ABSTRACT
The drive to construct or envision ideal societies existed long before Thomas More coined the word ‘utopia’ in 1516, and has outlasted him in the longstanding hopes of planners, architects, philosophers and social reformers that particular ways of ordering space and designing the built environment might have a salutary effect on society, communities, families and individuals. The notion of the ideal city or ideal place has long existed in most of the world's religious traditions; likewise, throughout history, communities based on the pursuit of shared ideals have separated themselves from their larger social context. It is, perhaps, the secularization and mass application of utopia that might be perceived as a specifically modern, if not specifically western, phenomenon. Perhaps this is also utopia's downfall.
