To compare and contrast Ebenezer Howard's ideas of town planning, such Essay

To compare and contrast Ebenezer Howard's ideas of town planning, such as The Garden City and that of Archigam, in particular The Waking and Plug In Cities - Essay Example Towards this direction, Ebenezer Howard has been considered as the person who ‘put forward a new physical form and structure for urban growth which would reintroduce a balanced and ecological relationship between the city-of limited size and population-and the countryside-of sufficient size to support the city with all necessary goods and material-as well as a balance between the varied functions of the city, again as a result of the strict limitation of its size and population’ (Frey, 1999, 18). One of the most known study of Howard has been the ‘Garden City’ in which Howard states his ideas regarding the town planning and its potential forms in the cities of his era – in his case the city under examination had been London. Apart from Howard, many other theorists have tried to respond to the increased need for innovative proposals regarding the urban planning mostly in big cities. In this context, a group of young London architects, created in 1961 a ‘magazine’ called Archigram which has ‘dominated the architectural avant garde in the 1960s and early 1970s with its playful, pop-inspired visions of a technocratic future’ (Design Museum, 2007). Archigram was published in 1961 on ‘a large sheet of the cheapest available paper; filled with Greene’s poems and sketches of architectural projects designed by Cook, Michael ‘Spider’ Webb and other friends, the magazine voiced their frustration with the intellectual conservatism of the British architectural establishment’ (Design Museum, 2007). Archigram had a significant influence on the urban design of the specific period (1960’s).Today Archigram’s proposals are still considered as unique and innovative plans for the urban design area. However, these plans have remained in the paper and have never been applied in real terms. Urban design has been developed throughout the years in accordance with the needs and the potentials of each particular