European Migrants and the American City Print
Aspects of urban planning, urban development and city life in the context of transatlantic migration since the 1920s

Andreas Joch

This study focuses on the role of European immigrants in the development of the urban system in the United States. It is part of a larger project analyzing postwar transatlantic exchanges in four different areas, whose title is Transatlantic Perspectives: Europe in the Eyes of European Immigrants to the United States."
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"Futurama" - A vision of the car friendly American city of the future. Created for the New York World Fair 1939.
How did urban planners and architects, who made the journey across the Atlantic, contribute to the evolution of their respective trades? What material and theoretical impact did they have on the new environment and how did the migration process affect their own perceptions of urban development and city life?

Among the individuals who took part in the processes of transatlantic exchange we find some of the most prominent names in modern architecture. Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and José Luis Sert belonged to a group of professionals whose careers or even lives were endangered by the changing political power structure in their home countries. They went into exile and arrived in the United States during the late 1930s and early 1940s. As internationally recognized experts, people like Gropius and van der Rohe quickly attained prestigious positions in the professional and academic organisations of their host country, thereby gaining considerable leverage.

Many other Europeans, although not forced to migrate, nevertheless established far reaching connections on the other side of the Atlantic and all over the globe. A striking example of the decidedly transnational character of urban planning and architecture is Jacqueline Tyrwhitt who, besides her academic activities in the U.S., was instrumental in organising the "Delos Symposia", which brought together urbanists from more than twenty nations on a regular basis.

It is the aim of this study to further our understanding of this transnational process by analyzing transatlantic networks formed by practitioners and academics as well as by assessing the influence of the migration experience on their ideas and their work. The results will add to a large body of existing scholarly literature focusing on specific individuals and organisations by taking a comprehensive look at the larger group of internationally active urbanists.