Architecture
THE PLAN
Latina and Sabaudia, Brasília, Chandigarh: cities a state drew on a blank sheet of paper, and the real city that grew where the paper ended. Chapter IV of Utopian Cities, with a detour to Louis Kahn's parliament in Dhaka.
Utopian Cities
Cities willed by one person or one power, from a pope's hill in Tuscany to a line in the Saudi desert: who drew them, why, and why some came to life while others stayed on paper.
Architecture
THE COMPANY TOWN
A sleeping-car maker builds a town south of Chicago, a cotton manufacturer a village on the Adda, Henry Ford a rubber town in the Amazon. Chapter III of Utopian Cities: the company town, and what is left of it once the company no longer needs it.
Architecture
ALL ROADS LEAD TO THE KING
Three avenues converge on the palace at Versailles, some thirty streets fan out from a tower at Karlsruhe, and a prefect cuts boulevards through Paris. Cities laid out for power, who paid the bill, and why Paris is still one of the best cities to walk in.
Architecture
PIENZA — THE POPE WHO BUILT A CITY TO ENJOY THE VIEW
A pope goes back to the village where he was born and turns it into a city in three years: a trapezoid square, a street that hides its end, a church sliding towards the valley, and a palace built only for looking.
Architecture
SABBIONETA — THE CITY TOO BIG FOR ITS LIFE
The most perfect city I have ever seen, and I would never live there. Sabbioneta, the Ideal City of Urbino, Brasília and Gibellina: why cities live for the where, not the how.