Whiteley Village

From Sarah Rutherford's Garden Cities (2014), pp. 61-4.

'Whiteley Village was a unique self-contained retirement village. The site was bought in 1911 and the buildings constructed from 1914 using a £1 million bequest by William Whiteley, the murdered philanthropist and owner of the London department store Whiteley's. Set deep in Surrey woodland, near Cobham, it was planned in eight segments around an octagonal village centre with a monumental centrepiece. It was built to the highest quality with designs by seven of the most prestigious Arts and Crafts architects of the day including Reginald Blomfield, Aston Webb and Ernest Newton. As a pioneering community, self-sufficient in its facilities for retired persons, it housed all classes as long as they were of good character and sound mind, unaffected by any infection diseases, nor convicted of any criminal offence.' View it on google maps here.

In case you're interested (why wouldn't you be?!) Whiteley was shot at point-blank range in his shop in 1907 by a man he had been arguing with. The man claimed to be his son, Cecil, and although the Whiteley family initially denied all knowledge of him it later came out at trial that Cecil Rayner had in fact been born to William Whitely and Emily Turner out of wedlock in 1885 (Manchester Guardian 25 July 1907 p. 7; Manchester Guardian 23 March 1907 p. 10).  The £1 million was about two-thirds of Whiteley's estate. He had left a small amount additionally to provide for Rayner's mother, Emily, and her sister Louise. The Whiteley murder was sufficiently notorious that another shooting of a 'natural father' by his son, in Paris in 1912, was referred to by some newspapers as a 'Whiteley tragedy' (see Geelong Advertiser 20 May 1912 p. 3).

Smith's Weekly, 5 July 1919 p. 9

Sutton Garden Suburb

From Sarah Rutherford, Garden Cities Shire Publications, Oxford, p.56

F. C. Pearson's work on this design is discussed by Rutherford as having 'many features established by Unwin... The integral communal spaces enclosed by houses are now threatened by development in many such suburbs'.

The suburb was (according to Wikipedia) developed under the aegis of Thomas Wall, of Wall's ice-cream fame.

View it here. For orientation, the link will take you to Oak Close, which is the top right-hand corner of the subdivided area.

Maidstone Land Subdivision

'The Commission has given consideration to the extremely undesirable conditions obtaining in existing subdivisions in a tract of country at Maidstone in the Shire of Braybrook.
'Nearly all of the subdivisions in this area were surveyed many years ago during a land boom. In the village of Maidstone and its vicinity many of the allotments measure 26 feet frontage by 66 feet depth a superficial area of 1,758 square feet!
'Although the Shire of Braybrook has a bylaw which prohibits a repetition of such small allotments, no power exists which will permit amendments being made to conditions existing prior to the passing of this by-law. The Shire of Braybrook has taken steps as opportunity has occurred to secure tow or more allotments and in other ways in an endeavour to prevent the perpetuation of unsatisfactory conditions which would arise if the original allotments were built on. Without effective legislation very little can be done, especially with regard to main traffic routes, reserves, zoning, building regulations, from a health point of view, etc. etc.
'The Commission suggests, as a basis of discussion, that action be taken to secure legislation to have the whole are [sic] resubdivided in accordance with modern town planning principles. It is probably that if this area were replaced the gross are which would be available for housing purposes would be little less than that now available on account of the existing subdivision being wasteful and extravagant in the provision of useless streets. If this action were taken, the present property owners could then be given approximately the same area of land in a similar location to that held by them prior to resumption.
'The preparation and carrying out of the scheme could be entrusted to a town Planning Department acting in conjunction with the Shire of Braybrook.'
'Notes for Conference with Williamstown and Footscray City Councils and the Braybrook Shire Council - to be held at Footscray Town Hall, at 8 p.m., 3rd June, 1926.' in 'Footscray- City A/F 2' folder, MTPC archives, Public Records Office Victoria box no. 10281

Smythe Lake, Redcliffe, Western Australia

It can be located on google maps here.

