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By Elizabeth Yuko
It’s simple to take a look at the many failed American utopian communities that emerged during the transcendentalist movement of the 1840s, from the Oneida network to Brook Farm and Fruitlands, and point out what didn’t work. (Generally, a mixture of leadership, problematic sexual and relational practices and logistics). Each of these groups, as well as several others, were attempts to create what other people’s idea was the best society, employing networked life as a means of putting in imposing devoted or social values. And while the cutting-edge social and political ideologies (and failures) of those communities are what we hear most, we are more interested in the elements of their architecture and design that remain today. Born of a mixture of frustrations with fashionable industrialized society and the hope of something better, these communities were trying to put social reforms into effect, although the maxims were far from enough. From neighborhoods designed according to the movement of the grassy city, to a mid-century fashionable design, to the suburbs (seriously), utopian-inspired design elements have outlived the communities themselves. Here are 3 examples of utopian communities and reports that have used cutting-edge designs to help create their edition of the ideal society.
An interior of Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Les Shakers
Many utopian American communities have devout roots, and the Shakers are no exception. Formed in England in 1747, the Shakers extracted their doctrine and practices from the French camisards and Quakers. Although the Quakers were first known and named for their tremors and prayer movements, this practice fell into disgrace, with the exception of a recalcitrant network in Manchester. They are known as the “Quaker shaking,” and later simply “agitators,” and settled in the United States in 1774. While their call to celibacy slowed the expansion of the network, they discovered themselves with new members. you to the other people who changed and adopted. Orphans. The practice of celibacy was reflected in the architecture of The Shaker: men and women lived and worked separately from each other, including using separate stairs and entrances in buildings such as meeting houses (their edition of churches).
As practitioners of network life, the Shakers have designed their villages, some where you can still stop today, around this idea. They believed that running with strength and successfully a form of prayer, and this is reflected in their architecture and design, which are utilitarian with a lack of ornaments. Basically following the square structures of the federal and neo-Greek style, each component of the Shaker structure had a function. For example, its shutters were designed to block the sun in summer and help the structure retain heat in winter. Their wooden furniture embedded in the walls or, like their immortal Shaker chairs, hung gently from the wall for easy cleaning.
Shaker Chair at Canterbury Shaker Village, New Hampshire, 1974.
While there are many myths about family items that shakers would have invented, it’s hard to know what they are, because they didn’t do it by patenting their time-saving products. Whatever their origin, the Shakers enthusiastically embraced the new technologies that allowed them to paint more successfully, adding running water and plumbing systems from the 1830s, and the use of circular saws, mortais and steam towers. The principles of simplicity, power and ability of the Shakers have left their mark on American design, namely mid-century modernism and modernism. And their willingness to settle for new technologies that might have seemed futuristic, especially when it came to anything that can also help them paint more successfully, is now the norm.
Stereoscopic perspectives of the Oneida Community, New York, through Smith, D E, 1860-1890.
The Oneida community
If you had to move into your kitchen and open the cutlery drawer immediately, you’d probably find pieces made through Oneida Ltd., but before they provided American homes with knives, spoons and forks, the organization was one of the most durable utopian. network reports in the country’s history. Based on the concept of devout perfectionism, Prefect John Humphrey Noyes founded the Oneida network in 1848 and legalized the design of his iconic Mansion House in 1861. The concept was that design can be just a position where three hundred members of the network can simply live, work, pray and socialize in combination as a single family, in order to achieve more people (conceptually perfect). Although the Oneida network has a progressive view of work, gender roles, parenting and property, it was most productively known for the practice of “complex marriage,” in which all the men and women of the organization were married to everyone. others because they saw monogamy as a sin.
Oneida Manor is open in Oneida, NY.
The mansion was designed to inspire life and learning in common, especially its expanded versions of Victorian halls and their library. When the house of the mass circle of relatives was completed in 1878, it was 93,000 square feet. Like the Shakers, the Oneida network was interested in new technologies that can facilitate its networked lifestyle. They are credited with inventing labor-efficient family parts, such as Lazy Susan, the victor mousetrap, a rotating mop, an advanced washing device and an institutional potato peeler. In addition, Noyes had patents on versions of carpet bags and lunch bags. They also implemented this mindset in their production industry, inventing devices for cutting and printing metal parts.
When the Oneida network was disbanded in 1880, members formed a joint inventory company to continue their still-active cutlery production business. Although his utopian jubilation ultimately failed, the life and functioning situations of the Oneida network brought concepts and inventions that are still used today.
Photo: Jessica Jameson
Arcosanti
Unlike the previous two examples, in Arcosanti, the network was formed in reaction to an architectural principle, which architecture is a means to facilitate a networked lifestyle. Now, in his 50s, architect Paolo Soleri (a student of Frank Lloyd Wright) founded Arcosanti as an “urban laboratory” in the Arizona desert. Presenting themselves as an “experience” that as an attempt to create a utopia, members of the Arcosanti network blended through their interest in archaeology, a mixture of archaeology and ecology invented through Soleri, and not through a set of shared social elements or devotees. Values. In fact, Arcosanti’s original and existing purpose is to create a global building in balance with the environment that can serve as an option for urban expansion, employing this desert site as the ultimate practical laboratory.
Landscape of the town of Arcosanti for the ceramic apse lawn, ca. 1974–75.
Originally, Arcosanti was designed to accommodate another 5,000 people, however, the population rarely exceeds 100. Currently, about 80 people live and paint there. The site, which is about 70 miles north of Phoenix, has been under structure frequently since 1970. And although it is 50 years old, still futuristic, consists of multiple concrete structures to other degrees (depending on the topography), two giant apses and circular windows. While Soleri’s vision of this sustainable city style has never been fully realized, as the world continues to adapt to address climate change, pandemics and a changing painting place, Arcosanti’s joy can help count the next generation of urban spaces.
The concept that community-centered movements are a means of implementing social replacement is as applicable today as in the 19th century. Instead of seeking to create an optimal society through shared agricultural work, cutting-edge architecture, or time-saving devices, today’s iterations focus on issues such as climate replacement, food security, and the benefits of intergenerational housing. At this point, it remains to be noted whether these utopian fashion reports will be more successful than their predecessors, or whether success will continue to be frustrating beyond our reach.
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