Hochschulseminar – Mythos Hochhaus
 
Jane Jacobs_Robert Moses_Mythos Manhattan
Cagla Gökalp, Monika Marchewka, 08.02.2017

Biography of Jane Jacobs
•was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania 4.5.1916 and died in Toronto
25.4.2006

•she was an Activist, urban and architectural critic

•lived in the New York city district Greenwich Village in the 1950s
and 1960s

•In her book „The Death and Life of Great American Cities“
(1961), she protested against the prevailing map

•she criticizes the loss of grown urban Structures and fought for
the people and especially for the pedestrian


Janes‘s requirement:

•varied mixed development within a street

•lively neighborhoods and small-scale, Unplanned quarters

•public participation

Spadina Expressway

•planning in the 1940s

•incomplete termination in 1971

•extensive surface treatment of the North-South highway

•connect downtown Toronto and the suburb of North York

•12 December 1961 approval of the first Section from Highway 401 to Lawrence Avenue

•1966 completion of the blue section

•1976 completion of the purple section as an emergency road

•Red section wasn´t finished

Consequences of the Spadina Expressway

•high cost of the project

•displacement of thousands of inhabitants, artists and
professionals

•heavy traffic in the city

•air pollution and noise

•loss of Cedarvale Park

•loss of Spadina Street (Chinatown)public participation

•opposition to the project already before construction
beginning

•„Stop Spadina!“ slogan for toronto people

•prevention of the planned spadina Expressway

•arrest of Jane Jacobs because of her public rebellion

•in 1971 the plan was destroyed