Jan Gehl’s observations in pleasant Mediterranean climes were indicative of human systems elsewhere. “And then, at some point, I had to make a company because my wife couldn’t take my students hanging around.” In the year 2000, Jan and Helle Søholt founded Gehl Architects. Jan was invited to continue his research at Copenhagen’s School of Architecture, which he did for 40 years. Together with his wife, a psychologist, Jan conducted field studies in Italy, unpicking traditional practices and learning how to put people first to ascertain how they interact with places how form and life, the social and physical worlds converge. Jan set out to turn this around: “We had to reinvent the whole notion of spaces as a basic of urban design.” Under modernist design, spaces were utilised practically, such as for parking, not for peace, nature, or quality of life.Ĭreating cities for cars, the expert says, is like building a house but putting all the energy into designing the corridors and ignoring the lounge, kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, “where life goes on”. “We hadn’t the faintest idea about what was good for people.” Rethinking Urban Design While working for a small architectural company restoring mediaeval churches, Jan was approached by someone wanting to develop a site for housing that “should be good for people,” not the standard single-family houses and concrete blocks. He puts this down to “unfounded theories and visions”. But to me, it was really a sign how a little profession could screw up the entire world”. And it could be done fast, and it could be mass-produced. Their methods did support “physical health because everybody could have a bit of sunshine. “There were some good things about modernism,” he is keen to point out. Modernist architects were, Jan realised, “bloody technocrats”. This didn’t account for the needs, wants, expectations, or lifestyles of the people inhabiting cities. When Jan graduated from architect training in 1960, the modernist practice in urban design was, he tells us, to create nice patterns as seen from above. How is it that an architect trained in the 1950s is still so relevant today? And why, after half a decade, do we still need a nudge in the right direction? Tech-No Good for People Jan’s books are the bible of city planners. As Cit圜hangers often tell us, his thought leadership has inspired generations of new urbanists. The imprint of Jan Gehl is found in cities around the world. He tells us where this Eureka moment came from and shares the secret to discovering for ourselves what really makes the spaces between buildings thrive. Shunning the traditional school of planning in favour of liveable cities, he pioneered the movement of designing places for people. Renowned Danish architect Jan Gehl changed our understanding of what urban space should be.
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