Following the 2008 "Re-imaging Cities: Urban Design After the Age of Oil symposium, Penn IUR solicited manuscripts on environmental and energy challenges and their effect on the redesign of urban environments.

1. Working
paper
Urban
Design
and
the
New
Environmentalists:
The
Legacy
of
the
Rockefeller
Foundation’s
Urban
Design
Research
Initiatives
Peter
L.
Laurence
Abstract:
History
of
Urban
Design
and
role
of
the
Rockefeller
Foundation.
I
the
late
1950s,
three
pioneering
scientists
undertook
controversial
projects
that
n
would
prove
essential
to
understanding
our
world
today,
shaping
our
T
environmental
consciousness:
Charles
Keeling
began
measuring
atmospheric
CO2
concentrations;
Rachel
Carson
started
writing
Silent
Spring;
and
M.
King
Hubbert
AF
published
his
prediction
of
the
depletion
of
U.S.
oil
reserves.
In
the
same
years,
architects,
city
planners,
and
landscape
architects
were
re-­‐imagining
their
approach
to
the
environment:
Kevin
Lynch
pursued
basic
research
into
human
perception
of
R
the
built
environment;
Jane
Jacobs
began
writing
The
Death
and
Life
of
Great
American
Cities;
and
Ian
McHarg
reinvented
the
field
of
landscape
architecture,
D
starting
a
decade-­‐long
effort
to
define
a
new
approach
to
designing
with
nature.
Although
the
scientists
would
independently
contribute
to
a
new
consciousness,
these
figures
were
part
of
a
shared
effort:
all
opposed
the
prevailing
“urban
renewal”
approach
to
the
redevelopment
of
cities
in
favor
of
a
more
“environmental”
approach;
all
were
part
of
a
remarkable
Rockefeller
Foundation
research
initiative
that
helped
to
define
the
new
field
of
urban
design;
and
all
met
in
October
1958
at
a
Foundation-­‐sponsored
Urban
Design
conference
hosted
by
the
University
of
Pennsylvania.
Although
from
different
fields
and
backgrounds,
at
that

2. Working
paper
conference
they
discussed
urban
design
in
the
context
of
environment,
and,
to
indicate
their
shared
concerns,
collectively
described
themselves
as
“environmentalists.”
This
publication,
the
2008
Penn-­‐Rockefeller
anniversary
conference,
and,
more
significantly,
the
urban-­‐environmental
consciousness
of
its
participants,
all
owe
something
to
the
legacy
of
that
time
and
those
events.
The
Origins
of
Urban
Design
and
the
Impact
of
the
Rockefeller
Foundation’s
Urban
Design
Research
Initiative
T
“Urban,”
in
the
early
1950s,
was
an
idea
not
unlike
what
“sustainable”
is
today.
It
AF
reflected
a
new
consciousness
about
the
environment,
and
one
that
was
similarly
borne
of
crisis.
After
World
War
II
there
was
a
great
shortage
of
housing,
and
cities,
neglected
since
the
Great
Depression
due
to
financial
hardships
and
wartime
R
material
rationing,
were
in
need
of
rebuilding.
With
a
population
boom
and
a
suburban
building
boom
on
the
horizon,
the
U.S.
Housing
Act
of
1949
provided
for
D
the
demolition
of
slums
and
new
construction
in
the
form
of
“urban
redevelopment,”
and
it
was
around
this
time
that
the
term
“urban
design”
came
into
use.
With
the
passage
of
the
Housing
Act
of
1954,
which
broadened
the
parameters
for
demolition
beyond
slums,
“urban
redevelopment”
became
“urban
renewal,”
and
the
newly
coined
term
“urban
design”
gained
increasing
currency.
The
neologism
modernized
the
existing
city
design
practice
known
as
“civic
design,”
which
in
turn
had
updated
the
practice
known
as
“civic
art”
around
the
turn
of
the
century,
and
indicated
renewed
purpose.
Like
“sustainable”
design,
“urban”
design
sought
to

