Ideal Cities: Utopianism and the (un)built Environment - Tapa dura

The book presents a vast panorama of Western attempts to invent the perfect city, cradle of the ideal society. This work embraces not only architecture and town planning but also art, literature, philosophy and politics. It takes us through the imaginary environments of a wide variety of fascinating and often controversial movements and figures such as Plato, Filarete, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas More, Thomas Jefferson, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Charles Fourier, Etienne Cabet, Robert Owen, William Morris, Ebenezer Howard, Bruno Taut, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, the International Situationists, Archigram, and many more. Ideal cities presented by Ruth Eaton exists for the most part in the virtual domain of ideas, ignorant of specific contextual conditions. Attempt to cross the border into reality have risked engendering the discredit of utopianism. However, as the American architectural critic, Lewis Mumford (-1895) recalled, "a Map of the World that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at...". This publication thus, richly illustrated, appreciates the ideal city's ability to promote reflection and stimulate change in the real world and Ruth Eaton suggests under what conditions it might continue to exercise this vital function in relation to the urban environment of the future. In het Nederlands De Ideale stad - Utopia en de (niet) gebouwde omgeving href="http://www.aup.nl/do.php?a=show_visitor_book&isbn=9789061534730>ISBN 978 90 6153 473 0