Urban Fiction
Strolling through Ideal Cities from Antiquity to the Present Day
Published in 2008
Book
416 pages
978-3-930698-26-4 (ISBN)
Description
Dissatisfied with the world we live in, we have been longing since
time immemorial for two opposing topoi: the peaceful garden -
a carefree paradise - and the New City - a harmonious community.
Thomas More described this New City: it is Utopia, no-place, or
Eu-topia, the fortunate place, and it is located on an island. But
long before More philosophers, saints, artists, and travelers described
the ideal city. And after him hundreds of architects, writers,
reformers, and dreamers sought to find Utopia and not only described
but also depicted the fortunate cities - which were often
terrible as well - and occasionally tried to turn them into a reality.
Take Palmanova, Freudenstadt, Guise, Brasilia, Lingang. Yet these
cities, too, then as now, have turned out to be imperfect, deeply
rooted in their own period.
For Günther Feuerstein, all these cities and towns, though only
fictitious, have long since been built, and he strolls through them
together with the architects, planners, writers, and philosophers,
just as Thomas More, Antonio Filarete, William Morris, and many
others once led us through their cities.
Though the routes through various periods and continents are
arbitrary, the tour of 350 cities, many of them made visible in over
500 illustrations, and overflights of 800 additional dream cities result
in a kind of lexicon of the ideal city, which admittedly does not
claim to be complete.
Günther Feuerstein, who was a professor at the Hochschule für
Gestaltung in Linz and also a lecturer at the Akademie der bildenden
Künste and at the Technische Universität in Vienna until his retirement,
must be considered the catalyst in the Viennese post-war
architectural scene, as almost all architectural avant-garde groups
of the town have come from his circle. As an author, Feuerstein
addresses areas where art history and sociology intersect with architecture.
Edition Axel Menges has published Androgynos - Das
Mann-Weibliche in Kunst und Architektur / The Male-Female in Art
and Architecture and Biomorphic Architecture - Menschen und
Tiergestalten in der Architektur / Human and Animal Forms in Architecture.
Feuerstein is one of the earliest critics of functionalism and
pleads for an 'expanded architecture'.
time immemorial for two opposing topoi: the peaceful garden -
a carefree paradise - and the New City - a harmonious community.
Thomas More described this New City: it is Utopia, no-place, or
Eu-topia, the fortunate place, and it is located on an island. But
long before More philosophers, saints, artists, and travelers described
the ideal city. And after him hundreds of architects, writers,
reformers, and dreamers sought to find Utopia and not only described
but also depicted the fortunate cities - which were often
terrible as well - and occasionally tried to turn them into a reality.
Take Palmanova, Freudenstadt, Guise, Brasilia, Lingang. Yet these
cities, too, then as now, have turned out to be imperfect, deeply
rooted in their own period.
For Günther Feuerstein, all these cities and towns, though only
fictitious, have long since been built, and he strolls through them
together with the architects, planners, writers, and philosophers,
just as Thomas More, Antonio Filarete, William Morris, and many
others once led us through their cities.
Though the routes through various periods and continents are
arbitrary, the tour of 350 cities, many of them made visible in over
500 illustrations, and overflights of 800 additional dream cities result
in a kind of lexicon of the ideal city, which admittedly does not
claim to be complete.
Günther Feuerstein, who was a professor at the Hochschule für
Gestaltung in Linz and also a lecturer at the Akademie der bildenden
Künste and at the Technische Universität in Vienna until his retirement,
must be considered the catalyst in the Viennese post-war
architectural scene, as almost all architectural avant-garde groups
of the town have come from his circle. As an author, Feuerstein
addresses areas where art history and sociology intersect with architecture.
Edition Axel Menges has published Androgynos - Das
Mann-Weibliche in Kunst und Architektur / The Male-Female in Art
and Architecture and Biomorphic Architecture - Menschen und
Tiergestalten in der Architektur / Human and Animal Forms in Architecture.
Feuerstein is one of the earliest critics of functionalism and
pleads for an 'expanded architecture'.
More details
Person
Gunther Feurstein who was a professor at Hochschule fur Gestaltung in Linz and also a lecturer at the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste and at the Technische Universitat in Vienna until his retirement, must be considered the catalyst in the Viennese post-war architectural scene as almost all architectural avant-garde groups of the town have comer from his circle.