ABSTRACT

Utopian thought, though commonly characterized as projecting a future without a past, depends on golden models for re-invention of what is. Through a detailed and innovative re-assessment of the work of three architects who sought to represent a utopian content in their work, and a consideration of the thoughts of a range of leading writers, Coleman offers the reader a unique perspective of idealism in architectural design.

With unparalleled depth and focus of vision on the work of Le Corbusier, Louis I Kahn and Aldo van Eyck, this book persuasively challenges predominant assumptions in current architectural discourse, forging a new approach to the invention of welcoming built environments and transcending the limitations of both the postmodern and hyper-modern stance and orthodox modernist architecture.

part |2 pages

Part 1: Conceptualizing utopias

chapter 1|15 pages

Architecture and orientation

chapter 2|22 pages

Situating utopias

chapter 3|17 pages

Real fictions

chapter 4|25 pages

Varieties of architectural utopias

chapter 5|25 pages

Postwar possibilities

part |2 pages

Part 2: Optimistic architectures

chapter 6|18 pages

Le Corbusier’s monastic ideal

chapter 7|22 pages

The life within

chapter 8|19 pages

Fairy tales and golden dust

chapter 10|18 pages

Aldo van Eyck’s utopian discipline

chapter 11|20 pages

Story of another idea

chapter 12|23 pages

The unthinkability of utopia

chapter 13|40 pages

Into the present

chapter |22 pages

Notes

chapter |8 pages

Select bibliography