© 1999 by Design History Society
Non-Plan Revisited: or the Real Way Cities Grow. The Tenth Reyner Banham Memorial Lecture
Institute of Community Studies London
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Abstract |
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Thirty years ago, "Non-Plan: An Experiment in Freedom" was published as a special issue of New Society, the weekly magazine of social enquiry. It was a collaboration between the urban geographer Peter Hall, the design and architecture historian Reyner Banham, the architect Cedric Price, and Paul Barker, the magazine's Editor. It attacked the v s e and often futile effect of attempts to impose m'teria of urban form and aesthetic design from above. Its m approach to popular choice was social-unthropological. Published three years bqfore Learning from Las Vegas, Non-Plan was highly contrmersial, but it has had a continuing influence. The paper examines how the concept arose, and spells out some of its consequences, both ideological and practical. Two case-studies, of North London inter-wnr suburbia and ofa shopping mall and its surroundings, are used to illustrate Non-Plan in the recent past and the present. It is acknowledged that Non-Plan is inextricably associated with a very popular but often m'ticized designfonn, suburbia. But the case is put for an essentially humble approach to design: people's own choices should be respected. Presentday planning and design dogmas may be no wiser than those of the past.
Key Words: Edge City • Great Britain • Non-Plan • sociology • suburbia • urban design