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Tomorrows Cities, Today

Are todays developed cities a manifestation of the future cosmopolises that
were promoted by the leading architects of the 20
th
century?

For as long as there have been cities, visionaries as varied as
architects, writers, artists, and movie directors have all attempted to envision
the way the future urban life might, or should, look. At the time of the early
20
th
century, urban life was going through a drastic transformation, and
architects were calling for a complete overhaul of the manner in which cities
were built. From Antonio SantElias La Citta Nuova to Frank Lloyd Wrights
Disappearing City, countless architects at the time were envisioning a
promising future for the city that, they believed, would pave the way to a better
life. Although each of these visualizations differed from the other in terms of
design and functionality, they all shared the confidence in that these cities
would embrace futurist aspects such as technology, height, and mobile
transportation. If one were to assume that today is the future that these
architects had planned for, this begs the question of whether these architects
were visionaries, with their elaborate plans of the future cosmopolis that they
devoted their lives to, or whether they were highly misguided in their beliefs of
the future metropolis.
In a 1914 exhibition titled Nuove Tendenze (New Trends), Antonio
SantElia, one of the most prominent preachers of futurist architecture at the
time, exhibited a number of surreal drawings of buildings that were unusual at
the time, and novel town-planning ideas under the title La Citta Nuova. In it,
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he proposed the concept of a modern city that took the form of a gigantic
machine in its electrifying dynamism and exuberant use of movement and
speed. La Citta Nuova fervently promoted the notion of unconstrained
circulation of objects people, automobiles, trains with design choices that
indirectly reflected on the futurist philosophy of beauty in speed through
what Reyner Banham described as, a knot-like design in city planning: each
structure connected to its neighbors by a network of multi-level circulation at
their feet. This was demonstrated through the joining of various channels of
transportation at various heights near the base of the structure. Aside from
constant movement, SantElias detailed illustrations of the city also
highlighted bridges and connections, as well as underground circulation.

Antonio SantElia, La Citta Nuova (Kim, 1995)
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SantElias ideologies of what the future metropolis holds, although
seemingly exaggerated at the time, were accurate in terms of the importance
of constant circulation both above and underground and the embracing of
technology in urban design. The majority of todays developed cosmopolises
are, as SantElia predicted, in constant motion, shaped around the
automobile. In his book, Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas About Cities, Witold
Rybczynski states that transportation remains one of the most important
external forces that influence the shape of cities. (Rybczynski, 2010)
Although, for environmental and economical reasons, SaintElias cold,
almost factory-like faades were never fully carried out in the modern
cosmopolis, especially with modern-day cities attempting to reduce their
carbon footprint. Although there exist cities like Seattle and Toronto, named
two of the smartest cities of North America for their implementation of
technology, their effortless mobility, and their architectural advancements and
futuristic skyscrapers, that somewhat embody yesterdays cities of the future.
In fact, the Space Needle tower located in Seattle bears a great resemblance
to SantElias La Citta Nuova illustrations. Both the Space Needle and the
illustrations emphasize vertical circulation, as well as bridges and connections
on higher levels.
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Other architects at the time were also devoting their time to designing
the future cities that they believed would be the answer to all of civilizations
metropolitan problems. In 1932, Frank Lloyd Wright set out to present his idea
of future urbanism, a town by the name of Broadacre City, in his book, The
Disappearing City. Broadacre City, unlike La Citta Nuova, aimed to take the
urban life into the countryside and redistribute it over the network of a
regional agrarian grid. Broadacre City was designed to be the anti-city, the
end of all cities. In Wrights design, all of the citys functions were distributed
throughout the landscape, tied together through a network of automobile
highways because, as Wright maintained, the new city has no center or
edge; it extends indefinitely in all directions along the infinite grid of the
highway system. Broadacre City, Wright claimed, is "everywhere or
nowhere". However, that isnt to say that the city didnt embody technology
Left: Seattle Space Needle (Mohney, 2007). Right: La Citta Nuova (Kim,
1995)
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and industrialization. In fact, in The Disappearing City, Frank Lloyd Wright
stated:
The three major inventions already at work building Broadacres are: 1.
The motorcar: general mobilization of the human being; 2. Radio,
telephone and telegraph: electrical communication becoming complete;
3. Standardized machine-shop production: machine invention plus
scientific discovery. (Wright, 1932)



