Open Collections

History of the city beautiful movement in Canada, 1890-1930

University of British Columbia

This thesis looks at the history of the City Beautiful movement in Canada. Literature pertaining to the American City Beautiful was reviewed first in order to arrive at a definition of the movement and, in particular, to ascertain its design principles. In order to investigate Canadian City Beautiful philosophy, the content of several professional journals was examined for the period 1890-1930. For a case study of early planning in the Prairies, archival material was consulted, including City Council minutes, Parks Commission and City Planning Commission files, newspaper, reports and actual plans. The American City Beautiful movement was most popular between 1900 and 1915. While the term "city beautiful" implied a range of civic improvement efforts, most planning historians have emphasized the so-called "comprehensive schemes of city beautification" which focussed on the treatment of streets, parks and/or civic centres. Design principles included-axial arrangements, vistas and focal points, classical touches, and a tendency towards order and symmetry. While never denying the importance of aesthetics, utilitarian considerations took on greater importance as years passed until the City Beautiful was eventually supplanted by an era in planning that has since been labelled the City Efficient. In Canada, several major plans and civic improvement projects were prepared before World War I with almost all being clearly derived from American City Beautiful efforts. A case study of early planning in Prairie cities revealed that City Councils' involvement in planning was probably viewed as a form of publicity. Failure to implement the plans was due largely to the fact that Canada entered a major economic depression in 1913, while in 1914, energies turned towards World War I. Between 1910 and 1913, the journals published numerous articles devoted to planning, and while they displayed varying emphases and levels of detail, writers supported the need for beauty and usually discussed planning in terms of streets, parks and/or civic centres. However, arguments were often vague, and Canada lacked an articulate spokesman for the City Beautiful. The arrival in 1914 of a British planner, Thomas Adams, served to give planning in Canada both a focus and a new direction. Emphasis turned towards the need for legislation, urban development plans, and adequate housing. At the same time, writers began to issue harsh criticisms of the American City Beautiful. With the founding of the Town Planning Institute of Canada in 1919, planning began to be thought of as a profession'. Emphasis was now on zoning and the claim that planning implied economy and efficiency. The American City Beautiful continued to be the object of severe criticism until the mid-1920's when the country experienced a return to prosperity. At that time, civic beauty began once again to be promoted, while planners made detailed proposals for civic improvement schemes which were rooted in the design principles of the City Beautiful.

Text

2010-03-17

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/22018

Planning

University of British Columbia

Graduate