering that modernism’s creed was to disregard all architecture that came before it to re-discover the natural forms of building.
On the other hand, I have great respect for what the movement did. It changed the discourse of suburbia and the planned town. No longer was planning a black and white contrast between Levittowns and Unité d’Habitations, but instead planned communities could approach multiple scales and occur both in and outside of cities. In addition it brought a focus back to mixing uses, developing ground floor commercial corridors with residents above and providing mass transit systems.
In recent years, New Urbanism has seen a wax and wane with the tides of fashion. More and more developers are using the New Urbanist Town Center model, but not applying the actual design philosophy to it. While at the same time the newest move by New Urbanists is to co-opt the language of Green Building, because by nature the New Urbanist system is very green friendly (if you disregard that most New Urbanist construction is on Greenfield/virgin sites). In my opinion this is a smart move; New Urbanism is appealing to local planning commissions and if it also helps bring about environmentally friendly design and planning that would be a boon for American Suburbia.
Did you ever see “The Truman Show”? I’ve enjoyed it much more, and think it deserves a lot more attention, not as the fairly obvious media satire it is but instead as a subtle (however possibly unintentional) critique of the totalizing inorganic tendencies of New Urbanist design.
That totalitarianism is really unfortunate, too, considering that somewhere in the roots of NU was an attempt to bring democracy back into planning. The public charette process they used to stress so highly has since become one of those best-practices stressed in every planning classroom, while Andres Duany and his ilk seem to have left it evermore behind.
I think that “The Truman Show” is one of the most underrated films of the past 10 years, not only for its prescience on where reality media has gone, but also for the same reason you stated. Nowhere but Seaside (or maybe celebration Florida) could serve as such an eery backdrop for such an ordered life.
I think its interesting that we both approach our critiques of NU from different directions but reach the same conclusions. I am coming form a form and function direction, you from planning. The stifling nature of New Urbanism has always been one of its greatest turnoffs. It was also one of the reasons I was very upset with the design charettes for rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. That part of the country was/is so vibrant and full of differing organic housing and building forms, to create a “pattern book” of acceptable styles is to deny great swarths of the culture.
Have you heard about Glenwood Park near Atlanta? It is being built (I think) on the site of an old talc mine and factory, so it’s not a removal of green space. It’s an amazing project. It may have felt wierd to the locals, but as someone who visited for the first time after the downtown was developed, I thought it was great. When I visited, I kept saying to my friend “Well THAT building must be an original” …” but NOTHING is original. They even built boring 60’s looking buildings that seem to have been remodeled for modern use- but even THOSE are new. They even built “fake” windows that look like they were bricked over at a later date. It almost made me want to move to Atlanta, but not quite. Ironic that such a great project is being built in one of the worst walking cities in the US.
http://www.glenwoodpark.com/
Thanks for that link, from a cursory read through the website, this is exactly the direction in which New Urbanism should be moving. This project reuses an urban brownfield site, creates a human scale streetscape and community, and abides by “Green” construction practices.
My only problem with this project, and its a problem with modern mass consumed multi-family developments as a whole, is the artificial nature of the architecture. Now, at least this project uses housing styles that are consistent with the region and city in which it is found. But I have to wonder, could it achieve the same level of comfort and semiotic references to peace and prosperity though new modern forms and shapes – a blending of New Urbanism and Critical Regionalism? I think it could and if it was done well, that kind of exercise could help create an “organic” planned community, as opposed to an artificial “pleasantville.”