Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Ideal Cities presents a vast panorama spanning more than two millennia of Western attempts to invent the perfect city, cradle of the ideal society. Embracing not only architecture and town planning but also art, literature, philosophy and politics, this book takes us through the imaginary environments of a wide variety of fascinating and often controversial movements and figures, including Plato, Filtrete, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas More, Thomas Jefferson, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Charles Fourier, Etienne Cabet, Robert Owen, William Morris, Ebenezer Howard, Bruno Taut, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, the European Situationists, the Japanese Metabolists, Archigram, Superstudio and many more. In this richly illustrated book, the author explores the ability of ideal cities to stimulate reflection and change, and suggests under what conditions they might continue to exercise their vital function in relation to the urban environment of the future. The ideal cities presented by Ruth Eaton exist for the most part in the virtual domain of ideas, treading the fine line between dream and nightmare. While it is true that notorious attempts to cross the border to reality have greatly discredite

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgements (p. 6)
• Preface (p. 7)
• 1. Introduction (p. 8)
• Definitions (p. 11)
• Stepping stones (p. 14)
• Characteristics of utopian worlds (p. 16)
• 2. Sources of the Ideal City from High Antiquity to the Middle Ages (p. 18)
• On heavenly and earthly paradises (p. 21)
• The fruits of human organization (p. 26)
• 3. The Idealization of the City from the Renaissance Onwards (p. 38)
• The city: an object, an idea (p. 41)
• Observing other worlds (p. 42)
• Establishing an ideal vocabulary (p. 44)
• Quattrocento applications of the ideal (p. 50)
• Military appropriation of the ideal city in the sixteenth century (p. 56)
• Thomas More founds the utopian literary genre (p. 63)
• Utopias between More and Bacon (p. 67)
• 4. Exporting the Ideal to the New World (p. 72)
• Encountering the 'New World' (p. 75)
• Colonial practice in New Spain (p. 78)
• The grid enraptures North America (p. 84)
• America, promised land (p. 90)
• 5. The Horizons of Knowledge (p. 98)
• Worshop of progress and nature (p. 101)
• The ascent of Neoclassicism (p. 103)
• Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (p. 106)
• 6. The Search for Order in the Age of Great Cities (p. 118)
• From polis to megapolis (p. 121)
• Experimental communities (p. 125)
• Literary utopias (p. 136)
• Urban models (p. 142)
• 7. Cities for the Machine Age (p. 152)
• The urban Janus (p. 155)
• Anti-utopian literature and cinema (p. 159)
• German visions of a crystal paradise (p. 164)
• Italian Futurists: cities that rise and re-arise (p. 179)
• Constructing a communist world (p. 183)
• Ideal-city planning in France (p. 196)
• Contrasting visions in America (p. 205)
• 8. The Revolt of the Citizen (p. 214)
• Struggling with the chains of utopia (p. 217)
• Megastructures: swansong and seed (p. 218)
• Playgrounds for Homo ludens (p. 223)
• Architectural counter-utopias (p. 231)
• 9. Conclusion (p. 236)
• Notes (p. 244)
• Selected bibliography (p. 248)
• Index (p. 251)
• Photographic Credits (p. 255)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

A beautifully illustrated volume with extensive use of color, this work is a kind of personal account of utopias, both literary and architectural, though with emphasis on the latter. In this case, the subtitle may be a bit more accurate than the actual title, as Eaton concentrates on the concept of utopianism more than architects' conceptions of ideal cities, though she covers a number of the examples that one might normally expect. On the other hand, as the work does not purport to be encyclopedic, there are others that might well have been included. After a brief discussion of ancient and medieval conceptions, the narrative focuses on Renaissance through 20th-century examples, utilizing paintings, engravings, and architectural drawings. Especially toward the end, the author tends to interject her preferences, e.g., on the need for a current emphasis on a sustainable environment rather than on the purely ideal conceptions. Although there are footnotes and a bibliography, the volume remains a cross between a scholarly study and a sumptuous presentation volume. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. General readers; lower- and upper division undergraduates. D. Stillman emeritus, University of Delaware

Booklist Review

Ideal cities, or utopias, have been imagined in dazzling detail by philosophers, poets, architects, social reformers, religious zealots, and artists for more than two millennia, an abiding and ever-evolving vision Eaton cogently surveys in this unique, thought-provoking, and resplendently illustrated history. Utopias, Eaton explains, are most often conceived as panaceas during "times of profound social unrest"; aim for "the greatest collective happiness and harmony"; and tend toward geometrically precise and orderly designs as though mathematical balance can control nature's wildness and humanity's perversity. After presenting her working definition of paradisiacal cities, Eaton ventures forth to conduct elaborate guided tours of various utopias, many inspired by myths or religious texts. She explicates Plato's ideal city; Sforzinda, the first Renaissance utopian proposal; the urban dream of early-sixteenth-century Englishman Thomas More, who coined the term utopia; and so-called new-world utopian playgrounds. As Eaton moves into the machine age, plans for ideal cities (Le Corbusier presides) grow more and more ambitious, extreme, and morbidly entrancing. Eaton's sophisticated, jam-packed interdisciplinary commentary is, frankly, demanding, but well worth the effort. --Donna Seaman