Michael J. Lewis
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691171814
- eISBN:
- 9781400884315
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691171814.001.0001
- Subject:
- Architecture, Architectural History
The vision of Utopia obsessed the nineteenth-century mind, shaping art, literature, and especially town planning. This book takes readers across centuries and continents to show how Utopian town ...
More
The vision of Utopia obsessed the nineteenth-century mind, shaping art, literature, and especially town planning. This book takes readers across centuries and continents to show how Utopian town planning produced a distinctive type of settlement characterized by its square plan, collective ownership of properties, and communal dormitories. Some of these settlements were sanctuaries from religious persecution, while others were sanctuaries from the Industrial Revolution. Because of their differences in ideology and theology, these settlements have traditionally been viewed separately, but this book shows how they are part of a continuous intellectual tradition that stretches from the early Protestant Reformation into modern times. Through close readings of architectural plans and archival documents, many previously unpublished, this book shows the network of connections between these seemingly disparate Utopian settlements—including even such well-known town plans as those of New Haven and Philadelphia. The most remarkable aspect of the city of refuge is the inventive way it fused its eclectic sources, ranging from the encampments of the ancient Israelites as described in the Bible to the detailed social program of Thomas More's Utopia to modern thought about education, science, and technology. Delving into the historical evolution and antecedents of Utopian towns and cities, this book alters notions of what a Utopian community can and should be.Less
The vision of Utopia obsessed the nineteenth-century mind, shaping art, literature, and especially town planning. This book takes readers across centuries and continents to show how Utopian town planning produced a distinctive type of settlement characterized by its square plan, collective ownership of properties, and communal dormitories. Some of these settlements were sanctuaries from religious persecution, while others were sanctuaries from the Industrial Revolution. Because of their differences in ideology and theology, these settlements have traditionally been viewed separately, but this book shows how they are part of a continuous intellectual tradition that stretches from the early Protestant Reformation into modern times. Through close readings of architectural plans and archival documents, many previously unpublished, this book shows the network of connections between these seemingly disparate Utopian settlements—including even such well-known town plans as those of New Haven and Philadelphia. The most remarkable aspect of the city of refuge is the inventive way it fused its eclectic sources, ranging from the encampments of the ancient Israelites as described in the Bible to the detailed social program of Thomas More's Utopia to modern thought about education, science, and technology. Delving into the historical evolution and antecedents of Utopian towns and cities, this book alters notions of what a Utopian community can and should be.
Michael J. Lewis
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691171814
- eISBN:
- 9781400884315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691171814.003.0003
- Subject:
- Architecture, Architectural History
This chapter examines the notion of “Utopia.” It is widely known that Utopia means “no place.” However, few know that it is pronounced just the same as eutopoeia, meaning “good place.” In short, ...
More
This chapter examines the notion of “Utopia.” It is widely known that Utopia means “no place.” However, few know that it is pronounced just the same as eutopoeia, meaning “good place.” In short, Utopia is that great good place that is nowhere to be found. And with this word, coined exactly five hundred years ago, Thomas More (1478–1535) gave us history's most famous pun. More hardly intended Utopia to be a manifesto for Protestant ideal communities. In writing Utopia, his goal was much the same as that of Plato's Republic, as a speculative philosophical essay as to what a perfectly ordered society should be. Yet there was much in Utopia that Protestants found congenial, including the emphasis on reason over superstition, the utopian practice of electing priests by popular vote, and the absence of all images of God in their temples. The most radical idea in Utopia is that in order to make an ideal city one must also make an ideal society.Less
This chapter examines the notion of “Utopia.” It is widely known that Utopia means “no place.” However, few know that it is pronounced just the same as eutopoeia, meaning “good place.” In short, Utopia is that great good place that is nowhere to be found. And with this word, coined exactly five hundred years ago, Thomas More (1478–1535) gave us history's most famous pun. More hardly intended Utopia to be a manifesto for Protestant ideal communities. In writing Utopia, his goal was much the same as that of Plato's Republic, as a speculative philosophical essay as to what a perfectly ordered society should be. Yet there was much in Utopia that Protestants found congenial, including the emphasis on reason over superstition, the utopian practice of electing priests by popular vote, and the absence of all images of God in their temples. The most radical idea in Utopia is that in order to make an ideal city one must also make an ideal society.
