Urban planning in the 20th century was marked by debates regarding how to ensure nature was brought back into the urban environments. As such, various branches of planning thought, at the formation of the discipline, considered integrated approaches to defining visions of green cities. Namely, the influence of the Garden City idea, the French Urbanisme, and numerous green-wedge models circulated far beyond their points of origin. Through processes of transnational exchanges of ideas, such distinct planning concepts often merged, got adapted, and transformed themselves as part of acts of reception in new territories. This paper introduces a comparative analysis of two urban planning proposals from the 1930s – for Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro – both delineated by the French urbanist Alfred Agache. Facing distinct geographical, socio-economic, and environmental conditions, Agache’s plans resulted in differentiation. Nevertheless, common threads can be perceived, in particular regarding the Garden City idea and its adaptation to large urban settings. Traces of Agache’s plans can be perceived, for instance, in the maintenance of green wedges in Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro throughout time. This paper will explore matters of permanence and change in dealing with planning ideas over time, and their manifestations in urban form, through a comparative perspective. At a moment when the sustainability question demands contemporary urban planning to rethink the way nature and their ecosystem services are integrated within the built space, it is therefore important to re-examine such past experiences to retrieve the necessary lessons to help us face our contemporary urban challenges.

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Urban Planning,Urban History,Urban Sustainability,Green Spaces

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