Post War Reconstruction of London

Idrees Ali Asghar Salemwala

laid to waste. Widespread damages to the docks, residential areas, hospitals, cathedrals/churches,

museums, libraries, law courts, House of Commons as well as Buckingham Palace engulfed

London city to its core.

With the historic heart of the city destroyed, the revival of London city underlying the

Greater London Plan (1944)1 is a fitting example of the Tabula Rasa construction. With the

desire to start with a ‘blank slate’ and a fresh start in hindsight, the reconstruction of London city

into a modern architectural dream was a large-scale opportunity of remodeling a city devastated

by war could ask for. However, London throughout the centuries has been a center for artistic

and literary significance and so preserving the historic heart of the city was just as important.

Therefore, the reconstruction of the city also envelops the Facsimile method. In combination

with both, today London city is not only a peek into history but also a contemporary outlook and

modern living.

As the initial stages of the remodeling began, planners such as Patrick Abercrombie

proposed a ‘County of London Plan’2 to reconstruct housing societies, open spaces, and

industrial plans completely. With his plans in the blueprint, estates such as Loughborough in

Brixton and Lansbury in Poplar emerged. The plan initiated the concept of four rings: “Inner

Urban, Suburban, Green Belt, and Outer County to limit the urban sprawl whilst simultaneously

controlling development in regional areas.”3

The 'Inner Urban Ring' plan constrained newer housing societies as well as industrial

developments to continue the reconstruction of damaged architecture to their interpretation of the

1
A. C. O. The Geographical Journal 108, no. 1/3 (1946)
2
“Reconstruction after World War II.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc.
3
Ibid.
original state. As the inner ring became the County of London, this ring contains the London

City, and all the legal areas in the Inner London boroughs Newham.

The 'Suburban Ring', mixed with both housing and light industry, insured to not create

inefficient regions with dormitory suburbs. The suburban ring also incorporated satellite towns

that aimed to develop neighborhood communities fostering housing developments catered to a

blend of various families, professions, and socio-economic groups. This plan also included

affordable housing options in the form of both apartments, as well as detached housing whilst

incorporating a unified architectural style for aesthetically formed streetscapes.

The plan also enveloped a concept of an architectural balance between public and private

spaces and so emerged the definition of ‘Green Belt’. Today, it is also known as the Metropolitan

Green Belt which is a strip of land that encircles London. Made up of parks, farmland, and

recreation grounds, it is subject to firm protocols concerning infrastructure and development4.

The purpose of the green belt resided in the essence of preserving the charisma of the historic

heart of the city, as well as to subside urban developments on the undeveloped land – the urban

sprawl.

The final plan was to implement an ‘outer ring’ containing several satellite towns that

support the farmlands and help relocate large groups of individuals away from the crowded areas

of central London.

Years after the reconstruction, the new city was distinct from the old. Many aristocratic

residents left and never returned, choosing instead to move into new homes in the West End,

where chic new neighbourhoods like St. James's were constructed close to the primary royal

4
“WW2 - Rebuilding London.” Sky HISTORY TV channel.
residence, Whitehall Palace, which was then known as St. James's Palace after it was destroyed

by fire in the 1690s. Courtiers' homes like Burlington House grew in the scenic lane of

Piccadilly. As a result, the aristocratic realm of the court in Westminster and the middle-class

mercantile City of London became separated.

Furthermore, the new construction brought the elimination of wooden buildings entirely

from the plain. Wood was replaced by stone and brick construction to help reduce the risk of fire.

“According to the Rebuilding of London Act of 1666, brick construction is ‘not only more

attractive and long-lasting, but also safer against future fire hazards.’ From that point forward,

only wooden shop fronts, window frames, and doorcases were permitted.”5

With new changes to the architectural inheritance of London, the displacement of the

people’s former socioeconomic statures contributed to a significant loss of identity of the people

from before the war. The new architectural style also contributed to the upliftment of the existing

urban fabric by organizing the city for a modernist and contemporary future yet preserving the

rich heritage; as Memory is key to the phenomenon of loss, specifically when a country survives

the civil war.6

Whether they are mediated by family, religious, ethnic, ideological, class, or national

features, memory stores the knowledge that lets us identify what "social groups we belong to."

Memory also aids in determining what is ‘foreign’ or ‘opposite’ to us, which helps us decide

whether or how to negotiate, fight, or work with others.7 Therefore, post-war societies have an

enormous responsibility to re-writing their history.

