Professor Belli

Amaya 1

John Amaya

Professor Belli

ENG 2420: Science Fiction

Utopian cities by Architects

The idea of a Utopian Society has been around for centuries. When it comes to writers and

Architects each has an idea of what they believe would be the ideal Utopian Society. In both cases, the way in which they start to develop these societies is by imagining a city or town in which this society would be living in. Within these cities the elements that they have chosen to allow within the city ultimately determines what the society will be like. If the element of technology plays a large role in the design of the city from that point it is known that the society will be more likely to be a technologically based society. While if farming is the main element in the cities design then one can assume that, the society will have some sort of farming system that governs the way they live. Both these ideas have been designed to work together in a city but one always dominates the other. Therefore, the question becomes which of the two should govern how a city grows.

In the cases of five utopian city creators that came up with these cities in which they wanted people to see in order to change the way the world thinks. In le Corbusier’s Tower City, the idea was about the car and order with in the city. While in the Delineator of Gotham by Hugh Ferriss, the idea was for transportation. Were as in Frank Lloyd Wright’s society, the main idea was farming and having plenty of space to farm in. Similarly, in Garden City by Sir Ebenezer

Howard the idea was to have a city surrounded by green area. These two opposites are also Amaya 2 displayed in Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time and the two worlds are given a certain life to them based on what governed the forming of the city.

In Le Corbusier’s Tower city on of the main elements he was going for was the idea of order and density, just as a machine has its working parts he believed his city should do the same. This idea split the city in to parts the heart of the city was where the administrative and business portion, which he believed would control how the city operates. The second section was composed of residential towers; the following section was a belt of green area, which acts like a barrier between the upper class and the lower class. The lower class section was composed of smaller cities for workers and industrial districts. In this city, the idea of technology dominates the idea of farming. As the only green area used, is utilized to separate the classes of people from the controllers of the city to the people that work for the city.

Similarly, in Hugh Ferriss Delineator of Gotham, the design idea was about transportation and density. Hugh Ferriss imagined a city filled with skyscrapers to accommodate large quantities of people. He also took in to consideration the amount of traffic these amounts of people would create so he designed with that in mind and had large highways going through the city to allow people to travel from place to place. This city design was based on the technology that man has created and a response to over population of cities.

In both of these designs, the idea was technology would make the cities better. The car was thought to be the key to transporting supplies and people from place to place. As these cities were planned to have a large amount of people living in them. The cities were tightly put together to allow more room for residential and commercial buildings to accommodate the ever growing population. These cities can be seen as the idea for our city of New York as Manhattan Amaya 3 has been designed to hold a large population of people. In addition, just like these city’s New

York has its order where the city is split by sectors between the working classes and those that control the city. New York also has its green areas and the one large great divider of Manhattan

Central Park. Another modern day city that used the idea of the car to design there great city was the city of Los Angeles. At first look, the city is filled with highways and expressways to allow travel throughout the city. The city itself is filled with skyscrapers for business and homes. Yet with a closer look at the city and its inhabitants, it is seen that just like Le Corbusier and Hugh

Ferriss’s designs the city uses the roads to separate the races and classes of the people with in the city. In these cities it is clear that technology has been the dominate trait that was chosen to control how the city grows.

Whereas in Frank Lloyd Wright’s society, which he named Broadacres city. The design is based on every family owning their own acre of land. Instead of having large building housing hundreds of people, they would have small homes for single families. In order to control the developments, the local architect would govern the developments on the land. These properties would be able to sustain themselves throughout the year. Frank Lloyd Wright even had its own form of transportation. Everyone had a personal helicopter or car that he designed to help transport from place to place.

A similar project was Garden City by Sir Ebenezer Howard the city was a full green area with small amount of homes for people. Sir Ebenezer Howard’s idea was to have each city governed by specific groups that in the end would trade and help each other. The city had its specific centers where developments were allowed and the green area was off limits to everyone trying to build a building in any of those areas. The city would go away from the density of major cities and form small cities that did not need the help from the outside. Amaya 4

These ideas can also be seen in Marge Piercy’s novel “Woman at the Edge of Time” in which both of these societies are part of the novel. Within the novel, these cities are seen as future cities that are yet to be. One future follows the Le Corbusier and Hugh Ferriss’s way of design and the other follows more of the Frank Lloyd Wright and Sir Ebenezer Howard’s way of city planning. In the technology, based city, which is briefly explained the city was separated by levels on the lower levels, lived the poor. Towards the middle lived the middle class and in the top level lived the rich. This city had its order just like the other cities but the separation was much clearer than just an area of green planting. The rich as the controllers of the city where allowed to live longer the middle class or lower class which maxed out at around 40 years old.

