CCHU9048 The City: Histories of Urbanism and the Built Environment

Week 8
COLONIAL MODERN
Casablanca, Singapore, Hong Kong
What are the characteristics of a modernist City?
What are the processes that give shape to it?
What are the values & beliefs associated with being ‘modern”? i
 HOW DO WE DEFINE A MODERNIST CITY?
FORMS PROCESSES VALUES , BELIEFS,
WAY OF THINKING
Built Forms Phenomena
•  Highrises / Skyscrapers •  Urbanization Rationality
•  Forms Follow Functions •  Suburbanization •  Efficiency
•  New materials (steel & glass) •  Industrialization •  Practicality
•  Modern Apartments •  Increased Productivity •  Forms follow Functions
•  Escalators •  Consumption – more •  Speed
•  Department stores choices •  Scientific
•  Gentrification
New Spaces & Systems •  Mass Production / Values / Aspirations
•  Broad Avenues, Public Parks Standardization •  “Ornament is Crime”
•  Better Transportation Networks •  Urban Problems / crime, •  Prosperity
•  New Infrastructures health
•  Law and Order
•  Public Services (street light, water, •  Equality / Equity
etc. ) Macro Processes •  Sense of Community
•  Agglomeration of Industries •  Industrialization •  Civic Pride
•  Better Social Services (e.g. health) •  Capitalism / Expansion •  Continuous Progress
of the Economy •  Break with the Past
Methods of Planning & Design •  Socialism / Control Over
•  Mixed Land Use Capital
•  Introduction of Planning Regulation
•  Planning for Density
•  Urban Renewal
•  Beautification
Source: SPIRO online catalogue, College of Environmental Design Visual Centre, University of California, Berkeley

Le Corbusier’s Radiant City, 1930

Reconsidering the Modernist City:
•  Are all present cities ‘modernist cities’?
•  If we consider some cities to be more ‘modern’ than others, what
specific aspects are we referring to?
•  How may comparisons of the forms and norms of different modernist
cities in the past help us reflect upon our assumptions, biases and
aspirations about modernization in the present?

Questions about the Colonial City:

•  What defines a colonial city?
•  What processes shape the formation of its urban landscape?
•  What are the underlying goals of colonial development, and who are the
beneficiaries and losers in the process?
•  How have the colonial built environments been represented by the
colonizers as well as the colonized people themselves?

Key Terms:
colonialism, colonial development, segregation, managed difference,
dual-city, assimilation, association
Taipingshan, looking towards the Mid-level District, 1860s

Source: The British National Archives

 Formation of The Dual City

European Residential District

Source: The British National Archives

Proposed Residential Segregation Boundary, Hong Kong 1888

 Formation of The Dual City

http://www.mascontext.com/issues/17-boundary-spring-13/the-segregation-paradoxes/

The interface between Old Delhi and British New Delhi, 1942
Imperialism is “the practice, theory and
attitude of a dominating metropolitan
centre ruling a distant territory."

Colonialism is "a specific articulation of

imperialism associated with territorial
invasions and settlements."
(Edward Said, Orientalism)

Colonialism is a sub-project within a

greater project of imperialist capitalist
expansion.

Colonialism involves militaristic,

economic and cultural domination over a
separate group of people who are
viewed as a subordinate on foreign
territories.
Chinese in Hong Kong,
Illustrated London News,
1880s.
Illustration, Harper’s Magazine
“The Implacable Axes of a Straight Line”
Haussmann’s remodeling of Paris

Source: SPIRO online catalogue, College of Environmental Design Visual Centre, University of California, Berkeley
Source: British National Archives Source: SPIRO online catalogue, College of Environmental Design
Visual Centre, University of California, Berkeley

Improvement Schemes in
Shumshuipo, Hong Kong, 1910s
http://nec-pluribus-impar.over-blog.fr/article-14410381.html

The Colonial Civilizing Mission

 The Making of the Colonial Landscape

Source: The British National Archives

 Images of the Dual City

Source: Stephen Legg, Spaces of Colonialism, 2007. Source: Zeynep Celik, Urban Forms and Colonial
Confrontations, 1997.

Delhi, India Algiers, Algeria

 Establishing a Symbolic Colonial Landscape:

Source: Zeynep Celik, Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations, 1997.