5
Derdiger, Paula. “TO DRAG OUT A ROUGH POETRY: COLIN MACINNES AND THE NEW BRUTALISM
IN POSTWAR BRITAIN.” Pg. 55
6
NIVEN, ALEX. “TOWARDS A NEW ARCHITECTURE: BASIL BUNTING’S POSTWAR
RECONSTRUCTION.” ELH 81, no. 1 (2014): pg. 361
7
Hadi Makarem; “Downtown Beirut: Between Amnesia and Nostalgia.” Middle East Centre
 Considering the post-war reconstruction of Beirut,8 the city accompanied a rigid tabula

rasa scheme which turned its urban fabric into an utterly blank slate. With the aid of foreign

investments and capitalist mindsets, Beirut became a city of exclusion for the private and

corporate sectors only. The city planners unrooted the deep cultural and historical aspects of the

ottoman and roman eras and rebuilt the city following an international style, crumpling the

memories held within its fabric.

Additionally, after the never-ending siege in Sarajevo, the city had to be rebuilt and the

planners intended to follow the facsimile method.9 Preserving and rebuilding the cityscape after a

22-year-long war was considered a hindrance to urban and financial growth. The citizens had

already lost enough and required utter development for the future than rebuilding what was

already lost with time. Hence, the future generations with constant changes in physical and

mental environments had lost the ‘memory aspect’ of the city but rather saw it as a warzone.

To conclude, London incorporated both construction methods: Tabula rasa, as well as

Facsimile. Hence, the city does not only hold together its literary and historical inheritance, but

also incorporates safer, and urbanized public spaces where the socio-economic conditions can

thrive. It curates the heritage by preserving the surviving using facsimiles and rebuilds or leaves

open to the people to fill in the ‘lost’ by their memories as tabula rasa.10 E.g., Coventry Cathedral

was bombed in WWII and was left without a roof, creating a memory garden for the past,

present, and future generations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
8
Ibid.
9
HUSUKIĆ, Erna, and Emina ZEJNILOVIĆ. “The Environmental Aesthetics of Sarajevo: A City Shaped by
Memory.” Urbani Izziv 28, no. 1 (2017): pg. 97
10
Waters, Chris. “Representations of Everyday Life: L. S. Lowry and the Landscape of Memory in Postwar
Britain.” Representations, no. 65 (1999): pg. 131
PRIMARY SOURCES:

1. Larkham, Peter J., and John Pendlebury. “Reconstruction Planning and the Small Town

in Early Post‐War Britain.” Planning Perspectives 23, no. 3 (2008): 291–321.

https://doi.org/10.1080/02665430802102807.

2. Burnham, Peter. “The International State System and Theories of Postwar

Reconstruction.” The Political Economy of Postwar Reconstruction, 1990, 1–13.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20553-0_1.

3. Waters, Chris. “Representations of Everyday Life: L. S. Lowry and the Landscape of

Memory in Postwar Britain.” Representations, no. 65 (1999): 121–50.

https://doi.org/10.2307/2902964.

4. “WW2 - Rebuilding London.” Sky HISTORY TV channel. Accessed September 22,

2022. https://www.history.co.uk/history-of-london/ww2-rebuilding-london.

5. A. C. O. The Geographical Journal 108, no. 1/3 (1946): 93–94.

https://doi.org/10.2307/1789338.

6. Hadi Makarem; “Downtown Beirut: Between Amnesia and Nostalgia.” Middle East

Centre, September 17, 2020. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2012/10/17/downtown-beirut-

between-amnesia-and-nostalgia/.
SECONDARY SOURCES:

1. “Reconstruction after World War II.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia

Britannica, inc. Accessed September 24, 2022.

https://www.britannica.com/place/London/Reconstruction-after-World-War-II.

2. “Blitzed, Rebuilt and Built Again: What Became of London's Bomb Sites?” The

Guardian. Guardian News and Media, September 2, 2015.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/sep/02/blitz-london-bomb-sites-redevelopment.

3. NIVEN, ALEX. “TOWARDS A NEW ARCHITECTURE: BASIL BUNTING’S

POSTWAR RECONSTRUCTION.” ELH 81, no. 1 (2014): 351–79.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/24475598

4. Derdiger, Paula. “TO DRAG OUT A ROUGH POETRY: COLIN MACINNES AND

THE NEW BRUTALISM IN POSTWAR BRITAIN.” Modern Fiction Studies 62, no. 1

(2016): 53–69. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26421834.

5. HUSUKIĆ, Erna, and Emina ZEJNILOVIĆ. “The Environmental Aesthetics of Sarajevo:

A City Shaped by Memory.” Urbani Izziv 28, no. 1 (2017): 96–106.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/24996592.