Some of the most noted cities in history were never built . These 10 Utopian cities may have been failures , but they give tongue to our estimation about what the future of human civilisation could look like . And many idea contained in them keep to mold us today .
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1. Octagon City, the Vegetarian Utopia
In 1856 , the Vegetarian Kansas Emigration Company foundedOctagon City near Humboldt , Kansas . They intended it to be a settlement made up entirely of vegetarians , but had to open it up to others when interest was n’t what they hoped . The city ’s pattern was invigorate by a “ scientific ” idea , suggested by far-famed craniologist Orson Squire Fowler , that octagons were the most practical design for home base because they let the most amount of light to enter . ( Above you may see a design of Fowler ’s from his magazine about phrenology . ) City designer Henry Clubb , a vegetarian militant , imagine that eight roadstead would guide off from a fundamental octagonal town lame . From there , the city would be made up of four octagon villages , concluded with octagon farmhouses , township squares , and public buildings .
Ultimately about sixty families came from all over the res publica to live in Octagon City , but were painfully disappointed when they notice that the only building was a 16 x 16 windowless log cabin . The settlers who stayed face a multitude of job , including lack of water when the local spring dry out up , mosquitoes and disease . Nothing remain of the town today , but Clubb ’s legacy subsist on in the smattering of octagon menage that stay in the US and Canada .
2. Ville Radieuse, the Machine City
Gallic - Swiss architect Le Corbusierhad large plan for the idealistic urban center . In the former twentieth C , he hit upon an approximation he call “ Purism . ” Architecture , he believe , should be as efficient and simple as the industrial machines that had show in the modern eld . Inspired by this whim , he planned two modern utopias modeled on this idea of the metropolis as machine : the Ville Radieuse and the Ville Contemporaine . Both would have massive skyscraper housing million of people — rich and poor . Parks and green field would divide these massive cities into geographical zone of productivity and leisure .
The Ville Radieuse , dubbed the “ vertical garden city , ” also included a societal plan . His building , like Fowler ’s octagons , would let in circumstances of natural sunlight and air . The buildings would also be the center of societal life-time , with rooftop garden and beaches , as well as catering in the basement and professional child care for each family . He imagined that each edifice would check 2,700 people , all working 5 - hour day , using public transit that delivered them right to their base .
Neither metropolis was ever built , but his Ville Radieuse did inhale one construction .
Le Corbusier used the principle behind his machine cities when designing Unité d’Habitation in Marseilles . The building still stands today , and some residents even open up their apartments up for tours of the uniquely design living space .
3. Garden City, the Green Metropolis
“ A group of smokeless , slumless city ! ” What could be better ? In 1902 , social social reformer Ebenezer Howard publish his treatiseGarden Cities of To - morrow , where he draft his mind of a plan Social City where hoi polloi would exist in musical harmony with nature . He draw a metropolis that use up of 6,000 Acre of land , with buildings for 32,000 multitude taking up only 1000 acres . The repose would be public parks , farms , and green infinite with very wide road .
As you may see in this drawing off from his book , Howard envisioned many artificial satellite garden cities around a central city , like London . They would all be linked by road and railways . Howard did get by to get two garden cities built : Welwyn Garden City and Letchworth Garden City , both in Hertfordshire England . His ideas also inspire the garden city trend — which laid the substructure for the idea of suburb , or dispirited - density satellite cities like Howard ’s garden city might have been .
4. Broadacre City, Where Everything is Locally Made
In 1932 Frank Lloyd Wright saw program for Ville Radieuse . He hate it , and apace began developing his own ideal city ground on his love ofthe open , rural prairiesof the midwest . Broadacre City became his obsession for the rest of his life . Wright wanted to get rid of industrial city entirely , replacing them with urban spaces that were a commixture of developed and rural areas . In Broadacre City , each family would be return an acre of dry land , and the bombastic “ Greenwich Village ” would have no more than 10,000 people . Public needs like water and power would never be privately owned .
