INFRASTRUCTURE

The term infrastructure is so central to the understanding, and the functioning of our species in its current state, that it is hard to imagine the days before this term came to common use. How can one conceive of a functioning Earth without infrastructure? Even wildlife make use of natural infrastructure – ecological, water, food resources, etc. All of these fit under the definition of infrastructure as a system of organization. But our conception of the word is more closely knit with artificially created systems, man-made structures that extend or disrupt natural systems to bring service to man. For example Bill McKibben, in his article, articulates the energy infrastructure by taking the reader from Northern Canada’s ‘La Grande’ to Brazilian oil refineries, and the all the way back to Arizona’s uranium veins. His aim to talk about how energy is delivered to New York City extends to include both North and South America. This only reinforces how depended our species is on the various infrastructures that enable our livelihood. But what is more interesting is how dependent these infrastructures are on other infrastructures to function properly. The energy infrastructure is dependent on a mix of hydro, oil, coal, and atomic power infrastructures, in addition the actual high voltage powerline network. And all of that shifts and changes depends largely on the faring of the economic infrastructure. What a Brazilian worker is doing might be completely dependent on the energy requirements of a city 2000 miles away, and he might not know it. But its these invisible lines of connection that gives infrastructure such an important role in our lives, so it is no wonder that they become critical resources for a country to protect, such as dictated in Executive Order EO13010. What is marvelous about infrastructure is how it builds on top of other infrastructures until what exists can no longer be untangled – as it is so complex and cross relying. That is what gives us unprecedented interconnectivity in the world as we know it. And the funny thing is most of us don't realize this - until there is a catastrophic failure in one infrastructure, and a cascading, domino effect happens that reaches to each of our homes, such as a blackout.

infrastructure

In contrasting the writings between Antony Sutcliffe and Mckibben’s writing, infrastructure in terms of roads and energy is depicted in relation to other form of infrastructure that are not typical of a conversation concerning architecture. There is an implication that infrastructure is part of a system where these components are interdependent of each other and whose ramifications effect other parts of the system. For example Sutcliffe describes the usage of roads as a principle of economics; supply and demand (pg. 24). In some cases he depicts the success of a certain mode of transportation or infrastructure as being dependent on economy and not on innovation. “In other British cities…the horse car, with its fares substantially undercutting those of the omnibus, took over from the omnibus to provide the main means of urban mass transport.” (pg.26) Politics also according to Sutcliffe played a role. Due to the speeds limits imposed by authorities, the usage of the omnibus was hindered (pg. 28). Sutcliffe’s attitude of the emergence of infrastructure is based on having the right conditions. He describes these conditions when speaking about Virginia. “The development of an efficient technology of mechanical traction had to await the time when a city of moderate size would offer favorable conditions” (pg. 32). The way Sutcliffe describes the success of these new modes of infrastructure is very much akin to that of evolution, in which something can be successful if it finds its right niche.

We can see a similar understanding of infrastructure and the variables that effect it in Mckibben’s writing for the New Yorker. Phrases that he uses in relation to infrastructure are “Energy Fuel’s staking program, oil prices, B.L.M, Arizona-wilderness bill” just to say a few. But what is most surprising about the article was the view the writer took in juxtaposing nature and infrastructure as symbiotic elements connected through chemistry, science, and numbers. Most of his descriptions of energy are precluded with an idea of largeness, typically described through numbers and strong words like “force”. For example he writes “as a rock is being blasted…hauling ore to the surface so it can be trucked to a mill in Blanding, Utah three hundred miles away. There it is ground up and made into “yellow cake” – U3O8” (pg. 55). Much of his writing is the description of infrastructure as a friendly but strong companion of nature in which math and science is used to rationalize the relationship between the two.

Infrastructure

It tolls for the city...

