TOWN PLANNING.

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19883, 12 May 1936, Page 9

TOWN PLANNING.

VIGOROUS POLICY IN ITALV. NATIONAL COMPETITIONS. l ___. 1 In New Zealand town-planning con-l tinues to be rather an ideal than aw definite recognisable movement. Some} encouragement for the idealists in the Dominion is given by the far-reach-l ing progress made in Italy. In a paper‘ on “Recent Town Planning and Archin teeture in Italy," read at a meeting. of the Liverpool Architectural Society,‘ Mr Wesley Dougill said that froml the town-planning Jioint of view thel objective had been to clear away the. rubbish of centuries, to eliminate] slums and raise the standard of hous-. ing of the poorer classes, to renovatel. and systematise the towns in orderl to fit them for the new trnfiic condi-l tions, and to cater, by means of newl towns and extensions to existing ones,‘ for the people displaced by clearance} schemes and for the rapidly growing; population. l ltaly, at an early stage, determined. not to allow around her existing townsi those unplanned, haphazard exten—l sions which had become a universal thing in practically every other coun—try. At the beginning of last year 30 per cent. of her towns had com—pleted their comprehensive plans of systematisation and extension, and a further 50 per cent. were well on the way towards completing: theirs. Almost without exception the plans were the result of national planning ('Olllpetitions, and in most cases were pre—pared by groups of planners. The earlier tmvn-plzmning was designed by urcretions, but latterly the satellite town system had been adopted livery town had its stadium, na-w holiday resorts had been built, and marine and mountain colonies had been established for children. Experlments In Europe. Mr E. R. Yen-burr, who recently toured Europe ’for the study of var—ious schemes, :lan a summary of his observations to the British Architectural Association. "()no striking fact about \\'orl{in;:-clus> housing~ in various parts of Europe," hr said. "is the in» lllOllliUllS amount of t‘X,’lUl‘lnl“l‘lHl work which ha. lu-(‘n ilnnv in regard to the actual huxlilings erected. both by way of using new materials, and by novel methods of construction. sometime:

:=s=—_—.__= with satisfactory results and sometimes with very disastrous results. I .would suggest to anyone who desires ‘to undertake research in matters ro‘lating to housing that one branch of lsuch research might very well be an ‘cxamination of the materials and lmethods which have been in use in working-class housing for the last ten years, and the effects of time and use upon them. It would be most interesting to see the results of such research. It is so easy to go on in ignorance of the actual and potential value of materials and to produce some smar‘u looking but cheap scheme, leaving the people who have to live there afterwards to sufl'er from it. It may be the fault of local and national govl ernment authorities that such things happen; it may be that they should provide—as in Germany. for instancv, they have provided—for the erection of experimental houses in which all sorts of new materials and types of material are introduced, and that only when these have stood the test of time should permission be granted to utilise them in working—class housing." m