2 pages response to an article essay

Maria Adalgisa Cannavo V.

10/01/2020

ARCD 401-01

Professor: Steven I, Doctors.

Theme: Future and Utopia

For this weeks readings we talked about future and utopia. For me it's been the most

interesting topic so far on this class. Past weeks readings on space, technology, language,

education, etc were talking more about architects purposes but talking about utopia made me

realize that for architects and even for all humans is unrealistic to call our work and set our goals

towards perfection. However, It doesn’t mean we can’t use the ideas to make a better work.

During the discussion there were many things about Utopia but they were directed more

towards the natural world and society rather than architects work. For thousands of years human

society have dreamt of perfect places, freedom, no conflict or unhappiness. Utopia’s definition

can describe something that’s ideal for us and that’s when the architects come into the job. As

architects we set our goals on improving life throughout our projects. However, I personally

believe that perfection is unachievable as it changes in pair with our life cycle and the fact that

we can’t predict the future.

On Coleman’s Reading , “The Problematic of Architecture and Utopia” the author took

the time to describe what utopia is, and how it related to architecture. He believed that the

thought of Utopia was different for everyone. I support the author’s idea because dreaming of a

perfect place is our nature and it comes from having necessities and desires to be fulfilled. The

discussion reminded me to when we talked about space, and that’s why architects take place on

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both topics. Utopia is connected to architect’s designs, as we seek perfection on our projects to

satisfy human necessity and at the same time this ’perfection’ is implemented on the creation of

new spaces. It all comes down to human society shifting over time based on our needs

as humans which creates Utopia.

On “Dystopian Female Images in More's Utopia, ” by Adelaida Serras. She saw Utopia

from another perspective. Cultures and societies were named when pointing out that in the

utopian world women and male figures were socially different. As an example, she talked about

how women would be introduced as someone’s daughter or wife, as if they belonged to that

person or had less significance than the man figure. I agree that in the present this can be

somehow controversial mostly depending on society, religion, cultures, etc. However, it doesn’t

mean that those examples are the ideal Utopia, for me it sounds more like a dystopian Image.

We talked about the meaning of ‘Dystopia’ too, and I started to ask myself which of the

two words needed to go first. I see dystopia as a more realistic term to use in today’s society. I

believe that all humans have to live what is imperfect in order to seek Utopia. On Stierli’s article,

“Building No Place: Oscar Niemeyer and the Utopias of Brasilia,” The author explained the

architects’ situation on designing the city, as they forgot to look closely to the economic and

social struggles that Brazil was going through and as a result it damaged the effort on designing

an ideal capital city. So at the end the dystopia of the exact moment is what created the idea of

utopia.

Moreover, I wanted to relate utopia with truth and ethics on the architecture field in order

to give utopia a more realistic twist. In the moment the architect getst a project assigned, we

instantly think about the future and how are we going to develop it. There is were I think that we

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should take advantage of our visions of utopia to set up our goals towards architecture. Thinking

of a Utopian world should not be something negative. In the contrary I believe that it is safe to

assume that implementing what we know with some fantasy, can create a positive outcomes on

the work field for the society. Which means that by showing honesty and what is actually real in

our work, we are demonstrating that we can use Utopia and have an ethical behavior to

ourselves and our clients if we truly believe the goals of satisfying the social necessities can be

achieved.