Urban Studies (1989), 26, 1 28-143

1989 Urban Studies

Urban Reconstruction in Europe After

World War II
Jeffry M. Diefendorf

In 1945, a great many of the cities of Europe lay in was it now possible to engage in urban renewal
ruins . Some were the victims of long bombing during reconstruction? Were new streets needed?
campaigns conducted by both sides ; some were New social amenities? Should, and could, the cities be
damaged in the course of fighting between ground so recognised as to keep housing, industry, com-
forces . The destruction was most widespread in merce, and culture separated? What population
Germany, where Allied bombers had rained high density was desirable, and how could that density be
explosives and incendiary bombs on urban centres obtained and maintained? How could the demand
for more than three years, but large-scale destruction for immediate housing for a suffering population be
had also occurred in most of the other countries that reconciled with the time needed to design and
had participated in the war. Cultural monuments construct modern housing? Should historic cities be
that had stood for centuries had been reduced to rebuilt in a way that retained or recaptured their
rubble, and, in practical terms, the loss of masses of traditional character? If so, did that mean that all, or
housing, schools, hospitals, transportation facilities, only some, historic buildings should be rebuilt as
and the like posed an immediate threat to the very they had been? Were the building and property laws
survival of these urban centres . Observers in the adequate to guide decision-makers? Who would
summer of 1945, horrified at what they saw as make the decisions - private individuals, town
`biblical annihilation', expected that it would take authorities, or regional and national authorities?
generations to rebuild . How were urban needs to be weighed against other
Clearly urban reconstruction was one of the priorities?
greatest tasks ever faced by town planners, town This is already a long list of questions, and it could
authorities, and regional and national politicians, as still be lengthened considerably . If the questions
well as by private citizens in their capacities as seemed overwhelming to policy makers, so do the
renters, property owners, architects, and workers . It variety of answers that were offered pose a daunting
was, moreover, a task of enormous complexity, challenge to scholarly analysis .
fraught with potential for conflict . We need only list In 1956, Leo Grebler published a survey of the
some of the basic issues involved to appreciate the reconstruction of the bombed cities of Western
formidable job that policy makers had to tackle . Europe. He described what he had seen and
How would the rubble and debris be cleared, and recounted what people had told him .' The shape
who would pay for it? How would building material that reconstruction was taking was in most cases
and labour be allocated, and who would finance already clear in 1956, even if reconstruction was not
reconstruction? Even before the war, many historic yet complete, and many of Grebler's insights were
cities had been candidates for extensive urban re- keen . In the same year that Grebler's study
newal because of unregulated growth during the appeared, a conference was held in Erfurt in the
decades of industrialisation and urban expansion ; German Democratic Republic ; the subject was the

JeJJry M . Diefendorf is in the Department of History, University of New Hampshire .

' Europe's Reborn Cities, Urban Land Institute Technical Bulletin, 28, (Washington, DC, 1956) .

128
 URBAN RECONSTRUCTION IN EUROPE AFTER WORLD WAR II 129
history of urban planning and reconstruction in but some consists of comparisons of the develop-
historic cities, mostly in Eastern Europe .2 The ments in different cities or countries . Research proj-
papers presented at this conference likewise con- ects are underway comparing reconstruction in the
tained many useful insights, in some cases because Ruhr with that in Coventry, comparing French
the participants had themselves been active in the wartime plans for reconstruction with German re-
reconstruction process . construction plans for occupied Lorraine and
But the Erfurt conference, like Grebler's survey, Alsace, and comparing English postwar reconstruc-
only touched the surface. New housing, streets, and tion planning with reconstruction planning in
shopping centres were discussed, as well as the Northern France .' These projects involve different
rebuilding of certain historic monuments . However, teams of scholars and have been funded by different
one does not find in the proceedings of the confer- agencies and institutions . Among the nationally-
ence the deep conflicts, bitter struggles between based studies, Dutch scholars in Groningen have
individuals, and heated debates over values that lay been working on reconstruction in that country,
behind town planning and new construction . View- whilst Belgian urban historians have worked on
ing reconstruction as a postwar phenomenon, the reconstruction in Belgium after World War I and
scholars of the 1950s overlooked the extent to which have staged a major exhibition of their findings ."
wartime developments continued into the postwar A great deal of work is being done on reconstruc-
period . Deeper insights into the process of rebuilding tion in Germany, the country that suffered the worst
could only come with systematic archival research destruction . Niels Gutschow and Renate Stiemer
into newly available materials and systematic inter- have published important volumes with documents
views with those who had been involved . Further- and commentary on Mfnster. s Gutschow and
more, the passage of time now makes it possible to Werner Durth have prepared an enormous volume
consider the era of reconstruction in the broader of documents on planning from 1940 to 1950 that is
context of the history of European cities in this now in press; Durth has also published an extremely
century . The political legacies of the 1930s and 1940s important multi-generational study of German ar-
can now be dealt with more objectively . chitects and planners that deals with continuities
In 1975, Western Europe celebrated a year from the early part of this century into the postwar
devoted to the furtherance of historic preservation . world .' Provocative volumes on fascist architecture,
One result was a new wave of scholarly interest in edited by Hartmut Frank, and on housing policy
what historic cities had experienced during the war under the Nazis, edited by Gerhard Fehl and Tilman
and postwar reconstruction . By the mid-1980s, Harlander, have raised questions about postwar
scholarly work on reconstruction was being done all developments in these areas .' Teams of scholars at
over Europe . Most of this work consists of detailed the Technical Universities of Berlin, Munich, and
studies of developments in single cities or countries, Hamburg have been engaged in intensive studies of

2
Stlidtebau, Geschichte and Gegenwart, Deutsche Bauakademie, Schriften des Instituts fur Theorie and Geschichte der Baukunst, 2
vols ., (Erfurt, 1956) .
' Anthony Mason and Dietmar Petzina head the Ruhr/Coventry project ; Remi Baudoui and Hartmut Frank are comparing wartime
reconstruction in France and Germany ; and Anthony Sutcliffe and a group of French scholars at the Institut d'histoire du temps present
in Paris have worked in French-English comparisons . Here one should note the recent publication of Images, discours et enjeux de la
reconstruction des villes francois ais apres 1945, e d. by Daniele Voldman, Cahiers de l'institut d'histoire du temps present nr . 5,
(Paris, 1987) .
° Some of the work of E . M . Taverne and J . E . Bosma are discussed below . An exhibition on Middelburg and a conference on
German influences on Dutch reconstruction planning is scheduled for November 1988 . See also E . M . Taverne, 'Ouds ontwerp voor
het hofplein', Plan 12, (1981) . For Belgium, see especially Marcel Smets, ed . La reconstruction en Belgique apres 1914 (Brussels, 1985). A
recent publication dealing with English reconstruction is Gordon E . Cherry and Leith Penny, Holford : a Study in Architecture,
Planning and Civic Design (London and New York, 1986) .
s Gutschow and Stiemer, Dokumentation Wiederaujbau der Stadt Munster (Munster, 1982) and Dokumentation Wiederaujbau :
Materialsammlung, Beitri ge zur Stadforschung, Stadtentwicklung, Stadtplanung, Vol . 6 (Munster, 1980) .
b Durth and Gutschow, Trdume in Trummern, Planung des Wiederaufbaus im Westen Deutschlands 1940-1950, (Braunschweig and

