Kieran’s our City, Our Town Article, 10 January 2013

“Technical Memories (Part 39) –Guiding the City’s Future”

“In this world of change, no city can remain for long in a stationary condition. Either it must be in a state of expansion, alteration or deterioration…it is the highest degree desirable that there should be in existence a wisely prepared town plan, which will not only guide its future growth, but also so control its existing mass that no change can be made except by way of improvement (Cork: A Civic Survey, 1926)”

In December’s column, I highlighted the work by the committee of the Crawford Technical Institute in heading up the compilation of the report Cork A Civic Survey in 1926. In this survey, three clearly dilapidated housing areas of Cork are mapped out- one west of Shandon Street, the north western corner of the city centre island, and the property to the south west of St Finbarr’s Cathedral. All three except parts of the northern area were older parts of the city. The survey noted that there was not that much dilapidated property in the island to the east of North Main Street but those houses should be cleared out at the earliest opportunity, and no housing rebuilding under taken in the area. The space should be fully allocated for shopping and business purposes. The survey also questioned whether residential rebuilding should take place in the low lying and flood prone neighbourhood of Henry Street and Grattan Street.

In the city there were 12,850 houses inhabited by 15,469 families, giving according to the total population about five persons in a family and an average of six persons per house. A large proportion of the population was crowded into tenements and small houses. The number of tenements was 719 with 2,928 families. The tenement population was around 8,675. Nearly one-ninth of the total population lived in tenements and on average 12 families could live in a house meant for one family.

In the Civic Survey classification, under first class tenement structures 2,499 people or 839 families lived in 194 houses, which appeared to be structurally sound; they were not in good repair but were capable of being put in good repair. Under second class tenements, 6,114 people or 2,038 families lived in 512 houses, which were so decayed or so badly constructed as approaching the borderline of being unfit for human habitation. Under third class tenements 222 people or 61 families lived in 13 houses unfit for human habitation, and incapable of being rendered fit for human habitation. In the small house category, there was 9,649 people living in 2,329 second class houses. There were 211 people living in 54 third class houses.

The survey acknowledged that the redistribution of people was so large that it might naturally take years to accomplish (which it did). It was hoped that the progress would be more rapid than in Liverpool where it took 20 years to demolish and rebuild a similar number of houses. One of the chief aims of the survey was that the rebuilding should not be done piecemeal as a series of isolated schemes, but as part of a general scheme of town planning and redistribution of the population.

The survey outlined that one of the opportunities was the availability of land on the south of the river for re-housing as well as for an extension of the city bounds. During the compilation of the Survey, the City Commissioner Philip Monahan as well as his city engineer Stephen Farrington and Cork architect, Daniel Levie engineered and designed the start of a new slum clearance programme. Capwell Road comprised 148 houses of short terraces of four houses set at 16 houses per acre. The homes were mainly four-roomed. In the summer of 1925 the Capwell site was acquired by Cork Corporation by deed of transfer from Richard Morgan. By Christmas 1925 20 men were employed on relief work for 2/3 weeks clearing the site, preparatory to the actual building. On 14 May 1926 11 tenders were received for the Capwell development, ten from local builders and one from a Dutch firm of builders. Fifteen of the houses were built by the Cork Builders Worker’s Guild and 144 were built by Messrs. Meagher and Hayes. By 25 February 1928 the scheme was complete and money was deposited towards purchase of the Capwell houses. Under the housing scheme £14,000 had been received. The 148 occupiers are listed in a document in the Cork City and County Archives. The money received from Capwell was devoted to the development of another housing site at Turners Cross and the announcement was made that it was expected that tenders for the building of 150 more houses would be invited.

The architect for the Turners Cross developments and those to come that were connected with Cork Corporation, Daniel Levie played an active part in the Cork Civic Survey of 1926. He was a member of the Munster Fine Arts Council for many years. He was also a founder member of the Cork Rotary Club. His firm’s collection of drawings was subsequently acquired by the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, and is now in the Cork City and County Archives.

