ABSTRACT
The concept of the 'ideal city' is, perhaps, more important today - when planners and architects are so firmly confined by considerations of our immediate environment - than ever before. Yet it is a concept which has profoundly influenced the western world throughout history, both as a regulative model and as an inspiration.
Rosenau traces the progress of the concept from biblical sources through the hellenistic and Roman empires to the Renaissance and the later Age of Enlightenment, when the emphasis shifted from religious to social considerations. She goes on to discuss the resultant nineteenth-century ideal planning, when the idea of social betterment was approached with a specific and conscious effort.
This book was first published in 1983.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |75 pages
Introductory Survey
chapter |14 pages
The Ancient Tradition
chapter |19 pages
The Middle Ages
chapter |26 pages
The Renaissance Development and the Mannerist Phase
chapter |15 pages
The Age of the Baroque
part |49 pages
Phases of Progress
chapter |32 pages
Developments in France
chapter |16 pages
The English Contribution
part |52 pages
Ambivalent Tendencies in the Nineteenth Century