The growth of urbanization in the First World also caused the opposite process - the desire of large groups of people to move back to nature, as well as the creation of "specialized" and "ideal" cities - without the grimaces of urbanism. Garden city, plantation city, Nazi city, drunken city and other utopian cities in the selection below.
Octagon City, a Vegetarian Utopia
In 1856, in the United States, the Kansas Vegetarian Organization founded Octagon, a city near Humboldt. The city was intended for settlement by vegetarians. The design of the settlement was influenced by the ideas of the phrenologist Orson Fowler, according to which octagons were the most practical form of houses, because they received the most sunlight to enter.
The city plan was developed by Henry Clubb, a vegetarian and a Puritan (see city plan above). In addition to the octagonal houses, the city had an octagonal square and eight roads. The settlement would consist of 4 octagonal villages. All people would live in their own homes, engage in agriculture and crafts, leisure and culture in public buildings.
60 families came to the city of vegetarians, Octagon. A public log house awaited them, in which they all settled. In the spring of 1857, due to a dry winter, the river and wells dried up in the Octagon, then the settlers were struck by dysentery and fever, including with deaths. By the end of 1857, the surviving settlers of the Octagon had dispersed from it.
Automatic city utopia
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The French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier drew up a plan for an ideal city at the beginning of the 20th century. The architecture of such a city, he believed, should be as efficient and simple as possible, like industrial machines. He developed a plan for two utopian cities: Ville Radieuse and Ville Contemporaine. Both of them were supposed to have massive skyscrapers that would house millions of people. Parks and green spaces have divided these massive cities into industrial and recreational zones.
Residential buildings were to become the center of social life, with roof gardens and beaches, and their lower floors would house catering and kindergartens. Le Corbusier calculated that 2,700 people would live in each building. They will work 5 hours a day. There will be no personal cars in such a city; they will be replaced by developed public transport.
Le Corbusier built only one such house, which was supposed to become the main unit of his utopian city - in Marseille (photo below).
Garden City
In 1902, the social reformer Ebenezer Howard published his treatise The Garden City of the Future. He describes a city that covers 2,400 hectares of land, with buildings for 32,000 people. Residential buildings would occupy only 1,000 hectares. The rest of the land in the city would be given over to public parks, farms, and wide roads.
Howard managed to partially fulfill his dreams when building two towns in England, in the county of Hertfordshire - Welwyn Garden City and Letchworth Garden City (pictured below is the current state of the town of Letchworth).
Although Howard did not fully realize his utopia, he became the first developer of the principles of the residential suburb (later implemented mainly in the United States).
Open city
In 1932, American Frank Lloyd Wright began to develop the idea of an ideal city based on his love of the open, rural prairies of the Midwest. Wright called it "Open City" (also "self-sufficient"). Wright wanted there to be no industry in such a city, and people there kept a subsidiary farm (40 acres of land were put on the house), were engaged in crafts and culture. In terms of population, such a city was designed for a maximum of 10 thousand people. All public goods (roads, housing and communal services, medicine, education, etc.) in such a city would never be private, but would be in the joint management of all citizens.
Wright believed that in the future all of America would consist of such towns. They would be connected by small aircraft (with a flight range of up to 250 km) and high-speed rail transport.
Wright never succeeded in realizing his utopia.
Nazi city-utopia
Architect Albert Speer was commissioned by Hitler to turn Berlin into the futuristic capital of Nazism. Speer planned to build it up with massive buildings - both residential and public (for example, the main stadium would accommodate 400 thousand spectators). The city was to be divided into squares by wide roads. It was planned that by the end of the twentieth century, 20 million people would live in it (and the population of Nazi Germany would be 200 million).
Since the city was located in a swampy area, Speer decided to build one massive building and see how much it would shrink. This building still stands (it sank 18 cm during this time), and it turned out to be the only element of the Nazi utopia city that was brought to life (this building is in the photo below).
Utopian city Fordlandia
In 1930, automobile industrialist Henry Ford bought a piece of land in the Brazilian jungle. There he intended to build a city-utopia named after his name - Fordlandia.
The main activity of the settlers was to be the cultivation of heveas and the production of rubber from them. Ford moved about 300 workers here from the United States. An eccentric millionaire established strict rules in Fordland - a ban on alcohol, premarital sex, etc. The workers had to work 5 days a week for 9 hours. Benefits here were free housing, medicine and leisure (a library and watching a movie "in the right direction").
Hard work and strict regulations forced the settlers to revolt against the Ford administration that ruled the city. The chief overseer of the workers' moral condition was killed. Ford surrendered, and moved the workers from Fordland back to the United States (below in the photo is the administration building destroyed during the uprising).
Flying city
In the 1950s, Buckminster Fuller developed the Flying City. Interestingly, this city was intended for the Japanese and its plan was carried out with the money of the American occupation group in Japan. It was proposed to relocate people from overpopulated Tokyo.
Such a sphere, in each of which would live up to 1 thousand people, would receive energy from the sun. The food was grown inside it. In some ways, life in a flying city would be similar to the stay of astronauts at the station.
But to prevent the Japanese from leaving the country, it was proposed to tie the sphere with a powerful cable to the ground.
The Americans never built flying cities for the Japanese.
City "Success"
In 1968, oil was found in Alaska. This gave a powerful impetus to the development of the state. The Tandy Industries Tulsa company then developed a plan for a completely closed, climate-controlled city called Seward.
It was supposed to house 40 thousand people. Private cars in Seward would be banned, residents would travel on the monorail, trams and self-propelled sidewalks.
The investor was never able to build this city, including because he could not agree on the terms of cooperation with the indigenous tribes living in this area.
Utopian city for drunkards
In 1952, Mel Johnson presented investors with a plan for an ideal city - designed for drunkards and alcoholics.
The city would have both a permanent population and tourists who come here to breathe. Children would be prohibited from living in a drunken city.
The drunken city was supposed to house distilleries, breweries, and most of the buildings would represent bars, pubs and sanatoriums, where drunks slept after drinking. For the convenience of drunkards, there would be self-propelled sidewalks.
Johnson was never able to find investors for the drunken city.