The Path Followed Up

Abstract

Raymond Unwin’s departure from Letchworth to design Hampstead Garden Suburb symbolised the submergence of Howard’s dream of ‘real reform’ under a welter of housing improvement schemes that happily annexed the phrase he had coined whilst jettisoning its substance. Whether or not Unwin was himself an apostate has been a matter of debate;’ certainly his action and the prestige Hampstead was to bring to the idea of the garden suburb helped to obscure for nearly two decades the true character of a garden city. Not that Unwin initiated the process: its origins can be traced back at least to Port Sunlight and to Bourneville both of which were built before Howard’s book was published. And the accession of both Lever and Cadbury to the Garden Cities Association emphasises the fact that there were from the beginning powerful protagonists of the idea of ameliorating the condition of the masses by housing them better, within the garden city movement itself.