Tag: Utopia

Iannis Xenakis
Sound, Urban Land

Iannis Xenakis and the Notion of a Cosmic Utopia

Iannis Xenakis, the Greek-French experimental composer and protege designer for the famous architect Le Corbusier, advanced theories of the vertical “Cosmic” city as the only sustainable way forward. Here, he wrote this essay in 1966, decrying decentralization (read: suburban sprawl) in favor of building up, up, up…5 million inhabitants to be housed in a single megastructure, a hyperbolic paraboloid of more than 3,000 meters high and 50 meters wide.

convivial degrowth, overpopulation, ecologic collapse
Sustainability

Convivial Degrowth: An Ecologic Reckoning for an Ailing Planet

The model planners and economists touted as “sustainable development” has only exacerbated ecologic distress and community dislocation through its focus on wealth-creation. The needs of our ailing planet facing an impending 11 billion population calls for ecology and human welfare to dominate economy, but how to achieve this in a world bought and paid for by finance capitalism?

South Korea, sustainability, globalization, eco-city
Urban Land

Songdo, South Korea: Utopian City of Big Data and Urban “Sustainability”

The idea of the “utopian” community began in 1516 with Sir Thomas More’s fictional perfected society to present-day attempts to build the most sustainable urban ecosystem. With the case of Songdo International Business District, South Korea, we begin a series of case studies in the success and failure of utopian experiments in living sustainably.

model cities
Political Geography

Honduras: Neoliberal Utopias Advance on Indigenous Land

The government of Honduras plans the creation of neoliberal free-market enclaves, unaccountable to national laws and governed by foreign corporate interests. Stipulated for territory inhabited by Garifuna people and campesino farming communities, with propaganda about democracy, economic innovation and humanitarian justice, “President” Pepe Lobo should first refrain from presiding over the coup-backed “illegitimate regime.”