New Urbanism

New Urbanism ( " New Urbanism " ) is a movement in urban planning that is the end of the 1980s, emerged in the early 1990s in the United States. Enemy of the movement is the so-called sprawl and urban sprawl, so the boundless expansion of cities to suburban settlements. The New Urbanism criticized this form of housing the necessarily high private transport with appropriate resource consumption by not existing pedestrian friendliness, the high cost of large-scale infrastructure (roads, electricity, sewer ), urban sprawl, and the anonymity of the neighborhoods.

The goal of the New Urbanism is therefore a reactivation of the living form of the urban built-up city with the advantages of short distances, intensive neighborhood and incentives for healthy living. An important tool for this is the block development and the avoidance of separation of functions, such as for residential and Geschäfsvierteln. Even large, " lifeless " free spaces between the buildings, such as those were planned in settlements with loosened social housing, should be avoided. Instead, there should be small inner courtyards and manicured grounds. Many developments of the New Urbanism are also oriented to the structure of historic city centers with their grown structures.

History

Since the early 1980s, a number of critical voices against the sprawl of surrounding American cities were loud. 1991 called the Local Government Commission, a California non-governmental organization professionals in the field of urban planning and architecture together to formulate concrete recommendations for practice, a modified urban development. The group published the same year the so-called " Ahwahnee Principles ", in which the main claims of New Urbanism are already formulated.

Under the original name " New Urbanism " movement has become institutionalized in the form of the Congress for the New Urbanism ( CNU ) in 1993. The CNU is a non- profit organization consisting of urban planners, architects, developers and other interested city. The organization is directed since its foundation in 1993 of an annual convention at which it comes to conceptual issues and practical implementation practice of New Urbanism. Was on the fourth congress in 1996, then the " Charter of the New Urbanism" formulated, the founding document of the movement.

With the additional title "Congress" the new urbanists of the first hour have deliberately proximity to the Congrès International d' Architecture Moderne ( CIAM ) sought. Under this title Congress an important architectural movement known that attempts to abet since 1928, a modernist, functional urban design.

The New Urbanism can be understood as an exact contrast countermovement. Instead of a separation of living, working and shopping - as called for in the Charter of Athens, one of the programmatic documents of the CIAM - designed by the New Urbanism in the Charter of the New Urbanism, the ideal of a " city of short distances " with the greatest possible mix of functions in one place.

Principles of New Urbanism

Credo of the movement of New Urbanism is to build cities so that sustainable and livable neighborhoods arise. For the representatives of the New Urbanism, to be achieved over the orientation of the ideal of the traditional American small town. According to the New Urbanism is known in English either as " Traditional Neighbourhood Design" (TND ).

It is the movement that is not a mere reorientation of urban design, but - again analogous to the modernist idea of ​​the CIAM - a concrete action on the coexistence of the residents. Dense development, a wide range of apartments, mixture of pedestrian-friendly streets and squares are even on the agenda, but this is only a means to an end. Targets of New Urbanism is to build places that enrich our lives and inspire the spirit ( "Create places did enrich, uplift, and inspire the human spirit. "). Properly built, places can encourage for walking, promote mutual understanding and protect against crime, the conviction of the New Urbanism.

"We did Recognize physical solutions by Themselves will not solve social and economic problems, but neither can economic vitality, community stability, and environmental health be sustained without a coherent and supportive physical framework. "

"We recognize that physical solutions social and economic problems can not be solved alone, but neither can economic vitality, stability of the community and a healthy environment are permanent without a coherent and supportive physical framework. "

A more idealistic variation of New Urbanism is the New Pedestrianism ( New pedestrian culture), founded in 1999 by Michael E. Arth, an American artist, city, house and landscape designer, futurist and author.

Examples of New Urbanism in the U.S.

In the USA, longs to return to "Small Town America" ​​in the early 20th century. The Disney Group - among many other developers - in the 1990s, the most famous settlement of the New Urbanism created: Celebration (Florida), a settlement that small town life simulated by the environment elegant enough, not by a fence, but water areas separately and in with historicist buildings style of the 18th and 19th century ( " Colonial Revial ​​", " Federal Style " ) is built on. Another example is the city of Seaside in Florida. Andrés Duany and Elizabeth architects were Plater - Zyberk. Seaside was also the setting for the film The Truman Show directed by Peter Weir. However, this type of ( suburban ) urban development even during the 1960s and 1970s has never disappeared from view American builders and architects.

New Urbanism in Germany and Europe

In Germany the ideas of New Urbanism from the perspective of the modernists are often equated with an architecture of tranquility and retrogressive aesthetics and predominantly " neotraditionalistischer backdrop magic " discredited. Nevertheless, there is the Council for European Urbanism ( CEU ) an initiative that has established itself in Europe and programmatically oriented to the U.S. Congress for the New Urbanism. The CEU also has a German section, the sporadic, the online magazine published The New City. Moreover, criticized by the New Urbanism problem of boundless outgrowth of the cities in the landscape in Europe by traditional dense building structures not so pronounced as in North America.

Creative than the U.S. like the British version of the New Urbanism appear; Replanning in an English country house style as Poundbury / Dorset, UK seem like islands in a completely different nature, dominated by post-war modern environment. The settlement on the leased land by the British heir to the throne Prince Charles is inspired by the design principles he has outlined in his book A Vision Of Britain.

Examples and Representative for New Urbanism in Germany

• Vauban, Freiburg im Breisgau
• Kirchsteigfeld, Potsdam
• Patzschke Architekten, Berlin
• Hans Kollhoff