Table Of ContentJaqueline Tyrwhitt:
A Transnational Life in Urban
Planning and Design
Ellen Shoshkes
Jaqueline TyrwhiTT:
a TransnaTional life in urban
Planning and design
To Sy
Jaqueline Tyrwhitt:
a Transnational life in urban
Planning and design
ellen shoshkes
Portland State University, USA
© ellen shoshkes 2013
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise
without the prior permission of the publisher.
ellen shoshkes has asserted her right under the Copyright, designs and Patents act, 1988, to be
identified as the author of this work.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
shoshkes, ellen.
Jaqueline Tyrwhitt : a transnational life in urban planning
and design. – (design and the built environment series)
1. Tyrwhitt, Jaqueline. 2. women city planners–great
britain–biography. 3. City planners–great britain–
biography. 4. City planning–study and teaching–
history–20th century. 5. City planning–history–20th
century.
i. Title ii. series
711.4’092-dc23
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
shoshkes, ellen.
Jaqueline Tyrwhitt : a transnational life in urban planning and design / by ellen shoshkes.
pages cm. – (design and the built environment)
includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-1-4094-1778-1 (hardback) – isbn 978-1-4094-1779-8 (ebook) – isbn 978-1-4094-
7374-9 (epub) 1. Tyrwhitt, Jaqueline. 2. City planners–great britain–biography. 3. women city
planners–great britain–biography. 4. City planning–great britain–history–20th century. 5. City
planning–history–20th century. i. Title.
hT169.g7T977 2013
711’.4092–dc23
[b]
2012039503
isbn 9781409417781 (hbk)
isbn 9781409417798 (ebk – Pdf)
isbn 9781409473749 (ebk – ePub)
V
Printed and bound in great britain by the
MPg books group, uk.
Contents
List of Figures vii
Preface and Acknowledgements xi
List of Acronyms xiii
Part I 1905–1940
1 foundations 3
2 new landscape, new society 13
3 studying regional and Town Planning 29
4 serving on the land 37
Part II 1941–1945
5 association for Planning and regional reconstruction 51
6 Composite Mind:
Planning for Post-war reconstruction 61
7 Training Planners for Post-war reconstruction 71
Part III 1945–1949
8 Trans-atlantic shift 83
9 geddes as a guide 97
10 Trans-atlantic Post-war Planning 109
Part IV 1949–1956
11 Planning for real and ideal Cities 123
12 The Core of the Community 141
13 inter-relations:
Communications, Culture, and urbanism 165
vi Jaqueline Tyrwhitt: A Transnational Life in Urban Planning and Design
Part V 1955–1972
14 urban Planning and design education 1955–1960 179
15 synthesis:
urban design and ekistics 197
16 epilogue. Tyrwhitt’s utopia:
a garden on a greek hillside 225
Bibliography 231
Index 253
list of figures
1.1 Thomas Tyrwhitt with Jaqueline as a child, ca. 1906 5
2.1 from Jaqueline’s journal 1934, photos of burg–el–arab,
egypt 20
4.1 Jaqueline with friends at linwood in the early 1940s 43
5.1 a page from aPrr broadsheet no. 4 “Consumption of
Fresh Food” (1941) exemplifies the Association’s effort to
visualize information, an abiding concern 58
6.1 an example of aPrr’s innovative technique of mapping
complex social statistics 63
6.2 Tyrwhitt devised this map of cookery customs to investigate
cultural regions 65
6.3 aPrr proposal for reuse of a wartime site integrating
agriculture and industry 69
7.1 For the War Office Correspondence Course in Town
Planning Tyrwhitt had to create lessons on topics on which
few current textbooks were available 75
8.1 Trees were symbolic of the spirit of optimism that inspired
post-war reconstruction in britain: the building of a new,
modern, healthy environment 92
8.2 Tyrwhitt promoted ecological planning based on fresh food
distribution systems 94
8.3 former soldiers trained by Tyrwhitt assumed leadership
roles throughout britain, as well as in the Crown Colonies
and in the dominions 96
9.1 Tyrwhitt’s edited collection of geddes’s writings presented
material that was not previously available outside of india 100
9.2 Tyrwhitt selected photographs by anthony denney that
capture the civic beauty geddes admired in india 101
9.3 geddes’s notation of life diagram models a process of
urban evolution 107
viii Jaqueline Tyrwhitt: A Transnational Life in Urban Planning and Design
10.1 in 1948 giedion relied on Tyrwhitt to be his “eyes and ears”
in the united states 110