3. Working
paper
align
the
design
fields
with
larger
trends
and
new
concerns.
A
new
era
was
in
the
making.
As
Lewis
Mumford
wrote
in
opening
his
introduction
to
Clarence
Stein’s
notable
postwar
memoir-­‐manifesto
Toward
New
Towns
for
America
(1951),
“Except
for
colonial
times,
hardly
a
beginning
has
been
made,
up
to
now,
on
the
history
of
American
city
development
and
urban
design.”1
Apart
from
Lewis
Mumford’s
prescient
use
of
the
term,
some
of
the
earliest
references
to
“urban
design”
are
found
in
the
archives
of
the
Rockefeller
Foundation.
In
1952,
Foundation
directors
became
interested
in
the
future
of
the
American
city,
and
soon
inaugurated
a
research
initiative
that
would
contribute
T
significantly
to
defining
and
shaping
the
new
field
of
urban
design.2
AF
The
instigator
was
Wallace
K.
Harrison.
Architect
of
Rockefeller
Center
and
long-­‐time
friend
of
Nelson
Rockefeller,
Harrison
was
a
newly
appointed
executive
of
the
Rockefeller
Foundation.
At
the
height
of
his
career,
his
portrait,
surrounded
by
R
images
of
his
masterworks
in
the
background,
adorned
the
cover
of
Time
in
November
1952.
From
Rockefeller
Center
to
his
latest
undertaking,
the
not-­‐yet-­‐
D
public
Lincoln
Center
redevelopment
project,
he
was
intimate
with
city
redevelopment
practices
from
the
era
of
Civic
Design
to
the
new
era
of
Urban
Renewal.
Perhaps
with
a
sense
of
the
disparity
between
postwar
redevelopment
ambitions
and
the
knowledge
needed
to
undertake
it,
he
suggested
that
the
Foundation
support
research
in
city
design
and
redevelopment.
He
recommended
MIT
as
a
good
place
for
this,
being
newly
acquainted
with
Portland
architect-­‐
engineer
Pietro
Belluschi,
a
Lincoln
Center
master-­‐plan
team
member
and
new
Dean
of
the
MIT
School
of
Architecture
and
City
Planning.
With
the
added
support
of

4. Working
paper
former
MIT
president
and
Foundation
Trustee
Karl
Compton,
a
grant
initiative
that
would
help
define
a
new
field
was
launched.
The
Rockefeller
Foundation’s
support
of
city
planning
and
design
research
was
not
unprecedented.
In
1929,
the
Foundation
had
made
a
large
grant
that
established
the
first
City
Planning
degree
program
at
Harvard
Graduate
School
of
Design.3
However,
after
World
War
II,
city
planning
was
still
regarded
as
a
relatively
new
and
inexperienced
field,
and
one
that
was
necessary
but
insufficient
to
the
complex
task
of
renovating
cities.
As
Foundation
Humanities
Division
directors
established
early
in
their
conversations
with
MIT
faculty,
by
1953,
most
city
T
planning
programs
were
still
in
their
infancy,
having
been
founded
since
the
War’s
AF
end,
and,
in
general,
did
not
adequately
address
aesthetic
and
humanistic
concerns.
As
amateur
urbanist
and
MIT
Dean
of
Humanities
and
Social
Sciences
John
Burchard
Ely
observed,
postwar
city
planning
had
neglected
“aesthetic
elements
to
R
concentrate
largely
on
technical
ones
of
communication,
hygiene,
and
economics.”4
For
this
reason,
he
had
supported
the
creation
of
a
new
MIT
Center
for
Urban
and
D
Regional
Studies
in
1952,
as
“a
means
of
bringing
together
architecture
and
city
planning,”
as
well
as
the
phenomenologically-­‐oriented
research
of
MIT
professors
and
Center
for
Urban
and
Regional
Studies
affiliates
Kevin
Lynch
and
Gyorgy
Kepes,
who
were
studying
“the
visual
aspects
of
the
physical
environment.”5
Since
little
systematic
research
had
been
done
on
“the
three-­‐dimensional
urban
environment,”
all
agreed
that
their
work
was
a
good
starting
point
toward
understanding
the
implications
of
urban
redevelopment
and
renewal
practices.

5. Working
paper
Following
an
initial
research
proposal
in
1953,
which
matter-­‐of-­‐factly
used
the
term
‘urban
design’
without
explanation,
the
Rockefeller
Foundation
awarded
its
first
urban
design
research
grant
to
Lynch
and
Kepes
in
1954.
On
this
occasion,
Foundation
directors
described
the
significance
of
the
new
field,
recognizing
its
potential
for
synthesizing
architectural
design
with
city
planning
objectives.
They
wrote,
“The
Division
of
Humanities
has
no
intention
of
entering
the
general
field
of
city
planning.
Urban
design,
however,
is
one
of
the
fields
in
which
the
arts
have
most
direct
impact
on
the
quality
of
human
life.
In
view
of
the
relative
neglect
of
aesthetic
T
aspects
in
connection
with
city
planning
during
the
last
few
decades,
an
effort
to
AF
restore
the
balance
in
thinking
in
connection
with
city
design
seems
well
justified
under
the
Foundation’s
program
in
the
arts.”6
This
conception
of
urban
design,
as
articulated
by
Rockefeller
Foundation
R
directors,
was
not
only
timely,
but
prescient.
As
a
synthesizing
practice,
urban
design
responded
to
the
new
“urban”
national
legislative
agenda
and
echoed
the
D
contemporaneous
interest
in
integrating
architecture
and
the
arts.
From
the
standpoint
of
the
design
professions,
this
formulation
also
anticipated
the
interpretation
of
urban
design
as
a
synthesis
of
architecture,
city
planning,
and
landscape
architecture,
as
articulated
by
GSD
Dean
José
Luis
Sert
a
few
years
later
at
the
1956
“Harvard
Urban
Design
Conference.”
Over
the
next
ten
or
so
years,
the
Foundation’s
urban
design
research
program,
which
developed
between
1952
and
1965,
remained
an
inclusive
and
groundbreaking
endeavor,
supporting
research
that
produced
some
of
the
seminal

