A timely article from Richard Morrison of The Times on the 100th anniversary of the Louis de Soissons Ltd designed Welwyn Garden City. https://lnkd.in/d4fac9r The strength of the masterplan alongside the attention to detail throughout means that the majority of the original buildings, both residential and commercial, still stand today. Could another Garden City be developed today as Richard suggests? There would be significant hurdles… A visionary patron such as Ebenezer Howard who could find and organise the purchase of a site this large being the major one. Planning restrictions on development on farm land / green belt combined with the viability of building at what in the modern world would be very low densities of development would limit those able to develop such a scheme. However, the fact that the city still goes on strong today, with a sense of communal pride from those that live and work there, surely means that there are still significant lessons we can all draw on from it today.
