Big Plans offers introduction to lives and work of 10 leading women urbanists
Photo: Copyright Frank HanswijkCurrently on display at Amsterdams Van Eesteren Museum, the exhibition Big Plans presents the lives and work of ten women urbanists from the modernist era.Although recent years have shown growing interest in women architects from past and present, the role of women in urban planning has remained underexposed. Big Plans takes a first step towards complementing 20th century historiography by offering an introduction to the lives and work of ten leading women urbanists.Not only did these women plan regions, cities and neighbourhoods, they also created laws, computer programs and publications with which they further developed the fields of urban design and planning.Photo: Copyright Frank HanswijkPopulation growth, urbanization, industrialization, and decolonization brought radical change in the 20th century. Modernist urbanists devoted themselves to the accompanying challenges of social equality, public health and prosperity, and economic opportunity for all. Intense discourse in architecture and urban planningvia the ranks of CIAM (Congres Internationaux dArchitecture), numerous magazines, and universitiesfostered a worldwide cross-pollination of knowledge and ideas. Through their publications, lectures, and pedagogy, these women professionals disseminated designs and ideas that added depth and humanity to modernism.Photo: Copyright Frank HanswijkThese women urbanists varied experience, positions, and perspectives on society greatly enriched 20th century urban planning. Their contributions to a rapidly changing world were not due to some specifically female approachsuch as, for example, extra attention to childcare or communal facilities. Rather, what distinguishes their work is the shared belief in the emancipatory power of urban design for women, for disadvantaged socio-economic classes, and for other marginalized groups in society.A common thread is their collaborations and the forms of collective authorship they advanced. They recognized that this work expands our understanding of urbanism as a wide-ranging, contextual field that thrives on shared knowledge and insights.Photo: Copyright Frank HanswijkA square on a roofAmong the 10 women urbanists featured in the exhibition, some are relatively well-known, while others will be new to many. Canadian architect and urbanist Blanche Lemco van Ginkel has been receiving growing recognition in recent years. A brief stint at Le Corbusiers office in Paris in 1948 resulted in her iconic design for the roof of the Unit dHabitation in Marseille, which the exhibition Big Plans presents as one of her early urban designs. This rooftop functions as an urban square with, at its heart, the iconic ventilation towers, the pavilions with playground and wading pool, and a running track leading along the edge overlooking the Alps. It provides a welcoming space for community life but also, through its spatial expression, offers a common identity for the dwellers of the Unit dHabitation.Photo: Copyright Frank HanswijkThis focus on community life and a shared identity through space is characteristic for Lemco van Ginkels approach, and can be recognized in some of her other projects that are featured in the exhibition.One of them, Movement in Midtown, is a pioneering traffic study that she executed with her partner Sandy van Ginkel in 1970. At a time when the automobile was central to city planning, this project prioritized the experience of the pedestrian. The plan involved a partial closure of Madison Avenue and the construction of a finely woven system of pedestrian connections inaccessible to automobile traffic in the area between 34th and 63d street in Midtown Manhattan. In its sketches of leafy green streets with terraces, this plan for a laid back, clean, and walkable city for everyone appears remarkably contemporary.As part of this plan, the New York Office for Midtown Planning and Development also commissioned the design of the accompanying Ginkelvana hybrid electric minivan, as an alternative to short-distance inner-city transportation, which would be accessible for users including those in wheelchairs and strollers.The Ginkelvan got no further than a prototype, and Movement in Midtown was never implemented.Photo: Copyright Frank HanswijkAn international generation of urbanistsBeside the life and works of Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, the exhibition presents the work of Carmen Portinho (Brazil, 1903-2001), Luz Amorocho (Colombia, 1923-1995), Jane Drew (UK,1911-1996) and Eulie Chowdhury (India, 1923 1995) (both with leading positions in the project of Chandigarh), Rene Gailhoustet ( France 1929 -2023), and Flora Ruchat-Roncati (Switzerland, 1937 -2012). For each woman, the exhibition elaborates on their biography and their body of work, offering a particular focus on one of their Big Plans.For Jane Drew, the chosen case study is the village of Tema Manhean in Ghana, in which she aimed to fuse traditional Ghanean forms of cohabitation and the modernist New Town. For Carmen Portinho, it is the housing plan of Pedregulho, an idealistic neighborhood on a Rio de Janeiro hillside that offered low income families not only dwelling,s but an array of amenities and communal areas. For Rene Gailhoustet, it is the intricate urban texture of social housing combined with other functions in the heart of Parisian suburb Ivry-sur-Seine, which was developed under her guidance in the 1970s and 80s. For Flora Ruchat-Roncati, is is the Trans Jurane highway system, which she designed to add a new layer of identity fitting landscape and culture.Photo: Copyright Frank HanswijkBig Plans highlights other urbanists for their significant contributions to the field of urbanism outside of spatial design. Catherine Bauer (US,1905-1965) is presented for her groundbreaking writing and publishing on housing, but most of all for the US Housing Act of 1943 that she authored. All her work was founded in a drive to synthesize the aesthetic agenda of modernist architecture with a clear vision of social justice.Beverly Willis (US, 1928-2023), a well-known architect and urbanist, is highlighted for her pioneering role in computer use for urban design. Drawing on knowledge of aerial imagery from her time as a pilot during WWII, Williss firm in 1971 developed CARLA (Computerized Approach to Residential Land Analysis). The software digitized analog topographical maps, soil surveys, planning regulations, and marketing information in order to generate a rapid assessment tool for residential land analysis.Photo: Copyright Frank HanswijkIn a multitude of forms and ways, the selection of 10 women urbanists on display in Big Plans made pivotal contributions to shaping the modern world. The exhbition shows how collaborations and the networking of people and knowledge strengthened their concepts and designs, and offered strategies to realize them. The hope is that Big Plans inspires the visitor to reconsider notions of authorship in urban designthinking of our cities as collaborative in nature. On the other hand, it also demonstrates the importance of the individual women who have brought their own unique experiences, knowledge and passion to the field.Big Plans was created by the Curatorial Research Collective , a group of doctoral researchers in the field of architecture culture at the Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands. The exhibition emerged from Catja Edens doctoral project And the rest is historyOn the archival representation of women architects. Big Plans is on show at the Amsterdam Van Eesteren Museum until November 24th and at Plaza Vertigo Eindhoven University of Technology in April 2025.The post Big Plans offers introduction to lives and work of 10 leading women urbanists appeared first on Canadian Architect.
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