This second edition had significant revisions from the 1st, published in 1936, as well as a nearly totally new set of illustrations and captions, including as the final photograph a picture of Sharp's model for Oxford. It is clear from the many minor changes that Sharp systematically reviewed the text. This abstract focuses on the more substantial changes and needs to be read in conjunction with the description of the 1st edition.
The first section which had been completely rewritten was that describing the medieval town, which was also considerably expanded. Whilst acknowledging some planning in the layout of some medieval towns, Sharp's analysis had previously focused on chaos and squalor. Given Sharp's preference for the Enlightenment period it was perhaps ironic that many of his prestigious commissions as a planning consultant in the 1940s had been for older medieval settlements. However, this had made him more appreciative of their qualities. In essence he did not disavow his previous analysis of the disorder of the medieval town but now he was willing to celebrate its picturesque effects and also concede that the pictorial possibilities of some major sites were consciously and deliberately exploited. He was still not willing, however, to accede to Sitte's thesis of wider planning of medieval towns for visual effect.
Sharp's preference, again perhaps ironically, was not for the medieval towns planned to a grid, such as Salisbury, but for those with more twisting and tortuous plans. These gave changing incidents, surprise, drama and climax. He noted that 'Of all the squalor and the casual splendour of the mediaeval town, only occasional and much changed glimpses of the splendour remain' (p.34). Mercery Lane in Canterbury is discussed, where there is 'variety, incident, surprise, intimacy, intricacy, enclosure, drama, contrast, subsidiary climax, delayed climax and more' (p.34). Durham was also discussed and especially Sharp's often favoured example of the approach to the Cathedral by the Bailey and Owengate. For more on Sharp's shifting attitude towards the medieval town in this text see Lilley (1999).
Greater enthusiasm for the medieval town had not diminished Sharp's passion for the post-Renaissance town. Indeed Sharp extended his appreciation of the relatively modest contributions of the period in many market towns up and down the country. Chichester, for which in the meantime he had prepared a plan, was particularly admired and also mentioned were the older parts of King's Lynn and Taunton (other Sharp commissions) and Farnham, Yarm, Lewes, Wisbech, Bewdley and Dorking, but the ultimate point was that there were many more. Sharp's analysis of these towns placed them some way between the formal qualities he had previously stressed and the more informal qualities of the medieval town that he had come to admire; 'Few possessed even a vestige of the monumental design which many planners and architects even today believe to be the finest expression of town building. On the contrary they were almost entirely informal. Their splendours... were almost as casual as those of the medieval town. And they were as varied.... the scenes that they made were warmly intimate, richly intricate, full of incident. In this they were different from the planned places, whose effects were broad and set... These towns were lively yet harmonious, varied yet ordered, urban yet unmannered, rich yet unostentatious, disciplined yet free' (p.46).
The final section on 'tomorrow' understandably showed some changes, partly by way of updating. So, for example, instead of a call in the abstract for New Towns, Sharp could now refer to Stevenage, Harlow, Hemel Hempstead and Crawley, although 'the first plans for these new towns are still clouded with garden-city suburbanism' (p.109). However, in most respects Sharp's essential principles remained the same. Two shifts in emphasis, with significant new / replacement text, are worth highlighting. First, his comments on the form of new development were influenced by his increased respect for the English town that was an amalgam of the medieval as civilised by the Enlightenment period. So;
In the fully planned renaissance town everything was displayed once and for all: there were no intimate qualities; no secrets: there was nothing to learn, and nothing by learning, to love... Its one great quality was that it had order. The medieval town, on the other hand, was wildly disordered. But in contrast to the renaissance town its effects were full of movement, of variety, of surprise, of changing interest... The English genius has always lain in the production of harmony in variety... Harmony in variety: variety in harmony: form without formality: order without repression or regimentation - all this we can express in the towns of tomorrow. And in expressing it we shall be renewing the English tradition. From our individual expression of renaissance building we can adapt the characteristic terrace to our newer, freer, less formal planning. From the medieval town we can adapt the plan-forms which made the town and unfolding succession of changing scenes. (pp.111-112)
The other significant shift was in Sharp's consideration of villages, an issue he had of course given much attention to in Anatomy of the Village. From suggesting that there will be many new villages in the first edition, the emphasis now shifted to expanding existing villages (though there is a fleeting reference to new settlements for forestry workers, with clearly his own work in Northumberland in mind). Though rural slums should still be cleared, whatever their picturesque qualities, the uncompromising modernist tenor has been toned down. New building should not be in imitation but should be harmonious; this 'lies in the maintenance of "scale" and the use of suitable sympathetic materials' (p.117). Harmony should be achieved through plan-form; 'we need to build freely and straightforwardly, using simple forms like the terrace facing directly on to unfenced open greens' (p.117).
Lilley, K.D. (1999). "Modern visions of the medieval city: competing conceptions of urbanism in European civic design." Environment and Planning B 26: 427-446.