Utopia and Dystopia in The Future City

2580 Words6 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Critical analysis of Thomas More's utopia

Throughout history man has always felt the need to envision and design ‘the future city’, whether it being one inspired by the concept of Utopia, ruled by technology or one that would go beyond the terrestrial limit of the earth. For a long time in western architecture there has been a fixed connection between utopia and architecture, in particular within the idealization of a ‘The Future City’. Its tradition to consider the Platonic discourse which treats of the idyllic city (the republic) as the first Utopia in this cultural thread. Thomas More nonetheless introduced far after the tangible term; who presented his ideal society as something constructed on a far away utopic island.

From the paintings of the Italian Renaissance, which idealized an antique utopic city (in the past), such as Raffeallo’s ‘The Virgins Wedding’ to the envisioning of a futuristic utopia as in the case of ‘La Citta Ideale’ one can trace the struggle humanity has endeavored in trying to envision such a detached and different world. Fast forward to a few centuries and we see that this obsession with planning for a future city still lives through Le Corbusier’s Radiant City master-plan. A master-plan where the rational and emotional merge through the concept of repetition as a standard, where a true geometrical layout is repetition and subsequently where the result of repetition is the standard, a perfect form. Nonetheless this feeling of optimism embedded in such projects and visions is now long and, with the turn of the century, instead of envisioning and seeking perfection, writers and artists now foresee the future city as something decadent. This sentiment is clearly portrayed through Deeley’s Blade Runner movie where the picture delves into the ...

... middle of paper ...

... the outcome of 3d modeling of Le Corbusier’s radiant City where the idealized utopic city of the future is doomed to become a dystopia due to the rebellion of the people to the government.

Bibliograpohy

Books

1. Iverson, Margaret. Alois Riegl: Art History and Theory. Boston: MIT Press 1993

2. Le Corbusier. The City of Tomorrow and Its Planning. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1987

3. Meyerson, Martin. Utopian Traditions and the Planning of Cities. Boston: MIT Press 1961

4. Nietzche, Friedrich. The Gay Science, from Kaufaman's translation, Penguin Books, NYC 1968

5. Richard T. LeGates and States Frederic. The City Reader. London: Routledge: 5th edition 2011

Web Sources

http://www.architectureink.com/09-2000/afterthefall.htm

https://sites.google.com/site/hscadvancedenglish/franken-runner/scene-analysis/blade-runner-scene-analysis

Show More
Related

  • Architecture in the United States: Professor Dell Upton

    1957 Words  | 4 Pages

    Dell Upton is a historian and renowned professor of architecture and Urbanism at the University of California. He has published several books on architecture; one of them is “Architecture in the United States”, published in 1998. In this book, Upton analyzes the architecture of the United States in different aspects, such as nature, money and art, thus depicting the great variety in architectural forms, and how throughout the decades, different interests have lead communities to different ways of building, different purposes and materials, thus reflecting their way of thinking and their relationship with the environment. By exploring so many different architectural styles, Upton reveals the great diversity and richness that has always, and continues to characterize American architecture.

    Read More

  • Debolism In Sam Ridgway's The Representation Of Construction

    1126 Words  | 3 Pages

    He suggests that the use of “electronic imaging prevents imagining and promotes thinking about architecture rather than bring architects, contractors, clients and critics to think within architecture” (275). Inspired by Frascari, the strategy of technography is encouraged (278). This is a “different way of thinking about the relationship between a [working] drawing and a future building. Rather than “simply Cartesian, technical lines showing edges, corners and joints these technographic drawings reveal both the symbolic and instrumental representations of the future building.. it is to make visible what is invisible”. Ridgway remarks, “The fact that any of this could be considered contentious indicates that extent to which architects have become alienated from the heart of their profession” (279). He asserts, “Part of any technography must be an acknowledgement of the historical context of construction knowledge. This is not only so we can better understand our rich architectural ancestry, but because it re-establishes a connection with the origins of our profession in building” (279). Rather than a “miniature projected representation of an imagined building, details are drawn as poetic constructions themselves, following the logic of drawing and not building and representing the “built detail symbolically, in addition to instrumentally. The symbolic and practical are one and the same thing” (280). “What are the symbolic qualities we are trying to embody in our buildings and how would we represent them in drawings?” becomes the question (278). These drawing “may not be easy or straightforward to understand or interpret.