Reserve between MacPherson St, Dumbarton Cres, Alexander Drive, Walcott St and Melrose Cres, Menora, Western Australia

It's here.

Reserve between Dumbarton Cres, Walcott St and McPherson St, Menora, Western Australia

View it here

Reserve between Bradford St, Warralong Crescent and Wiluna St, Coolbinia, Western Australia

This is the northernmost of the internal reserves in Hope and Klem's Menora Estate, which was developed later than most of the estate (to the same basic plan) and named Coolbinia. More to follow.

 Evidence of permeable fences. 

Entrance from Wiluna St. 

It's on google maps here.

World Fellowship Centre, Conway, New Hampshire

Another unbuilt Marion Mahony Griffin project prepared at the instigation of Lola Lloyd, 1942. 

Hill Crystals and Rosary Crystals, Boerne, Texas

This project, by Marion Mahony Griffin commissioned by Lola Lloyd, was not built.

'The drawing "Hill Crystals and its Suburb Rosary Crystals" is dated January 1943. There are 118 residential sites distributed according to modified Radburn and Garden City planning principle, with common nature reserves joining them... At the centre of each is a circle with a building and in the residential area a nature reserve similar to those in Castlecrag.' Anna Rubbo, 'Marion Mahony's Return to the United States; War, Women and "Magic"' in David Van Zanten (ed) Marion Mahony Reconsidered University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2011, pp. 134-5

Unnamed IR, Rue de l'Angouleme, Annecy, France

It's here. Why was I sniffing around Annecy on google maps? 

Because the 2012-15 French supernatural series Les Revenants (remade in the US as The Returned) is set in a modernist village in regional France (and filmed largely in Annecy). In the second episode of the second season, Claire Séguret – the mother of two ‘returned’ (undead) girls – wanders, disoriented, down a treelined path into a cultivated park space where, suddenly, a host of her zombielike former neighbours appear around her. There is no retreat possible; clearly, there is only one way in and one way out of this park. We do not see what happens to Claire, but we do see her come to consciousness, bruised but alive, in the same small park.

I can't tell whether this is the park in question, although the pathway to the park Claire finds herself in is similarly tree-lined. But google maps being road-based as it understandably is, there's no way of seeing inside the space itself (just a very hazy aerial view). 

By the way a small point: just wanted to say I'm trying very hard to get the accents right on Angouleme but blogger keeps cleaning the word up! 

Maddern Square, Footscray, Victoria

The City of Footscray District Centre Study of 1992 labels Maddern Square as 'public open space' and even recommends (on p. 76) that (as 'Maddern Reserve') it be identified as one of 'a number of minor pathway opportunities' but its status is unclear. Unsurprisingly a sardonic review from yelp gives a flavour of the place and the locals:

Maddern Square is our favorite haunt on the way from Cheaper by Miles to the Footscray Market. The square is perfectly designed to catch all of the free flowing litter and collect a fine assortment of broken glass and wine cask bladders from a Thursday night to Sunday arvo. Since the closure of the Rotunda in the Railway Gardens, Maddern Square has become the defacto home of late night parties out of the spotlight of the world class Mall that it funnels into and a hot spot to take the kids to see what drugs can do. Maddern Square is full of potential, don't get me wrong. It's a (well known) secret car park if you're going to the market and a great place to rinse a syringe or two before urinating behind the old Godfreys Cleaning store. Sure, it has real grass instead of asto turf, trees that have been pollarded by aspiring gardeners and concrete seating to whittle the time away reading the walled wisdoms, but what it needs is a bottle shop, public toilet and an army of large garbage bins with basketball hoops for incentive. So if you want to see a mall without the shops, but with all of the charm of the Nicholson St showcase (whilst having cars drive at you), Maddern Square is your heaven.

Another states:

I am waiting for the day that the shops turn inwards towards this space and it becomes an inviting square.  The structural pieces placed here at expense does nothing to enhance the square presently apart from detract from the assorted debris. Lighting, greening and coffee and cakes, a performance space would turn this opportunity pending around.

More work needs to be done on the history and projected use of Maddern Square. You can find the space in question here.