He describes his dreaminThe Disappearing City(later republish as The Living City ):
Imagine spacious landscaped highways … giant road , themselves bully architecture , pass public service Stations of the Cross , no longer eyesores , spread out to include all kinds of service and comfort . They unify and separate — separate and unify the serial publication of diversified units , the farm unit of measurement , the factory units , the roadside market , the garden schoolhouse , the dwelling places ( each on its Akka of one by one adorned and cultivated priming coat ) , the places for pleasure and leisure time . All of these units so staged and so integrated that each citizen of the hereafter will have all variant of production , statistical distribution , ego improvement , use , within a radius of a hundred and fifty Admiralty mile of his rest home now easily and quickly uncommitted by means of his gondola or sheet . This inherent whole compose the great city that I see embracing all of this rural area — the Broadacre City of tomorrow .
Broadacre City was never built , but the idea of a city with topically - produced food , big businessman and other goods remain to exalt land use planners to this solar day .
5. Germania, the Nazis’ Modernist Dream
Architect Albert Speer was put in direction of Hitler ’s plan to transform Berlin into a futuristic capital of the Nazis . distinctly influenced by Le Corbusier ’s idea of skyscraper homes , Speer wanted to build monolithic construction , turning Berlin into a “ world capital . ”Among the plans were a vast sports stadium that could check 400,000 people , and a Chancellery that would be twice as long as the Hall of Mirrors in France . All the buildings would be arranged along the Prachtallee ( “ Avenue of Splendors ” ) . The war halted many of the plans , but so did geology . Berlin is built on mucky land , so Speer build a mental testing building , theSchwerbelastungskorper , to see how far it would dip into the ground . Within three twelvemonth it had slump 18 cm , an impossible amount . The edifice remains a crumbling mess , behind Ernst Boris Chain tie-in fences , in Berlin . The fail monumental city of Germania may have been the final death knell for Le Corbusier ’s dream .
6. Fordlandia, the Unfortunate American Transplant
In the thirties , Henry Ford endeavor to land a slice of America to the Brazilian jungle , and it did n’t go all that well . Fordlandia was to be a large rubber orchard and city in the middle of the Amazon . Ford relocated American employee there as well as hiring local workers . The city admit a power works , a hospital , a depository library , a golf game course , and housing for employee . Ford insisted on a “ healthy ” American lifestyle , including hamburgers , and rules against alcohol and premarital sexual practice . actor complained about having to work “ proper 9 to 5 day ” in the heat of the sunlight , or else of their local tradition of early - morning and late - eventide transmutation , and finally weather got so spoiled thatthere were doer debauchery . Below , you could see a clock time clock destroyed in the riots .
add to the cultural problems of Fordlania was Ford ’s utter want of knowledge about how to farm pencil eraser Tree . His engineer guessed at how to do it , and planted the trees too close together . finally the land was found “ unsuitable ” for safe trees , and in the mid-1930s Ford abandon the city . The ruins of Fordlandia are still crumbling away in the hobo camp . Nevertheless , Americans have continued to attempt to export their ideas about metropolis planning and work shifts throughout the world , often foregather with about as much success as Henry Ford .
Photos viaThe Henry Ford
7. Cloud Nine, the Floating City
scientific discipline — and scientific discipline fiction — often influenced urban center designers . But nobody took futurist ideas more seriously than mid - 20th one C inventor Buckminster Fuller , whoresponded to news about overcrowding in Tokyo by imagining cities in the sky . The Spherical Tensegrity Atmospheric Research Station , called STARS or Cloud 9s , would be composed of gargantuan geodesic line spheres . When filled with air , the sphere would weigh one - thousandth of the weight of the melodic line inside it . Fuller plan on heating that air with solar power or human activity , get the orbit to float . He would anchor his float cities to mountains , or let them range around the world . They were never built , butFuller ’s idea for a pre - fab , geodesical covered stadium dwelling called Dymaxion Houseeventually act upon the pre - fab mansion drive which is still going strong .
