Planned Aesthetics

Art versus science, the classic debate. On the one hand scientists, beholden to no one but logic and reason, who utilise facts and evidence to demonstrate the utility of their designs; and on the other artists, disciples of aesthetics, who believe that the human touch is essential in all human endeavours. So where do planners fit into this equation? Are we, as the early industry suggested, scientists devoted to improving the lot of the citizen, or are we, as the more recent trends promote, artists making our mark upon the city like some sort of ever-evolving canvass? 

Hard questions to be sure but like most things the answer tends to lie somewhere in the middle, a balance between the two. Certainly some planners can be said to lean toward one more than the other, plenty of designs have character and soul but lack well thought out amenities and transportation corridors. Rio de Janeiro springs to mind as a city that no one would deny invokes vivid ideas about Brazil, but few would suggest that the Favelas couldn't use a better planned infrastructure, something which the city of Rio struggles with right now. Finding cities that are well planned but lack a certain something of the human essence is more of a challenge, primarily because planned cities are much rarer. However it has been suggested that Canberra is an excellent example of this, a city with good infrastructure, plenty of green space and an aesthetically pleasing road map, but few people living there are overly attached to the city in any kind of spiritual sense as many are in London or New York.

So what then is required to achieve this symbiosis of art and science, to make a good city great? Art can be found in science after all, and science can be used as the basis for art. It was declared in the forward to the 1968 Green Book by Dennis O'Harrow "Planning strives hard to be a science but will always fundamentally remain an art... the personal skill of the planner, of the artist, remains paramount.". based on this approach planning becomes somewhat of an oddity, an art trying to be a science, few other fields of endeavour struggle to hide the artistic side of their profession, particularly when artists are held in such high esteem.

Ultimately I consider planning an art form, but one that because of the broad scope of its canvass requires science to achieve. A million great artists have the most amazing ideas, but without action, without will, they do not outlast their creator by even a moment. When dealing with cities, states and nations the planner must understand and incorporate science in all things. Physics, chemistry, psychology, mathematics and perhaps most importantly economics are all essential tools with which the planner imposes their vision upon the world. To be lacking in science harms peoples quality of life, their health, education and housing, but to be lacking as an artist hinders those same people from enjoying and embracing those lives in a way that perhaps the sciences struggle to quantify.