Pioneers of collective participation in urban planning processes. Halprin's legacy

Abstract

This paper seeks to reference, translate into present and highlight the important work that Anna and Lawrence Halprin developed about the processes of collective creation applied to both urban planning and architectural project from fifties to the death of Lawrence in 2009.

To define the framework of action is briefly reviewed the regulatory and conceptual status of participation in Spain, likewise intense biographies of Anna and Lawrence located in the heart of decisive events that have strongly influenced the evolution of art and also Western society in recent decades.

The research focuses on an extensive review of the authors' literature and the analysis of much of their published material. Consulted documentation is interpreted and decrypted for possible application to a contemporary context of social demands in Western culture with obvious parallels to the events in the Americans sixties.

The Halprins play a crucial role in the conceptual evolution of both urban planning and performing arts and exemplify a paradigmatic concurrence of architecture and dance. This uniqueness, poorly documented in continental Europe and virtually zero in Spanish, brings us the knowledge of tested alternatives with success in building a collective city.