The International Garden City Campaign

Abstract

This article analyzes the garden city campaign of the International Federation for Housing and Town Planning (IFHTP). Available literature suggests the agenda of the IFHTP was dictated by the British garden city militants who had established the IFHTP in 1913. Although the garden city concept dominated the agenda, its treatment was not static. The agenda evolved in the course of time from town planning on “garden city lines” to true independent garden cities, then from a national garden cities program to satellite towns, and finally merged into the broader concept of regional decentralization. This article demonstrates that the agenda of the IFHTP cannot be adequately framed in terms of exclusive agency of its British initiators. The agenda of the IFHTP, as a transnational network organization, was substantially influenced by the structure and substance of its membership and the wider transnational network society, Saunier’s Urban Internationale, to which it belonged.