Thesis supervisor
: Antoine PICON
This research focuses on defining a post-war British urban planning tradition and its transmission to France in the context of the construction of new towns. The first part of my thesis seeks to define the contours of this tradition. I use the term "tradition" to refer to a coherent set of skills, methods, and operational concepts commonly used by a group of professionals and partially codified. The period of observation spans approximately thirty years, from 1940 to 1970. The actors belong mainly to two large public institutions, which are both project owners, developers, and builders: the London County Council's Department of Architecture, responsible in particular for the development of the 1943 London Plan and its implementation in the British context, and the IAURP, responsible for the creation of new towns in the Paris region in the French context. I analyze the urban planning practices of the agents of these two institutions, their use of urban concepts, the development mechanisms and methodological elements they put in place. The thesis is thus developed in two stages: the first defines this urban planning knowledge in the British context and studies its implementation and formalization; the second analyzes its reception and reformulation in the French context, as well as the motivations of the actors involved.
Thesis defense on Monday, May 15, 2017
Doctorate
: Architecture
Year of thesis registration
: 2009
Doctoral school
: VTT – City, Transportation, and Territories