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Summary
Author: Sennett, A.R.
Title: Garden cities in theory and practice. Being an amplification of a paper on the potentialities of applied science in a garden city read before Section F of the British Association.
Publication: London, Bemrose & Sons Ltd 1905.
Price: £420
Reference: 08441
Full Description
8vo. 2 vols. xiv + 557 + (1)pp ; xi + (1) + pp 559-1404 ; each with hundreds of photo ills and plans. Publisher's cloth. Light browning to beginning and end of volumes, but a good set. No ownership inscription, but from the library of the Aberdeen architectural firm George Bennett Mitchell & Son.
A quite remarkable book, usually cited in bibliographies by the first six words of its title which hardly prepare the reader at all for the extraordinary wealth of ideas "on the potentialities of applied science in a garden city" that is soon to confront him. Sennett's fertile mind, starting from just the same assumptions and ideals as Ebenezer Howard or George Cadbury or Raymond Unwin, operates on entirely different lines, and the subjects which excite him are road planning, assisted where practicable by such concepts as self-cleansing streets and moving pavements; rational house design, benefiting from the latest scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions; the establishment of self-supporting local industry and agriculture; and sociological matters in general. All this is supported by a wealth of relevant information and comment, and his is altogether a striking contribution to the literature, not least because his approach to the subject foreshadows many of the preoccupations both of later 20th century sociology and of science fiction.