Planning and the Infrastructural Turn

Abstract

Planning as a discipline developed in response to some of the challenges that occurred following the Industrial Revolution: health, hygiene or housing. A key field of intervention for the new discipline was infrastructure development for transport and communication in line with evolving technologies. Globalisation and the exchange of commodities around the world led to ever more extensive projects. The shared needs of infrastructural planning went hand in hand with the sharing of ideas and concepts of planning and their exchange around the world. This article explores four examples of European planning and their key actors in four distinct periods through the lens of the global infrastructural turn: the age of rail (1850s to 1910s), the age of motorisation (1910s to 1950s), the age of flight (1950s to 1980s), and the age of increasing digital communication (1980s to 2000s). Understanding the embedded role of infrastructure in planning practice can help promote a system approach much needed to address contemporary challenges in the design of urban spaces.