Plans, words and their meanings

Abstract

The discipline of urbanism has its own notions; words with specific meanings, which are used by designers, policymakers and laymen to designate the concrete objects in the world around them: the parts of the city and the urban landscape, and their designs. These plans are always accompanied by written explanations of the designers, critical reflections of colleagues, policy documents and articles for (future) inhabitants. Because the building process has become more complex over the last few decades and more participants are involved than before, the importance of a clear meaning of the words that are used in these texts has increased. Based on two design cases in Amsterdam – the Plan Zuid ('Plan South') by H.P. Berlage (1915) and the Bijlmermeer by G.S. Nassuth and others (1965) – this paper will verify two hypotheses on urbanistic notions. The first hypothesis is that words can quickly change in meaning and moreover in quite an unnoticeable way, which leaves room for misinterpretation. The second hypothesis is that various users groups use words to a certain effect and therefore that they can have different meanings, also resulting in a possible lack of clarity. In the paper urbanistic and linguistic research methods will be used (plan analysis, text analysis, etymology), in an interdisciplinary way. With the results of the recent cases the awareness and comprehension of plans and their explanations can be improved for different user groups, therefore increasing the chance of successful and resilient planning.