To be continued…

Caption:

673a. Civic Survey map of heavy slum areas in Cork, 1926 (source: Cork A Civic Survey, 1926)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article

Cork Independent, 20 December 2012

“Technical Memories (Part 38) –The Genius of Place”

As noted last week, in March 1922, the Cork Housing and Town Planning Association was formed. In the Dictionary of Irish Biography D.J. Coakley (D.J. or Daniel John), Principal of the Cork School of Commerce became honorary secretary of the association. Under the direction of Professor Patrick Abercrombie, D.J. organised a survey of Cork city, a report on which was published as Cork: A Civic Survey in 1926. This work was built on the back of a booklet for the Cork Incorporated Chamber of Commerce & Shipping under the title Cork, Its Trade and Commerce (1919), which is said to have achieved an international circulation. As an aside D.J. was one of the five sons of John Coakley, a farmer in Donoughmore, Co. Cork. D.J. lived at 5 Newenham Terrace, Cork.

Different committees were formed to deal with different sections of Cork’s civic survey. The groundwork was headed up by a sub-committee from the Crawford Municipal Technical Institute and well known Cork Architects. All gave valuable assistance. Diagrams were prepared by Alec G. Jenson. Professor Patrick Abercrombie and Sydney Kelly, both working in Liverpool were invited and agreed to act as special advisors to the Survey. The UK National Biography for Professor Patrick Abercrombie reveals an architect whose recurrent pre-occupation was with the human side of his profession- his concept of a town as primarily the setting for human life, rather than a mere pattern of roads and land uses.  In general, his work through his career strongly emphasised the need to preserve and underpin the traditional character of each locality. Abercrombie was also influenced personally as an architect by the École des Beaux Arts in Paris and particularly by Baron Georges-Eugéne Haussmann (1809-1891) whose city planning of Paris he admired. Hence Abercrombie had an interest in creating wide boulevards and pubic squares, where the emphasis was on the public.

Abercrombie’s interests are indirectly highlighted in the introduction of the Cork Civic Survey, published in 1926. It set out it aims clearly: “One of the results of a Civic Survey should be that the genius of the place emerges, and the artificial control to which it submits is thus not an arbitrary or foreignly conceived yoke, but rather a sympathetic course of direction. To adopt another simile, the Survey is the diagnosis of the symptoms for which the Town Plan is the prescriptive remedy.”

The introduction reflects that there is a multitude of smaller forces at work in shaping the city of Cork; “it has not been progressive in the recent past; if rightly directed, should put a slow and steady growth in future years”. The survey denotes that Cork exists to fulfil a number of diverse purposes; “The creation of the Irish Free State with its impulse towards devolution, should tend to make it more markedly a provincial capital with possibilities of specialised growth”. Cork was, at the same time, a sea port, a distributing centre, market town, manufacturing city, residential area and educational centre. The Survey denotes that each of these aspects has made “characteristic impression, but without orderliness”.

On matter of trade, the Civic Survey outlines a decline in trade: “Changes in the nature of trade have for years been sapping the city’s nineteenth century prosperity, while political upheavals had a bad effect upon the city’s finances. In order to progress a greater civic self-consciousness it  is essential that a knowledge be attained of the physical facts of the city, of its blemishes and how to remedy them-in short, a proper Town Planning Scheme is needed. During the past decade many local problems have arisen.”

The introduction praises the work that went into attaining and building the Ford Factory in 1917 and how it had set the “seal of industrialism” on what had been the city’s race course known as “The Park”. The survey claims that the burning of Cork four or five years previously opened up a series or problems which the city was not equipped to meet. Street improvements might have been made if the Council had had the necessary plans and powers. The introduction outlines that the postponement of the re-building of the City Hall was fortunate as proper consideration needed to be made in relation to its position in the city. and its relation to the future development of the whole City.

The survey reveals the question of a new cattle market, which opened up a big problem of traffic and communications by rail, road, and water; “A site chosen merely by methods of opportunism, is likely to become a nuisance rather than a gain to the City”. The City’s housing problem is also set out; “Slums are the breeding ground of disease, political as well as physical. They are a source of danger and of expense to any community. To build even much better houses on the sites that are, or may become unsuitable is merely to provide a heritage of slums for the next generation. Re-housing, to be affective, must be planned on a comprehensive scale. The right sites must be found, and the right services and communications.