8. Atomurbia, the Nuke-Proof National Land Use Plan
Most of these Utopian cities were design to reply to the job of contemporary urban lifetime like overcrowding , unhealthful living conditions , and the need for expensive imports of goods . But during the Cold War , masses had other threat in mind . In 1947LIFE Magazine published an articletouting a new urban plan musical theme to relieve Americans from atomic onrush . The men behind the plan image an America where people were spread out across the commonwealth or else of conglomerate in urban centers . They would redistribute the population , place out raw townspeople like a chessboard .
The ribbon cities they project would n’t have to be laid along straight line ; some of them would flow with the landscape . In sum , they wanted to establish 20,000,000 new homes and “ recreate the very fabric of societal and economic life in America . ” All industriousness would be locomote underground , protecting it from the bombs . Though this idea never came to realisation , it certainly predict the fixation with building undercover turkey shelters in metropolis .
9. Seward’s Success, the Completely Indoor City
In 1968 , oil was found at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska . course , plans to work up an insanely complex , futurist metropolis followed . Tandy Industries of Tulsa planned to ramp up Seward ’s Success ( a play on Seward ’s Folly),the first completely enclosed , clime - controlled city . The 40,000 residents of Seward ’s Success would have moved around on monorails , sky tram ( pictured above ) , and moving sidewalks , all at a buggy 68 degrees . Plans also included office quad , retail space , and a sportsman domain . After the building of the Trans - Alaska Pipeline was held up in court , the subcontractor could n’t give the term of a contract on the land and plans for the city were halted . Though we have yet to build a all insert city , many function of business district Las Vegas might characterize — and of class , the melodic theme of a domed , climate - controlled city is still something that people dream of building on other worlds .
10. Songdo, the Smart City
Songdo , in South Korea , has been vaunt by both Korean city planners and IT corporation Cisco as the staring example of a “ chic city , ” where every aspect of life is controlled by networked computers — from clime dominance , to communications . The city is also design to have a minimum carbon copy footprint . Its inspirations come from both Le Corbusier ’s Purist machine metropolis and Howard ’s Garden City . TheSongdo master planincludes everything from schools , shopping and offices , to Park , museums and a hospital — which sound a spate like what Le Corbusier ’s skyscrapers promised . But its commitment to sustainability feels like a Garden City thought , except that this sustainability is all made possible by the machinery in the city ’s gamy tech infrastructure . Also called an instant “ city in a box , ” we can even see Buckminster Fuller ’s ideal of a pre - fabulous city at work .
The bright metropolis has become an enormously popular idea among city planner today , and many alike kinds of developments are in the work . Songdo is hypothesise to be concluded by 2015 , butthere have already been trouble attracting line of work to the country . It may be destined to meet the fate of other Utopian cities : a unsuccessful person in reality , but launching an melodic theme that transform how we think about metropolitan life .
Bonus: BoozeTown, the Crazy-Ass Town of Drunks
In 1952Mel Johnson presented investor with his idea of a everlasting city — one build on hard drink . Every street would be a computer address to alcoholic beverage , and they would even have their own currency called BoozeBucks . There would be a local constabulary system , the Party Police . They would n’t arrest people — they would be more like ramble caretaker , giving drunks St. Joseph and kindly escort them home when they got lost . Most importantly , no kid would be allowed in BoozeTown . Visitors with Thomas Kyd could leave them at the daycare / summer camp area outside the metropolis . When discharge , the city would have had motivate sidewalks , breweries , distilleries , lasting lodging , and even suburban area .
Johnson gave potential investor matchbook and cocktail napkins , telling them :
Just imagine . . . a resort entirely centered on the culture of alcohol . A boozer ’s Eden built expressly to facilitate drinking and the dear times that naturally follow . Where the bars , clubs and liquor memory board never close . Where the police force is there to help drunkard , not chivy them . Where even the street name salute sweetened female parent booze : Gin Lane , Bourbon Boulevard and Scotch Street . An grownup vacation spot like no other . Just envisage .
Perhaps unsurprisingly , Johnson could never get funding for BoozeTown and gave up on the thought in 1960 . Still , it sounds like BoozeTown may have inadvertently prompt many virtual game universe that have their own currencies , like WoW Gold , and ( permit ’s face it ) exist only to get people wasted .
Futurismurban studiesurbanismUtopia
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