The Shapes of Utopia

“… you speak of that city of which we are the founders, and which exists in idea only, for I do not think there is such a one anywhere on earth…”
     –John Ruskin, Fors Clavigera (1874)

Utopia’s fall from grace in the modern period is crucially tied to architecture’s failure in giving shape to dreams of a new society wrought from social and political transformation. Its memorable articulations appear in a venerable philosophical and literary tradition, which includes Plato’s Republic, Augustine’s City of God, and Sir Thomas More’s utopian city of Amaurote. Its significant disarticulations materialize in the writings of Michel Foucault and Manfredo Tafuri as well as the dismal outcome of modernist projects like Pruitt-Igoe. Utopia divulges the oscillation of a concept associated alternately with Arcadian pasts or ordered futures, naive idealism or repressive totalitarianism, phalansteries or simple living, mental escapism or technological promise. Its etymological variants–Eutopia, Outopia, Dystopia, Heterotopia, Extropia, Ecotopia, and so on–reveal an interdisciplinary complexity, which forces upon buildings, landscapes, and cities the intractable fabric of social realities, possibilities, and disappointments.

This project-based lecture course takes a synoptic approach by considering both key writings and design experiments. We begin by deciphering a selection of foundational texts, which posit an architectural matrix for the construction of a more perfect world. We then turn to those architectural and urban proposals, Filarete to Frank Lloyd Wright and beyond, which attempted to reify the guiding principles of a transformed social order. Interwoven with our case studies are the theoretical critiques that emerged in modernism’s wake. Coursework includes weekly readings, participation, and the group-based “Utopics Project.”

Note regarding the Fall 2025 GSD academic calendar: The first day of classes, Tuesday, September 2nd, is held as a MONDAY schedule at the GSD. Courses that meet only on Tuesdays will meet for the first time on September 9th. Courses meet regularly otherwise. Please refer to the GSD academic calendar for additional details.