Wiesbaden, 1988) ; Durth, Deutsche Architekten, Biographische Verfechtungen 1900-1970 (Braunschweig and Wiesbaden, 1986) .
' Frank, Faschistische Architekturen : Planen and Bauen in Europa 1930-1945 (Hamburg, 1985); Harlander and Fehl, Hitlers Sozialer
Wohnungsbau 1940-1945 . Wohnungspolitik, Baugestaltung and Siedlungsplanung (Hamburg, 1986) .
1 30 JEFFRY M . DIEFENDORF

those cities, and the bulletin published by the contributing to research on reconstruction, and at
Deutches Institut fur Urbanistik in Berlin regularly least a glimpse at the many scholarly opinions and
contains notices of research underway on recon- theories presented at the conference .
struction at universities all over Germany .' There Common to much of the new research is the idea
have been recent exhibitions with sections on archi- that one must not see the end of the war in 1945 as
tecture and planning in the 1950s, and, finally, the the starting point for reconstruction . On the con-
political scientist Klaus von Beyme has just pub- trary, reconstruction was normally based on earlier
lished a volume comparing reconstruction in the two conceptions of ideal urban forms, shaped by pre-
German states . 9 existing institutions and laws, and guided by indivi-
With all of this detailed research going on, there duals with prewar or wartime experience in recon-
has yet been no attempt to replace Grebler's early struction planning . Moreover, even where urban
synthesis. Indeed, such an attempt would probably policy makers decided in favour of repairing or
still be premature . Nevertheless, contacts between reconstructing historic buildings destroyed in the
scholars in different countries and in different fields war, they usually believed that the circumstances of
are helping turn reconstruction research into a the war had created a unique opportunity to intro-
community effort . The conference held recently in duce significant, modernising reforms in the urban
Bellagio, Italy, was intended to facilitate the sharing structure .
of new insights gained with the advantage of added At the Bellagio conference, Pieter Uyttenhove
years since Grebler's work and the Erfurt confer- argued that Belgian reconstruction was shaped by
ence. The 18 participants who met for a week at the the fact that this country was occupied by the
Rockefeller Conference Centre in June 1987, came Germans during both World Wars ."t In 1915, dur-
to discuss their research on postwar reconstruction ing World War I, the Ministry of Public Works,
and, in two cases, their own direct participation in under the leadership of Deputy Minister Raphael
that process . Several scholarly disciplines were Verwilghen, collected information about British,
represented : social and urban history, geography, French, and Dutch planning and then drafted a law
architectural and planning history, political science, setting forth procedures for the preparation of new
architecture, and town planning . Some of the papers town plans for war-damaged cities . A second plan-
presented dealt with reconstruction in individual ning law was passed in 1919, but local opposition
cities, while others dealt with planning and building and ministerial confusion led to a breakdown in
issues in a broader geographical framework . The planning during the 1920s . The World War I effort
conference, which represented the first attempt to was revived after the German conquest in 1940, even
bring together scholars from Eastern and Western though the nature of the destruction was different . In
Europe, yielded perspectives that were quite differ- World War I, the damage had been to public
ent from those to be found in the studies of the buildings, churches, and private houses, whereas in
1950s, 10 The papers and discussions pointed to a World War II more of the economic infrastructure
number of fascinating themes that help to illuminate of the country - such as roads and bridges - was
what we already do know about the reconstruction destroyed . A Commissariat General a la Restau-
process but which also suggest new areas for re- ration du Pays was created, headed by Charles and
search . The purpose of this paper is to give some idea Raphael Verwilghen, whose participation estab-
of the complexity of the reconstruction problem lished continuity with centralised planning that had
itself, some idea of the many disciplines that are been undertaken during World War I . The CGRP

8 Informationen moderner Stadtgeschichte appears twice a year. There is a group of scholars working in Berlin on reconstruction in that
city; a number of essays on reconstruction have appeared in various publications celebrating the 750th anniversary of Berlin . On
Munich, see Winfried Nerdinger, ed. AuJbauzeit . Planen and Bauen Miinchen 1945-1950 (Munich, 1984) .
' For example, Werner Durth and Niels Gutschow, Architektur and Siddtebau der f infziger Jahre, Schriftenreihe des Deutschen
Nationalkomitees fur Denkmalschutz, Vol . 33 (Bonn, 1987), and Museum der Gegenwart (exhibition catalog) (Diisseldorf, 1987) . Von
Beyme, Der WiederauJbau . Architektur and Stadtebaupolitik in beiden deutschen Staaten (Munich, 1987) .
10 Many of the conference papers will be published in The Rebuilding of Europe's Bombed Cities, Jeffry M . Diefendorf, ed .,
forthcoming from The Macmillan Press and St . Martin's Press . The conference was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, which
provided the facilities, and the Volkswagen Foundation, which paid for travel expenses of the participants .


URBAN RECONSTRUCTION IN EUROPE AFTER WORLD WAR II 131

was made up of technocrats who had belonged to also designed architectural forms that in fact created
modernist planning and architectural circles before a kind of universal regional style, one that could be
the war . The planners sought to use the opportunity imitated in areas outside East Prussia . Representa-
presented to them to modernise the technical infras- tives of both modernist and traditionalist architec-
tructure of the cities, such as sewer and water tural planning schools took part in this project .
systems and railway equipment . When the Germans annexed Alsace and Lorraine
Town planning was thus part of a larger system of after the defeat of France in 1940, the German
collectivist planning for national interests . By intro- planners who were sent to reconstruct and moder-
ducing extensive zoning and land distribution laws, nise the formerly French rural communities had as
the CGRP hoped to overcome the limitations their model the programme for rural Prussia from
imposed by private ownership of property that had World War I . It is of considerable interest that
led to individualistic reconstruction after World Rudolf Schwarz, a representative of architectural
War I . The planning law of September 1940, based modernism and an individual certainly not sympath-
on years of earlier discussion, introduced modern, etic to Nazism, spent a good part of the war working
systematic town planning . Moreover, town plans on these plans in Alsace . After the war, Schwarz
were to mesh with plans for whole regions, and became the chief planner for Cologne, and some of
studies were begun on all the large urban agglome- his concepts for the rebuilding of that badly-bombed
rations with the intent of reaching on the national metropolis derive quite literally from his work dur-
level a synthesis of concrete data about spatial ing the war.
relationships and abstract economic theories . The research of Daniele Voldman and Rbmi
This was clearly a long-range vision . It was not Baudoui demonstrates that elsewhere in France
motivated by any sense of urgency such as the there were powerful continuities between the urban
conditions of war and occupation might have engen- planning concepts, laws, institutions, and personnel
dered . Planning took precedence over architectural of the Vichy period and the postwar period ."
aesthetics . Towns were to be allowed to follow Already in the Summer and Fall of 1940, damaged
regional styles to a degree, but uniform models were French towns received aid from the central govern-
distributed by the CGRP . ment, and Vichy moved quickly to create agencies to
After the liberation, the 1940 planning law co-ordinate rubble clearance and to plan urban
remained in effect until 1962, and its sponsors in the redevelopment . These agencies were the basis of the
CGRP continued to advocate a reconstruction pro- Ministry for Reconstruction and Town Planning,
gramme managed by an oligarchy of technocrats . headed by Raoul Dautry . The leading figures in
On the other hand, the rapid recovery of the econ- these agencies, though of different social origins and
omy, with the help of Marshall Aid, encouraged the in different professions, shared common back-
unplanned reconstruction of private homes and grounds, such as training at the Ecole des Beaux-
businesses by individuals. Central urban planning in Arts or the Ecole Polytechnique . These figures
Belgium thus remained incomplete . included progressive planners from the 1930s, the
In Germany too one can find the influence of technocrats around Dautry, members of the plan-
reconstruction efforts dating from World War I . ning department of Paris, and others . They did not
Hartmut Frank observed that the German govern- solicit their positions but were recruited and formed
ment undertook a rebuilding campaign in East a coherent group with a marked `esprit de corps' . As
Prussia, which had been damaged by Russian occu- planners, this group reacted against social and admi-
pation in 1914 .' Z The communities involved were nistrative disorganisation; they wanted to avoid the
small towns - not large cities - and planners mistakes made after 1918, especially the uncon-
worked out models for modern rural towns . They trolled urban and suburban developments of the

