Visions of the City: Utopianism, Power and Politics in Twentieth Century Urbanism

by Pinder,David

• ISBN13: 9780415953108
• ISBN10: 0415953103
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-01-24
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Visions of the Cityis a dramatic history of utopian urbanism in the twentieth century. It explores radical demands for new spaces and ways of living, and considers their effects on planning, architecture and struggles to shape urban landscapes. The author critically examines influential utopian approaches to urbanism in western Europe associated with such figures as Ebenezer Howard and Le Corbusier, uncovering the political interests, desires and anxieties that lay behind their ideal cities. He also investigates avant-garde perspectives from the time that challenged these conceptions of cities, especially from within surrealism. At the heart of this richly illustrated book is an encounter with the explosive ideas of the situationists. Tracing the subversive practices of this avant-garde group and its associates from their explorations of Paris during the 1950s to their alternative visions based on nomadic life and play, David Pinder convincingly explains the significance of their revolutionaryattempts to transform urban spaces and everyday life. He addresses in particular Constant's New Babylon, finding within his proposals a still powerful provocation to imagine cities otherwise. The book not only recovers vital moments from past hopes and dreams of modern urbanism. It also contests current claims about the 'end of utopia', arguing that reconsidering earlier projects can play a critical role in developing utopian perspectives today. Through the study of utopian visions, it aims to rekindle elements of utopianism itself. "A superb critical exploration of the underside of utopian thought over the last hundred years and its continuing relevance in the here and now for thinking about possible urban worlds. The treatment of the Situationists and their milieu is a revelation." David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, City University of New York Graduate School

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Illustration credits	xiii
1. INTRODUCTION	1	(28)
An urban adventure	1	(2)
Underground visions	3	(3)
Utopian spaces past and present	6	(6)
In the wake of utopia?	12	(3)
Utopia, desire and the city	15	(8)
Outline of the chapters	23	(6)
2. RESTORATIVE UTOPIAS	29	(28)
Utopian awakenings	29	(4)
The vision of Ebenezer Howard	33	(2)
Smokeless, slumless cities	35	(5)
The 'master key' to socio-spatial reform	40	(6)
Biologically sound cities and bodies	46	(5)
Securing space	51	(6)
3. MODERNIST CALLS TO ORDER	57	(32)
Time and space died yesterday	57	(5)
Le Corbusier and the spirit of construction	62	(3)
Spatial purification	65	(3)
Water-tight formulae	68	(8)
Urban surgery	76	(4)
Political authority and the plan	80	(9)
4. DREAMS OF CITIES AND MONSTERS	89	(38)
Between two journeys	89	(5)
White cathedrals: confronting New York	94	(6)
Of monsters and organic life	100	(7)
Utopian regulation and authoritarianism	107	(3)
Counter-spaces of the surrealists	110	(8)
Destabilising dreams of order	118	(9)
5. SITUATIONIST ADVENTURES	127	(34)
To build the hacienda	127	(4)
The critique of human geography	131	(3)
Environments of abstraction	134	(6)
Bringing fuel to the fire	140	(4)
Never work	144	(5)
Unchaining the city	149	(8)
In quest of new spaces	157	(4)
6. THE GREAT GAME TO COME	161	(36)
A science fiction of architecture	161	(3)
Unitary urbanism and the construction of situations	164	(6)
Passionate environments	170	(8)
Living art of the Imaginist Bauhaus	178	(8)
Games with machines	186	(5)
A camp for nomads	191	(6)
7. LIFE WILL RESIDE IN POETRY	197	(42)
Welcome to New Babylon	197	(6)
Play structures	203	(3)
Paradise on earth	206	(7)
Not yet: utopianism and games to come	213	(7)
For another city and another life	220	(7)
A lived utopianism	227	(4)
Re-appropriating cities: urban critique	231	(8)
8. PARTISANS OF POSSIBILITIES	239	(28)
Dark skies	239	(3)
For utopianism	242	(5)
Re-dreaming modernist urbanism	247	(4)
Spaces and times of the avant-garde	251	(6)
Challenges of utopia	257	(3)
Future paths	260	(7)
Notes	267	(66)
Select bibliography	333	(10)
Index	343