6. Working
paper
works
of
the
new
field.
Lynch
and
Kepes’
research
was
published
in
part
as
The
Image
of
the
City
(1960).
A
grant
to
Christopher
Tunnard
at
Yale
resulted
in
a
1958
conference
“Civilizing
the
American
Roadscape”
and
the
National
Book
Award-­‐
winning
Man-­Made
America:
Chaos
or
Control
(1963),
a
multi-­‐scaled
analysis
of
the
built
environment
that
critiqued
urban
sprawl.
A
series
of
grants
to
the
University
of
Pennsylvania
starting
in
1956
resulted
in
the
historic
1958
“Conference
on
Urban
Design
Criticism,”
discussed
below;
E.
A.
Gutkind’s
eight-­‐volume
International
History
of
City
Development
(1964-­‐72);
Ian
Nairn’s
The
American
Landscape:
A
Critical
View
(1965);
Ed
Bacon’s
The
Design
of
Cities
(1967);
and
support
of
Ian
T
McHarg’s
rebuilding
of
the
Landscape
Architecture
department
at
Penn,
leading
to
AF
his
field-­‐changing
book
Design
with
Nature
(1969).
Although
not
typically
associated
with
the
field
of
urban
design,
in
part
because
she
did
not
like
or
use
the
term,
was
Jane
Jacobs’
The
Death
and
Life
of
Great
American
Cities
(1961),
which
was
in
many
R
ways
the
urban
counterpart
to
McHarg’s
environmental
design,
and
one
of
the
most
significant
outcomes
of
the
Foundation’s
urban
design
grant
initiative.7
D
The
1958
Penn-­Rockefeller
Conference
on
Urban
Design
Criticism
The
1958
University
of
Pennsylvania
“Conference
on
Urban
Design
Criticism”
unfolded
from
a
conversation
between
Jane
Jacobs
and
Rockefeller
Foundation
Humanities
director
Chadbourne
Gilpatric
in
the
summer
of
1958.

7. Working
paper
Gilpatric,
who
by
then
had
become
the
champion
of
the
Foundation’s
urban
design
research
initiative,
was
impressed
by
Jacobs
recent
articles
on
cities
and
urban
redevelopment,
and
sought
her
opinion
on
Penn
grant
proposals
that
he
was
reviewing
at
the
time.
She
expressed
enthusiastic
approval
of
Ian
McHarg’s
idea
for
a
book
about
“civic
design
and
related
landscape
architecture,”
and
general
support
for
the
Penn
faculty
and
the
emerging
Philadelphia
School,
which
she
knew
quite
well,
since
the
city
was
part
of
her
beat
as
associate
editor
for
Architectural
Forum.
Penn,
she
believed,
was
perhaps
the
“most
productive
and
influential
center
at
present
in
the
United
States,”
due
not
only
to
the
individual
strengths
of
faculty
like
T
William
L.C.
Wheaton
and
Louis
Kahn,
but
because
of
a
shared
“concern
with
the
AF
importance
of
the
community
as
well
as
the
usual
physical
and
economic
considerations.”8
When
the
opportunity
presented
itself,
Jacobs
recommended
that
the
R
Rockefeller
Foundation
“find
and
give
opportunities
for
observation
and
writing
to
some
first-­‐rate
architectural
critics
who
could
develop
helpful
new
ideas
for
the
D
planning
of
cities.”9
Like
her
colleague
and
boss,
Architectural
Forum
editor
Douglas
Haskell,
Jacobs
was
concerned
by
the
lack
of
critical
writing
on
architecture
and
urban
design
in
the
American
professional
and
public
press.
The
idea
struck
a
chord
with
Gilpatric,
who
had
a
personal
interest
not
only
in
cities,
but
in
literary
criticism.
In
the
following
weeks,
he
proposed
to
William
Wheaton,
Director
of
Penn’s
new
Institute
for
Urban
Studies,
that
the
School
of
Fine
Arts
host
a
conference
on
the
subject,
and
discussed
with
Jacobs
her
grant
proposal
for
a
book
on
cities.
In
October
1958,
Foundation
grants
underwrote
the
related
Penn
“Conference
on

