MARCH680 GE: Big Plans: Constructing

This graduate seminar will address the history and theory of visionary and utopian planning traditions in Europe, Latin America and the United States since the Renaissance. Particular emphasis will be placed on idealized "big plans" that seek to encompass entire cities and regions in an effort to bring them (and their citizens) under the control of a single overarching idea - whether artistic, economic, religious ecological or political. We will consider the potential and the limitations of both built and unbuilt proposals. Both ex-novo projects - such as the Ciudad Universitaria in Mexico City and Brasilia - as well as reconstruction plans including London and Chicago after their great fires, San Francisco after the earthquake and New Orleans after Katrina.