ETH Seminar Course “The City Lived,” Fall 2023,
Chair for the History and Theory of Urban Design.
Chair for the History and Theory of Urban Design.
In the 1950s, planning went global. Architects converted to jet-setters who travelled the world on “missions” to solve complex problems posed by rapid urbanisation and mass migration. Practitioners like Otto Koenigsberger, Ernest Weissmann, Jaqueline Tyrwhitt, Constantinos Doxiadis, Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry were commissioned by the newly-independent states for large urban development projects initiated by the United Nations. Such projects required new interdisciplinary expertise, as planners and architects worked alongside politicians, sociologists, anthropologists, economists and engineers. And although these planning “missions” were arranged under the seeming neutrality of “technical assistance” by the United Nations, they relied on western ideas of modernisation and development, often at odds with local realities. Architects developed new knowledge as they adapted imported models to specific social and climate conditions and local material and logistical networks. Coupled with the discipline’s participatory turn, these projects delegated design agency to the users, profoundly shifting the role of the architect in the design process.
The seminar will examine changes to architectural and planning practice brought about by the emergence of “the international development expert.” Through three main modules—Projects, People and Knowledge—we will explore how these transnational design projects conceived under the idea of “development” redefined the position, agency and knowledge of the architects.