Utopian Visions of Towns – Then vs Now
Although the discipline of town planning is a relatively recent concept in theory, a great number of architects throughout history has investigated the issue of town development and envisioned various conceptual proposals for ideal cities. Two remarkable examples of such visions were those of Ebenezer Howard for the British territory, respectively those of Frank Lloyd Wright for the United States. Both proposals were born post The Machine Age, a period of time in which the rise of industrialization brought a revolution not only to the manner in which products of all scales were manufactured and utilised, but also to the quotidian life of the citizens. For this reason, these proposals were imagining a city life in which technology would go hand-in-hand with the pre-industrialization lifestyle, transforming cities in humane, organic, and modern places to live. The visions Howard and Wright had were formerly considered Utopian, since what they stated was radically different from the reality of urbanism at that moment. However, even after almost a century, their ideals might still be considered Utopian, fact to be demonstrated in the following paragraphs.
One first aspect to be taken into consideration is the urban mobility as means of transportation in an ideal city. One of the numerous advantages of the development of technology was the invention of the automobile, a fast and comfortable way of ensuring the flexibility of inter-city transit. The automobile was the novel substitute for the railway transportation, that was once perceived as the main way of navigating through a country. For instance, Wright’s vision of the ideal Broadacre City had twelve-lane highways and special lanes for trucks linking warehouses directly to factories (Wright). In his vision, that would minimise the intensity of the traffic while still preserving the coveted flexibility given by cars. Nevertheless, in Howard’s Garden City, another vision that was conceptualised earlier than Wright’s, the automobile had not yet been invented. Therefore, the main source of transportation in Howard’s time was the rail. His vision of a cluster of associated towns demanded an inter-connectivity ensured by a fast and affordable railway system which allowed citizens to freely move from their dwellings both to the main amenities and to the countryside (Howard). In contemporary times, however, the feasibility of the two Utopian visions is claimed to be very low, since the emphasis on this flexibility given by a fast and confortable urban mobility translates to an environment dominated by pollution (both air and noise), as well as traffic jams. In an era in which the environment has to be put first, the cities ought to shift their focus towards ecological alternatives and to reinvent a new kind of environmentally-friendly mobility.
Secondly, it is of utmost importance to note that the main characteristic of both Howard’s and Wright’s visions is the symbiosis between the industrial city and the natural landscape. Wright’s organic architecture in complete harmony with its surroundings, as well as Howard’s view on houses complemented by gardens, intertwine and highlight the concern for nature to be an integrant part of the town. This way, farms , zoos, parks, all become essential elements in the city not only at the urban scale, but also at the scale of public institutions. For example, zoos and green spaces were considered to be indispensable environments for learning in the Garden Cities, hence being present in all learning facilities (Howard). This principle of relating to nature is taken even further to the predictions of a town’s growth, that ought to have resembled the spontaneous yet controlled growth present in nature. However, the only setback these Utopian ideas have encountered was in the administration area, since it was close to impossible to obtain an isolated self-contained entity that would only grow within itself (More). The authorities would often limit these visionary cities’ power, no matter how positive Howard was in believing they were to transform the Garden Cities into wide-spread urban practices after only one such built experiment. (Howard). The same issue would appear today as well, since the presence of nature, though urbanistically important, has to be well-balanced with all the other functions. Since a city is in general functionally divided, it is often difficult to hybridise the artificial and the natural within it.
In addition to that, both Wright’s and Howard’s proposed urban interventions seem to become appropriate only for their limited circumstances, failing to embody a timeless and placeless character. Howard discusses the problem of whether an intervention on an already-existing city, as opposed to building a city from scratch, is easier to implement. It becomes evident that creating an urban ideal from the ground up is much more straightforward than attempting to correct something which is already broken. The architecure of the envisioned cities of Wright’s would have to epitomise the unity in diversity principle, which could not have been possible with pre-existent cities that already had multiple building styles. Moreover, it is considered to be generally difficult to alter a pre-existent town’s image without affecting the way citizens relate to it and causing a major dissatisfaction among them (Lynch). Consequently, these Utopian visions were challenging to be put into practice, even though there was a period of redevelopment emerging together with The Machine Age. Nowadays, it becomes clear that Wright’s and Howard’s cities could not be made possible, since now most cities are already established and scarcely flexible anymore.
In conclusion, the Utopian visions of the towns as portrayed by Ebenezer Howard and Frank Lloyd Wright in their writings and visionary projects from the twentieth century have a strong chance of remaining Utopian in the future as well, due to their lack of real-life feasibility. However, their immense merit ought to be recognised, as these proposals did aim to solve a great number of issues former cities had, and revolutionised the traditional ideals of the urban dwelling.
references
- Howard, Ebenezer. Garden Cities of To-morrow. London: S. Sonnenschein & Co. Ltd., 1902 .
- Frank Lloyd Wright. Broadacre City: A New Community Plan. New York, Architectural Record Pub. Co, 1935.
- More, Thomas, et al. Utopia., Munchen Manesse Verlag,2018.
- Lynch, Kevin. The Image of the City. Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press. 1960.