“No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." John Donne – Meditation XVII from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, 1624

The city is an ancient infrastructure. Since, perhaps, the inception of the machine of the human collective that we discussed last week, since we began to rely on the hunting and gathering of others, we began to develop a socio-political and economic infrastructure. McKibben lyrically traces the interdependencies inherent in the delivery of electrons from NY wall to toaster, navigating from Utah uranium mines to arctic Taiga. Sutcliffe begins to trace the relationships of purportedly different, but inexorably connected systems in the development of the street-car, specifically in the late 1800’s at the advent of the industrialized age and modern theories of planning. “The creators of this [modern] phenomenon of planning saw decentralization as one of their prime objectives: planning may thus be seen as, to some degree, a product of the urban transport revolution.” (Sutcliffe, 23) Perhaps it is the first act of city development to admit John Donne’s all too familiar maxim above and begin a process of decentralization and urbanization.

Sutcliffe writes, it seems, from the standpoint of an economic determinist. “…[I}nnovation and invention… are the direct product of supply-demand relationships.” (ibid, 24) The apparent contradictory divergence of technological progress and economic welfare is explained socially, and is indicated by rising per capita urban land rent. (ibid, 28) The use of indicators and an appeal to a different system belies a deterministic, systemic view of technological progress.

“Thus, behind what might appear at first sight to be a technological problem, we can discern a confrontation of interests in the area of political economy… a compromise solution is most likely at the time when, and in the place where, the new technology is likely to produce a net increase in the social product.” (ibid, 36)

The idea of a ‘social product’ seems to me to be a distinctly progressive one. As our infrastructural systems become intertwined, it becomes hard to tell where one begins and one ends. Social welfare and technological progress become commodities whose relationships can be measured by simple metrics, in this case urban land rent.

The language of the text reveals a vantage of technology not at isolated events, or deus ex machina but as discrete elements in the greater infrastructure, with potentials. “…[T]he steam railway… was susceptible a priori of being adapted to the needs of movement within cities.” (ibid, 24) The seems to imply that the railway in it’s participation in the infrastructure could necessarily be adapted to serve other parts of the infrastructure. A defensible position to be sure, but perhaps the danger in the sentiment of a priori progress is highlighted in the following notion. “To some extent, therefore, the increase in usage suggests that a latent demand existed for the improvement of urban transport before electrification was carried out.” (ibid, 24) Following this line of logic to its absurdities, should we then have all highways 10 lanes wide because traffic levels will rise to fill them? Surely if not everywhere, then in downtown areas where there is more traffic demand? Sutcliffe presents a deterministic infrastructure of technological progress, which may adequately address the needs of the drivers and the residents and provide a perfectly reasonable solution, but I am left asking, where is the room for the designer in the systemically determined urban experience? At what level, and with what systems, is our agency most meaningful?

Infrastructure, Forrest

When I first hear the word "infrastructure," visions of galvanized steel, asphalt, and rubber wires immediately flash into my mind. Subsequent categorization of this vision may fit the generalized cultural understanding: mundane objects in our built environment that service our lives: roads, power lines, water tanks--the engineered rather than the designed. The cliche of not seeing the forest through the trees applies; these objects comprise a larger "underlying framework or features of a system or organization," as defined by dictionary.com. Bill McKibben elegantly articulates this point by tracing the breadth and scope of how electricity reaches the New Yorker's electrical socket. From oil mining in Brazil to huge hydraulic projects in Canada, the delivery of electricity to New York City becomes an elaborate and multivariable system at the whim of many influences.

Anthony Sutcliffe further elucidates the complexity of an infrastructural system in his research on the mechanization of street transportation. The core of his argument is that not only do these external influences affect infrastructural decisions / changes, the infrastructural decisions / changes also affect the external influences. His most lucid example is the streetcar infrastructure and rent values, namely that building streetcar infrastructure allows a city geographical growth, lowering density and, subsequently, property values. Resorting back to infrastructure's definition as the "framework of a system or organization", then the streetcar network functions much like the telephone pole in the broader context of the city. If "infrastructure" is defined as more than a streetcar rail, why should "infrastructure" be less than the whole streetcar network and the economics that drive its expansion? The potential changes of scale in infrastructure surely prompted Buckminster Fuller's suggestion of a global power grid. According to this definition, a city itself comprises an infrastructural system, with streetcars being but components, just as Clinton's Executive Order EO 13010 establishes an infrastructure for defending critical infrastructures. In this regard, our current definition of infrastructure with respect to cities should understand that even infrastructures as complex systems, each influencing one another with various (and variously scaled) results.

Infrastructure ,Bin Wang

Infrastructure was born with cities. Or, it was born before cities.

If city, say, is a human body, then infrastructures are blood vessels (roads, bridges, internet, etc). Without these vessels, blood and power can not been transported to the city organs, hence the city has no possibility to work normally.

What’s more, infrastructure also include the blood making organs (mines, power stations, etc), sometimes the most powerful architecture in the world. When I try to imagine there are millions of mines deep down underground, some are roughly the size and shape of a sixty-story or more skyscraper, and those huge industrial towers more then 120 feet tall, I feel like there is another world under our nose as well as underneath our feet.

Infrastructures are even un-visible. For example, the satellite signals are everywhere. The earthquake happened in Taiwan several months ago made the undersea cable broken, so I lost the on-line contact with my family and friends in China. It’s so amazing that the infrastructure connected between China and American actually happened undersea and in the sky. A picture appears in my head is an earth wrapped by all kinds of cables, (visible and un-visible) which we called “globalism”.

Globalism made the earth small and easily to communicate. However, it also made the earth more fragile. Since every parts of the world are connected so tightly, it easily to imagine what will happen if some connections lost the function.

The development of cities hence relies on the healthy and convenient infrastructure. Actually the cities are changed with the development of infrastructure. It is no surprise to know that “planning may thus be seen as, to some degree, a product of the urban transport revolution.” (Street Transport in the second Half of the Nineteenth Century: Mechanization Delayed?) Probably every transforms of the cities witness a revolution of the infrastructure. The new technology competes with the old ones, providing advantages and conquering disadvantages, then fixes (sometimes totally changes) the system, just like the renew of human organs. Afterwards the cities run better and wait for the next revolution. That is the way we come from and will go to the future. What we only need to ask is “What is the next step?”

Infrastructure_Anders

The definition of infrastructure according to dictionary.com is “the underlying framework of a system or organisation”. I find Wikipedia’s definition as one of the best: “Infrastructure is generally a set of interconnected structural elements that provide the framework supporting an entire structure”.

In 2007 we depend on a number of infrastructures to work without failure. These critical infrastructures include telecommunications, electrical power systems, gas and oil storage and transportation, banking and finance, transportation, water supply systems just to mention a few of them. We can divide threats against these into to categories, physical threats and cyber-threats. Because private companies own many of these networks it is of high importance that the government and the private sector work close together to maintain the national security.

Anthony Sutcliffe’s article describes the development of the street transport. The unusually rapid economic growth in the later 1890s and the early years of the 20^th century go close together with the discoveries within the field of mechanical engineering. This economic growth was associated with a new phase in the urbanisation of the industrialized world. “This phase was associated with the development of the theory of modern planning and, to a large extent, the practice of planning” (p23). Sutcliffe suggests that this development is the product of the urban transport revolution. The need for movement within the cities. First there were attempts with the steam engine and later on the transport system which relayed on electric power (first public electric trolley system in Richmond, Virginia). The improvement of the transport network (infrastructure) increased the accessibility of the urban land.

From the New Yorker article we realize how complex the building of a water power plant can be. They needed to create new roads and airplane runways on the frozen lakes just to be able to transport all equipment to the building site. All these efforts just to maintain the modern society’s energy consumption safe.

infrastructure_reading response

Usually infrastructure means public system but everyone can use. In these days, infrastructure is so important because to develop the parts of any technology, we need stronger infrastructure. For example, without fast internet cable, new technology of telecommunication could be useless.

In this meaning, as definition said, infrastructure is basic system. It’s for functioning of a community or society (dictionary. Com, 1). Infrastructure means usually water supply, streets, highway that is directed under by government or state. Even though we could recognize, for social aspect, sharing the system goes to infrastructure’s meaning.

However, in the article, street transportation, it doesn’t mean system but also movement. With the example of railway, this article explained infrastructure devoted to the needs of movement within cities (24). From 1870s to 1880s, many cities started building the railway even though its speed was not as much as fast horse’s. However, for the mechanization of shipping, railway system needed and rail way could be developed more and more. Within the cities, horse was attractive, however, the transforming the any goods between cities, rail way was useful for amount and speed, too. After then, rail way system brought huge change of distribution transportation and the life style differences.

Because the effect of infrastructure is so strong, it is usually a job for government. As executive order EO 13010, all most all department need to work together for any case of infrastructure. It could bring huge change of civilian life with small fault or success. So government tries to go through carefully. This compromised opinion will decide programming the infrastructure even though it will take long time because it could be a social system itself.

in newyorker article, without saying infrastructure, the author explained about the concept of it. Referring familiar object, the author make us imagine how or what infrastructure could be. its explanation is so easy to understand like page 44
(26 feet in diameter,with smooth concrete walls, the tunnel~~) For this article, I could understand infrastructure in a common sense and could go further to architectural view.

Infrastructure is a kind of social aspect in capitalism country to balance the social system and economic profit. So even though sometimes it doesn’t work for every social people, their initial intention was started for restoring the benefit to people. Sometimes huge infrastructure disturbs our racing of development. However, I and you could use high ways, rail ways and internet because of infrastructure system,

infrastructure

‘The basic, underlying framework or feature of a system or organization’
Like the definition in dictionary, infrastructure is the concept related with system and it has a big premise that human exploits or uses it. So, purpose of infrastructure is focused on operating issues.

Wikipedia refers infrastructure to the underlying system of civil, municipal, public works, information technology, political and social networks. National infrastructure is more precisely divided into sectors; banking and finance, transportation, power systems, information and communications, law enforcement, government services, fire, emergency health services and national water supply. Executive order EO 13010 marks the direction for operating USA’s infrastructure in terms of organization power.

Anthony Sutcliffe’s article is interesting to me because it shows an example how a physical infrastructure, street transport was applied in cities in aspects of development of technology and its applying. New knowledge, for instance, transport revolution had power to be able to change entire urban logics and patterns. However, it is also affected in the social formation such as structure of rental value. It can be transformed into property right, but only through a struggle between the existing owners of property and those excluded from it. (Street Transport, 36) Therefore, we need to recognize a kind of infrastructure itself is a second structure of other infrastructures.

Article ‘The New Yorker’ presents how New York is consuming energy resources now. To recognize how infrastructure of NY is performing especially energy infra, author traces routes from end users to natural sources for the sake of picking out our easy conscience about it. The article emphasizes infrastructures that we are not aware of but in use.

I think extending the meaning of infrastructure and tracing it can be a systematic analysis of our physical and non-physical environments. So, keen observing and articulating a phenomenon in the view of infrastructure will be effective for solutions of our urban problems because infrastructure is the initial cause generating that phenomenon.

cindy moon_utopia

People always dream utopia. It usually means ideal and useful corrective positivism. However, the concept of utopia is not always happy because its actual meaning is no place or not existed place. (Mumford 3)

Lewis Mumford said utopia has been in Greek and Rome period. The base idea about utopia is from Plato and Aristotle. However, actually the word ‘utopia’ started using at. It means when philosopher thought about system of society, they didn’t define their dream as utopia.

As from Plato, utopia is always related with city because it has to be explained between the relationships between people. Community or hierarchy, everything is from society and it goes to the space of where people have been. At first, it was used for how people who have athuority control the society well for their will. Plato was to rationalize and perfect the institutions to make ideal pattern for creating structure. In contemporary societies, his concept is so far from utopia. However it was one way to achieve society’s ideal at that time.

After the system or structure of society has been changed because of mechanical progress, the concept of utopia became different. As St. Thomas More talked about, discussion about power in society moves to about system. In this example, we could see archigram for the plug-in city. They try to make continual circulation and blur the boundary but unified by continuous architecture (Sadler 57). Archigram dreamed about superimposing new society; however it is different from new Babylon. while new babylon was focused on view from exterior, plug-in city started from interior. Because of this difference, plug-in city could approach about conjectural and more legible and dynamic life in modern society.

However, archigram emphasized too much about mega structure of architecture, even though they want to connect the space. They ignored the changing flow and only concerned about hardware. They thought all the hardware could solve the problems and realize the utopia. Also after new Babylon which already was defined as failure disappeared, archigram lose their opponent subject to lead their topic. Even though many architect got influence on their works, there is no philosophical utopia right now. We just devote the phenomenon for the next good progress.

Utopia

According to Mumford ”the first Utopia was the city itself” (p3). He describes the creation of ancient cities as the creation of utopia. Unfortunately the utopian city is very fragile and the distance between the utopia and the dystopia is not that great. Mumford mentions isolation, fixation, regimentation, standardization, militarization as attributes to the utopian city. Later in the Mumford reading the utopia is called: “sterile dessert” (p10). A very negative description.

Fustel de Coulanges and Bachofen describes the city as a religious phenomenon with the primary function to create order. The city was an ideal form “a glimpse of eternal order, a visible heaven on earth, a set of life abundant- in other words, utopia.” (p13). On page fifteen again there is the description of the unstable condition of the utopia. Almost immediately it changes to its opposite, the dystopia. To create the utopia there needs to be a collective force. Described by Mumford as the human machine, the platonic model of all later machines.

The Plug-in city and New Babylon looked forward towards the end of labour and towards automation. New Babylon looked into the far-distance and Plug-in city to the near distance. New Babylon tried to create new social places, without an exact recipe. Peter Cook and Michael Webb with their plug-in city were more interested in the creation of an organizational system with smaller individual units. In both New Babylon and The Plug-in city the working class had disappeared. Sadler writes: “convinced that the qualities of the everyday could be enhanced by design, and that technology could lift the passions of humanity from the quaqmire of the street into the city of the sky”. The vision of a modern utopia.

Utopia

Architecture 209X, Spring 2007

Words and Cities: The rhetoric and meaning of statistically improbable phrases

Nicholas De Monchaux

Qing Wang

Utopia

Utopia, a word has been always associated with city context. It was born with city. The origin of city was the idea of centralized dwelling. It is the materialized will of kingdom. It is the idealized form of dwelling. The idea of Utopia is to realize the human commonwealth which never has been conceived. But the city becomes the perfect ground where Utopians test their thoughts. The interesting thing about Utopia is that Utopians care the human commonwealth but not the single person. It pursues the collective benefits and ignores the personal difference. That’s where Utopia fails. Each person is different and irrational. Utopia tries to uniform the condition of dystopia reality and gives the solution. In fact, Utopia is seen as irreal fiction as opposite of reality. It is always related with sci-fiction. Actually, the paradigm of modern Utopia – Archigram inherited this fiction quality. The cartoon like cover always implied the content of their projects belonging to the future not the present reality. Their project – plug in city also looks like the machine from sic-fi movie Star War. In Japan, Metabolism also shared some similarity with Archigram. In both of their projects, there are some mega structures with infrastructure connecting the city network. The living units can be added or subtracted by the change of the city. Paradoxically, Plato’s utopia was refused to change. It was conceived as a perfect stable system can be sustained forever. Metabolism and plug in city tries to adapt this dynamic quality of the city to make it sustained. The chaotic and changing reality is more complicated than this ideal single system can accommodate. That’s where reality and utopia differs.

utopia

What is interesting about the word utopia is that it possesses both a positive and a negative meaning. Positive, which is its primary use and as defined by the dictionary, is an imaginary place and a place of ideal perfection and social condition, which some strive for and believe that lays somewhere in the future. Negatively, defined as an impractical scheme for social improvement, the term is used to describe something which is too advanced- goal that is un-reachable.
All three texts deal with both, the positive and negative, which seem to probably go hand-in-hand, rather than either-or, when talking about utopia.
All three texts look at the possibilities of and desires for achieving this place of perfection, and the failures of doing so. Lewis Mumford is the only one whose thesis in Utopia, The City and the Machine tries to argue that utopia actually did exist and that “the concept of utopia is not a Hellenic speculative fantasy”, but that “indeed, the first utopia was the city itself”(Mumford, 3). Even though this is a speculative thought, what is more interesting to note in this statement is that utopia is equated with the city. In Sadler’s article New Babylon versus Plug-in City, Constant’s New Babylon and Archigram’s Plug-in City are hypothetical projects of hyper-structures also striving for utopia in the form of a city.
Marvelous works for their time, the Plug-in City and New Babylon respond to the current need for change evoked by the “disappearance of the working class” (Sadler, 65) post the industrial and mechanical revolution and its replacement with the new mobile “leisure class”.
The word ‘avant-garde’ continuously comes up when reading all three articles. Our desire for control and advancement, instrumented by science and technology is what allows us to constantly look ahead in search for what Plato regards to as a “self contained unit”, that is enough self-sufficient to “have enough land to feed its inhabitants and make it independent of any other community” (Mumford, 5).
Utopia, in the positive sense, is in the future and only avant-garde and progressive thinking can bring us closer to utopia, which constantly gets re-defined. Does this mean that the state of utopia is actually un-achievable, and the positive notion of utopia will always go together with the negative, as un-reachable goal? I do not know, but “the only limits to what might be accomplished… were those of the human imagination” (Mumford, 13)

Utopia

The Article ‘Arcology’ is a try to find ideal city type in relationships between environments and human resources. For grasping an image of the arcological city, divided analysis and clarification of purpose are effective strategy for the nebulous image of utopia. It is because investigation of every connected factors related with city is necessary for building a logic of ideal city. However, when I meet arcological discourse which is focused as our utopia, I have a same impression. It is a sort of manifestation not an imagination or emerging. Big premise is that we should go that direction because we are here.

Through architectural history, efforts to visualize or architecturalize utopian city were truly challenging works. A sketch concerning future city has a philosophy toward utopia or would-be dystopia. Archigram’s works were amazing even on the view of contemporary position. Their paper works involve a little archeological view but more are focused on outlining the future in excavating the patterns of the past. (58, New Babylon versus Plug in-city) That’s reason we can feel their insight is quiet keen even in current base. The comment “If man is no longer bound to production-labour, he will also no longer be forced to stick to a fixed place.” is can be applied in mobility and ubiquity based on current technology. It’s one of evidences their ideas were actually future oriented. Main key that they could imagine some relatively reasonable ideas-with current base not at that time- was they faced era having plenty of changes within short scroll. They could concentrate the changing phenomenon itself.

I assume expecting future city and drawing it might be easy in 1950~60 than now. They were stepping an apparently changing stage as the physical environment. But, now we are standing on the changed changing cites in terms of physical settings but invisible human environment is changing more quickly than modern times. Then, how can be our future city imagined? What is the relatively strong process to keep an eye on contemporary world. And, what is the keen view and thoughtful insight anticipating our future. Archigram had acutely aware of supposed freedom form dogma. Then, are we too free from dogma? Or, our future cities totally are not free from economical dogma?

Utopia

Utopia

Liwen Zhang

The word utopia is very interestingly intertwined with visions and discussions concerning the city and lives of its inhabitants. The ancient mythological city of Atlantis, as Mumford’s article mentions, is what Plato refers to as utopia, divine perfection, or “a visible heaven on earth”. Such strong convictions around the idea of a utopia and its strong ties to the city suggest how man has privileged the notion of progress from the very start, since ancient times, when we constantly strive toward a better future. Thus Mumford makes it clear that there is an inherent human need to control technology and live within reach of the divine, whether it be religion, kingship or through the need for technological advancement.

In Sadler’s article comparing and contrasting Constant’s New Babylon and Cook’s Plug-in City, both schemes could been seen as visions of what Plato would have called utopia, plans that placed control, progress and the need for technological advancement on to a entirely new level. Although both schemes were in response to the same problems that cities were encountering in the mid twentieth century, over population being the main challenge, they are both very different in terms of conceptual and formal approach. However despite their differences, what is important to note is that in both schemes, the increased need and thus response toward collective living and leisure is heavily emphasized. This increased need for community and leisure is facilitated by heavy mechanization and explicit spatial organization, where the city can again reinvent itself to become a solution and thus a utopia where its citizens can thrive.

The vision of utopia and the need for progress forward illustrates a sense of both believing and longing for the future which will be better then the past. As our relationship with technology becomes increasingly dependant and taken for granted, new problems and new responses will arise, along with the need for advancement, our visions of what utopia constitutes will continually be rewritten. It now seems apparent that such visions are not only dependant on human aspirations, but also our inherent need for direction and perception.

Human Utopias

In both the Soleri and Sadler articles, a definition of Utopia seems to find negative definition. Everyday living is described as ‘The week veneer of life ridden with blight and stillness, which megalopolis and suburbia are…’ (Soleri, 9) and Sadler relates the sentiment that ‘technology could life the passions of humanity from the quagmire of the street into the city of the sky.’ (Sadler, 58) Ignoring the obviously begged question of why the elevation of a street prevents it from being a quagmire, we can begin to see a difference between these two articles and the Soleri article, which accepts the limits of our human condition, this quagmire, and posits a historical instance of Utopia in the form of the ancient nascent city.

Mumford proposes that ‘every utopia is, almost by definition, a sterile desert, unfit for human occupation.’ (Mumford, 10) In the very next paragraph, he posits his thesis that this Utopia existed, like a child without Mortal Sin, but quickly lost its innocence, leaving, ‘as it were an after-image of its “ideal” form on the human mind.’ (Mumford, 11) The human collective is introduced as an ideal most utopias seek. Later in the text, this ideals most current form, that of the Invisible Machine, is vehemently warned against as an illusion. The idea of the city as home for God has been supplanted by scientific progress as god, and it’s heretics, the avant-garde artists, championed as ‘the only group that has understood the dehumanizing threats of the Invisible Machine’. (Mumford 23) The siren seduction of utopia is then contrasted to these avant-garde artists’ dystopic vision and Mumford concludes that neither rdystopia nor utopia hold human salvation. If this is the case, what good is a utopia.

Wittgenstein likened an ideal to a flat plane of ice; beautiful to behold, impossible to walk on. (I’m sorry I can’t find the reference.) And yet our formal explorations as architects often engage the flat stillness of water as an ideal surface. Most every building engages the flat, found only in ice and water outside the manmade world. So whether salvation is to be found or not, lessons are to be learned. Hence the importance of the lessons (some of them) found in Arcology; ‘They are not real, they are utopian’ (Sadler, 10). Arcology specifically deals with the ecology of the city and its future. #4, Arcology and Dimension, recognizes the need to humanize our architectural intentions. In #17, we see lessons in common with Archigrams vision of the individual. ‘Care for oneself will tend to be care for the whole.’ (Sadler, 11) Again in 34. ‘the individual user is always eccentric to the whole; symmetry in the whole, singularity in the parts.’ (ibid, 16) Above all, it seems Arcology is not a utopia that appeals to progress of the invisible machine of technology, but of human potential. ‘The creation of truly lovable cities is the only lasting solution for land conservations.’ (ibid 10) This appeal to emotion as a metric for city building is a refreshing break from the technological positivism that haunts architectural utopias.