Wrights vision of a decentralized American cosmopolis that epitomized
modern-day technology became a reality when American families began
moving to the suburbs. Cities such as Phoenix, Atlanta, and Houston were
following a Broadacre pattern spreading out rather than going up, and
allowing for Americans to reside in freestanding houses rather than living in
apartment blocks. Broadacre City also relied heavily on civilians ability to own
land and do with it what they please, an aspect adapted by many of todays
Frank Lloyd Wrights Disappearing City (Wright, 1932)
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countries and cities. Broadacre also promoted the importance of the
automobile, and the notion that buildings and functions should only be
connected through roads and highways. However, one thing Wright did not
take into account in his designs was that the creation of Broadacre City (which
never took place) would not eliminate high-density metropolitan areas. Cities
such as New York, Boston, Seattle, and San Francisco only continue to grow
vertically, despite Wrights efforts to eliminate city life and return to rural life.
On the other hand,
Le Corbusiers concept of the metropolitan form, however, promoted
high-density urban living. His original design, the City of Three Million, was to
include a high-density, high-rise residential and administrative core for an
elite, surrounded by an extensive band of low-density suburbs. (Dunnett,
2000). However he later banished the idea of low-density suburbs altogether,
opting instead for high-density conditions for the entire population. His design
proposed a series of 15 story twisting blocks, which followed a pattern
independent of the road layout, thus departing from the concept of a street
altogether. The entire city was elevated on a pilotis in order to free the ground,
creating a continuous park throughout the city. Although his designs were
never fully executed, the manner in which he divided his city is one that is
somewhat adapted by town planners of today. Le Corbusier divided the city
into zones, which were (1) Satellite cities dedicated to education, (2) Business
zone, (3) Transportation and airport zone, (4) Hotel and embassy zone, (5)
Residential zone, (6) Green zone, (7) Light industrial zone, (8) Warehouses,
and (9) Heavy industry. (Frampton, 2007). This notion of zoning is one that is
depended on in the planning of many of todays towns, with nations like
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Kuwait incorporating zoning throughout the country- with carefully laid-out
residential, transportational, industrial, and commercial zones.

The concept of the futurist city perished with the belief that the city
should revolve around technology and industrialization. The automobile,
verticality, and the machine were to shape the city of the future, thus forcing
the city plan to revolve around such industrial needs. Although
industrialization was the main focus of architects and thinkers at the start of
the 20
th
century, many of todays designers and architects are attempting to
create environmentally friendly building and city proposals. Masdar City in
Dubai is considered to be the first city in the world to completely eliminate
cars, which goes against what the futurist thinkers of the early 20
th
century
fervently preached, such as the aforementioned architects whose ideal
cosmopolises were planned with automobile traffic in mind.
Although Frank Lloyd Wrights cities were horizontally spread out,
promoting suburbia and a lack of guidelines, todays cities aim to incorporate
the urban with the suburban. His designs also relied heavily on the citizens
ability to own their own land and be able to change it to suit their needs,
however since cities today are government operated, land-owners must
comply to certain building codes and regulations.
Le Corbusiers design, on the other hand, was subject to criticism by
many for its lack of public spaces and urban encounters. The city was
unrealistic in its design, and relied too heavily on technology and not enough
on function. Although SantElias designs were in fact functional, and aimed to
expose the function and structure of buildings and technology, they also
placed too much importance on planning for increased vehicles and traffic.
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While architects today must take these issues into account, there is an
increased movement towards attempting designs that aim to decrease their
carbon footprint (an issue that was never raised in the early 20
th
century).


In conclusion, while countless architects in the early 20
th
century were
visualizing a future metropolis that would pave the way to a better life, todays
developed cities are a manifestation of the technology and industrialization
that they believed the future would hold. Designs, faades, and exact
replications of yesterdays cities of the future never truly occurred, however,
as there is a present-day increase in environmentally friendly designs as
sustainability is now a greater cause of concern. However, many of todays
developed cosmopolises do embody the notions of designing around
automobile transportation, keeping in constant motion, efficient circulation,
and reaching new building heights, all the while finding new ways to decrease
the use of the machine.









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Works Cited
1. Banham, Reyner. Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. New
York: Praeger, 1967. Print.
2. Deckker, Thomas. The Modern City Revisited. London: Spon, 2000.
Print.
3. Fishman, Robert. "Public Space: Beyond Utopia: Urbanism after the
End of Cities." Public Space: Beyond Utopia: Urbanism after the End of
Cities. N.p., 1998. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.
4. Frampton, Kenneth. Modern Architecture: A Critical History. London:
Thames and Hudson, 1992. Print.
5. "MIT: Comparisons to Sant'Elia's Citta Nuova, by Tony Kim." MIT:
Comparisons to Sant'Elia's Citta Nuova, by Tony Kim. N.p., n.d. Web.
20 Nov. 2013.
6. Rybczynski, Witold. Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas about Cities. New
York: Scribner, 2010. Print.
7. Wright, Frank Lloyd. The Disappearing City. New York: W.F. Payson,
1932. Print.
8. Mohney, Chris. Space Needle Schematics. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 April.
2007.