Post 3

Modernism was the focus for this week. I found a definite correlation between one concept of movement to the next. An example of this correlation is The Parks movement shifting towards the Garden City movement and then to the City Beautiful movement. Elements of the Parks City movement can be seen in the City Beautiful movement. The point is that it is much easier and in fact makes more sense to start off with an idea than to build from no idea at all. Once an idea is formed or a plan is established, this gives some sort of foundation to build and rebuild. We can see this follow-on effect over the movements and is still true today. Although we as planners may find multiple faults with many plans that have been established they have been planned based on a certain mind set, context, culture and knowledge available.

For me this week I thought it was important to recognise that past plans were innovative for the time and important for development and change in the future. Although innovation is great sometimes the best ideas are those with the most simplistic idea behind them. I think sometimes in our society we want to be better than the last, unique and have the best idea... and yes we do need new ideas but not lose the original/old ideas that have been working. If we look at ancient cities such as Rome, Greece and Egypt we can see still learn from their ideas and innovations even today in a modern context. It is important to research and understand planning as a profession but I don’t think we as students should solely focus on these aspects but also go back to the basics and study the natural and built environment like planners have in the past. Forming our own ideas and concepts of what we really think and not directly what planners in the profession think.