Unbuilt Utopian Cities 1460 to 1900: Reconstructing their Architecture and Political Philosophy

Dr Tessa Morrison is a senior lecturer at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research is multi-disciplinary and incorporates philosophy, mathematics, and the history of architecture along with 3-D computer graphical analysis. She has continued to develop a reputation in the area of architectural history and has a sustained and long term research program with international outputs. Over the last few years she has specialised in seventeenth and eighteenth century studies in architectural history and the history of ideas, including a translation and commentary of Isaac Newton’s reconstruction manuscript on Solomon’s Temple published in Isaac Newton’s Temple of Solomon and his Reconstruction of Sacred Architecture. Her current research is on architects and cities from sixteenth to the nineteenth century that have never been built but have had significant influence through the centuries.

• Introduction; Utopian Cities of the Renaissance: From the Ideal City for Craft Guilds to the Mixed Agrarian and Trade Society; Filarete—Sforzinda; Albrecht Dürer—Fortified Utopia; Tommaso Campanella—The City of the Sun; Johann Valentin Andreae—Christianopolis; Utopian Cities of the Industrial Revolution: From an Agrarian Society to Cooperative and Industrial Cities; Joseph Michael Gandy—An Agricultural Village; Robert Owen—Villages of Unity and Cooperation; James Silk Buckingham—Victoria; Robert Pemberton—Queen Victoria Town; King Camp Gillette—Metropolis; Bradford Peck—The World a Department Store; Conclusion;

’The subject of unbuilt utopian cities is fascinating. While built cities may survive for centuries, they are vulnerable to decay and destruction through natural forces, or, in our increasingly dystopian global society, through war and terrorism. Unbuilt, they hover endlessly between the potential and the actual. Tessa Morrison’s approach is both scholarly and accessible. The illustrations are illuminating, and the historical context for the evolution of the ideas is explained. This challenges the reader to consider the utopian plans from the perspective of their creators, who were imagining the future, rather than analysing them with the benefit of hindsight.’ Lorna Davidson, Director, New Lanark Trust and Hon. Secretary of the Utopian Studies Society (Europe)