" 'Wartime Planning of First and Second World War Reconstruction in Belgium' .
12 Frank distributed two essays for discussion at the conference : '3Mal Wiederaufbau', and 'Die architektonische Gestaltung eines

Neubeginns' .
" Voldman, 'Reconstructors' Tales : An Example of the Use of Oral Sources in the History of Reconstruction after the Second World
War', and Baudoui, 'Between Regionalism and Functionalism . The Principles of Architecture and Urban Planning in Reconstruction in
France between 1940 and 1950' .
1 32 JEFFRY M . DIEFENDORF

1920s. The result of their endeavours was the Town system to react quickly and firmly to what had to be
Planning Law of June 1943 that regulated immediate done . In any event, it is clear that neither the
reconstruction and was also the foundation for successes nor the failures of postwar reconstruction
postwar urban planning . in France can be attributed to any dramatic turn to
The thrust of French wartime rebuilding was functionalist planning or modernist architectural
two-directional . On the one hand, planners wanted aesthetics after 1945 .
to modernise the transportation network and build The period of German occupation was also cen-
modern housing in the damaged cities . On the other tral to reconstruction in Holland, Norway, and
hand, they wanted to promote regional architecture Poland, though in different ways . Conferee Erik
that would affirm deep French values . Sometimes Lorange participated in the rebuilding programme
their programmes came into conflict, as in the Loire in Norway ."5 He noted in his paper that most of the
valley, when the widening of roads required the damage was to smaller urban centres, especially in
demolition of historic buildings, but sometimes the the north . Centralised reconstruction planning
programmes were in accord, as when the new layout began in July 1940 under the leadership of Sverre
of houses and streets created new, picturesque views Pedersen, but with German supervision and
of key monuments . influence . Here the emphasis was on housing con-
Thus one finds here a mixture of technocratic, struction rather than systematic or comprehensive
bureaucratic modernism with a conservative urban planning, though a centralised planning office
aesthetic ." Interestingly, even an advocate of was created .
modern functionalism like Le Corbusier might feel Planning during German occupation moved
he could work within such a framework, much as smoothly into the postwar period, and co-operation
Rudolf Schwarz worked in Alsace . Le Corbusier between local architects and the central administ-
initially collaborated with the Vichy regime, seeing ration continued . The central planning office was
its administrative power as a useful means of taking reorganised into a national Housing Directorate and
advantage of the building opportunity presented by charged with the task of reconstruction . The result
the war . (Le Corbusier's subsequent rejection of of this reorganisation was the passage of legislation
Vichy stemmed from conflicts with that state's pow- enabling towns to take the steps necessary for
erful bureaucracy) . expeditious rebuilding. Town plans were completed
After the war, most of the leading members of the quickly, and. most reconstruction work was finished
Ministry for Reconstruction continued in office, by 1955 . Subsequently though, younger planners
augmented by a new group of men recruited in the and architects felt that the planning framework used
same way as the group recruited in 1940 and coming had been too narrow and schematic . Indeed, this is a
from similar backgrounds . The 1945 group wanted case where the imperatives of rapid housing con-
to participate in their country's rebirth, and Dautry, struction overwhelmed the important but lesser need
as head of the Ministry, merged the two groups . for long-range planning .
Members of the groups had been neither active The rebuilding of the historic Dutch city of
opponents of the Petain regime nor Nazi sympath- Middelburg is being studied by J . E . Bosma . 16
isers, and only one member was dismissed at the time Here, centralised planning dominated from the be-
of the Liberation . ginning . The city was bombed on 17 May 1940 and
As was the case in Belgium, however, the degree to reconstruction was immediately placed under the
which postwar reconstruction followed the planning authority of the central government in The Hague . A
ideals outlined in the wartime law and advocated by new Government Commission for Reconstruction
the planning technocrats was disappointing . More was given wide power to approve projects, expro-
research remains to be done on why this was so, but priate land, remove rubble and damaged buildings,
the planners themselves tended to blame economic and supervise final construction . Land was to be
difficulties and the inability of the postwar political restored to private ownership after rebuilding, and

14 For a discussion of this problem in Germany, see Jefry M . Diefendorf, 'The Problem of Continuities in the Reconstruction of
Germany's Cities : Architecture and Housing Policy', Woodrow Wilson Center Occasional Paper, December 1987 .
is 'The Reconstruction of the War-Damaged Towns in Norway, on the Outskirts of Europe' .
16 'Planning the Impossible : History as a New Future - the Reconstruction of Middelburg (1940) .


URBAN RECONSTRUCTION IN EUROPE AFTER WORLD WAR II 1 33

the costs of rebuilding were to be shared by those Middelburg atmosphere, he required facades already
whose property was spared any damage. The process approved to be redone for the sake of a more
was streamlined, with no possibility of bureaucratic interesting townscape . In a sense his traditionalism
delays or local opposition . Rebuilding began came into conflict with his aesthetic values . Traditio-
quickly, but it ceased by 1942 because of rising costs, nalism proved to be nothing more than a hodge-
a shortage of building materials, and a German ban podge of notions about the past coloured by aesthet-
on building . With the war's end, rebuilding was ic preferences . Consequently, even Verhagen saw his
completed . rebuilding of Middelburg as unique, not as a model
Reconstruction was planned by traditionalist ar- for other towns, and when he worked on postwar
chitects who preferred a typical Middelburg style but expansion of Middelburg, he strove for a more
were not afraid of massive contraventions of that contemporary style .
style in the historic heart of cities if necessary to Whereas reconstruction planning in occupied
combat urban sprawl . Planners, led by P. Verhagen, France, Belgium, Holland, and Norway took place
who was given a powerful mandate by The Hague, under the supervision of the Germans or at least
sought a more functional layout for the city, with the took on forms acceptable to the Germans, that was
historic abbey and town hall remaining dominant not the case in Warsaw . The damage to Warsaw
features, the main cultural institutions remaining went beyond the damage elsewhere in the qualitative
within the town walls, industry concentrated outside sense that the Germans made a conscious, deliber-
the central area, and the basic improvements made ate, systematic attempt to demolish historic build-
in lower-income housing and traffic flow . This over- ings that represented Polish culture . The Nazi plan
all plan was complemented by a careful architectonic was to abolish Warsaw as a Polish city and to create
compositional scheme, the purpose of which was to a new, smaller German city on the site . Conse-
restore a Middelburg atmosphere rather than to quently, from the beginning Polish reconstruction
copy exactly what had existed before the bombing . planning was part of a national effort to resist and
In order to accomplish his aims, Verhagen intro- frustrate this German intention .
duced subtle changes in the street layout to improve Stanislaw Jankowski, another conference partici-
traffic flow; the twelfth century Abbey, long a secular pant, had formerly been the head of the Master Plan
building, was enlarged to house the provincial Department of Warsaw ; he had witnessed firsthand
government; and modifications in street shapes and the destruction of the city and its rebuilding ."
building positions created new and interesting Jankowski reported on the secret wartime efforts of
`views' of the dominant monuments . The enlarge- several different groups to prepare for rebuilding .
ment of streets and of some city lots meant that only The Planning Department of the Warsaw Municipal
250 of the 456 destroyed buildings would be rebuilt. Council, the Studio for Regional Planning, the
This meant in turn that there would have to be Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University,
expansion outside the old walls, especially in the and a co-operative Studio for Architecture and
form of lower-income housing. Much stricter con- Town Planning prepared plans for main streets and
trols were exercised on the facades than on the squares, educated graduate students, held planning
interior of the buildings . New buildings were and architectural competitions, catalogued and pre-
required to fit into what was considered the appro- pared detailed drawings of historic monuments, and
priate Middelburg atmosphere . Verhagen imposed developed a concept of a broad city plan - all of
his own preferences, favouring, for example, plas- which was done secretly and illegally . Many of the
tered and painted facades over brick. He encouraged individuals involved later formed the core of the
individuality in the design of each building, but he postwar Bureau for the Reconstruction of the Capi-
also intervened vigorously in such details as window tal, created in February 1945 under Roman
placement and roof pitch . Piotrowski.
Interestingly, when Verhagen felt that the pro- From the start, there was conflict between the
posed designs were too anonymous and uncreative desire to rebuild the historic city as a symbol
in their effort to capture the imprecise idea of the embodying Polish culture and nationhood - the

