The founding history of spatial planning as a spatial science - the genesis of a new discipline

• Applicants: Professor Dr.-Ing. Uwe Altrock; Professor Dr.-Ing. Detlef Kurth
• Subject Area: City Planning, Spatial Planning, Transportation and Infrastructure Planning, Landscape Planning
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 574695892

Urban and spatial planning developed as a new discipline on a European level at the beginning of the 20th century. The first planning degree programme was established in Liverpool (UK) in 1909. The first planning degree programme in Germany was founded at TU Dortmund University in 1969. The establishment of planning degree programmes in Germany was a direct consequence of the new urban development legislation of 1960 (Federal Building Act BBauG) and 1971 (Urban Development Promotion Act StBauFG), and it took place in the context of the educational reforms of the time. In this founding period, spatial planning was primarily understood as an applied science, drawing in part on already established sciences such as geography or architecture, while at the same time developing its own methods and approaches. The associated interdisciplinarity of planning is often seen as an advantage, but also as a challenge. In the following decades, it established itself as a spatial science with numerous degree programmes, doctoral students and research focuses. With regard to these historical contexts, the question arises as to the social framework conditions and catalysts in which the new planning discipline emerged. In order to analyse this in more detail, the proposed research project pursues a cross-epochal, internationally oriented and interdisciplinary comparative approach. It builds on existing research, but embeds it in a broader social context, in particular in the relationship between the state and spatial planning as an empirical subject. By focussing on several key epochs, which are examined with a different focus and repertoire of methods, but with a common interest in knowledge, a systematic contribution is to be made to the constitution of spatial planning as a function of social conditions. The research project will reflect on previous disciplinary historiography with its assumed milestones in the development of the discipline, and new insights into the background to the re-founding and establishment of spatial planning as a discipline are expected.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants