Utopianism

Exhibit Seeks to Understand Japan's 'Metabolism' Architecture

The new exhibit at Toyko's Mori Art Museum will be the first architecture showcase since the 2011 earthquake, and displays a movement central to the country's history of building and rebuilding.

7 February 2012 - 5:00am

The New York Times

12 Ultra Modern Home Designs

The Web Urbanist counts down twelve of the best ultra modern home designs with a descriptive slideshow.

4 November 2011 - 12:00pm

Web Urbanist

The Best Failed Utopias

Utopian developments often fail. This post from The Awl ranks the best and most desirable of the failed utopias throughout history.

10 July 2011 - 7:00am

The Awl

Friday Funny: The Totalitarian Utopianism of Smurfs

A new book by researcher Antoine Buéno looks at the cartoon and comic book characters the Smurfs as an example of a totalitarian regime with utopian goals.

10 June 2011 - 2:00pm

Der Spiegel

The 40 Tools You Need to Build Your Own Civilization

The Global Village Construction Set is a group of farmers and engineers who are developing an set of open-source designs for the forty tools one would need to create a self-sufficient life living off of the land.

7 February 2011 - 1:00pm

Fast Company

A Night At Arcosanti

George Haugh describes his visit to Arcosanti in the summer of 2010. A town conceived, designed and built by the charismatic Italian architect Paolo Soleri in Arizona. It is the largest example of Arcology in practice: Soleri's theory of miniaturized and complex human environments designed to utilize the surrounding ecology for building materials while simultaneously minimizing human impact upon them.

17 January 2011 - 10:00am

»

French Utopia Devolves

Born from the 1968 riots, a carefully planned community in France has been steadily taken over by crime and unrest, prompting some to question whether its utopian ideals actually work.

9 August 2010 - 10:07am

The New York Times

New EcoVillages: Not Just For Hippies

The Whole Village in Ontario, Canada is an environmentally sustainable co-op made up of architects, doctors and teachers instead of draft dodgers and dropouts.

25 August 2009 - 9:00am

The Montreal Gazette

The Quest for the Perfect City

The director of the Design Museum in London reflects on the mostly unfortunate quest for perfection in city planning and architecture, as the museum's new exhibit, Design Cities, opens.

3 September 2008 - 2:00pm

The Times Online

Arcosanti Revisited: The Sustainable Utopia

A short video profile shows renewed interest in Arcosanti, the utopian community founded by architect Paolo Soleri. Could Soleri's 40 yr. old utopia be the wave of the sustainable future?

3 July 2008 - 9:00am

NBC 12 News