• Lewis Mumford and the Architectonics of Ecological Civilisation

    Author(s):
    Peter Critchley (see profile)
    Date:
    2012
    Subject(s):
    Sociology, Urban ecology (Sociology)
    Item Type:
    Book
    Tag(s):
    Lewis Mumford, Environment, Urban ecology, Urban studies
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6N29P61K
    Abstract:
    This book traces the connection of ecology, regionalism and civilisation in the life's work of Lewis Mumford. The argument demonstrates Mumford's ecological regionalism as being grounded in a moral sense of place, Mumford offering an ecological civilisation as an alternative to the false imperatives of the megamachine. Mumford is shown to offer an alternative future based on organic plenitude as against the 'aimless dynamism' of endless material quantity within the megamachine. The book seeks to develop the moral and critical purpose at work behind the varied writings of Lewis Mumford. The attempt is made to identify the contours of Mumford’s ideal city as a city of human dimensions enabling and encouraging a vigorous reciprocity and interaction between inhabitants as citizens; a city which brings the touch, sense and smell of the countryside into the core market life of the city, brings neighbourhoods in close connection with each other, brings all city dwellers within close walking distance of parks and green spaces. Mumford’s objective is to make the city a communal theatre, a collective experience in which city dwellers are actors rather than mere spectators in the unfolding drama of urban life. Mumford is shown to offer a unique insight into the myriad political, social, cultural, urban, moral, psychological and ecological problems of a rationalised modernity. The solutions that Mumford articulates bring the soundest features of past cities to bear upon present forms. The awareness of the past enables Mumford to address thefundamental problems of rational modernity. Although Mumford wrote on a wide variety of topics, his purpose possessed a unifying thread concerning the mode of life within modern technological society. The key to Mumford's vision is the scaling of social life to human dimension and proportion, thus producing a life of balance and harmony with respect to the moral and technical capacities of human beings.
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    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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