8. Working
paper
Urban
Design
Criticism”
and
Jane
Jacobs’
leave
from
Architectural
Forum
to
write
the
manuscript
that
became
The
Death
and
Life
of
Great
American
Cities.
By
1958,
the
transformations
underway
in
U.S.
cities
had
outpaced
the
professional
capacity
to
adequately
follow
or
understand
them.
The
Supreme
Court
case
Berman
v.
Parker,
which
upheld
the
power
of
eminent
domain
for
urban
renewal,
and
the
Highway
Act
of
1956
contributed
to
exponential
annual
increases
in
numbers
of
renewal
projects.
As
Penn
conference
co-­‐organizer
David
Crane
put
it,
“Urban
design
has
become
everybody’s
business
and
yet
it
is
nobody’s
business.”10
The
purpose
of
the
Penn
conference,
which
was
preliminarily
titled
the
T
“Conference
on
Criticism
in
Urban
Design,”
was
therefore
to
stimulate
reflection
and
AF
criticism
of
the
redevelopment
process
and
projects.
As
Crane
recalled
in
the
conference
working
paper,
“The
idea
of
this
conference
came
out
when
a
Rockefeller
Foundation
official
noted
that
a
certain
well-­‐known
urban
renewal
scheme
had
been
R
published
widely
without
critical
commentary
of
any
kind.”
Alluding
to
Gilpatric’s
broader
interests
in
cultural
criticism,
he
continued,
“Further
reflection
on
this
D
circumstance
showed
that
there
is
even
more
to
be
done
in
the
arts
of
urban
redevelopment
than
the
Foundation
had
previously
observed
in
its
efforts
to
stimulate
better
criticism
and
review
in
music
and
literature.”11
As
William
Wheaton
wrote
in
the
initial
grant
proposal,
“the
low
state
of
urban
design
in
America
today”
was
a
reflection
of
the
lack
of
value
for
design
by
the
public
and
elected
officials,
as
well
as
“inadequate
standards
and
knowledge
on
the
part
of
the
professions
directly
concerned
with
city
building,
particularly
architects,
landscape
architects,
and
city
planners.”12
A
greater
“quality
and
quantity”
of
writing
about
urban
design
and

9. Working
paper
redevelopment
was
therefore
needed,
and
this
aimed
across
the
spectrum
of
authorship
and
readership,
from
theory
to
practice,
professional
to
layman,
scholarly
journal
to
public
press.
A
“contemporary
theory
of
urban
design”
needed
development,
even
as
critical
writing
concerning
urban
design
needed
to
engage
the
public,
practicing
professions,
and
the
civic
and
business
leaders
who
made
“daily
decisions
regarding
the
man-­‐made
environment.”13
Recognizing
the
problems
of
urban
redevelopment
was
not
the
same
as
solving
them,
however.
Developing
urban
design
theory
and
criticism
was
a
challenge
when
the
very
term
“urban
design”
remained
a
matter
for
discussion.
As
T
Crane
observed
in
the
conference
working
paper,
“Urban
design
is
a
new
phrase,
at
AF
least
too
new
or
too
ambiguous
for
any
metropolitan
classified
directories
to
list
any
practitioners
of
the
art.
The
phrase
has
been
used
in
a
rather
timid
reawakening
of
professional
interests
in
the
conscious
esthetic
choices
in
city
development.”14
R
Although
Crane
had
been
thinking
about
the
term
for
some
years—he
had
studied
city
planning
with
Wheaton
at
Harvard,
worked
as
an
assistant
on
Lynch
and
Kepes’
D
early
Foundation-­‐sponsored
research
at
MIT,
and
had
returned
to
Harvard
to
lecture
on
urban
design
in
early
1956—at
Penn,
as
elsewhere,
the
terms
“civic
design”
and
“townscape”
were
still
used.15
Despite
Wheaton
and
Crane’s
objections,
Penn’s
new
Civic
Design
program,
founded
in
1956,
was
given
the
more
familiar
term
by
Dean
G.
Holmes
Perkins,
likely
because
of
the
influence
of
Clarence
Stein
and
Gordon
Stephenson
(director
of
the
oldest
Civic
Design
program,
established
at
University
of
Liverpool
in
1909),
years
earlier,
before
the
emergence
of
a
more
“American
urban
design.”
Crane,
who
later
directed
the
Penn
program,
was
keen
to

