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R E A D I N G S O C I O - S P A T I A L I N T E R P L A Y P A R T 2Environmental types in the reformed urban block system of 1900-1945The architectural systems of the reformed urban blocks comprised threedifferent housing types: The garden city, the open block and the lamellarhouses. 287The Garden cityThe satellite garden city, as an urban prototype, was inspired by the village asa way of life, and was invented and tested out in England at the beginning ofthe 20 th century – as a reaction against observed problems of the traditionalindustrial working class areas. 288 Unlike the English prototype, the gardencity areas in Oslo were never planned as autonomous satellite towns, theywere planned to be garden suburbs. The garden cities in Oslo have a mix ofdifferent housing typologies: semi-detached houses (Arktanderbyen, 1910-11; Kværnerkolonien, 1913), (Ullevål hageby, 1913-22), semi-detachedhouses and 4-family houses (Holtet hageby, 1925-31), row-houses (LilleTøyen, 1916-22; Hoffsbyen, 1923), and 4-family houses (Tåsen haveby,1920-24). The largest and most complete garden city in Oslo is Ullevålhageby (1913-22), composed of single family houses, semi-detached houses,4-family houses, row houses, and 3-storey apartment buildings and shopscommunal square with shops. Ullevål hageby can therefore be considered asthe best example of the garden city model in Oslo:The detached buildings of the garden city are organized in an openpattern, loosely defining block-like units. The detached buildings are pulledback from the streets, and both the private front gardens and the visualopenings towards the shared gardens for mixed activities inside the “blocks”,constitute an image of a city of gardens. The street system of the garden citymakes use of the topography to segregate the private and shared outdoor287 Although named by different scale references (city/block/house) all three typologies define characteristicbuilding forms, characteristic ways of organizing spaces within and around the buildings, and characteristicways of organizing buildings and adjacent open spaces in relation to each other in larger ensembles.288 Cf. the ideas of Ebenezer Howard’s manifest (1898) on how the rapid growth and sanitary problems relatedto urban working class areas in 19 th century London, should be solved by decentralized, autonomous satellitetowns. The garden city was presented as the most economic and soundest solution for the growth of largercities. Each garden city was to function as a complete, small industrial town with an ideal number ofinhabitants, which, according to Howard, should be 30,000. The ideas in Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to RealReform (1898) were further developed in Howard’s book The Garden Cities of Tomorrow (1902). Incooperation with the architects Parker & Unwin three different tests of the prototype were set out in life:Letchworth (1904) – the first garden city built according to the economic development-model of Howard andthe first important realization by Raymon Unwin and Barry Parker; Hampstead (1909) – the first gardensuburb built according to the design ideas of Unwin; and Welwyn (1919) – the first garden city that combinedin the same project the theories of Howard and the practical models of Unwin. Unwin had borrowed elementsfrom the traditional English village – such at the village green, the cul-de-sac and the quadrangle, the small andrepresentative front garden, the communal green, the semi-public sequential village street, etc. – andreinterpreted and elaborated them into a sophisticated system of qualitatively differentiated and more or lesscommunal spaces, all of them wrapped in neoclassic brick architecture. Raymond Unwin 1902: Town Planningin Practice: An Introduction to the Art of Designing Cities and Suburbs, London, Fisher Unwin;Philippe Panerai, Jean Castex et al 2004: Urban forms. The death and life of the urban block, Oxford, ElsevierArchitectural press, pp. 30-55; Tore Brantenberg 2002: Hus i hage. Privatliv og fellesskap i små og storeboligområder, Oslo, Arkitekturforlaget/Den Norske Stats Husbank.157