Last Futures: Nature, Technology and the End of Architecture
Whatever happened to the last utopian dreams of the city?

In the late 1960s the world was faced with impending disaster: the height of the Cold War, the end of oil and the decline of great cities throughout the world. Out of this crisis came a new generation that hoped to build a better future, influenced by visions of geodesic domes, walking cities and a meaningful connection with nature. In this brilliant work of cultural history, architect Douglas Murphy traces the lost archeology of the present day through the works of thinkers and designers such as Buckminster Fuller, the ecological pioneer Stewart Brand, the Archigram architects who envisioned the Plug-In City in the ’60s, as well as co-operatives in Vienna, communes in the Californian desert and protesters on the streets of Paris. In this mind-bending account of the last avant-garde, we see not just the source of our current problems but also some powerful alternative futures.
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Last Futures: Nature, Technology and the End of Architecture
Whatever happened to the last utopian dreams of the city?

In the late 1960s the world was faced with impending disaster: the height of the Cold War, the end of oil and the decline of great cities throughout the world. Out of this crisis came a new generation that hoped to build a better future, influenced by visions of geodesic domes, walking cities and a meaningful connection with nature. In this brilliant work of cultural history, architect Douglas Murphy traces the lost archeology of the present day through the works of thinkers and designers such as Buckminster Fuller, the ecological pioneer Stewart Brand, the Archigram architects who envisioned the Plug-In City in the ’60s, as well as co-operatives in Vienna, communes in the Californian desert and protesters on the streets of Paris. In this mind-bending account of the last avant-garde, we see not just the source of our current problems but also some powerful alternative futures.
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Last Futures: Nature, Technology and the End of Architecture

Last Futures: Nature, Technology and the End of Architecture

by Douglas Murphy
Last Futures: Nature, Technology and the End of Architecture

Last Futures: Nature, Technology and the End of Architecture

by Douglas Murphy

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Overview

Whatever happened to the last utopian dreams of the city?

In the late 1960s the world was faced with impending disaster: the height of the Cold War, the end of oil and the decline of great cities throughout the world. Out of this crisis came a new generation that hoped to build a better future, influenced by visions of geodesic domes, walking cities and a meaningful connection with nature. In this brilliant work of cultural history, architect Douglas Murphy traces the lost archeology of the present day through the works of thinkers and designers such as Buckminster Fuller, the ecological pioneer Stewart Brand, the Archigram architects who envisioned the Plug-In City in the ’60s, as well as co-operatives in Vienna, communes in the Californian desert and protesters on the streets of Paris. In this mind-bending account of the last avant-garde, we see not just the source of our current problems but also some powerful alternative futures.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781781689813
Publisher: Verso Books
Publication date: 02/09/2016
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 240
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

Douglas Murphy trained as an architect at the Glasgow School of Art and the Royal College of Art, and is currently architecture correspondent at Icon magazine, as well as writing for a wide range of publications on architecture, fine art and photography. His first book was The Architecture of Failure.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 The Museum of the Future 7

2 The City out of History 33

3 Megastructure Visions 56

4 Systems and Failures 85

5 Cybernetic Dreams 105

6 Reactions and Defeats 137

7 Apocalypse Then 165

8 Biospheres and the End 198

Acknowledgements 222

Bibliography 223

Illustration Credits 227

Index 228

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