The Anarchist Tradition in Urbanistic Thought: Reclus, Turner and the Geddesian Connection, 1866-1976

Sala Mirador, CCCB
Carrer de Montelegre, 5 – 08001 Barcelona

Closing ceremony for the 2021-2022 academic year of the CRIC Master's Degree.

This talk emphasizes the value of the anarchist tradition in the history of urbanism.Drawing on recent research in anarchist geography and planning history, it delves into the thesis of Peter Hall's Cities of Tomorrow of a fundamental anarchist strand in the genesis of 20th century social urbanism. A key period in this long history of borrowings and influences will be analyzed in more detail by highlighting the connections of Élisée Reclus's idea of city and region with Patrick Geddes's notions of city-region and Valley Section. Geddes's holistic ideas about the relationships between the organism and the environment and about the self-built incremental housing of the Indore plan were rediscovered by John F. C. Turner and had a primary influence on his proposals for bottom-up housing and urbanism.
 
José Luis Oyón (1953- ) is a UPC professor in the ETSAVs. He has devoted his research to urban history. He is the author of La quiebra de la ciudad popular. Espacio urbano, inmigración y anarquismo en la Barcelona de entreguerras, 1914-1936. In recent years, he has become interested in the city in anarchist thought, publishing La ciudad en el joven Reclus, 1830-1871 and, in collaboration with Golda-Pongratz and Zimmermann, Autoconstrucción. Escritos de John F. C. Turner sobre vivienda, urbanismo, autogestión y holismo..