Abstract
While a robust voluntary town planning movement emerged in Australia before World War I, the long-standing goal of university-provided professional education did not become a reality until after World War II. This chapter considers the genesis of the first three tertiary programs in Australia between 1949 and 1951 in the wake of national moves toward postwar reconstruction. These were at the South Australian School of Mines and Industries (under Gavin Walkley), University of Sydney (under Denis Winston), and University of Melbourne (under Niel Abercrombie). The development of these first qualifications each has its own complex history. The chapter highlights the key factors driving establishment of the programs in each state; the main actors involved; the intellectual and professional connections to architectural education; the importance of the British connection in terms of aspirations, early syllabuses, textbooks and lecturers; and the overall significance of this moment in the development of planning education in Australia.
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Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this chapter was delivered at the 16th International Planning History Society Conference, St Augustine, Florida, July 2014. The authors acknowledge the assistance of Ross King, Nicola Pullan, John Toon, Giles Walkley and Jane Walkley.
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Freestone, R., Garnaut, C., Nichols, D. (2018). Tertiary Education and Postwar Reconstruction: The First Australian Planning Programs. In: Frank, A., Silver, C. (eds) Urban Planning Education. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55967-4_7
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