The Human Scale

(Andreas Møl Dalsgaard/2013/Denmark) 

Jan Gehl is a Danish architect who pioneered a move away from transport focused urban planning in the 70’s towards a more human, experiential centred planning philosophy. This documentary quite plainly, through the use of talking heads, outlines his approach and how it has influenced and been implemented by planners around the globe. Broken into five chapters it looks at various cities where Gehl’s approach has worked and could work. The piece on Christchurch in New Zealand after the terrible earthquake of 2011 is most revealing and a little surprising. The fact that the civic authorities went to the populace and sought their opinion on how to rebuild was heartening but the eventual reappraisal by central government in the face of private interests was typical. It was nice to see local government win out by legislating against any retraction of the peoples will. It’s a very informative film but isn’t very engaging. If you have an interest in the subject it’s going to broaden that understanding but it’s not going to light any fires in you either. I can’t imagine anyone stumbling across this and lasting through it all without some prior knowledge or interest in Gehl. But that aside it’s a decent, straightforward piece on a very pertinent and interesting concept for these times; personally, however, I think we have gone too far in damaging the environment for piecemeal adjustments to traffic and city living to counter or effect the real problem of pollution and overdependence on fossil fuels. That’s not Gehl’s goal obviously but I found myself coming to that conclusion repeatedly as I watched.

(2.5/5)