Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century

Book excerpt: The utopian visions of three of urban planning’s greatest visionaries. Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, 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. In this book Robert Fishman examines the utopian visions of three of urban planning’s greatest visionaries. 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 imagined “Ville Radieuse,” the city of cruciform skyscrapers set down in open parkland.