10. Working
paper
establish
it
as
“the
progenitor
of
graduate
programs
in
‘urban
design’”
because
of
these
internal
terminological
debates.16
For
Wheaton
and
Crane,
however,
urban
design
was
the
appropriate
shorthand
for
“design
of
the
urban
environment.”17
The
term
reflected
a
new
consciousness
among
the
“environmental
professions,”
with
their
horizons
raised
above
the
civic
center
to
the
larger
man-­‐made
environment,
“the
whole
of
the
human
settlement…
as
a
connected
fabric.”18
From
an
understanding
of
the
“environmentalism”
of
urban
design
it
followed
that
the
Conference
on
Urban
Design
Criticism
required
the
participation
not
only
of
the
“environmental
professions”—architects,
city
planners,
and
T
landscape
architects—but
the
architectural
and
cultural
critics
who
would
engage
AF
the
public
in
the
critical
process.
Representing
practice
and
the
academy
were
Louis
Kahn,
I.
M.
Pei,
Gordon
Stephenson,
G.
Holmes
Perkins,
Arthur
C.
Holden,
Kevin
Lynch,
Catherine
Bauer
Wurster,
William
Wheaton,
David
Crane,
and
Ian
McHarg.
R
Among
the
critics
were
Lewis
Mumford,
Jane
Jacobs,
Grady
Clay,
J.
B.
Jackson,
Leslie
Cheek,
Eric
Larrabee,
Fritz
Gutheim,
Edward
Weeks,
and
Chadbourne
Gilpatric.
D
Other
participants
with
interest
or
experience
in
civic
and
urban
design
who
were
invited
and
considered
for
the
conference,
but
who
did
not
attend,
included
Walter
Gropius,
Joseph
Hudnut,
John
Burchard,
Victor
Gruen,
and
Holly
Whyte.
In
an
effort
to
keep
the
participants
focused
(Jane
Jacobs,
a
veteran
of
the
Harvard
Urban
Design
conference,
was
skeptical
about
how
much
a
conference
could
accomplish),
the
three-­‐day
affair
was
held
at
the
Westchester
Country
Club,
conveniently
located
near
New
York
City,
where
meals,
tea,
and
cocktails
were
provided,
and
the
program
ran
from
morning
to
evening.
The
talks
were

11. Working
paper
organized
into
three
primary
groups—Philosophical
Views;
Efforts,
Inhibitions,
and
Failings
in
the
Urban
Design
Press;
and
Idea
and
Form
in
Urban
Design
Criticism.
Talks
on
criticism
and
the
press
included
Chadbourne
Gilpatric’s
“The
Meaning
of
Depth
in
Criticism,”
Gordon
Stephenson’s
“Design
and
City
Planning
as
Seen
in
the
Press,”
Frederick
Gutheim’s
“Efforts
of
the
Working
Press,”
Grady
Clay’s
“Form
and
Method
in
Design
Criticism,”
Catherine
Bauer’s
“Professional
Introspection
and
Extroversion,”
and
Jane
Jacobs’
“Inhibiting
Factors
in
Criticism.”
Talks
on
urbanism,
the
city,
and
environment
included
Louis
Kahn’s
“Ideas
of
the
City,”
Clay’s
“Ruminations
on
European
Townscapes,”
Bauer’s
“Asian
Vernaculars
in
Urban
T
Design,”
Arthur
Holden’s
“Sonnets
for
My
City,”
Kevin
Lynch’s
“Idea-­‐Building
and
the
AF
Instruments
of
Communication,”
J.
B.
Jackson’s
“
Ecology
and
Values
in
Environment,”
and
Ian
McHarg’s
“New
and
Old
Attitudes
in
Urban
Environment.”19
Foundation
director
Gilpatric,
a
Rhodes
scholar
and
former
professor
of
R
philosophy,
among
other
career
accomplishments,
later
described
the
conference
as
“the
most
febrile
and
intellectual
conference
I
have
ever
attended.”20
Conversation
D
ranged
from
the
development
of
“the
creation
of
a
philosophy
of
urban
design”
to
specific
projects
meant
“to
build
public
awareness
and
appreciation
of
the
urban
environment.”21
As
later
reported
by
Grady
Clay
in
the
Journal
of
the
AIA,
when
conversation
bogged
down
in
details,
“Gilpatric
reminded
the
group
of
‘our
common
concern:
the
future
of
great
cities’.”22
The
scope
and
complexity
of
issues
made
it
clear
to
all
participants
that
“the
problem
of
urban
design
criticism”
would
not
be
solved
by
“any
one-­‐purpose
solution.”23
The
list
of
“possible
measures”
discussed
in
the
concluding
session
was

