Utopia revisited

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Le Corbusier's drawing, "A Contemporary City for Three Million Inhabitants," 1922, at the Corcoran exhibition, captured in design how technology and planning could solve the problems of urban living.

A century ago the heroic architectural style of Modernism promised that technology could save the world. Two major exhibitions look at what went right - and wrong.

Architectural movements, like the buildings they produce, come and go. First you love them. Then you hate them. And then, despite everything that nagging voice in your ear is saying, you start to find them interesting again. A century ago, Modernism with a capital M was the movement that gripped the public imagination. It promised a machine-made utopia of freestanding high-rises surrounded by green parks and wide-open parkways, where drivers could tool speedily along.
But the towers soon became slums; the highways backed up, and Modernism became the house style for corporate America. The same folks who promised to free us from domestic drudgery instead applied their talents to designing cubicles for wage slaves. So much for utopia. (...)

Fonte: Philly.com