" 'Warsaw : its Destruction and Postwar Reconstruction' .

1 34 JEFFRY M . DIEFENDORF

obverse of the Nazi's plans - and the desire for a graphical features that had recommended those sites
fundamental, modernising transformation of the in the first place . Starting with landscape - trees
city . In one of its first acts, the Bureau for Recon- and greenery - a eugenically healthful, carefully
struction established a city Department of Historic ordered city could be constructed that would have
Architecture, and this agency began to work on low population density and proper functional zon-
restoration or rebuilding of historic monuments . At ing . The planned evacuation of up to a third of the
the same time, in October 1945, a government decree urban inhabitants and their resettlement in the
made all land within the city's boundaries municipal countryside harmonised nicely with this image of
property . Buildings remained privately owned, but future German towns rooted in nature .
since 90 per cent of the buildings existing before the Though little of this was ever actualised, it is
war had been destroyed, this decree created the legal important that Hamburg's planners did not see their
basis for extensive changes in land use and street ideas as dependent on a Nazi victory . They believed
layout . their ideas to be timeless, technically valid solutions
The conflict between historic reconstruction and to basic human problems . The war and the bombing
modernisation could be seen in the planning of the had simply presented them with an unusual oppor-
East-West thoroughfare, which Jankowski helped tunity to try to put some of these ideas into practice .
design . This project called for a long artery with a Consequently, the death of Nazism and of traditio-
bridge over the Vistula, a tunnel under the historic nal Germany did not mean an end to this conception
central district, and a new housing project . It of reconstruction planning . It easily could have
necessitated the dismantling of the only partly continued under new conditions, and in fact many
damaged Panzer Viaduct and some historic build- wartime planners continued to work on rebuilding
ings around it . After much debate the project was after 1945 .
approved and completed . This was a breakthrough In England, on the other side of the Channel,
in large-scale modern planning for the city . reconstruction planning likewise began during the
When one turns from the occupied countries to war, and the damage from the bombing was likewise
the countries of the combatants, it is interesting to seen as an opportunity to replace old, badly designed
find a similar commitment on the part of planners to cities with modern ones . Two papers on English
the reconstruction of cities in new, modern forms . reconstruction planning were presented at Bellagio :
Niels Gutschow discussed the case of Hamburg, a a study of Coventry, by Anthony Mason, and a
huge city where intensive bombing raids in July and study of national town planning legislation, by
August 1943 destroyed nearly half of the housing Gordon Cherry . 19 Interestingly, local and national
stock . 18 activities sometimes moved along similar lines but
Town planners in Hamburg viewed the bombing sometimes came into conflict .
as a `catastrophe' similar to a natural disaster, rather Cherry argued that the 1940s constituted a
than as a tragic result of a war that the Germans had remarkable `leap forward' toward state-led, compre-
started . Just as death and destruction was a central hensive urban planning . Prewar planning had been
part of Nazi ideology, so planners welcomed the not much more than weak guidelines for future
`death' of the old, unplanned city . The bombing growth, not a means for redeveloping existing towns .
stimulated a surge of planning based on earlier The Barlow Report - commissioned in 1937 but
criticisms of big cities and on the new premise that published in 1940 - called for strong spatial plan-
the old metropolis was dead . Thus during the war, ning based on the principles of decongestion and
planners did not think in terms of reconstructing the decentralisation of urban areas . The pro-planning
old cities but rather in terms of building new cities, atmosphere of the war brought reconstruction and
building either on new sites or on the old ones, where redevelopment into the realm of the planner . In
they could make use of the natural, immortal topo- 1944, Parliament created the Ministry of Town and

1 e 'Hamburg - the Catastrophe of July 1943 : the Death of a City and Reactions of Planners' .
' 9 Mason, with assistance from Nick Tiratsoo, 'People, Politics, and Planning : Coventry 1940-1953' . Cherry, 'Britain in the 1940s: the
Prelude to Reconstruction' . See in this issue of Urban Studies, Nick Bullock, 'Fragments of a Post-War Utopia : Housing in Finsbury,
1945-51' .
 URBAN RECONSTRUCTION IN EUROPE AFTER WORLD WAR II 135
Country Planning and in 1947 passed the Town and situation improved, the national government began
Country Planning Act, which gave planners the to retreat from town planning and from broad ideas
power to acquire and redevelop land in areas of planning in general, perhaps in anticipation of a
damaged in the war and in undamaged areas that revival of partisan political disputes over postwar
suffered from an absence of planning. priorities . In regard to Coventry, London was con-
In practice, the trend toward comprehensive cerned about the costs of Gibson's plans and about
urban planning was stimulated by the leadership of what seemed to be important pockets of criticism . In
Patrick Abercrombie and William Holford . Aber- fact, if Coventry's plans were to succeed, success
crombie prepared the County of London Plan in would depend on local initiative . In spite of some
1943 and the Greater London Plan in 1944-45 ; in rhetoric and in contrast to what is usually thought,
both he stressed zoning, street and highway planning the central government was generally opposed to
(especially ring roads), and decentralisation . Hol- what was being attempted in Coventry . Thus unlike
ford prepared the City of London Plan in 1947, in the continental countries occupied by Germany,
which he addressed the problem of redeveloping the central authorities here restrained reconstruction
damaged city core . His formula for control of planning rather than leading or pressing for it .
building density and building height proved particu- The tactics pursued by the Ministry of Town and
larly fruitful . With the work of Abercrombie and Country Planning to undermine Gibson's efforts
Holford as a foundation, representatives of various were varied . They included repeated visits of ad-
agencies could move on to neighbourhood planning visors, prolonged consultations on technical points,
and residential design . and administrative delays . The city, however, played
The steady move toward centralised planning on the game well, and by the time the Town and
the national level and in the national capital did not, Country Planning Act was passed in November
however, always mesh smoothly with reconstruction 1944, Gibson's plans still stood . Technical queries
planning elsewhere . Mason noted that already in were answered, and negotiations between local inter-
1938, Coventry's new Labour-dominated Council ests proceeded smoothly . Moreover, in 1945 a
had turned future town planning and architecture Labour government that favoured planning took
over to a new department under the young Donald over . Public discussions about the plan in 1945 and
Gibson . Gibson was a modernist inspired by Mum- 1946 seemed to resolve most criticisms of local
ford,° Le Corbusier, and Abercrombie . He believed citizens, though the Coventry Council itself began to
in social reform untrammelled by bureaucracy . worry about the costs of the project .
The German air raid of 14/15 November 1940 The situation by 1947 was confused . The ministry
destroyed 90 per cent of the central core of approved plans for reconstruction of 280 acres in the
Coventry . Gibson quickly stressed the potential central area, only half of the original proposal . The
gains from reconstruction . The Council sent a depu- 1947 Town and Country Planning Act increased the
tation to meet with the Minister of Works about government's powers to further plans for redevelop-
appropriate enabling legislation . The deputation left ment . It was still necessary to purchase land piece-
with the impression that Government financing meal, however, and compensation for the land
would be forthcoming and that Coventry would entailed growing costs . The Coventry town council
serve as a test case for future legislation. As a result, grew more cautious, deciding to start with a modest
Gibson and the Council pressed ahead with a plan project, and though initial enthusiasm was high,
for wholesale redevelopment of the city. negotiations to find a suitable developer lasted until
Gibson's plan contained several new elements : a 1949. To get things started, the council finally had to
ring road system, zoning based on function, and a act as developer itself, using a grant from the central
traffic-free shopping zone, all held together by aes- government to finance the project . Then actual
thetically pleasing architecture and vistas . The construction proved very slow, hampered by the
Council was enthusiastic, though some criticism national shortage of capital and raw materials and
from outside professionals focussed on the lack of by the defection of building labour to other indus-
solid cost estimates . The enthusiasm helped Gibson tries . Consequently, it was not until 1953 that the
prevail, but by the end of the war support from first project was finished . The frustration of earlier,
London had begun to wane . Indeed, as the military ambitious plans thus resembles similar experiences
1 36 JEFFRY M . DIEFENDORF