12. Working
paper
long
and
prescient.
It
included
items
like
scholarly
and
popular
books
on
topics
like
the
“History
of
the
Suburb,”
complimented
by
criticism
not
only
of
the
end-­‐product,
but
the
enabling
processes
and
fundamental
forces
that,
for
example,
created
suburban
sprawl.
“Don’t
be
content
with
the
usual
Ain’t-­‐It-­‐Awful
outburst
against
suburban
sprawl,”
reported
Clay.
“If
the
basic
reason
for
suburban
leapfrogging
of
subdivisions
is
speculative
holding
of
land,
then
go
to
work
on
speculation;
find
out
all
the
alternatives.”24
Other
proposals
included
an
institute
or
“center
of
‘environmentalism,’
drawing
on
and
acting
upon
all
the
learned
fields
presently
or
potentially
related
to
the
design
of
environment,”
a
new
“journal
directed
to
T
‘environmentalists’,”
and
other
projects
meant
to
celebrate
the
potential
of
vibrant
AF
urban
life.25
Gilpatric
had
hoped
that
the
conference
would
point
the
way
toward
“a
more
philosophical
approach
to
what
our
cities
should
provide
for
civilized
life,
before
R
going
all
out
to
stimulate
critical
writing.”26
The
participants’
latent
“environmentalism,”
their
understandings
of
the
complexity
and
interconnectivity
D
of
natural
and
social
urban
ecologies,
would
congeal
into
such
a
philosophy
in
the
years
ahead.
Describing,
for
example,
of
J.
B.
Jackson’s
journal
Landscape,
Crane
observed
that
writing
there
“establishes
a
bridge
between
architecture,
landscape
architecture,
town
planning,
anthropology,
sociology,
conservation,
and
geography,
all
through
a
single
principle
of
rural
settlements
ecology.
We
can
only
regret
that
it
is
not
an
urban
ecology
which
draws
all
these
interests
together.”27
This
synthesis,
however,
would
soon
take
place
in
McHarg’s
and
Jacobs’
work.

13. Working
paper
At
the
moment,
however,
it
was
criticism
that
was
the
common
theme
of
the
conference.
Despite
any
present-­‐day
stereotypes
about
the
passivity
of
the
1950s,
Grady
Clay
reported
that
“running
through
many
of
the
discussions
was
the
theme
of
controversy—local
fights
deliberately
provoked
to
promote
public
understanding
of
design
issues.
Not
precious,
involved
bickering
over
abstruse
details
the
public
cannot
or
will
not
understand,”
he
continued,
“but
controversy
over
matters
of
widest
interest.”28
Discussion
included
“protest
walks”
against
urban
renewal
projects;
“an
American
‘Counter
Attack
Bureau’”
modeled
on
the
British
Architectural
Review;
“more
controversy”
(Bauer);
“subsidies
for
massive
T
controversy”
and
more
“vigorous
‘destructive
criticism’”
(Clay);
and
“more
tough-­‐
AF
mindedness”
(Jacobs).29
In
the
end,
although
the
Conference
on
Urban
Design
Criticism
produced
no
publication,
Foundation
director
Gilpatric
predicted
that
the
conference
would
have
R
“a
wide-­‐spread
effect…
through
what
the
individuals
took
away
with
them.”30
Years
later,
Grady
Clay
confirmed
that
“The
conference
incited
all
of
us
into
publications
of
D
every
sort;
and
was
a
career
turning-­‐point
for
many.”31
This
was
true
for
Clay,
McHarg,
and
especially
Jane
Jacobs,
who
began
writing
The
Death
and
Life
of
Great
American
Cities
(1961)
in
the
weeks
following
the
Conference
on
Urban
Design
Criticism.
As
a
project
that
developed,
along
with
the
conference,
from
her
suggestion
that
the
Rockefeller
Foundation
support
architectural
and
urban
criticism,
Jacobs’
book
fulfilled
many
of
the
recommendations
of
the
conference
participants—a
highly
critical
examination
of
urban
redevelopment
practices,
written
for
the
widest
readership,
which
proposed
a
comprehensive
philosophy