10.2 buckminster fuller inspired Tyrwhitt to develop a model
for a de-centralized metropolis based on a hexagonal grid 115
10.3 Tyrwhitt’s method for using transparent thematic map
overlays was widely adopted in britain and became a
standard feature of ecological planning methods 120
11.1 le Corbusier gave Tyrwhitt this sketch. The inscription
reads: Pour Valentine de Boston. La perle de vertus
cardinales. Avec tout mon amitie. Lendemain de
Hoddesdon, Juillet 1951 127
11.2 Tyrwhitt (center) and giedion (left), ca. 1949 128
11.3 Tyrwhitt researched geddes’s texts to explain how his
concepts of the Valley section and the triad Place–work–
folk were inextricably connected 136
12.1 The Mars grid, as illustrated in The Heart of the City
(1952), provided a standardized presentation format to
facilitate comparison of diverse projects 144
12.2 The core of the city was above all a place for spontaneous
social interaction 145
12.3 Tyrwhitt was inspired by both the CiaM Core and gandhi’s
model village, sevagram, in her design for the Village Center 159
12.4 The Village Center and model homes were the un’s
contribution to india’s international exhibition of low-Cost
housing. none of the model homes cost more than 5,000
rupees, the equivalent of a little more than 1,000 dollars 161
12.5 Mr. Jawaharlal nehru, Prime Minister of india with
Tyrwhitt, visiting the Village Center 163
13.1 giedion acknowledged privately his dependence on Tyrwhitt 170
14.1 The shape of our Cities discussion series (1957) informed
the public about alternatives to the predictable problems
caused by uncontrolled suburban sprawl 187
14.2 The shape of our Cities series endorsed Tyrwhitt’s concept
of the basic “social unit,” which, when paired forms an
“urban unit” organized around a high school, where “true
social integration will become increasingly easy and normal” 188
14.3 in 1957 the monthly bulletin Tyrwhitt produced for
doxiadis was expanded, renamed ekisTiCs, and “re-
branded” with a dymaxion world map on the cover 191
List of Figures ix
14.4 Tyrwhitt supervised the work of students who prepared case
studies for discussion at the urban design seminar and third
urban design Conference in 1959 193
15.1 Tyrwhitt taught the first planning studio in Indonesia in
which students applied survey techniques in the field.
students used their surveys of house plots in nearby villages
to establish the plot sizes in the plans they made for those
areas; assuming that all new houses would be built by the
people themselves. These simple, down to earth techniques
“are universal and fundamental to regional development
everywhere in the world,” she wrote in an article about this
project in ekistics [e.19] 201
15.2 The cover of the report of the fifth urban design
Conference, held in april 1961, featured this photograph
showing Tyrwhitt in her characteristic position, at the center
of attention but behind the prominent man—Jose luis
sert—in charge 203
15.3 Tyrwhitt’s contribution to the City of the future project
included a review of 20th c. utopian plans that incorporated
possibilities of growth and change 205
15.4 Tyrwhitt addressing a meeting at aCe including hasan
fathy (left at table) and Constantinos doxiadis (right),
discussing the City of the future Project 206
15.5 Model patterns of urban form analyzed by a team of
Japanese architects in an article on City design in Kenchiku
Bunka, that Tyrwhitt had translated for delos i 209
15.6 Tyrwhitt and giedion at the delos symposion, July 1965 211
15.7 Tyrwhitt and Martin Meyerson at delos 2, July 1964 213
15.8 The ekistic grid features a logarithmic scale of settlements 215
15.9 Tyrwhitt convened a meeting of experts on computer
science, documentation and information management to
discuss alternative information processing procedures 216
15.10 Tyrwhitt studied ancient villages on the greek island of
Chios as models for a compact urban megastructure 217
15.11 drawings of participants at delos Vi, 1967, as seen by
ruth abrams, capture Tyrwhitt’s central position in this
constellation of luminaries 223
16.1 Jacky’s annual seasons greetings card featured an image of
sparoza and an invitation to visit 227
16.2 Jacky’s book was published thanks to the Mediterranean
garden society, which makes its home at sparoza, and
nurtures her garden for future generations 229
