This document summarizes 15 visions for future cities from 1800 to 2015, including floating cities, underwater cities, domed cities, and a city on the moon. Some of the earlier concepts include a floating balloon city over France (1800), a planned utopia around Niagara Falls (1894), and visions of aerial or underwater cities from the 1900 Paris World Exhibition. More recent ideas encompass decentralized cities (1935), floating cities above Paris (1960s), a domed Manhattan (1960s), redeveloping Tokyo Bay (1960), and semi-submerged structures in East London (2014).

1. The History
of
Future Cities

2. Minerva
Balloon
1.
ETIENNE GASPARD
ROBERT, CIRCA 1800
Robert was a Belgian
magician (quelle surprise)
who conceived of a balloon
city that would float over
France, dragging its
supplies with it.

3. Before he got into razors, Gillette
wanted to build a city around
Niagara Falls. He believed the world
only needed one city and felt he
knew how to get it done. It didn't
happen.
2. NIAGARA FALLS UTOPIA
KING CAMP GILLETTE, 1894

4. Artists were asked to imagine
the world in the year 2000.
Pretty much all of the drawings
involved either being in the air,
or under the sea.
3. PARIS WORLD
EXHIBITION, 1900

5. 4. "VILLE RADIEUSE", LE
CORBUSIER, 1930
Le Corbusier thought the future city should be
rational and ordered, which would have an
impact on social behaviour too, He took his
inspiration for Ville Radieuse from the layout of
the human body, apparently.

6. The technocratic elite, the
industrialists, financiers, engineers,
and artists would be located in the
city centre, while the workers would
be removed to the fringes of the city.
LE CORBUSIER, "URBANISM"
THEHISTORYOF
FUTURECITIES

7. 5. BROADACRE CITY
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT, 1935
Wright imagined a decentralised city, where
technology enabled citizens to connect with
services without the need for a central meeting
point. I've seen the models and they do look
sparse, but the ideas have been influential.

8. 6. Floating City
LEBBEUS WOODS,
1960S
Woods was known for creating
fantastical, imaginary worlds, but
insisted his floating city above
Paris could be brought to life. He
is said to have influenced
architects such as Zaha Hadid.

9. 7. THE DOME OVER MANHATTAN
BUCKMINSTER FULLER
1960S
In this plan, there would be a dome over the
city, à la 'The Simpsons Movie'. The dome
would cover Manhattan and its core purpose
would be to regulate temperatures.

10. Walt Disney had grand plans for a
city in Florida, but died before work
started. In the end, EPCOT was built
as an amusement park.
8. EPCOT
WALT DISNEY, 1966

11. EPCOT will be a real city and it will
never cease to be a blueprint of the
future.
WALT DISNEY
THEHISTORYOF
FUTURECITIES

12. 9. TOKYO BAY
KENZO TANGE, 1960
Tokyo's population exploded in the post-
war period. Kenzo Tange saw an
opportunity to impose order on the urban
sprawl by building across the city's bay.

13. 10. Autopia
Ampere
WOLF HILBERTZ,
2008
Autopia Ampere envisioned a
city "atop a sea mountain",
powered by the sun, which
would grow naturally in line
with the surrounding reefs.
Most of the ideas have been
trialled and they actually work.

14. Presented at the Venice
Biennale, this terrifying view of
the future sees people live
underwater. It's a classic
conceit of the genre, but this
one looks particularly
overwhelming.
11. OCEANIC CITY,
ALANNA HOWE AND
ALEXANDER HESPE,
2010

15. 12. Floating
Island Project
SEASTEADING
INSTITUTE, 2012
This floating community,
funded partly by Peter Thiel,
will supposedly be ready to
live on by 2020 somewhere in
French Polynesia. It 100% looks
like a project designed by, and
for, rich people with too much
time on their hands.

16. 13. SOAK CITY,
CRAB STUDIO, 2014
This design aims to transform east London by,
well, flooding it and starting again. The new
area would be populated by "semi-vegetated
structures". Anyone that's been in east London
on a Friday night will know that's not such a
stretch of the imagination.

17. The plan here, best I can tell, is
to rebuild Christchurch, New
Zealand, under the ground. The
artist's impressions show smiling
people waving to each other, not
the vole-people that would
inevitably develop in such an
absurd living arrangement.
14. SINKING CITY,
ERIC NAKAJIMA,
2014

18. 15. MOON VILLAGE,
JAN WORNER, 2015
We end on the moon, obviously. People are still
drawing up plans to go ruin the moon by living
on it. Actual scientists say the city would need to
be underground, but that ruins the fun.

19. https://mailchi.mp/16ff381c064c/hi
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