Place des Armes, Algiers, Algeria, 1930s

Source: Zeynep Celik, Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations, 1997. http://publishing.cdlib.org/
ucpressebooks/view?
docId=ft8c6009jk&chunk.id=d0e257&toc.i
d=d0e257&brand=ucpress

Left: Algiers, waterfront

Right: Sketch of the Muslim Casbah u

Images of the Casbah, Algiers, Algiera
Source: Gwendolyn Wright, The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism. 1991.

Casablanca, Morocco
Colonial Governing Strategies: From Assimilation to
Association

http://halfaoui.blogzoom.fr/r30033/Lyautey-Mangin-Gouraud-Le-Protectorat/

Hubert Lyautey, Resident-General of Morocco, 1912-1925

 !
Source: Gwendolyn Wright, The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism. 1991.

Plan of Casablanca, Morocco, by Henri Prost, 1917.

The Chicago Plan of 1909
http://archnet.org/sites/10130/media_contents/95315

Zoning plan for Casablanca, Morocco

 Boulevard du IV Zouaves,
!
Casablanca, 1925.

Ville Nouvelle and Medina,

Casablanca, 1926.
!
Source: Gwendolyn Wright, The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism. 1991.
Source: http://www.payer.de/thailandchronik/images%2017/thai069738.jpg
 !
Source: Gwendolyn Wright, The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism. 1991.

Left: Drawings by Albert Labrade, House design for the New Medina

Right: Images of the Habous District, Casablanca

 Hong Kong

Singapore
 Malay
Chinese

Commercial Europeans
District
Arabs

Bugis

Source: http://southeast-asia.jbdirectory.com/File:Jackson_Plan_ekk.jpg

The Jackson Plan (1822) showing the segregation of the races in Singapore
Source: Brenda Yeoh, Contesting Space: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment in Colonial Singapore.

Images of the Dual City of Singapore: European Quarter and Chinatown

Source: Brenda Yeoh, Contesting Space: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment in Colonial Singapore.

Investigation & proposal to improve existing Chinese houses, 1900s

 !
Source: Robert Home, Of Planting and Planning: The Making of British Colonial Cities.

Plan of back to back houses showing proposed backlanes.

 !
Source: Brenda Yeoh, Contesting Space: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment in Colonial Singapore.

Demolition of the rear of back-to-back houses and the newly

constructed backlane
Source: The British National Archives

City of Victoria, Hong Kong, 1843

Source: The British National Archives

Taipingshan Chinese District

Mid-level
European District

City of Victoria, Hong Kong, 1889

Source: The British National Archives

Taipingshan, looking towards the Mid-level District, 1880s

 Source: The British National Archives

City of Victoria, 1843 (First Land Auction, 1843

City of Victoria, Hong Kong, 1889

 Source: The British National Archives

Two Worlds of the City of Victoria

Study of Tenements
in Hong Kong by
Colonial Engineers

(Source: Chadwick Report,

1882, The British National
Archives)
Source: The British National Archives

A plan showing the typical layouts of the lots in the Lower Bazaar in 1889.
 Adults
Children

Source: The British National Archives

Source: The British National Archives
 Source: 20th Century Impression of
Hong Kong

A Wealthy Chinese Family in Hong Kong

 Images of a Wealthy
Hong Kong Chinese,
Li Sing
Source: 20th Century Impression of Hong Kong
 European Residential District

Source: The British National Archives

Residential Segregation Boundary, 1888

 The Peak (Hill District), 1880s Chinese District, 1880s

European Residential Reservation Boundary, 1888

Source: The British National Archives

 The Peak District, 1880s

Source: Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

Source: The British National Archives

Existing Tenements in 1880s Proposed Improved Tenements, 1903

Source: The British National Archives

Chinese Tenement Houses, Western District, 1900s

Source: The British National
Archives
“Chinese habits were the outcome of a lengthened
experience among the Chinese living in large and
crowded cities, and are as deep rooted as most of their
social customs, so that it is quite certain that the tenants
for whom these houses are intended as they would not
understand the reason, would in no way avail
themselves of the facilities for the free access of light
and air which the Surveyor General’s proposed
alternations would provide for them.”
Source: The British National Archives

Plan showing proposed new water mains for Victoria, 1882

Source: The British National Archives