Abstract

This paper illustrates the relationships between society and the English craft based architectural traditions which produced the Victorian architectural representation and the garden city plan. It also demonstrates the prospect of a garden-city plan pattern after the destruction of settlements in Greece during the First World War and the arrival of more than one million of refugees from Eastern Thrace and Asia Minor. The Victorian era of the nineteenth century was a time of a revolution on architectural design. Rejecting previous representations the goal was to contrive the ideal British form, made from British materials and in harmony with British landscape. These constructions were to combine function with a healthy environment, as well as integrate rural forms with the necessities of the industrialized world. At the same time, English craft based traditions were also influencing colonized world as well as Europe and the USA. This was evident in the construction of all aspect of communities from landscaping to the structure of towns. During the 19th century the unplanned development of cities resulted to a social and cultural crisis, due the to industrialization explosion. The evolution resulted in contradictory attitudes towards the industrial society, which lead to new legislation and modern planning. As the 20th century advanced and population distribution continued to increase, town and city planning theories implemented diverse solutions that had to be experimented (fortune and virtue) in order to arrive at the conclusion, that there is no comparison to the “luxury” of a garden city. The pattern of the garden city, with its harmonious blend with the rural landscape also influenced Greek design, as the Greek population boomed by the end of the First World War, when a number of settlements were created in order to house Greek refugees, according to the Treaties of Neuilly and Lausanne.