Making an Irish Free State City – Planning a city’s future

Coinciding with the national census of 1926 being taken in April 1926, the final text was being amended for the publication of ‘Cork: A Civic Survey’.

Published in early July 1926, the in-depth survey mapped out the city’s physical features, historical aspects, regional considerations, population and health, housing, natural zoning, communications such as roads, tramways and railways, markets and abattoirs, public buildings, open spaces, administration boundaries, and municipal services.

The survey’s origins was rooted in discussions and calls for it over several years. It began with DJ Coakley, principal of the Cork School of Commerce, who proposed at a public lecture in 1917 that a series of reform measures for town planning and housing be undertaken.

He published his findings and calls in a pamphlet, which can be viewed in Local Studies in Cork City Library. It is entitled ‘The General Principles of Housing and Town Planning’.

In the pamphlet, there are sections on the causes of overcrowding and slums, the effects of bad housing, the housing problem in other countries such as the Austria, Germany, France, Sweden, United States of America, and in the UK, housing in Dublin, housing conditions in Cork, and what should be done in Cork to solve the housing problem.

DJ Coakley’s concluding recommendations called for the formation of a housing and town planning committee in Cork, who would look at different aspects from social to economic, engineering to legal. He also called for surveys into the existing housing conditions for the working classes. He called for a Local Government Board enquiry into the housing conditions of the working poor similar to one held in Dublin.

In addition he called for a town planning competition, the making of a report on the legal powers of the Corporation of Cork, as well as the need to adopt a town plan.

DJ Coakley’s calls for a civic survey and a town plan competition were based on concepts developed by two eminent UK town planners Sir Patrick Geddes and Sir Patrick Abercrombie.

The Dictionary of Irish Architects describes that between the years 1911-1916 Patrick Geddes was heavily involved in the search for solutions to Dublin's acute health and housing problems. This led DJ Coakley to follow Patrick’s work.

The UK National Biography notes that Sir Patrick Geddes (1854 -1932) was a Scottish biologist, sociologist, geographer, philanthropist and pioneering town planner. He is known for his innovative thinking in the fields of urban planning and sociology.

One of his central arguments in his work was that physical geography, market economics and anthropology were related, creating a “single chord of social life (of) all three combined”. As part of that philosophy, Patrick advocated holistic civic surveys as essential to urban planning.

Patrick’s motto was “diagnosis before treatment". He encouraged surveys, which would include, at a minimum, the geology, the geography, the climate, the economic life, and the social institutions of the city and region. Indeed, his early work surveying the city of Edinburgh became a model for later surveys.

Patrick Geddes was particularly critical of a form of planning, which relied overmuch on design and effect, neglecting to consider “the surrounding quarter and constructed without reference to local needs or potentialities”.

Patrick encouraged instead exploration and consideration of the “whole set of existing conditions”, studying the “place as it stands, seeking out how it has grown to be what it is, and recognising alike its advantages, its difficulties and its defects”. Patrick’s work was adopted by the Town Planning Committee of the Royal Institute of British Architects who spread the work’s importance to town planners in Britain.

In 1911, on the invitation of the Women's National Health Association, Patrick Geddes brought his Cities and Town Planning Exhibition to Dublin, while the Institute of Public Health was holding its congress there. The exhibition was later displayed in Belfast.

In September 1913 he gave evidence on behalf of the Women's National Health Association to the Local Government Board's inquiry into working class housing conditions in Dublin. In March 1914 he persuaded the lord lieutenant, Lord Aberdeen, to give a £500 prize for an international Dublin Town Planning competition promoted by the Civics Institute of Ireland. The assessors of the competition were Patrick Geddes himself, the Dublin city architect Charles James McCarthy and the American town planner John Nolen (1869-1937).

The outbreak of the First World War delayed the meeting of the assessors, so it was not until 1916 that the first prize was awarded to Patrick Abercrombie of Liverpool University and his collaborators Sydney A Kelly (1881-1943) and Arthur J Kelly. Patrick Abercrombie was subsequently appointed town planning consultant for Dublin. His document Dublin of the Future was published in 1922.

Patrick Abercrombie, himself, trained as an architect before becoming the Professor of Civic Design at the Liverpool University School of Architecture in 1915, and later Professor of Town Planning at University College London.

Afterwards, he made the award-winning designs for Dublin city centre and gradually asserted his dominance as an architect of international renown, which came about through the replanning of Plymouth, Hull, Bath, Edinburgh and Bournemouth, among others.

The UK National Biography for Professor Patrick Abercrombie reveals an architect whose recurrent pre-occupation was with the human side of his profession – his concept of a town as primarily the setting for human life, rather than a mere pattern of roads and land uses. His work through his career strongly emphasised the need to preserve and underpin the traditional character of each locality. Patrick Abercrombie was also influenced personally as an architect by the École des Beaux Arts in Paris and particularly by Baron Georges-Eugéne Haussmann (1809-1891) whose city planning of Paris he admired.

It is clear that DJ Coakley in Cork was inspired by the work and survey work of Patrick Geddes and Patrick Abercrombie. However, it was only in early 1922, that DJ was able to get Patrick Abercrombie to Cork to discuss in person a civic survey for Cork itself.

To be continued…

June Historical Walking Tours with Kieran: All tours free, 2 hours, no booking required.

Saturday afternoon, 27 June: The Northern Ridge, St Patrick’s Hill to MacCurtain Street; meet on the Green at Audley Place, top of St Patrick’s Hill at 2pm (finishes on MacCurtain St).

Sunday evening, 28 June: The Banks of the Lee, The Lee Fields and its Heritage, meet at the western end of the Lee Fields footpath, Ballincollig side, as it meets the farm fields at 6.30pm.

Monday evening, 29 June: The Marina, meet at western end adjacent Shandon Boat Club, The Marina, City end carpark at 6.30pm.