B151871 Source Analysis 1

B151871
Urbanism and The City: Past to Present
Dr Nick Mols
Summative Assessment 2: Source Analysis
14 November 2021
Cullen’s Townscape: St. Paul’s Cathedral

After the Blitz bombings of London during World War II, the city called for restoration. Part of the
bombings affected St. Paul’s Cathedral and the area around it. This gave motivation for redevelopment.
Plans for St. Paul’s Cathedral and its surroundings included Gordon Cullen’s drawings in the 1950s (Figure 1
presents one of them) and Nikolaus Pevsner’s 1956 article from The Listener. This essay will firstly situate
these plans within other plans for London through the modern era to identify similarities and differences in
key principles of urban planning and then shift focus on how the emergence of ‘townscape’ in London,
channelled by planner Gordon Cullen, rejected pre-existing urban theory of the structured to embrace and
enjoy the composure of the picturesque and diverse city.

Cullen and Pevsner’s plans for the area around St. Paul’s Cathedral can be situated in the broader context of
reasons for most plans and reimaginations of London. These include Christopher Wren’s Plan for London in
1666 (Figure 2), and the MARS plan in 1942 (Figure 1). All three sources are proposals for the
reconstruction of London at different times, for the most part influenced by urban theories from wider
Europe1. A crucial understanding for these plans must see that they all apprehended a reimagined London
after some sort of destruction occurred. Wren’s plan was set after the Great Fire of London in 1666, the
MARS group plan was during World War II in 1942, while Cullen’s and Pevsner’s plans for around St.
Paul’s Cathedral were post World War II. MARS’ modern conception is primarily concerned with the
functionality of a working city - comprising dwelling, work and leisure sections linked by railway
transport2.Wren’s, while still concerned with improving quality of life within the city, considered the
aesthetics of the built form to be of primary concern 3. None of these proposals were carried out, although
Christopher Wren did design the replacement for St. Paul’s Cathedral 4. All proposals see the destruction of
London as an opportunity to reconstruct the city in an innovative way, with improved systems, focusing on a
better quality of life after the horrors of destruction from fires and wars. Although it is important to note that
Wren’s and MARS’ plans reimagined a completely new London, Pevsner and Cullen identified the need to
maintain what already existed and saw the potential in experiencing the diversity of urban forms within a
city5.

1
John R. Gold, “Towards the Functional City? MARS, CIAM and the London Plans, 1933-1942”, in The Modern City Revisited, ed. T. Deckker
(London: Routledge, 2000), 3.
Nikolaus Pevsner and Third Programme, “A Setting for St. Paul's Cathedral,” The Listener 55, no. 1415 (May 1956): 594.
Lisa Jardine, On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Career of Sir Christopher Wren (London: Harper Collins, 2003), 263.
2
Gold, “Towards the Functional City,” 4.
3
Julienne Hanson, “Order and Structure in Urban Design: The Plans for the Rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666,” in Ekistics 56, no.
334/335 (1989): 25.
4
Stanislas T. Scott, “Postscripts: A Critique of the Draft Proposals for Post-War Reconstruction in the City of London: Postscript Three,” The
Architectural Review (Archive: 1896-2005) (June 1945): 179.
5
Gordon Cullen, The Concise Townscape, (London: Butterworth Architecture, 1971), 7.
B151871 Source Analysis 2
To further the understanding of experiencing a city, urban ideas of townscape must be understood within
Cullen’s drawing and Pevsner’s article. Figure 1 shows the monumental St. Paul’s Cathedral hidden behind
other buildings, all architecturally diverse. Mismatched tiles on the ground and walls also help to portray the
diversity. Most importantly, the view of the Cathedral emerges from under an archway, on a different level
up the staircase, through the buildings and slightly off-axis. This presents an idea of experience of moving
through the city and catching glimpses of something desired, the momentous St. Paul’s Cathedral in the
midst of the hustle of everyday life. These ideas, although beautifully executed in his drawings, are better
stated in Cullen’s book, as the ‘sense of discovery and drama that we experience in moving through towns’ 6.
In a similar fashion, Pevsner rejects the idea of monumentality, championing the idea of a calm, habited city.
In his article, Pevsner compares St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican and Venice’s church of St. Mark’s. He
notes St Peter’s Square as ‘majestic monumentality’ but positively promotes St Mark’s and the pizzetta as
one with ‘subtly balanced complexity’7. He then continues to endorse William Holford’s plan for the area
surrounding St. Paul’s, which calls for such complexity, and tries to persuade town planners to mimic St.
Mark’s and the pizzetta’s drama in the City of London with St. Paul’s, by linking it with its surroundings
rather than creating isolation 8. Holford’s plan was published in 1956 and so was Pevsner’s endorsement,
however, ideas for the picturesque and townscape for St. Paul’s and surrounding areas had been lurking since
1945.

