The First Town Planning Conference Revisited (1910-2010)

This paper analyses the importance of the Town Planning Conference organised by the RIBA in London, in 1910, in the formation of urban planning as a modern discipline. This was one of the most important events in the origins of town planning and the bedrock upon which the discussions around it started to flourish. Attended by the most influential planners at that crucial moment, the debates held then forged the main directions in which the discipline developed thereafter. It provided a fundamental theoretical corpus that reached far distant corners of the world and influenced the way in which cities across the globe were planned. Therefore, this paper will look into how that event exposed the most fundamental views on how to plan a city at that moment, including the German Städtbau approach, the emerging British Town Planning, the American City Beautiful and the French Urbanisme. Finally, the paper will highlight the key points that were discussed then which are still pertinent to our problems today and are the origins of many contemporary ideas on urban planning and design.