in France and Belgium . That the local consensus design. The solution was a low-level shopping street,
supporting both the Labour council and Gibson's with dwellings now to be built in tall slabs of
plan remained intact was clearly a result of the residential flats on open squares flanking the shop-
council's careful and sustained efforts at good public ping centre .
relations . Interestingly, the architecture of the Lijnbaan
If the relationship between postwar reconstruc- strongly suggests the emergency shopping complexes
tion and wartime or prewar planning was perhaps erected during the war. The concrete skeleton with
the most important theme to be developed at the porous partitions and elevations of prefabricated
Bellagio conference, a second major theme was the slabs was flexible and economical but also anony-
conflict between a desire for historic reconstruction mous and transparent . The effect has been theatre
and a desire for reconstruction according to modern architecture, a perfect circulation machine like the
conceptions of ideal urban forms . We have already later Beaubourg in Paris . The functions of looking
encountered this theme in the reconstruction of and buying were reciprocally reinforced . The archi-
Middelburg and Warsaw, but the conflict was pres- tect Van den Broek had come back from a trip to
ent in other cities too . America in 1948 fascinated by the advantages of
One of the first cities to experience massive Ger- huge shop windows, whose transparency dissolved
man bombing was Rotterdam, a city that resolutely the separation between interior and exterior spaces .
opted for modernisation . According to E . R. M . Furthermore, Van den Broek introduced the Ameri-
Taverne, this was especially evident in the design of can idea of escalators to create the sense of mobile,
the Lijnbaan in the heart of the rebuilt city, which he changing, exterior spaces .
labelled a prototype of a postwar urban shopping Also important in the success of the Lijnbaan was
centre . 20 its visual proximity to the city hall . The effort to
The design of the Lijnbaan shopping centre was integrate the cultural and administrative centre with
based on a concept of low, open streets alongside the shopping area reflected the popularity of sociolo-
tall, slab-like buildings . It was thus an attempt to gical theories about neighbourhoods as developed
transplant the model of an American suburban particularly by Lewis Mumford . According to this
shopping centre into the centre of the new Rotter- theory, neighbourhoods had to have meaningful
dam, and it symbolises the conflicting economic and relations with all spheres of urban life while retaining
socio-cultural concepts underlying plans for recon- a truly human scale . The design, scale, and orien-
struction. The Outline Plan of 1946 for Rotterdam's tation of the Lijnbaan seemed to do just this, making
reconstruction reflected the widespread belief that it a metaphor for the harmonious city .
the bombing had presented the city with an oppor- Few cities, however, were willing to choose the
tunity to renew and modernise . It called for ad- modern path so completely as Rotterdam . Florence,
ditional demolition and a radical redesign of the Italy, did not suffer from systematic bombardment,
central area, including a traffic roundabout and but a great deal of damage was done by the Germans
spacious boulevards to draw people into the redeve- at the end of the war when they decided to destroy
loped area. Initially the plan called for multi-func- five of the six bridges over the Arno (sparing only the
tion or multiple-use buildings: closed blocks with Ponte Vechhio) and to create clear `fields of fire' on
shops on the ground floor, offices and other busi- either side of the river in the centre of the old city .
nesses above, and dwellings above them . Provision Fabrizio Brunetti submitted a paper on the heated
was made for green spaces, delivery roads, and debate about the style of reconstruction in Florence,
parking garages . a debate which took place within a larger Italian
The ideas of the retailers, however, differed from debate about recovery in a planned versus a free-
those of the planners . Retailers wanted a more market economy . 21
traditional shopping promenade, rather than closed In the Florentine case, the famed art critic Ber-
blocks, and their reluctance to commit themselves to nard Berenson argued that at least the exteriors of
occupying the planned buildings forced a change in the demolished buildings should be rebuilt as repli-