Gordon Cullen and The Architectural Review started channelling the ‘townscape’ towards the end of the
second World War to oppose rebuilding the city through complete destruction. Pre-existing urban theory
dictated spatial zoning which prioritised functionality as the ‘ideal urban structure’ 9. Such ideas were
presented in the MARS group plans for London, but also in Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse, both of which
Cullen rather bad-mouthed in his personal journals, claiming MARS’ London as ‘attempting to cure a
disease by killing the patient’ and Ville Radiuse as the ‘last thing’ he wished to see replicated in London 10.
Most probably influenced by Cullen’s dislike of the ordered view of the city 11, ‘picturesque’ images of St.
Paul’s and surrounding areas appeared in the June 1945 issue of The Architectural Review that highlighted
serenity and beauty from the viewership through diversity and romanticised drama 12. This issue of the journal
pushed forth the agenda for what would later be coined as the ‘townscape’ by Cullen and was partly involved
as the propaganda and consumerist ideas that rejected the modern, industrial type of redevelopment post-war
in favour of the picturesque.13 This can be seen in the journal’s denunciation of the axil, zonal plans for St.

6
Ibid, 19.
7
Pevsner, “A Setting for St. Paul’s”, 594.
8
Ibid, 595-596.
9
Nigel Taylor, “The Values of Post-War Planning Theory,” In Urban Planning Theory Since 1945 (London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1998), 34.
10
“Thomas Gordon Cullen Collection (preliminary inventory) in Clément Orillard, “Gordon Cullen beyond The Architectural Review: some new
perspectives from his personal archives,” The Journal of Architecture 17, no.5 (2012): 723, 725.
11
Cullen is noted to be professionally involved with high-ranking editors of The Architectural Review, in Orillard, “Gordon Cullen beyond The
Architectural Review”, 720.
12
“Part Two: City Design – The London Way,” The Architectural Review (Archive: 1896-2005) (June 1945): 180-184.
13
Mira Engler, “Landscape and Consumer Culture in the Design Work of Humphry Repton and Gordon Cullen: A Methodological
Framework,” Architecture_MPS 13, no.2 (2018): 8.
B151871 Source Analysis 3
Paul’s in favour of historic-style urban areas and organic development that were offered by city planners 14,
and resonates a parallel idea to preserve Wren’s St. Paul’s as the only monument 15; also reflected in
Pevsner’s interpretation of St. Paul’s setting: ‘It is an error to think monumentality helps monumentality’ 16.

To conclude, Cullen’s drawings and Pevsner’s interpretation of the setting for St. Paul’s introduce the ideas
of the townscape, and reject orderly, axil plans. The plans emerged after the bombings during World War II,
as most plans for redevelopment of London found motivation after catastrophic destruction. The broader
theory of the townscape and the picturesque for St. Paul’s Cathedral was presented by Cullen and The
Architectural Review to try to preserve the romantic drama of the diverse city and its organic development.

Word Count: 1302

14
Scott, “Postscripts: A Critique,” 196.
15
John Coolmore, “Postscripts: How to Look at St. Paul's: Minority Report: Postscript One,” The Architectural Review (Archive: 1896-2005) (June
1945): 193. 
16
Pevsner, “A Setting for St. Paul’s”, 595.
B151871 Source Analysis 4
Figures

Figure 1: Gordon Cullen, Illustration of proposals for London, c.1950

Figure 2: Christopher Wren, Plan for the reconstruction of London, 1666

Figure 3: MARS Group, Plan for London, 1942

B151871 Source Analysis 5
Bibliography

Coolmore, John. “Postscripts: How to Look at St. Paul's: Minority Report: Postscript One.” The
Architectural Review (Archive: 1896-2005) (June 1945): 192-193. 

Cullen, Gordon. The Concise Townscape. London: Butterworth Architecture, 1971.

Engler, Mira. “Landscape and Consumer Culture in the Design Work of Humphry Repton and Gordon
Cullen: A Methodological Framework.” Architecture_MPS 13, no.2 (2018): 1-24.

Gold, John R. “Towards the Functional City? MARS, CIAM and the London Plans, 1933-1942.” In The
Modern City Revisited, edited by T. Deckker, 80-100. London: Routledge, 2000.

Hanson, Julienne. “Order and Structure in Urban Design: The Plans for the Rebuilding of London after the
Great Fire of 1666.” In Ekistics 56, no. 334/335 (1989): 22-42.

Jardine, Lisa. On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Career of Sir Christopher Wren. London: Harper
Collins, 2003.

Orillard, Clément. “Gordon Cullen beyond The Architectural Review: some new perspectives from his
personal archives.” The Journal of Architecture 17, no.5 (2012): 719-731.

Pevsner, Nikolaus and Third Programme. “A Setting for St. Paul’s Cathedral.” The Listener 55, no. 1415,
(May 1956): 594-596.

“Part Two: City Design – The London Way.” The Architectural Review (Archive: 1896-2005) (June 1945):
177-184.

Scott Stanislas T. “Postscripts: A Critique of the Draft Proposals for Post-War Reconstruction in the City of
London: Postscript Three.” The Architectural Review (Archive: 1896-2005) (June 1945): 195-196.

Taylor, Nigel. “The Values of Post-War Planning Theory.” In Urban Planning Theory Since 1945, 20-37.
London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1998.