Architectural Culture: Practically Perfect
| Photo by Matheus Natan on Pexels.com | First, I must ask: is a utopia the opposite of a dystopia? Is it really? Utopia is a term that calls to mind an ideal place – with all the desirable qualities for a wholesome human society. Dystopia refers to “an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.” (New Oxford American Dictionary). Dystopia often calls to mind George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. But since that novel was published in 1949, loads of dystopian science fiction stories and films have followed. Now think of the stories that can be described as “utopian” – how many can you think of? Of course, this focus on dystopian futures must have shaped the way that generations of people in western societies have consciously and unconsciously perceived the world, its possibilities, and human potential. Where did the term utopia come from? Sir Thomas More introduced it in his 1516 novel Utopia, about a fictional island society. And while that society was located in the south Atlantic Ocean, the word utopia translates from …
