Reyner Banham

Charts how London has grown in size and spread into the surrounding country. Written and narrated by architectural critic Reyner Banham, A City Crowned with Green describes the unique character of London as a capital city. Banham looks at the historical pattern of organic and decentralized growth, and the newer problems of urban sprawl and congestion. Is to too late to get back closer to the heart and make London a city crowned with green?

In this 1972 BBC Films production, architectural historian Reyner Banham takes the viewer on a tour of what he describes as the “four ecologies” of the city of Los Angeles: Surfurbia, Foothills, The Plains of Id, and Autopia (beach, basin, foothills, freeways). Noted for his seminal book of essays, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, published the year before, Banham had a love affair with the City of Angels and its bold typologies. (Open Source Cities)

1970 film by Eli Noyes (son of architect and designer Eliot Noyes) and his friend Claudia Weill made a film documenting the Aspen Design Conference, which convened that year around the theme “Environment by Design." The film displays the confrontation that ensued when environmental activists and students, mostly from Berkeley, California, challenged the dominant design philosophies and ideologies that circulated among the conference's elite crowd.

Charts how London has grown in size and spread into the surrounding country. Written and narrated by architectural critic Reyner Banham, A City Crowned with Green describes the unique character of London as a capital city. Banham looks at the historical pattern of organic and decentralized growth, and the newer problems of urban sprawl and congestion. Is to too late to get back closer to the heart and make London a city crowned with green?