49CITIES
If your success and relevance as an architect is measured by whether or not you have come up with your very own Dream City, then have been exactly 49 of them (Picked out of about 200 by WorkAC). When we were studying these things in school, I kind of thought “what’s the point?” cuz really, who is going to live in a space-frame structural bridge over the English Channel or a 200 storey tall Tetrahedral City (Buckminster Fuller, coolest dude). But seriously, these things are brilliant and totally fun! Like a really good Sci Fi movie where you can imagine everyone living in a perfect harmony. They even threw in some of the best planned cities like “Chicago”. And “Paris”. (Haven’t been to either).
WorkAC launched their book at Storefront on Monday. Basically this book takes all these cities, put together by planners and architects and compares them, at the same scale, taking into consideration things like footprint, green space, density, form… The architects actually brought those blue ribbons and awarded the best dream cities like they were prize colts. OBVIOUSLY, Corb did it best with his Garden City which I’m pretty sure is the perfect symmetry of everything ever. He put all the industries near the railways and everything within an agricultural greenbelt, containing and protecting it from the inevitable doom of sprawl. Sort of funny that he included a “Crystal Palace” aka Mall.
Some cities that were actually built, like Brasilia, don’t exactly have glowing reviews (“…it feels like being inside a work by De Chirico or a photograph by Gabriele Basilico. Brasilia turned public space into a desert and petrified its users”), but hey, at least they tried! And who wouldn’t want to live in a city called Fun Palace? When designing this city, Price took into deep, thoughtful consideration the required facility for fireworks.
If you guys want to buy this book, go here, I think you will like it. Then we can all pick our favorite city and discuss why it is the best.
Until then, please listen to Buckminster tell you about death.
hey did they include Nadim Karam’s the cloud (dezeen link- http://www.dezeen.com/2007/06/14/the-cloud-by-atelier-hapsitus/)…I met this guy last month, he seemed so cool, and i love nomads, maybe I will post about this soon…