20 E . R . M . Taverne, `The Lijnbaan (Rotterdam) : A Prototype of a Postwar Urban Shopping Center' .

21 'Sulla ricostruzione postbellica in Italia con particolare riguardo al caso di Firenze' .
 URBAN RECONSTRUCTION IN EUROPE AFTER WORLD WAR II 137
cas of what had existed before the war, just as the supervision of historic preservation authorities .
Campanile in St . Mark's Square was rebuilt after its Meanwhile, however, many property owners had
collapse at the beginning of the century . Others rebuilt classical or baroque facades without benefit
argued that such a literal reconstruction would be a of historical and scientific study . Only after 1962 was
form of fakery and fraud that would cause both all construction in the residential area based on
citizens and visitors to doubt the authenticity of the thorough study of the documentary and architec-
city . In the end a compromise was reached . One tural record .
bridge, Santa Trinita, was rebuilt in its historic form There had been about 190 individual buildings in
using traditional materials. Otherwise most of the the residential area before 1945 . Of these, 42 were
reconstructed buildings were new, though most were totally destroyed, 62 suffered major damage, and 32
designed in a style intended to harmonise with the needed extensive renovation . In looking at indivi-
old . dual examples, one can see that a variety of solutions
Reconstruction of damaged cities in what became were chosen . A key feature of the destruction was
Communist Eastern Europe is intriguing because of that it was largely the result of street fighting, not
the differing decisions as to what to do about historic massive bombing. Consequently damage was grea-
monuments and districts . Erzsebet Harrach dis- test on the facades, often leaving interior courtyards
cussed this question of the appropriate style of and structures intact or less damaged . In reconstruc-
reconstruction as applied to the Castle Hill, the tion it was often possible to preserve various old
former royal citadel and adjacent residential area on elements and integrate them with modern elements
the hill overlooking Budapest." This area had needed by renovation . In many cases war damage
contained medieval houses and larger, mostly baro- revealed unknown medieval masonry under baroque
que palaces and noble residences . In many ways the plastered facades, and some of this was preserved as
Burg constituted an architectural diary of important found, rather than being replastered . This gives a
events in Hungarian history . greater sense of the residential area's medieval
Toward the end of the war, Budapest lay on the origins .
front lines for almost two months and suffered New uses had to be found for some buildings
enormous damage . Because there was unanimous because the previous uses were inappropriate under
recognition of the symbolic importance of the Castle current conditions . The former royal palace could
Hill, its reconstruction was the first of the postwar not be converted to social housing, nor were large,
reconstruction efforts . Work was carried on in two aristocratic residences in this area suited to multifa-
areas : the slow renovation and restoration of the mily housing, and it was considered unjust to save
palace complex, and the restoration of the residen- them for single families . Hence, several large resi-
tial area . Between 1946 and 1949, government legis- dences were converted into restaurants or cafes .
lation made all buildings on the Castle Hill state Others served public uses : a library, a museum, a
property . Consequently, property owners could not post office, an office for a city agency . One large
oppose the city's plans for reconstruction . building was turned over to the Hungarian Academy
In the reconstruction of the residential area, the of Sciences . The former Franciscan cloister was
city rejected a narrow, purist approach of historic rebuilt to house a theatre and institutions of the
preservationism, but rather in each case decided what Academy of Sciences .
to save, what to renovate, and what to display . It The largest single new construction project was
made an effort to balance the original network of the Hilton Hotel, which illustrates the problems of
streets, the building lines, the property divisions, the filling gaps left by wartime destruction and of using
mass of the buildings, roof heights, and the relations historic remains . The building site included the
of the facades to each other . Unfortunately, between remains of the medieval Dominican church, school,
1945 and 1955 a number of buildings were con- and cloister, and the baroque Jesuit convent . Early
structed that harmonised neither with the past nor on the city wanted to build something on the site but
with modern styles and lacked genuine character . there was no agreement on what should be built and
After 1949 the whole area was placed under the by whom . Before the hotel design was approved,

22 'Questions about the Reconstruction of the Castle Hill of Buda after 1945' .
1 38 JEFFRY M . DIEFENDORF

there were long arguments over its height and mass . while a Central Office for Town and Country Plan-
The final design presents a new facade toward the ning and its regional dependent institutions had
Danube but utilises the old Jesuit facade on the Burg already been shut down in 1949 . Nevertheless, the
side. Large numbers of historic remains are incor- Institute of Town Planning and Architecture, along
porated into the interior of the structure, including with the Ministry of Culture and Art, began in 1950
the remains of the tower of the Nikolai church . what became the systematic, historical study of
The royal palace was the final stronghold of the Poland's towns and monuments, upon which subse-
German troops and was reduced to ruins in the quent planning could be based . Between 1955 and
fighting . Reconstruction followed in three stages : the 1958, all districts and regions were the subjects of
rebuilding of the baroque Habsburg palace, the planning studies, and soon thereafter general plans
rebuilding of the remains of the medieval palace and establishing principles of spatial management and
the Hungarian royal fortress, and finally the rebuild- designating areas for historic preservation were
ing of the remaining buildings, including the Carme- drafted for all towns .
lite cloister and the Sandor palace . In rebuilding the Many approaches were used in Polish reconstruc-
royal palace, the city council decided in 1945 not to tion, and most entailed extensive changes in the
copy what had existed before but rather to build a historic cities . In Gdansk, for example, the street
modern building using what did remain and could be layout and facades were restored, but the interiors of
salvaged . Not until 1958 was it finally decided to the buildings and their uses were changed . Elsewhere
turn the palace into a cultural centre, namely a it was only the roof lines that were preserved, or the
national gallery, a museum of the history of the street system, while all the buildings were new . In
Hungarian working class movement, the historical such cases the historic centres disappeared . Once this
museum of Budapest, and the national library . Some has happened, all that can be restored are propor-
of the external architectural details are new, like the tions and structures rebuilt according to moulds or
dome, but they are adapted to the overall baroque models .
structure. Here too some architectural remains from In the first 25 years after the war, three distinct
the medieval and renaissance periods were revealed periods of reconstruction activity can be identified :
for the first time in centuries and incorporated into 1945-1950, 1950-1956, and 1956-1970 . Between
the rebuilt structure . The interiors are completely 1945 and 1950 it was thought imperative to rebuild
modern, however, serving their new purposes . In historic town centres and monuments even when
sum, then, both the reconstruction of the large that went against established scientific principles of
public buildings and of the smaller, private resi- historic preservation . Reconstruction was based on
dences and shops represents an evolving compro- historic and archaeological investigations wherever
mise between historic styles and modern uses . possible . The problem of preserving the `Polish'
The destruction from the war was of course not character of some towns added confusion . What
limited to Poland's capital city : 350 of Poland's 1400 should be done about buildings erected during
historic towns had been damaged . As Teresa Zarebs- earlier periods of foreign domination? Generally
ka's paper showed, the top priority enjoyed by buildings from all periods were rebuilt, with the
Warsaw meant that reconstruction elsewhere was exception of those of the nineteenth century . It was
much slower, and indeed in other towns large areas also important that the old centres receive a modern
of ruins remained for 20 or more years after the war, infrastructure : modern light and sanitary conditions,
with only key monumental buildings being preserved better traffic flow, and the elimination of various
or restored . 23 outbuildings and annexes . This approach, however,
Though the new social system introduced a was effective for only a few selected cities . Elsewhere
planned economy, town planning progressed in fits the large degree of destruction and the complexity of
and starts . New sets of laws and regulations concern- reconstruction necessitated the rapid building of
ing historic preservation were passed in 1962, 1970, housing blocks that encroached upon the old town
and again in 1981 . After the war a Ministry of areas .
Reconstruction carried on improvised operations, The period from 1950 to 1956 was characterised