To be continued in the new year…Happy Christmas to all readers of this column and thanks for the support during the year, Kieran Mc

Caption:

672a. Professor Patrick Abercrombie, c.1944 (source: National Biography, UK)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article

Cork Independent, 13 December 2012

“Technical Memories (Part 37) –The Surveys of Geddes”

As highlighted in a previous article, D.J. Coakely, principal of the Cork Chamber of Commerce proposed a series of reform measures for social housing in Cork City in 1918. Concluding his address he had a section entitled “What should be done in Cork”. He proposed that a ‘Housing and Town Planning Committee’ be formed in the city to consider the question of housing in its different aspects-social, economic, engineering, and legal. He wished for a detailed course of public lectures and a housing and town planning exhibition as well as a Local Government Board inquiry into the housing conditions of the working classes in Cork, similar to one held in Dublin. He also sought a report on the legal powers of Cork Corporation and the further powers required to deal adequately with the housing question.

Perhaps Coakley’s appealing proposals were that a “Civic Survey” be made of the city and that essential information be compiled for his suggested Local Government Board inquiry into the existing housing conditions of the working classes. In association with these he proposed the arrangement of a town planning competition, for which a substantial prize could be offered. The concept of a civic survey and a town plan competition was based on concepts developed by Sir Patrick Geddes. D.J. Coakley’s lecture in Cork was just echoing his work.

The UK National Biography notes that Sir Patrick Geddes (1854 –1932) was a Scottish biologist, sociologist, geographer, philanthropist and pioneering town planner. He is known for his innovative thinking in the fields of urban planning and sociology. One of his central arguments in his work was that physical geography, market economics and anthropology were related, creating a “single chord of social life [of] all three combined”. As part of that philosophy, Geddes advocated the civic survey as essential to urban planning. His motto was “diagnosis before treatment”. Such a survey could include, at a minimum, the geology, the geography, the climate, the economic life, and the social institutions of the city and region. His early work surveying the city of Edinburgh became a model for later surveys.

Geddes was particularly critical of that form of planning which relied overmuch on design and effect, neglecting to consider “the surrounding quarter and constructed without reference to local needs or potentialities”. Geddes encouraged instead exploration and consideration of the “whole set of existing conditions”, studying the “place as it stands, seeking out how it has grown to be what it is, and recognising alike its advantages, its difficulties and its defects”. Geddes’s work was adopted by the Town Planning Committee of the Royal Institute of British Architects who spread the work’s importance to town planners in Britain.

The Dictionary of Irish Architects describes that between the years 1911-1916 Patrick Geddes was heavily involved in the search for solutions to Dublin’s acute health and housing problems. In 1911, on the invitation of the Women’s National Health Association, he brought his Cities and Town Planning Exhibition to Dublin, while the Institute of Public Health was holding its congress there. The exhibition was later displayed in Belfast. In September 1913 he gave evidence on behalf of the Women’s National Health Association to the Local Government Board’s inquiry into working class housing conditions in Dublin. In March 1914 he persuaded the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Aberdeen, to give a £500 prize for an international Dublin Town Planning competition promoted by the Civics Institute of Ireland. The assessors of the competition were Geddes himself, the Dublin City Architect Charles James McCarthy and the American town planner John Nolen (1869-1937). The outbreak of the First World War delayed the meeting of the assessors, so it was not until 1916 that the first prize was awarded to Patrick Abercrombie of Liverpool University and his collaborators Sydney A. Kelly (1881-1943) and Arthur J. Kelly. Abercrombie was subsequently appointed town planning consultant for Dublin. His document Dublin of the Future was published in 1922.

Patrick Abercrombie, himself, trained as an architect before becoming the Professor of Civic Design at the Liverpool University School of Architecture in 1915, and later Professor of Town Planning at University College London. Afterwards, he made the award-winning designs for Dublin city centre and gradually asserted his dominance as an architect of international renown, which came about through the replanning of Plymouth, Hull, Bath, Edinburgh and Bournemouth, among others.

Cork’s interest in town planning was inspired by the work of both Patrick Geddes and Patrick Abercrombie. True to his proposals, D.J. Coakley worked with others especially the technical education committees in Cork in creating a series of public lectures dealing in greater detail with the different aspects of the problem as applied to Cork were given. The lectures were delivered under the auspices of the Cork Literary and Scientific Society and the Cork Incorporated Chamber of Commerce, and shipping, and by Professor Abercrombie. At a conference of the principal citizens, held at the Cork School of Art, in March 1922, the Cork Town Planning Association was formed, and subsequently Professor Abercrombie, and Sydney Kelly were invited and agreed to act as special advisors to the Association.

To be continued…

Caption:

671a. Patrick Geddes, c.1886 (source: Cork City Library)