    Read More

  • Le Corb

    750 Words  | 2 Pages

    Le Corbusier was a Swiss-French artist mostly known for his work in architecture, but also practiced some in painting, design, and writing. He was closely associated with the new “modern” architecture movement and was a leader in the new field of urban planning in the mid 20th century. The works he produced can be found in Europe, the United State, and India. His work was both widely praised and criticized throughout his life and after his death. In addition to producing many great works of architecture, Le Corbusier led a full and very interesting personal life.

    Read More

  • Mies Van Der Rhoes and Paul Rudolph

    2349 Words  | 5 Pages

    Using the quote by Habermas as a starting point, select up to two buildings designed in the twentieth century and examine what ‘sudden, shocking encounters’ they have encountered, or created. Analyse the building’s meanings as a demonstration of an avant-garde, or potentially arriere-garde, position.

    Read More

  • Urban Renewal Plan Analysis

    960 Words  | 2 Pages

    She also introducing new urban building standards. This this article she talks about, the idea some people have of tearing it down and rebuilding. She also talks about ideas people have about some parts of towns. In Boston, she talks about the area of North End, and the change that it was over gone. During her second visit to this area, she discovered that it had changed. She talked to other about it, although the statistic were higher than the city, the people still saw it as a slum. They felt that they needed to tear it down in order to build something better. This leads to the conclusion that the urban planners to do understand that the people of the city need. They have ideas that were developed years ago that they are still using. These ideas do not take account what the people want. The author also introducing new ideas of a perfect city to live in and what it would look like. The idea of a garden city was introduced. This city would be built around a park. Although the new ideas sounded great they could not be put into place today. The idea of a Garden City is something that sounds nice, but it is not possible in society today. Today a city should reflect economic status, and in order to achieve this the city should be big, and convey an image of power. A city that has aspects of nature in it would not convey that image. That upkeep of a city of that kind would also be difficult. The do understand the author's point of view. The planners often times do not take into account the desires of the people. The town that I grow up in want to become more urbanized. In order to do this, they are building a large shopping center. This shopping center is located in the canyon rim. This canyon rim has been important the people for many years. We come to the area to walk, what bass jumpers, and enjoy the scenic views. This new shopping center took away this area. Many of the people

    Read More

  • Utopia Vs Dystopian Society

    2143 Words  | 5 Pages

    It’s been shown that “Nearly two-thirds of adult Americans are overweight or obese. Despite the attention of the health profession, the media, and the public, and mass educational campaigns about the benefits of healthier diets and increased physical activity, the prevalence of obesity in the United States has more than doubled over the past four decades” (Marks). These alarming statistics are increasing exponentially as individuals all over the globe continue to adopt unhealthy lifestyles that can lead to detrimental, and many times, irreversible, health issues. As a result, my discussion section chose to design our utopian society, named Troytopia, with the founding main vision of adhering to strict, healthy lifestyles for the betterment

    Read More

  • Essay On Utopia

    1573 Words  | 4 Pages

    Since the dawn of mankind, humans have always expressed a desire to understand natural phenomenon and to answer questions regarding their way of life, their birth and what happens after death. These needs resulted in the development of a variety of philosophies and theories that can be found all around the world today. These beliefs soon became more and more superstitious. Once these beliefs became part of the social structure like castes and race, these caused a social divide - A divide that affected the economic status of the livelihood in a society. If this trend of religious discrimination around the world is observed and analysed, I felt that this question might be the key to predict how bright our future as a united utopia will prevail.