23 'The Development of Concepts in the Reconstruction and Rebuilding of Bombed Cities in Poland' .
 URBAN RECONSTRUCTION IN EUROPE AFTER WORLD WAR II 139
by the search for socialist architecture . Typical were palaces and churches . Even the workers' districts
monumental solutions to workers' housing that contained free-standing apartment buildings sur-
often provided inadequate services and amenities . rounded by gardens, rather than the densely built
Though this housing was much criticised in the late slums one found in Berlin .
1950s, certain of its features, such as the use of The reconstructed Dresden contains only a few
traditional materials and varied roof lines, can be architectural monuments and little if any of the city-
appreciated today . And some of the non-descript shape of the city that was destroyed . It is a new city
buildings, while they did not add to the character of rebuilt according to the ideal of the socialist city .
a city, did not detract too much either . The recon- However, because the definition of that ideal has
struction of major monuments received special at- constantly shifted since the war, Dresden also re-
tention in selected cities, like Poznan, where the first flects a patchwork of ever-changing and conflicting
modern architecture was introduced into the area of urban concepts . This patchwork reflects conflicts
the restored central market place . much more complex that the often-mentioned dis-
The period from 1956 to 1970 began with severe crepancy between GDR planning visions and the
criticism of socialist realism in architecture . A natio- reality of its economic capacities .
nal conference of architects denounced industria- In the early years two developments shaped recon-
lised, standardised architecture . Co-operative build- struction: first, the socialisation of much of the
ing trades that allowed for private building initiative building material industry and of large construction
were reborn, especially in smaller towns, but in firms, and second, a radical programme of rubble
larger cities there was still a great deal of construc- clearance. Between 1946 and 1953, the city removed
tion of large, five to eleven storey housing complexes street-long areas of still-standing facades of burned
that were poorly related to the historic centres . out buildings . In the West, these burned-out build-
The consequences for Polish towns have been ings might have been reconstructed and would have
decidedly mixed . Except for special cases like War- served as models for the rest of the city . In 1946, city
saw and Gdansk, and despite the prolonged and authorities organised an exhibition with the objec-
extensive effort at historic preservation and resto- tive of discouraging any individualistic or private
ration by Polish architectural conservators, the per- restoration of damaged buildings .
manent loss of historic urban substance has been In 1949 a Ministry of Reconstruction was estab-
very great, and often the new construction has been lished, and in 1950 a law regulating reconstruction
unsuccessful . was proclaimed . This law allowed the expropriation
The commonly conveyed image of Dresden in the of land without compensation and also set up
German Democratic Republic is that of a beautiful centralised guidelines for all building and urban
city beautifuly restored . Jiirgen Paul argued that this planning. These guidelines, drawn up in a new
is not really the case ." While Dresden is generally society always conscious of social goals, called for
thought of as having been a baroque city character- further urbanisation . Political, cultural, and admi-
ised by the Zwinger Palace, several churches, and nistrative facilities were to be located in the city
aristocratic palaces, the city that was destroyed in centres; squares were to be constructed for public
February 1945 was in fact a city of the nineteenth celebrations ; and the silhouette was to be character-
century . Its city-shape was a product of the Roman- ised by major monumental buildings . Urban plan-
tics, who not only contributed the architecture of ning and aesthetic and architectural forms should
Semper but also succeeded in keeping the inner city reflect the nature of the new society . The beginning
free of industry . Thus while the heart of Dresden of the Stalinallee in Berlin set a tone imitative of
retained a baroque and neo-baroque atmosphere, Moscow : all cities should have a vast demonstration
the city was characterised by its many gardens and square, a magistrale or main avenue, and a skys-
parks and its extensive residential districts of free- craper of some sort .
standing villas on wide avenues rather than by its In practice, however, there was widespread confu-

24 'The Reconstruction of Dresden' . Unfortunately, Dr. Thomas Topfstedt was not able to participate in the conference . See his
Grundlinien der Entwicklung von Stadtebau and Archilektur in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1949 bis 1955 (Diss ., Leipzig,
1980) .
1 40 JEFFRY M . DIEFENDORF

sion about the meaning of a socialist city . In Dres- historic buildings in the city centres, which were
den, the result was disagreement over whether to themselves no longer the main focus of interest . In
preserve or abandon the historic city street plan, the terms of actual construction, initial projects were
proportional dimensions of existing monuments, outside the city centre. The first inner-city project
and the historic silhouette . Competitions were held was a low shopping mall along the model of Rotter-
in 1951 and 1952, with unsatisfactory results . Propo- dam's Lijnbaan . In the mid-1960s a pedestrian zone
sals ranged from a huge central square and domi- was planned, and finally in 1967 a comprehensive
nant tower to restoration and reconstruction of the town plan was completed, though few of the pro-
historic city along lines similar to those followed in posed buildings and highways were actually built .
Nuremberg, Munich, and Munster in the West. Since the 1970s there has been another shift,
Local officials favoured historic restoration, while though a tacit one . Historic preservation, recon-
the communist party and especially the central struction, and historic adaptations are now encour-
government favoured a new dominant tower that aged, and there are plans to reconstruct some of
would mean an end to Dresden's historic Dresden's buildings, like the Frauenkirche, which
atmosphere . had been completely razed. Today the city is full of
In 1953, Berlin decided that construction should inconsistencies and contradictions . It is not a rep-
start on a large central square that would enlarge the resentative socialist city, it does not reflect a work-
old market square to three times its original size . The ing-class culture, nor does it embody the cultural
use and nature of the buildings facing the square heritage of the prewar city .
were not prescribed ; all that was required was the The reason for the shifting conceptions of urban
building of a uniform monumental facade adapted form and of urban reconstruction in Eastern Europe
to Dresden's baroque style . The question of the was usually to be found in politics, another major
tower was left undecided, and there was no overall theme of the conference . The political process did
city plan. In fact, even the projected monumental not affect reconstruction in Eastern Europe only, of
socialist square remained incomplete, with only the course . As noted above, it also helped slow and
east and west sides finished . The huge square served change reconstruction plans in Holland, Belgium,
then mainly to ensure that reconstruction would at France, and England. In his paper, Klaus von
least entail a new spatial organisation . Beyme traced some of the complex relations between
Further inconclusive competitions led to the even- political, social, and economic conditions in the
tual though also fragmentary construction of a German Democratic Republic and their influence on
magistrale . This very wide and relatively short ave- reconstruction .2 5
nue broke up the formerly compact form of the The towns of the GDR were less heavily bombed
small, medieval centre . Local resistance to construc- than those in West Germany, but the prewar hous-
tion of a dominant tower continued unabated . ing stock had been in poorer condition . Between the
Meanwhile, baroque facades and the ruins of many war's end and 1961, the GDR suffered enormous
important nineteenth century buildings were demo- population losses from migration to the West . The
lished and carted off. Several proposals for the harmful effect of population loss was compounded
reconstruction of the Frauenkirche were made by the fact that a high proportion of the education
between 1955 and 1959, when a new plan was and highly skilled groups fled . The division and
adopted calling for completion of the magistrate, the dismemberment of Germany created more difficult
square, and a tower . In 1962 the ruins of the conditions in the GDR than in the West . The Soviets
Frauenkirche were finally demolished . continued to exact reparations from the GDR long
Meanwhile in the mid-1950s there was a turn after the Western powers had ceased to do so in their
away from Stalinist architecture and a general zones, and the GDR did not receive Marshall aid .
change in priorities . Instead of the socialist city, the The GDR leadership believed that state owner-
government now stressed the construction of socia- ship of the land and central planning of the bombed
list housing . This meant not only a reallocation of towns would compensate for disadvantageous econ-
resources but also further demolition of the ruins of omic conditions . In theory land confiscation
25
'Reconstruction in the German Democratic Republic' .
 URBAN RECONSTRUCTION IN EUROPE AFTER WORLD WAR II 141
required that owners be compensated, but the state Von Beyme argued that certain similarities can be
got around this requirement by simply charging the found between the reconstruction in East and West
owners taxes. and fees for . rubble removall that Germany. In both there was a great deal of social
exceeded the compensations due them. Though most housing with state support (though obviously more
of the land in central urban areas was thus expro- in the East) . In neither country were there very
priated in the 1950s, an integrated policy of land use successful attempts at the creation of truly signifi-
was developed only much later . Furthermore, much cant new urban monuments, though both countries
of the construction industry remained in private constructed skyscrapers that represented a new kind
hands . Reconstruction was thus influenced by socia- of megalomania . Traffic and parking problems
list ideology, but in complex ways . The GDR existed in both states . In both states one can see an
stressed that there was no single ideal of a socialist impoverished architectural imagination .
town, and it rejected imitation of the Soviet model . It The central themes of the conference, then, were :
tended to stress the symbolic function of architec- (1) continuities between the postwar, wartime, and
ture, while initially neglecting housing construction prewar periods in such areas as reconstruction,
in favour of an industrial build-up . Four new indus- planning, and personnel; (2) conflicts between the
trial towns were built, but only one was successful desire for historic reconstruction and the desire for
and only because it was close to the old, large city of urban modernisation in line with ideal urban forms ;
Halle. and (3) the political and economic constraints
The guiding theme of reconstruction was largely imposed on reconstruction . The research suggested
functionalist, which is to say modernist . Key ideas that the political and economic problems were in
were the limitation of town growth, the emphasis on many ways common to most of war-torn Europe,
a monumental city centre, and rejection of the both East and West. In part this similarity derived
garden city concept in favour of high-rise housing . from common situations: old, unplanned cities were
During the first phase of reconstruction, GDR forced to deal with the consequences of prewar
authorities were uncertain about the appropriate growth and change and also with the destruction
architectural style . Not many projects were finished brought by the war .
before 1955, and those that were varied in decorative A final paper, however, suggested another reason
style from historicist to modernist to Stalinist . A for some of the commonality of experience . Fried-
second phase from 1955 to 1973 was marked by helm Fischer presented some of the results of his
industrial building techniques, as engineers replaced work on urban reconstruction as an international
architects in importance . Monumental construction phenomenon . 26 He noted that urban reconstruction
was undertaken in the centres of the larger cities, was not restricted to war-damaged cities nor war-
most notably Berlin's Alexanderplatz and then damaged countries ." In America during the war,
Marx-Engels square. In many places large, dull for example, Walter Gropius and Martin Wagner,
buildings were constructed that lacked any relation both German refugees at Harvard University, wrote
with what remained of the historic architecture . articles calling for reconstruction of American cities
Toward the end of the second phase, there was that had been ruined by urban blight . They hoped
renewed interest in architectural aesthetics and more that America's technical and organisational capaci-
imaginative use of colours and forms - even in ties could be turned from war production to the
monumental buildings like the television tower in redevelopment of America's major cities .
Berlin and the university skyscrapers in Jena and In 1947, Gropius visited Germany at the invi-
Leipzig . This led to a new, qualitative phase of urban tation of American military officials, and his sugges-
transformation after 1973. Pedestrian malls were tions were derived from both his American exper-
built, as was new inner-city housing . Planners redis- iences and his observations of German conditions .
covered the value of urban life in the old towns and He proposed the creation of a national ministry of
placed a new emphasis placed on preservation or reconstruction, a central `Institute for Planning and
restoration of historic monuments . Building Integration', and sweeping land reform .
26 'Urban Reconstruction as an International Enterprise' .
27 See also Jeffry M . Diefendorf, `Berlin on the Charles, Cambridge on the Spree : Walter Gropius, Martin Wagner, and the
Rebuilding of Germany', in Kulturelle Wechselbeziehungen im Exil - Exile across Cultures, Helmut F. Pfanner, ed . (Bonn, 1986) .
1 42 JEFFRY M . DIEFENDORF

