ABSTRACT
There is ample precedent for realizing the signicance of urban group form and social connectivity in the utopian discourse of the First Industrial Revolution. The 19th century witnessed a technological revolution that spawned a new scale of urbanization around industrial technique and production that was unprecedented at the time. Especially in this formative period, the concept of “intentional social infrastructure” evolved as a critical component of discourse around urbanization. In certain ways today, we are witnessing a period of urbanization and revolution in technology that appears to share certain immediacy with this earlier precedent, including the question of social infrastructure. Included among the most relevant historical examples are the Fourierist constructs originating in France (Charles Fourier, 1772-1837), related to novel modes of micro-scale social organization (“Association”) linked to production, positing that “harmony” in nature could be applied to new possibilities for society.1 Fourier’s design for a phalanstère not only posited a new micro-social alternative to the urbanization norms of the period (Figure 15.1), it was considered a foil to normative urban social organization and combined both industrial and agricultural production. The Fourierist concept appeared in diverse applications in Europe and the United States. One of the best known was constructed by Jean Baptiste Godin (1817-1888) at Guise in France. There were also parallel initiatives, including those of Robert Owen (1771-1858) originating in the UK, with ten “Owenite” communities founded by 1866 in diverse locations including the United States.2
