Rebuilding Europe’s Bombed Cities

265 Pages·1990·29.352 MB·English

by  Jeffry M. Diefendorf (eds.)

REBUILDING EUROPE'S BOMBED CITIES
Also by Jeffry M. Diefendorf
BUSINESSMEN AND POLITICS IN THE RHINELAND,
1789-1834
Rebuilding Europe's
BoiDbed Cities
Edited by
JEFFRY M. DIEFENDORF
Associate Professor of History
University of New Hampshire, Durham, USA
Palgrave Macmillan UK
ISBN 978-1-349-10460-4 ISBN 978-1-349-10458-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-10458-1
© Jeffry M. Diefendorf 1990
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1990 978-0-333-47443-3
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1990
ISBN 978-0-312-02828-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rebuilding Europe's bombed cities I edited by Jeffry M. Diefendorf.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-312-02828-2
1 Reconstruction (1939-1951)-Europe. 2. Europe-History-
Bombardment, 1941-1945. 3. Cities and towns--Europo-History-20th
century. I. Diefendorf, Jeffry M., 1945-
D829.E8R43 1990
940.55-dc19 88-33330
CIP
Contents
List of Plates vii
List of Figures
X
Acknowledgements xi
Notes on the Contributors xii
1 Introduction: New Perspectives on a Rebuilt Europe 1
Jeffry M. Diefendorf
2 Reconstructors' Tales: an Example of the Use of Oral
Sources in the History of Reconstruction after the Second
World War 16
Daniele Voldman
3 Between Regionalism and Functionalism: French
Reconstruction from 1940 to 1945 31
Remi Baudoui
4 Continuities in Belgian Wartime Reconstruction Planning 48
Pieter Uyttenhove
5 Planning the Impossible: History as the Fundament
of the Future - the Reconstruction of Middelburg, 1940-4 64
J. E. Bosma
6 Warsaw: Destruction, Secret Town Planning, 1939-44,
and Postwar Reconstruction 77
Stanislaw Jankowski
7 People, Politics and Planning: the Reconstruction of
Coventry's City Centre, 1940-53 94
Tony Mason and Nick Tiratsoo
8 Hamburg: the 'Catastrophe' of July 1943 114
Niels Gutschow
v
vi Contents
9 German Reconstruction as an International Activity 131
Friedheim Fischer
10 The Lijnbaan (Rotterdam): a Prototype of a Postwar
Urban Shopping Centre 145
E. R. M. Taverne
11 The Reconstruction of the Buda Castle Hill after 1945 155
Erzsebet C. Harrach
12 Reconstruction of the City Centre of Dresden:
Planning and Building during the 1950s 170
Jiirgen Paul
13 Reconstruction in the German Democratic Republic 190
Klaus von Beyme
14 Reconstruction: its Place in Planning History 209
Gordon E. Cherry
Figures 221
Index 229
List of Plates
1 Middelburg: reconstruction plan, 10 December 1940
2 Middelburg: reconstruction plan for the town centre
3 Warsaw: the East-West Thoroughfare, 1949
4 Warsaw: the Old Town Square, rebuilt 1953
5 Warsaw: the Old Town Square, Piwna Street, 1944
6 Warsaw: the Old Town Square, Piwna Street, rebuilt 1953
7 Hamburg: the medieval core and the Cremon Island after
the air raids in August 1943
8 Hamburg: resettlement of air-raid victims in emergency housing
in a model neighbourhood; urban design by the town planning
office, landscape design by Heinz Paulus, Autumn 1943
9 Hamburg: design for so-called war-homes with two fiats which
were to be converted after the war into a single home; design by
Hans-Dieter Gropp and Karl Friedrich Fischer for civil servants
of the Sanitation Board, November 1943
10 Rotterdam: the Lijnbaan plan
11 Rotterdam: the Lijnbaan under construction, with high-rise
apartments and low shopping area
12 Budapest: Uri Street in 1945
13 Budapest: the White Dove restaurant on the corner of Uri Street
14 Budapest: Uri Street - from the Bl:istya Promenade,
a block of buildings with new layout, and view of Uri Street's
rebuilt
vii
viii List of Plates
15 Dresden: river front, c. 1930
16 Dresden: design for buildings on north side of new Altmarkt
and the magistrate, competition entry by Schneider architects'
collective (1952)
17 Dresden: Altmarkt - new buildings on the east side beside
Kreuzkirche, begun 1953
18 Dresden: Altmarkt - fa<;ades of new buildings on the west
side, begun 1953
19 Dresden: outlines of new Altmarkt and magistrate (Ernst-
Thalmann-Strasse) drawn over the street plan before destruction
20 Dresden: plan of city centre with completed buildings and
projects (1959); architect: Hans Hunger of the municipal
building department
21 Dresden: project of Zentraler Platz (Altmarkt) with tower
house (1953); architect: Herbert Schneider
22 Dresden: design for House of Socialist Culture; architect:
Rudolf Lasch (1959/60)
23 Dresden: air-view of Frauenkirche and Neumarkt before
destruction
24 Dresden: city centre in 1947 with ruins of Royal Palace
and Catholic Court Church
25 Dresden: House of the Socialist Culture
Sources
Plates 1 and 2 courtesy of J. E. Bosma; Plates 3-6 courtesy of
Centralna Agencja Fotograficzna, Warsaw; Plates 7-9 courtesy
of Niels Gutschow Collection; Plate 10 courtesy of Foto Geljon;
Plate 11 courtesy of Foto KLM AERO CARTO; Plates 12 and
13 courtesy of Erzs~bet C. Harrach Collection; Plate 14 courtesy
List of Plates ix
of Budapest Fovliros Leveltlira; Plate 15 courtesy of Deutsche
Fotothek, Dresden; Plates 16 and 21 from Deutsche Architektur,
2 (1953) 17, 181; Plate 17 from G. Krenz, Architektur zwischen
gestern und morgen: Ein Vierteljahrhundert Architekturentwicklung
in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Stuttgart, 1974) Fig. 11;
Plate 18 from U. Kuhirt (ed.), Kunst der DDR 1945-1959 (Leipzig,
1982) Fig. 199; Plate 19 from Deutsche Architektur, 3 (1954) 242;
Plate 20 from Deutsche Architektur, 8 (1959) 596; Plate 22 from
Deutsche Architektur, 9 (1960) 670; Plate 23 from G. Eckardt,
Schicksale deutscher Baudenkmale, vol. II (Berlin, 1978) p. 375;
Plate 24 from F. LOftier, Das alte Dresden (Leipzig, 1982) p. 426;
Plate 25 courtesy of PGH Film und Bild, Berlin.