1932-2014

Urbanist and geographer Sir Peter Hall passed away in his city, London, at the age of 82, one year after the publication of his last book, Good Cities, Better Lives: How Europe Discovered the Lost Art of Urbanism, in which he defended urbanism as a science that improves the lives of citizens. It was the last milestone of a prolific career as researcher, professor and consultant to governments of different ideological slant – from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair –, and which began with this doctoral thesis in Geography in 1957 and was developed in different institutions, like the London School of Economics, Reading University, Berkeley and Bartlett University College. Follower of Ebenezer Howard – leader of the ‘garden city’ movement –, Hall began his career supporting modern and rationalist town planning, from the ‘top down,’ but soon abandoned this position to propose urban planning based on strategic interventions – such as the Docklands or Canary Wharf in London – based on the ‘fertile chaos’ inspired by models like Hong Kong, whose pragmatism Hall combined with a critical approach to globalization.