Professional Documents
Culture Documents
utopia remix
12/08/2021 1
The car and the modern city:
utopia remix
1910s - WW1
1920s - futurism Metropolis Fritz Lang
1930s - Athens Charter 1933 Incr. use of cars and other motor transport in cities - deaths
1950s - utopia of motorised highways - magic highway, Buckminster Fuller
1970s - cars dominate streets, highway protests ‘reclaim the streets’
1990s - cycling and rise of neighbourhoods - widening accessibility, disability activism
2000s - parkour and alleycat, carnivalesque rebellion
2001 - urban terrorism NY WTC 9.11.2001,
2005 - urban terrorism London 7.7.2005
2007 - "collapse of fringe drivable suburban housing prices as a fundamental cause of the
mortgage collapse”*
12/08/2021 2
The car and the modern city:
utopia remix
Task:
write five things:
how 'modern' occupation of inner city streets
changed, 1910-2010
12/08/2021 3
The car and the modern city:
1. Metropolis 1928
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PAdQ5anhZE
12/08/2021 4
NYC 1928
12/08/2021 5
The car and the modern city:
utopia remix
Task:
write five things:
how 'modern' occupation of inner city
streets changed
1910-2010
12/08/2021 6
NYC 1928
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkqz3lpUBp0
12/08/2021 7
The car and the modern city:
utopia remix
1.Utopias, 'Sustainism' and architecture: between the possible and the impossible Architects Journal / 24
February, 2011 , by James Pallister
Two new books – and fear of climate change – make James Pallister reconsider architecture’s relationship with
utopian thought
2. Noir Urbanisms: Dystopic Images of the Modern City, Gyan Prakash, ed.
"Like the Marxists and the liberals, Le Corbusier imagined humans working in square, utilitarian office blocks with
no decoration whatsoever, and their residential buildings would be almost exactly the same... It is the vision of a
brutal spirit." (Michel Houellebecq, The Map and the Territory, 2010)
4. 'Against Utopias' paper for Bare House (in Press 2011) book by Taina Rajanti
(also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhpAxTM_hLU : Finnish)
Dr. Taina Rajanti (Urban Planning and Design, Department of Architecture, Helsinki University of Technology)
NIMBYs, LULUs and Other Unwanted Phenomena of Urban Planning 2004
12/08/2021 8
1.Utopias, 'Sustainism' and architecture: between the possible and the impossible Architects Journal / 24
February, 2011 , by James Pallister
Two new books – and fear of climate change – make James Pallister reconsider architecture’s relationship with
utopian thought
2. Noir Urbanisms: Dystopic Images of the Modern City, Gyan Prakash, ed.
"Like the Marxists and the liberals, Le Corbusier imagined humans working in square, utilitarian office blocks with
no decoration whatsoever, and their residential buildings would be almost exactly the same... It is the vision of a
brutal spirit." (Michel Houellebecq, The Map and the Territory, 2010)
4. 'Against Utopias' paper for Bare House (in Press 2011) book by Taina Rajanti
(also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhpAxTM_hLU : Finnish)
Dr. Taina Rajanti (Urban Planning and Design, Department of Architecture, Helsinki University of Technology)
NIMBYs, LULUs and Other Unwanted Phenomena of Urban Planning 2004
12/08/2021 9
cities
• mobility – compressed space
• freedom to move
• upward social mobility?
• labour saving ‘efficiency’ through proximity
• contribution to modern fossil fuel economy
• health and transport policy
• lower settlement density possible
12/08/2021 10
The car and the modern city:
2. Magic Highway 1958
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8jZtwRJnRs
12/08/2021 11
cities
• injury
• anxiety
• loss of autonomy
• effect on exercise
• pollution / environment
• health and transport policy
• density of settlement
12/08/2021 12
The car and the modern city:
3. Parkour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5j_DLh2f6E
12/08/2021 13
texts
• Vers une architecture, Le Corbusier c1923
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUTL3oKOCNw
12/08/2021 17
Chandigarh
• Le Corbusier’s system for Chandigarh
12/08/2021 18
12/08/2021 19
12/08/2021 20
12/08/2021 21
Chandigarh
12/08/2021 22
12/08/2021 23
12/08/2021 24
Perth
12/08/2021 25
12/08/2021 26
12/08/2021 27
12/08/2021 28
Jane Jacobs
Link: Neighbourhoods in Action
Plough Road, Battersea
12/08/2021 30
The car and the modern city:
utopia remix
Task:
write five things:
how 'modern' occupation of inner city streets
changed, 1910-2010
12/08/2021 31
Gregory Cowan
U. Westminster
Gregory’s research analyses use, design and place making in
inner city mixed use streets, considering the politics of
occupying streets diurnally. Urban regeneration in dense
urban areas near transport hubs are highly complex settings
for balancing link and place characteristic of streets, and for
creating sustainable places, used at all hours.
12/08/2021 32
student responses
Oxford Brookes,
2nd year Architecture
History and Theory
12/08/2021 33