Garden City: The Concept

A Garden City is a town designed for industry and healthy living; of a

size that makes possible a full measure of social life, but not larger;
surrounded by a permanent belt of rural land; the whole of the land
being in public ownership or held in trust for the community. -
C.B. Purdom, 1919

Given by Sir Ebenezer Howard in 1898.

He analyzed the reason for people to move
to city or country side.
To avoid problems which occurs in city
expansion, the concept limits the city max
population to 32000 people.
Thus new city has to be found in a
reasonable distance of 7km. So the cities
are well connected.
The garden city consist for different zones,
street types and green areas; circular city
growing in a radial manner or pattern.
Divided into six equal wards, by six main
Boulevards that radiated from the central
park/garden.
Civic institutions (Town Hall, Library,
Hospital, Theatre, Museum etc. ) are placed
around the central garden.
The central park enclosed by a crystal
palace acts as an arcade for indoor shops
and winter gardens.
The THREE MAGNETS
In trying to understand and represent the attraction of the city he compared each city to a magnet, with
individuals represented as needles drawn to the city.
Instead he believed that Human society and the beauty of nature are meant to be enjoyed together
hence giving his solution the two magnets must be made one.
"Town and country must be united, and out of this joyous union, will spring a new hope, a new life, a new
civilization."

Garden city an impressive

diagram of THE THREE
MAGNETS namely the town
magnet, country with their
advantages and
disadvantages and the third
magnet with attractive
features of both town and
country life.
 Garden City in Practice: RADBURN CITY
Radburn was planned by architects Clarence Stein and
Henry Wright in 1928.
It is Americas first garden community, serving as a world
wide example of the harmonious blending of private
space and open area.
Radburn provided a prototype for the new towns to meet
the requirements for contemporary good living.
Radburn was designed to occupy one square mile of land
and house some 25,000 residents.
However, the Great Depression limited the development
to only 149 acres.
Radburn created a unique alternative to the conventional
suburban development through the use of cul-de-sacs,
interior parklands, and cluster housing.
Although Radburn is smaller than planned, it still plays a
very important role in the history of urban planning.
The Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA)
used Radburn as a garden city experiment.
Facts and Figures
Residential areas basketball courts
149 acres of interior A community
parks, center, which
Walkways. houses
2 swimming pools, administrative
4 tennis courts, offices, library,
2 playgrounds, gymnasium,
Archery plaza and a clubroom and
school, service and
2 outdoor maintenance areas.
 Park as backbone of the neighborhood.
Specialized Highway system, Complete
separation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic
with 21% of road areas.
The Radburn planners achieved the separation
of vehicular and pedestrian traffic through the
use of the superblocks, cul-de-sacs, and
pedestrian-only pathways.
Through the use of the superblock, houses in
Radburn were uniquely designed to have two
fronts.
The back side of the house, what we would
normally consider the front side, faced the
culs-de-sac and parking.
The kitchen was normally placed in the back
to provide visitors a place to enter the house.
The front side of the house faced towards
the green spaces or parks encouraging
pedestrian traffic.
Since automobiles were given limited access
to the backs of the houses, the fronts of the
house were relatively quiet, therefore, the
bedrooms were always placed on this side of
the house.
The 2900 residents of Radburn share 23 acres
of interior parks, which yield 345 square feet /
person.
Garden City in Practice: LETCHWORTH CITY
Letchworth is the worlds first Garden City, created as a solution to the slum and poverty of urban life in
Britain in the late 19th Century.
The company appointed architects Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin to design the masterplan for the
new community.
This Garden City is located in North Hertfordshire, 35 miles north of London which is spread over an area
of approx. 5000 acres.
To eliminate the private ownership, whole of the land is to brought under co-operative basis or held in
trust for the
Designed forcommunity in of
a population order to have
35,000 the control on finance and the profit gained thereby be utilized
people.
for uplifting
Having the community.
reserved green belt of 1,300 acres.
The dwellings for all classes of people are
distributed about a large central court in which
public buildings are located.
The Shopping Centre is located on the edge of the
town.
The employment facilities for all the people is
provided by starting a variety of industries.
The industries are located on the outskirts of the
town.
REFERENCES

MA Architecture + Urbanism, Manchester School of Architecture.

Garden Cities of Tomorrow, Published by The University of Adelaide.
Miller, Dr Mervyn (1998) Letchworth Garden City Dream and Reality, Town and
Country Planning, October 1998.
Hall, Peter and Ward, Colin (1998) Sociable Cities the legacy of Ebenezer
Howard, Chichester, John Wiley and Sons Ltd.
GARDEN CITIES OF TOMORROW by Sahil pahal and Deepanshu Singh.