When reading all these architect’s ideas for urban planning, it’s natural to make connections between their plans and cities today. Clearly, many of our cities today share many of Le Corbsursier’s and CIAM’s ideas while other ideas don’t even seem achievable. In the “Charter of Athens,” we revisit some of the same principles highlighted in “A City of Three Millions Inhabitants” including health, greenery, embracing of modern technology, and transportation.
More specifically, I was very intrigued by the focus of slums CIAM had considering how present they were at the time in major cities like New York as pictured by Jacob Riis in “How the Other Half Lives.” 1
They recommend that “unsanitary slums should be demolished and replaced by open space” and throughout the passage repeatedly mentioned that the main function of a city is dwelling, however, they never stated how they were going to help those who live in the slums. While just getting rid of the places filled with all sorts of unsanitary conditions and replacing them with nature other people can enjoy sounds great, it doesn’t get rid of the initial problem that caused those slums to form and only helps those who have an actual place to live. Considering their repetition of how the cities’ “developments will be greatly influenced by political, social and economic factors,” 2 it’s expected that they would go more in depth on the social and economic factors that greatly affect the lower class. This can also be seen with construction of Central Park, placed in the center of Manhattan to add nature into the urban scene but completely destroyed Seneca Village. 3
- JACOB A. RIIS, HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES: Studies among the Tenements of New York (BN Publishing: WWW BNPUBLISHING COM, 2019).
- Congress Internationaux d’Architecture moderne (CIAM), La Charte d’Athènes on The Athens Charter, 1933. Trans J.Tyrwhitt. Paris, France: The Library of the Graduate School of Design , Harvard University, 1946.
- Barbara Speed and Jake Blumgart, “New York Destroyed a Village Full of African-American Landowners to Create Central Park,” CityMetric, March 30, 2015, https://www.citymetric.com/skylines/new-york-destroyed-village-full-african-american-landowners-create-central-park-893.