Cumbernauld New Town: a town for tomorrow

Abstract

The present work is characterized as an analysis of the construction of the town of Cumbernauld, located in the region of North Lanarkshire, Scotland, which is one of several New Towns that were built between the 1940s and 1970s in Great Britain as a response to population growth and its consequent misfortunes arising from the rise of the Industrial Revolution as well as the devastation caused by the First and Second World Wars. For this, the theoretical background has approaches that consider the urban and social transformations of the pre-industrialization moment in Great Britain and the diversity of concepts elaborated by thinkers like William Morris and Howard in the attempt to heal the social and urban problems of that period as well the emergence of the Modern Movement and its proposition of transforming the way of thinking and producing architecture and urbanism and, later, the start of its decadence with the emergence of the questions in the 1960s related to such thinking and production. The methodology of this work initially consisted of the analysis of testimonies of residents of the new city about their personal experiences for the subsequent direction of themes that would be approached for understanding and deepening the historical understanding of that city. It is a work of chronological historical construction regarding its development and of an approximation of the same based on existing evidence in the testimonies of the residents as well as the physical evidence observed in the public and private spaces of the city of Cumbernauld, especially regarding the expectations related to British Urban Planning of the early 20th century and its results after its implementation.