    Read More

  • Juxtaposition In The City

    1265 Words  | 3 Pages

    Location, location, location -- it’s the old realtor 's mantra for what the most important feature is when looking at a potential house. If the house is in a bad neighborhood, it may not be suitable for the buyers. In searching for a house, many people will look at how safe the surrounding area is. If it’s not safe, they will tend stray away. Jane Jacobs understood the importance of this and knew how cities could maintain this safety, but warned of what would become of them if they did not diverge from the current city styles. More modern planners, such as Joel Kotkin argue that Jacobs’s lesson is no longer applicable to modern cities because they have different functions than those of the past. This argument is valid in the sense that city

    Read More

  • Utopia And Dystopian Novel

    1817 Words  | 4 Pages

    Future has always intrigued people; we have always wanted to find out what future will

    Read More

  • Essay On Utopia

    777 Words  | 2 Pages

    Utopia is a society that you really can’t wrap your head around. In Utopia it talks about Thomas, Raphael, Peter how they met and what they think they about the society. It ask you questions that really makes you think, would I want to live in this society? Utopia talks about how they are a perfect society but it makes you wonder if they really are. (More, 2011)

    Read More

  • Architectural Utopia or Dystopia?

    2400 Words  | 5 Pages

    In 1516 Thomas More published Utopia, thereby kindling for the Renaissance as well as four our own times a literary ritual designating an idyllic future society and by outcome evaluating the society already in existence. Throughout history, humans have obsessed with projected Utopias of the world that revealed their perception of it. These multidimensional projections can be viewed as naiveties that leaked to the peripheral world nothing more than subjective thoughts. Half a century after More, Leon Battista Alberti promoted a parallel Utopian tradition of designing the Utopian city, one dedicated to Francesco Sforza. This utopian urban planning initiated a multitude of efforts to install a desirable geometrical pattern for future living without narrating how to achieve it. Another few centuries into the future and we view how this obsession with planning for a Utopia still lives through Le Corbusier’s Villa Radieuse master plan. A master plan proposed as the resolution to the enigma of human existence in an industrialized world. Nonetheless with the acknowledgment of the concept of Utopia and the designing for this we come to ponder even more on whether a Utopia can truly exist aside from within ones mind and whether it turns to dystopia when physically established. Can one collective Utopian vision exist or does a Utopic city stem from the coexistence of a variety of utopian thoughts and ideas.

    Read More

  • Modern vs. Postmodern Architecture

    1622 Words  | 4 Pages

    The essence of modern architecture lays in a remarkable strives to reconcile the core principles of architectural design with rapid technological advancement and the modernization of society. However, it took “the form of numerous movements, schools of design, and architectural styles, some in tension with one another, and often equally defying such classification, to establish modernism as a distinctive architectural movement” (Robinson and Foell). Although, the narrower concept of modernism in architecture is broadly characterized by simplification of form and subtraction of ornament from the structure and theme of the building, meaning that the result of design should derive directly from its purpose; the visual expression of the structure, particularly the visual importance of the horizontal and vertical lines typical for the International Style modernism, the use of industrially-produced materials and adaptation of the machine aesthetic, as well as the truth to materials concept, meaning that the true nat...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Charles Jencks The Language Of Post Modern Architecture

    2290 Words  | 5 Pages

    Charles Jencks in his book “The Language of Post-Modern Architecture “shows various similarities architecture shares with language, reflecting about the semiotic rules of architecture and wanting to communicate architecture to a broader public. The book differentiates post-modern architecture from architectural modernism in terms of cultural and architectural history by transferring the term post-modernism from the study of literature to architecture.

    Read More

  • The Utopian Impulse

    1135 Words  | 3 Pages

    To explore the concepts of Utopian theory, both political and social, one must first engender a concrete definition of what Utopia means. Sir Thomas More, the original creator of the term Utopia, signifies it as “no place”. However, More’s clever play on words seems ultimately to suggest that ”no place” is just no place right now. That is to say that Utopia is “an ideal place that does not exist in reality” yet (Murfin and Ray 529).

    Read More

  • Architecture: Critical Regionalism

    2119 Words  | 5 Pages

    In this essay I will discuss how concrete regionalism was presented in the work of Le Corbusier who is the most classic example of this movement, Oscar Niemeyer, and Antoine Predock . With each architect having a highly individual vision that has created unique buildings for people and their environment. These architects each has combined vernacular buildi...

    Read More

More about Utopia and Dystopia in The Future City

Open Document