14. Working
paper
about
the
nature
of
the
urban
environment—and
was
perhaps
the
most
significant
outcome
of
the
Penn-­‐Rockefeller
Conference
on
Urban
Design
Criticism
and
the
Foundation’s
urban
design
research
initiative.
Urban
Design
and
the
New
Environmentalists
Today
The
2008
Penn-­‐Rockefeller
conference
Re-­Imagining
Cities:
Urban
Design
After
the
Age
of
Oil
commemorated
the
1958
Conference
on
Urban
Design
Criticism
by
T
conceiving
an
inclusive
and
ambitious
event
that
would
bring
together
participants
AF
from
around
the
world
to
consider
the
great
challenges
facing
the
built
environment,
and
indeed
urban
civilization
as
we
know
it,
in
the
decades
ahead.
Although
the
2008
conference
did
not
dwell
on
urban
design
history
of
R
preceding
five
decades,
there
were
echoes
of
the
past.
Robert
Socolow
spoke
of
the
damning
environmental
legacy
of
the
Interstate
Highway
System,
recalling
Jacobs’
D
and
others’
criticism
of
the
1956
Highway
Act
and
its
attendant
urban
renewal
projects.
Jason
Bregman
and
Lance
Hosey
reiterated
the
everlasting
importance
of
the
design
of
the
built
environment,
which
was
so
important
to
David
Crane
and
others
of
the
first
generation
of
“urban
designers.”
Taner
Oc,
discussing
the
importance
of
considering
the
special
needs
of
urban
populations,
particularly
the
aged,
recalled
another
theme
of
particular
interest
to
Jane
Jacobs.
Neal
Peirce,
Alex
Steffen,
and
Richard
Saul
Wurman
echoed
a
central
theme
of
the
1958
conference
in
discussing
the
importance
of
communicating
critical
and
complex
urban
design

15. Working
paper
issues
to
a
wider
audience.
And,
at
the
conclusion
of
the
conference,
Roy
Strickland
repeated
Grady
Clay’s
call
of
fifty
years
earlier
for
more
vigorous
and
revolutionary
criticism.
Despite
the
many,
perhaps
too
many,
echoes
of
1958,
the
2008
Penn-­‐
Rockefeller
conference
may
have
marked
a
turning
point.
Although
the
participants
walked
in
the
deep
footsteps
of
an
earlier
generation
of
urban
designers—who
had
a
prescient
sense
of
the
limits
of
natural
resources,
the
intricacies
of
natural
and
urban
ecologies,
and
who,
as
described
in
the
preceding
pages,
considered
themselves
“environmentalists”—that
earlier
generation
could
not
have
imagined
T
the
extent
of
present
challenges
and
those
on
the
horizon.
Although
Ian
McHarg
and
AF
Jane
Jacobs
discussed
threats
to
urban
civilization
from
their
various
perspectives,
they
did
not
then
imagine
the
threats
to
global
civilization
that
have
been
described
by
Peter
Head,
William
Rees,
and
Elizabeth
Colbert.
Although
an
earlier
generation
R
of
architects
and
urban
designers
was
concerned
with
reinventing
architectural
functionalism
at
the
urban
scale,
and
re-­‐imagining
functional
cities,
they
could
not
D
have
imagined
the
significance
of
the
work
of
Bill
Dunster,
James
van
Hemert,
Behnisch,
or
Arup
in
re-­‐imagining
sustainable
urban
environments.
Finally,
although
urban
design
education
was
only
in
its
infancy
in
1958,
participants
of
the
Conference
of
Urban
Design
Criticism
could
not
have
imagined
how
much
work
was
yet
to
be
done
not
only
in
teaching
urban
design
fundamentals,
but
in
preparing
a
new
generation
of
urban
designers
for
post-­‐carbon
cities
after
the
age
of
oil.
As
when
the
term
“urban
design”
was
coined,
hardly
a
beginning
has
been
made,
but
a
new
era
is
in
the
making.

