Ideal Cities: Utopianism and the (Un)Built Environment

"A historical timeline of past and present envisionings of the perfect city, from detailed Renaissance plans to new millennium metropolises...gorgeous full-color plates."—DwellThis vast panorama spans more than 2,000 years of Western attempts to invent the perfect city. Embracing not only architecture and town planning but also art, literature, philosophy, and politics, Ruth Eaton takes the reader through the imaginary environments of a wide variety of fascinating and often controversial movements and figures: Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas More, Thomas Jefferson, William Morris, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Archigram, Superstudio, and many more.Eaton explores the ability of ideal cities to stimulate reflection and change. She also suggests under what conditions they might continue to exercise their vital function in relation to the urban environment of the future, heeding the great historian of cities Lewis Mumford's words that "a map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at." 300 illustrations and photographs, 250 in color.

Arts & Photography

Eaton, Ruth

Architecture

Thames&Hudson

<p>This vast panorama spans more than two millennia of Western attempts to invent the perfect city, cradle of the ideal society. Embracing not only architecture and town planning but also art, literature, philosophy, and politics, the book takes us through the imaginary environments of a wide variety of fascinating and often controversial movements and figures, including 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 European Situationalists, the Japanese Metabolists, Archigram, Superstudio, and many more. The ideal cities in this richly illustrated book exist for the most part in the domain of ideas. Ruth Eaton explores the ability of ideal cities to stimulate reflection and change, and she suggests under what conditions they might continue to exercise their vital function in relation to the urban environment of the future. While it is true that notorious attempts to cross the border into reality have greatly discredited utopianism, it is good to recallwith the famous historian of cities, Lewis Mumfordthat "a map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at." 300 illustrations, 250 in color.</p>

"These photographs by Sebastian Schutyser reveal a neglected African architectural heritage: village adobe mosques. His black-and-white images emphasize an artistic fusion of architecture and sculpture and exalt the strength and beauty of a craft that eludes globalization. The photos emphasize the grain and substance of clay smoothed by villagers' hands or cracked by erosion, and highlight the solidity of the masonry and the sensuality of the textures. The texts that accompany these stunning pictures are by a leading expert on raw-earth architecture and by a major scholar on African vernacular architecture. Included is an appendix that documents all 500 of the principal adobe mosques of the Inner Niger Delta, with the names of the villages and geographical coordinates."

Banco: Adobe Mosques of the Inner Niger Delta (Imago Mundi series)

Dethier, Jean

Gruner, Dorothee

Photography & Video

5Continents

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Books by Eaton, Ruth