Clarence Stein

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Clarence Stein, born in 1882, was an architect and major proponent of the garden city, an idea characterized by green belts and created by Sir Ebenezer Howard. Stein studied architecture at Columbia University and the École des Beaux-Arts. While working at the office of Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, Stein assisted the planning of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Diego, California.

[edit] Life and Career

Clarence Stein and Henry Wright collaborated on the design of the Radburn community in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Radburn, founded in 1929, was intended to be the "town in which people could live peacefully with the automobile-or rather in spite of it". Radburn was designed in such a way that thoroughfares had a specialized use; main roads linking traffic at various sections, service lanes to allow direct access to buildings, and express highways. The desire was also to have as complete a separation of automobile and pedestrian as possible. Pedestrian crossways were designed at differing levels than that of autos, and were directed differing places than autos. These largely residential areas were termed “superblocks”. Radburn was also intended to become a garden city characterized by surrounding greenbelts, and the careful design of residential, industrial and agricultural land. Residential areas were designed to face inwards towards gardens and nature rather than out towards traffic. Unfortunately, the depression proved the end of the "Radburn idea". Only a minute section was completed before the operation was forced to stop. The originally-planned manufacturing area never materialized, so the town became a commuter city, despite the planners' best hopes. The other main problem to appear were extremely high costs of developments of this type, as well as the large amount of land that it consumed. However, the city did achieve a very high level of pedestrian walkability.

Stein and Wright also collaborated on the design of Sunnyside Gardens, in the Sunnyside neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens. Sunnyside Gardens was one of the first developments to incorporate the "superblock" model in the United States. The complex was constructed from 1924 to 1929 and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Stein also collaborated with architect Reginald Johnson in the early 1940s on the design of Baldwin Hills Village (now the Village Green) in Los Angeles, California. This complex is a rare example of the garden city superblock on the West Coast. The Village Green was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

Stein was also involved in the design of Kitimat, British Columbia. His experiences at Radburn, and elsewhere, helped lay the groundwork for what was to hopefully become another garden city.

Stein wrote Toward New Towns for America in 1951. This book details his "experiments" at Radburn as well as other projects that he was involved in. He describes what he believes the direction that city design must take in order to help preserve nature.

Stein's lasting legacy will be his vision of better self sustaining towns. Although unsuccessful at Radburn, it was attempted elsewhere with varying degrees of success. Stein died in 1975 at the age of 93.