None of his proposals, however, was ever carried presented at the Bellagio conference . Cities from
out. Finally, Fischer pointed to travelling exhibi- Austria to Greece had to be rebuilt." Spanish cities
tions on American, British, and French planning were damaged in a civil war that some might argue
and architecture organised by the occupying powers . was the opening phase of the Second World War .29
These dealt with the construction of new housing but It would be extremely interesting to know how the
also with broader concepts of planning. Soviet Union dealt with the task of reconstruction .
Fischer also observed that while it is often thought And, of course, there was vast urban destruction in
Germany became isolated during the Third Reich, Asia, where reconstruction might instructively be
that was not really the case . Between 1933 and 1939, compared with that process in Europe .
Germans participated actively in all of the con- There are also important questions of methodo-
gresses of the International Federation for Housing logy and sources that need to be considered . In her
and Town Planning (IFHTP), and Stuttgart's paper on French reconstruction, Daniele Voldman
Mayor Strohlin was elected president of that fede- discussed some of the problems raised by oral
ration in 1933 . Several important planners, including history ." For example, she found that former re-
Konstanty Gutschow of Hamburg, visited the construction officials were nostalgic about their days
United States to study American planning and of public service and incapable of real self-criticism .
skyscraper architecture. Even after the war began, Thus even though they had been officials, they
some Germans, especially in Hamburg, kept well nevertheless blamed government bureaucracy, or the
informed of developments in English town planning political parties, or the shortages of building mater-
legislation. ials and labour, or financial difficulties - but never
Immediately after the war there were many efforts themselves - for the failure to realise their aim of
to re-establish international contacts and to renew transforming French town planning . The technoc-
the flow of information. Study groups in Berlin and rats held themselves blameless. They were also
Hamburg, for example, collected materials on recon- reluctant to reflect on their behaviour as citizens who
struction all over Europe and tried to organise stayed at their posts during the German occupation
workshops and lectures by international experts. In and thus worked with or for their conquerors . The
1946 a German branch of the IFHTP was reformed analysis of such selective or distorted recollections of
on the initiative of its prewar members . It organised the past, Voldman indicated, requires great care on
lecture tours and exhibitions on English reconstruc- the part of the historian .
tion and planned visits by Germans to England and In spite of the fact that oral histories are not
other countries . Germany was readmitted to the always trustworthy, they remain an important re-
IFHTP in 1950 and in 1954 German was again source . Unfortunately, the actors of that period are
recognised as one of the registered languages of the rapidly dying off, and it is essential to collect their
federation . personal histories . Moreover, many of these retired
Thus the Bellagio conference covered many as- planners and architects still possess invaluable collec-
pects of postwar reconstruction but there are still tions of documents, plans, and drawings, many of
important aspects to be researched . The internatio- which are not to be found duplicated in public
nal context in which European - as opposed to just archives . Unfortunately, many city and even regional
German - urban reconstruction took place is and national archives are not well equipped to solicit
clearly one of the many areas where more research is and care for these materials, especially when they are
needed before a satisfactory general account of the currently overwhelmed by the volume of documents
reconstruction process can be ventured . In addition, being turned over by public agencies . Even when
there are countries that suffered urban destruction archives do have important holdings on reconstruc-
during World War II but were not covered in papers tion, the material is not always open to scholarly

38 For an introduction to Austrian reconstruction, see my 'Vienna, Berlin, and Budapest : Rebuilding Capital Cities', forthcoming in a
volume (currently) entitled : Central European Cities : Twentieth Century Culture and Society in Vienna, Budapest, Prague, and Berlin,
John Lampe, ed ., to be published by The Wilson Center in 1989.
2Y
Carlos Sambricio has written on architecture and planning in Madrid under Spanish fascism, especially in the 1940s . See, for
example, his essay in Frank, ed . Faschistische Architekturen .(see note 7) .
30 See note 13 .


URBAN RECONSTRUCTION IN EUROPE AFTER WORLD WAR II 143

inspection . The discussions and papers presented at and ideas in other countries . Moreover, just as
the conference suggest that urban historians can do scholars demonstrate continuities with earlier per-
much to help collect and conserve the sources for iods, they will increasingly have to place the era of
urban history as well as to analyse those sources . reconstruction within the greater context of the
Finally, the papers presented at Bellagio should go history of Europe's cities in the whole twentieth
far to provide an interpretative framework for century . After all, concepts of the ideal city and
further research . The importance of continuities tastes in architecture have changed several times in
between prewar ideas on urban planning, wartime this period . An evaluation of the successes and
planning, and postwar reconstruction is very clear, failures in rebuilding must take into account not
as is the significance of cross-national influences . In only what was wanted, what was possible, and what
spite of hostilities in war and deep political divisions was done during the years after the war, but also
in peacetime, the individuals responsible for rebuild- how well the achievement of reconstruction has
ing the bombed cities were not isolated from events stood the test of time .