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Click above for what became the consented plan, plus Transport page.

2016-03-25

The Guardian: "Bohemians, Bauhaus and bionauts: the utopian dreams that became architectural nightmares." (To be fair, Brent Cross was never utopian, more out-of-date, top-down planning by arrogant Barnet and untalented Hammerson.)


"The theme of the inaugural London Design Biennale is Utopia to mark the 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s classic. Director Christopher Turner remembers the architects on a mission to make the world a better place"

Link to web site

"Nowhere [is] blind faith in technology celebrated more than in World Fairs, which ever since the 1851 Crystal Palace exhibition, have been seen as a catalyst for international cooperation and peace. Countries and large corporations spent enormous sums promoting their values and aspirations through architecture, design and technology at these international pageants.

"Against the background of the depression, the 1939 World of Tomorrow fair in New York reflected this technological optimism. Exhibits for Chrysler and General Motors by the industrial designers Raymond Loewy and Norman Bel Geddes presented panoramic visions of the city of the future and its avant-garde transport systems.

"The GM pavilion was a roller coaster ride over a kinetic vision of the atomic US of the 1960s – a monumental landscape punctuated by glass domes, revolving airports and, in tune with its sponsor, seven-lane superhighways. On exiting, visitors were given a badge that read: 'I Have Seen the Future'.


"In 1964, with Futurama II, GM updated the exhibition to show underwater cities, as well as urban conglomerations in a deforested Amazon, in Antarctica and on the moon. Utopia was the new frontier, even if it was still just around the corner."

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