- Hardcover: 332 pages
- Publisher: Basic Books (Jan 17 1978)
- ISBN-10: 046508933X
- ISBN-13: 978-0465089338
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.7 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 748 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,402,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"As Robert Fishman writes of three of urban planning's greatest visionaries, Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, they 'hated the cities of their time with an overwhelming passion. The metropolis was the counter-image of their ideal cities, the hell that inspired their heavens.' "'Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century' is the story of the dreams of these three men, each of whom saw the salvation of civilization in his own particular urban vision. Their ideal cities resembled each other no more than they resembled real cities: Howard created the concept of the 'garden city' where shops and cottages formed the center of a geometric pattern with farmland surrounding; Wright... conceived of 'Broadacre City,' the ultimate suburb where the automobile was king, and Le Corbusier projected 'Ville Radieuse,' the city of cruciform skyscrapers set down in open parkland.... "Robert Fishman tells the story of these visionary schemes with intelligence and sympathy.... Here, we have a strong, clear explanation of the philosophical notions underlying the work of Howard, Wright and Le Corbusier." Paul Goldberger , The New York Times
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.Book Description
As Robert Fishman writes of three of urban planning's greatest visionaries, Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, they 'hated the cities of their time with an overwhelming passion. The metropolis was the counter-image of their ideal cities, the hell that inspired their heavens.'
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
AN ILLUMINATING SURVEY OF THREE VISIONARY URBAN PLANNERS, Jan 13 2010
By Steven H. Propp - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier (Paperback)
In this 1977 book, Robert Fishman (historian of suburbia; see his other book, Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise And Fall Of Suburbia) has ably summarized the work of three pioneering modern urban planners: Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928; see his Garden Cities of To-morrow); Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959; see his books such as Frank Lloyd Wright and the Living City), and Le Corbusier (1887-1965; see his The City of To-morrow and Its Planning).Fishman begins by noting that "The utopian socialists were largely forgotten by the time Howard, Wright, and Le Corbusier began their own work, so there was little direct influence from them." Nevertheless, Fishman suggests that Howard may have been influenced by the work of Russian anarchist writer Peter Kropotkin, so that "he came to realize that the great city could never become the home of the cooperative civilization he was seeking. He was now ready to formulate the fundamental principle of the Garden City: Radical hopes for a cooperative civilization would be fulfilled only in small communities embedded in a decentralized society."
About the aftermath of Howard's movement, Fishman says, "The Garden City movement, therefore, gradually lost its commitment to social change and became a city planning movement in the narrow sense. The sponsors of Welwyn Garden City no longer claimed to be initiating a revolutionary transformation in English society."
Concerning Wright, Fishman states, "His fundamental tenet was that there must be no more distinction between urban and rural life-styles. Therefore, there must no longer be a physical separation between urban and rural areas."
He says "Le Corbusier thus embraced and idealized precisely what most repelled Howard and Wright in the modern city: its contribution to the centralization of society."
While reading the books of these three men themselves is still most helpful, Fishman's detailed summary of them is very useful, and this book is of considerable interest to those concerned with modern urban planning, Garden Cities, New Towns, etc.
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good subject matter, even better narrative, Dec 31 2004
By B. Banditelli - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Urban Utopias 20th Century (Hardcover)
Although an interesting subject matter, the author does an amazing job using the narrative of the thinkers lives to cooincide with their belief system, the only problem is he probably could have done it in about 50 pages less, but overall its a good fast read
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