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DOI 10.12887/26-2013-4-104-13



Bartłomiej GUTOWSKI – The Ideal City for Our Times


Cena brutto: 7,00 PLN

The dream of creating a better world and a better place to live is a utopia inherent in the nature of historical process. A particular manifestation of this dream has been the recurring concept of the ideal city. While the Renaissance actually witnessed conceptions in which urban design was to ensure the perfect functioning of the society, attempts at construing an ideal city had been made already since the ancient times. They were also continued in epochs following the Renaissance and became particularly popular from mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. In that period, three principal modernist city models were proposed: Ebenezer Howard’s garden city as well as the ideal cities designed by Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. However, none of these architectural conceptions was capable of solving the social problems characteristic of urban space. Contrary to the intentions of their creators, the visions in question only aggravated such issues, since they tended either to create ostensibly perfect yet isolated spaces or to excessively standardize the assessment of social needs.

The second half of the 20th century brought other utopian attempts in the field of urban design. Under the influence of modernism, there appeared a tendency to perceive architectural and urban transformations in relation to social issues. As a result, modern ideal city designs focus either on incorporating particular architectural solutions (as is the case with Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates or with the New Radiant City on the outskirts of Shenzhen) or on triggering the desired social action. In the latter case, urban spatial planning is invariably considered as secondary and subordinated to axiological concepts. Thus on the one hand one may clearly see a transition in architectural design from accepting the already functioning city patterns to projecting them, but on the other hand a converse process is also visible: modern architectural solutions tend to incorporate conceptual visions of their creators rather than result from social agreement. This, in turn, leads to the danger of dehumanization of urban design as well as to actual social segregation and exclusion.

Despite the evident progress in the theory of urban planning and architecture, as well as in sociology and urban studies, accompanied by the rapid technological and ecological advances, the contemporary city does not provide a real response to the numerous social challenges of our times.

Translated by Dorota Chabrajska

Keywords: city, ideal city, utopia, garden city, ecological city, eco-city, Shenzhen, Dubai, Masdar, Radiant City, Broadacre City, New Urbanism, metropolis, technopolis, urban planning, megapolis, community, segregation

Contact:
Katedra Sztuki, Teorii i Muzeologii Współczesnej, Instytut Historii Sztuki, Wydział Nauk Historycznych i Społecznych,
Uniwersytet Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego,
ul. Wóycickiego 1/3, bud. 23,
01-001 Warsaw, Poland
E-mail: b.gutowski@uksw.edu.pl
Phone: +48 606488377
http://www.gutowski.net.pl/



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  1. ISSN 0860-8024
  2. e-ISSN 2720-5355
  3. The Republic of Poland Ministry of Science and Higher Education Value: 100.00
  4. Quarterly “Ethos” is indexed by the following databases: EBSCO, CEEOL, Index Copernicus (ICV 2017: 55.26), Philosopher’s Index, ERIH Plus.
  5. DOI Prefix 10.12887