Description
Book SynopsisVisions of the City is a dramatic account 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.
Trade ReviewA 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 [Pinder] is both a wise and imaginative guide through the tradition and counter-tradition of utopian plans and visions. Visions of the City makes several new claims on the reader's attention: a critical consideration of the situationists in the context of twentieth-century urbanism, expecially Ebenezer Howard and Le Corbusier; a depth of research and a careful historicization of the different situationists at different moments in the movement's history; and an analysis of the situationaists' urbanism specifically in the context of utopia. 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. [Pinder] is both a wise and imaginative guide through the tradition and counter-tradition of utopian plans and visions. Visions of the City makes several new claims on the reader's attention: a critical consideration of the situationists in the context of twentieth-century urbanism, expecially Ebenezer Howard and Le Corbusier; a depth of research and a careful historicization of the different situationists at different moments in the movement's history; and an analysis of the situationaists' urbanism specifically in the context of utopia.
Table of ContentsPreface; 1. INTRODUCTION; An urban adventure; Underground visions; Utopian spaces past and present; In the wake of utopia?; Utopia, desire and the city; Outline of the chapters; 2. RESTORATIVE UTOPIAS; Utopian awakenings; The vision of Ebenezer Howard; Smokeless, slumless cities; The 'master key' to socio-spatial reform; Biologically sound cities and bodies; Securing space; 3. MODERNIST CALLS TO ORDER; Time and space died yesterday; Le Corbusier and the spirit of construction; Spatial purification; Water-tight formulae; Urban surgery; Political authority and the plan; 4. DREAMS OF CITIES AND MONSTERS; Between two journeys; White cathedrals: confronting New York; Of monsters and organic life; Utopian regulation and authoritarianism; Counter-spaces of the surrealists; Destabilising dreams of order; 5. SITUATIONIST ADVENTURES; To build the hacienda; The critique of human geography; Environments of abstraction; Bringing fuel to the fire; Never work; Unchaining the city; In quest of new spaces; 6.THE GREAT GAME TO COME; A science fiction of architecture; Unitary urbanism and the construction of situations; Passionate environments; Living art of the Imaginist Bauhaus; Games with machines; A camp for nomads; 7. LIFE WILL RESIDE IN POETRY; Welcome to New Babylon; Play structures; Paradise on earth; Not yet: utopianism and games to come; For another city and another life; A lived utopianism; Reappropriating cities: urban critique; 8. PARTISANS OF POSSIBILITIES; Dark skies; For utopianism; Re-dreaming modernist urbanism; Spaces and times of the avant-garde; Challenges of utopia; Future paths; Notes; Selected bibliography; Illustration credits; Index.