16. Working
paper
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Grady Clay and Judith McCandless; Mathew Crane; Marguerite Gilpatric; Daniel Lerch; Darwin
Stapleton and Michele Hiltzik of the Rockefeller Archive Center; and Joan Shigekawa and Darren Walker of the
Rockefeller Foundation.
Notes
1
Lewis Mumford, “Introduction,” Toward New Towns for America (1951) (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989), 11.
2
Peter L. Laurence, “The Death and Life of Urban Design: Jane Jacobs, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the New
Research in Urbanism,” Journal of Urban Design 11 (Jun. 2006), 145-72.
3
Rockefeller Foundation, Annual Report, 1929 (NY: Rockefeller Foundation), 259-60.
4
Charles B. Fahs, Interview with John B. Ely, Jul. 24, 1953 (RF RG 1.2, MIT City Planning, Series 200R, Box 375,
Folder 3330.30) Rockefeller Foundation Archives, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, NY (hereafter RAC).
5
Charles B. Fahs, Interview with MIT Architecture and Planning Faculty, Sept. 18, 1953, ibid. D'Arms, E. F. and L. C.
Devinney, Interview with MIT Architecture and Planning Faculty, Feb. 17, 1954, ibid.
T
6
Rockefeller Foundation Humanities Division, Grant Report for MIT Lynch-Kepes City Planning Study (RF 54034),
Apr. 7, 1954, ibid.
7
Peter L. Laurence, “Urban Design Criticism: Jane Jacobs and the Development of American Architectural Criticism
and Urban Design Theory, 1935-1965” (PhD Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania), unpublished.
8
AF
Chadbourne Gilpatric, Interview with Jane Jacobs, Jun. 4, 1958 (RF RG 1.2 Series 200R, Box 390, Folder 3380)
Rockefeller Foundation Archives, RAC.
9
Chadbourne Gilpatric, Interview with Jane Jacobs, May 9, 1958, ibid.
10
David Crane, “A Working Paper for The University of Pennsylvania Conference on Urban Design Criticism” (RF
RG 1.2, University of Pennsylvania-Community Planning Conference, October 1958-61, Ser 200, Box 457, File 3904)
Rockefeller Foundation Archives, RAC, 7.
11
Ibid, 1.
12
[William L.C. Wheaton], University of Pennsylvania Institute for Urban Studies, “A Proposal to the Rockefeller
Foundation for a Conference on Criticism in Urban Design,” Jun. 12, 1958, ibid, 2.
R
13
Crane, “Working Paper,” 2.
14
Ibid, 6.
15
Jill Pearlman discusses the shift from civic design to urban design at Harvard GSD in “Breaking Common Ground:
Joseph Hudnut and the Prehistory of Urban Design,” Josep Lluís Sert, The Architect of Urban Design, 1953-1969, Eric
Mumford and Hashim Sarkis, eds. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 118. See also, David Gosling, The
D
Evolution of American Urban Design (Chichester, England: Wiley-Academy, 2003) and Eric Mumford, Defining
Urban Design: CIAM Architects and the Formation of a Discipline, 1937-69 (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2009).
16
Ann Strong and George Thomas, The Book of the School: 100 Years of the Graduate School of Fine Arts of the
University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Graduate School of Fine Arts), 141.
17
Wheaton, “Proposal,” 1.
18
Crane, “Working Paper,” 7-8.
19
[D. A. Crane, G. H. Perkins, W. L. C. Wheaton], Program for University of Pennsylvania Conference on Urban
Design Criticism (RF RG 1.2, University of Pennsylvania-Community Planning Conference, October 1958-61, Ser
200, Box 457, File 3905) Rockefeller Foundation Archives, RAC.
20
Chadbourne Gilpatric, Report to Rockefeller Foundation Directors on Conference on Urban Design Criticism, July
23, 1959 (RF RG 1.2, University of Pennsylvania-Community Planning Conference, October 1958-61, Ser 200, Box
457, File 3904) Rockefeller Foundation Archives, RAC.
21
[David Crane], “Possible Measures,” Oct. 4, 1958 (RF RG 1.2, University of Pennsylvania-Community Planning
Conference, October 1958-61, Ser 200, Box 457, File 3905) Rockefeller Foundation Archives, RAC, 1.
22
Grady Clay, “The University of Pennsylvania Conference on Urban Design Criticism,” Journal of the American
Institute of Architects 31 (Jan. 1959), 27. Gilpatric’s use of the phrase “great cities” likely had an influence of the title
of Jane Jacobs’ forthcoming book.
23
Crane, “Working Paper,” 6.
24
Clay, “Conference,” 27.
25
Crane, “Possible Measures,” 1-2.

17. Working
paper
26
Crane, “Working Paper,” [Gilpatric letter to Wheaton, Jun. 17, 1958], 2.
27
Ibid, 13.
28
Clay, “Conference,” 27.
29
Crane, “Working Paper,” 11, 21; Clay, “Conference,” 26, 27. The sentiments expressed at the Conference on Urban
Design Criticism likely helped incited Jane Jacobs to public activism after the Conference on Urban Design Criticism
and the publication of Death and Life. Her professional criticism and public activism were more subdued prior to the
conference.
30
Gilpatric, “Report,” 1.
31
Grady Clay, Letter to Helen Horowitz, Jan. 25, 1996 (Personal papers of Grady Clay, courtesy of Grady Clay).
T
AF
R
D