(284-285 “Woman on the Edge of Time”, Marge Piercy). In the other city or village as they called it, was described as small homes for families just like Frank Lloyd Wright and Sir

Ebenezer Howard’s designs. The only main difference is that this village used a lot more technology and the people had nothing to do with the machines that did the work (121“Woman on the Edge of Time”, Marge Piercy). Even though the village relied on technology for many things there land is used mainly for planting an only a small portion of the village where made for housing or self-maintaining factories. In this village, the people were taught how to farm from a young age as it helped them learn to maintain themselves. (124“Woman on the Edge of

Time”, Marge Piercy). In Marge Piercy’s design, she preferred the farming life style with some technology rather than a technological city; this is seen with the choice she made in describing the two cities. The technology based dense city is a mess with drugs and class separation, while the farming village people are healthy and have equality in there village and care for each other.

With these ideas for utopias out I must agree that a city that is farming based is a much better way to live as the city will have their own food and will not need to work with others all Amaya 5 the time in order to survive. A society that learns and teaches their own how to survive and not rely on technology to survive I believe is the best way to live. Technology is good to an extent but relying on it fully to survive is not the smartest way to live. I proposed a city in which the heart of the city is in the center just like Le Corbusier’s city design. The center of the city will be the business center of the city. The city will be circular the buildings in the center will have an opening in the center of 50’ wide diameter in this center is where the circulation through the buildings will occur. The city will have layers but they will be open to all visitors and inhabitants of the city. The goal of the city will be to have an equal opportunity city for all the units will be a varying of two or 3 Bedroom apartments and a choice of flat or duplex apartments. Each apartment will have their own balcony and the layouts of the plans will be open plan design to allow the balconies to act like extensions of the rooms. As the structure grows taller, they will start to setback in order to allow more light in at every level. The reason for that is that on every level between the business and residential area there will be green area all families will receive their own patch of land to plant in and only a few of those areas will be allowed to be turned in to a store for the people to use. These areas will be more on the north side of the structure, as that area will not receive much light because of the size of the structure. Each level will be separated by 50 feet to allow more light in to the center of the structure. The city will maintain itself in that the food and supplies it will use will be found or made in the city itself. The city will be designed to have a green houses to have all types of plants and food growing at all times of the year no matter where it is located. The form of travel will be by train, or buses no one will have personalized modes of transporting with in the city. This will keep control of the traffic with in the city at all times. From level to level, there will also be elevators by the residential section and the business to allow movement between them. Throughout the city, there will also be stairs and Amaya 6 escalators to travel between levels. The schools will teach the students skills they will need to survive on their own, and to help the community grow, as they get older. Once they are old, enough they will choose a profession of their choosing and learn the skills required by the professionals themselves.

The idea of a Utopian city or society is and will always be changing as new technology comes out and things that were thought impossible become possible ideas will change but these two basic forms will remain will it be based heavily on technology or a farm based living.

Architects and writers will create more designs year after year and they all will be different, as they will try to reflect, what the creator feels is needed in their current society to allow it to prosper. These ideas themselves from the same person may change as they learn new things and their society changes and requires new things to make it a better place to live. With this in mind who is to say that we are living in someone’s utopia but with the ever-changing society and the new needs people create for themselves this utopia has lost the greatness it once had in the creators mind. Knowing this will there ever be a real Utopia where all that live there will live happy for the rest of time. I believe there will not be the one Utopia that survives all of time as the utopian city to live in, for there will always be those that want more then what they can have.

This people will then create their own Utopia and the cycle for the search for Utopia will continue. Amaya 7

Works cited

Foundation Le Corbusier, Infos Pratiques Unrealized Project, http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/corbuweb/morpheus.aspx? sysId=13&IrisObjectId=6159&sysLanguage=en- en&itemPos=2&itemCount=2&sysParentName=Home&sysParentId=65 .web

The Nonist, Hugh Ferriss: Delineator of Gotham, http://thenonist.com/index.php/thenonist/permalink/hugh_ferriss_delineator_of_gotham/ . web

Novak, Matt. Broadacre City: Frank Lloyd Wright's Unbuilt Suburban Utopia. http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/broadacre-city-frank-lloyd-wrights-unbuilt-suburban-ut- 1509433082 . Paleofuture.web

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. Sir Ebenezer Howard British urban planner. http://www.britannica.com/biography/Ebenezer-Howard .Encyclopaedia Britannica.web Amaya 8

Le Corbusier- Amaya 9

Hugh Ferriss –

Crowding Towers Amaya 10

Overhead Traffic-Ways Amaya 11

Apartments On Bridges Amaya 12

The Art Center

The Science Center Amaya 13

Vista In The Business Zone

Frank Lloyd Wright- Amaya 14 Amaya 15 Amaya 16 Amaya 17 Amaya 18

Sir Ebenezer Howard- Amaya 19 Amaya 20 Amaya 21

New York - Amaya 22

Los Angels - Amaya 23 Amaya 24 Amaya 25