Utopia vs. Eutopia
We recognize that a common criticism of our effort is that it is or we are “too utopian.”
First of all, if that’s the biggest problem or insult you can come up with, ok. We’ll take it. We’d rather err on the side of being too hopeful that we can make the world a better place than on the side of settling with the status quo or despair.
However, if you want to call us utopian, we just ask that you add a silent “e” in front—we’d rather be called Eutopian.
Utopia
Today the word utopia usually refers to an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect—a rainbow and unicorns kind of place.
More often than not it’s used with some measure of cynicism and caution. We get it. So many people have tried and failed. Sometimes, ok, often spectacularly.
But the word utopia actually comes from the Greek words: οὐ (“no” or “not”) and τόπος (“place”) and literally means “no-place.” It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island society in the south Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South America.
Eutopia
Eutopia, on the other hand, is derived from Greek εὖ (“good” or “well”) and τόπος (“place”), means “good place”.
We don’t have to aim for perfection, but good? Yes, please.
Good (and great) places are always specific to a time, place in the world, and culture of people. They have a strong sense of thisness. The more specific the better.
No Place Utopia
Unwittingly, most contemporary developers are more utopian than we are—in the truest sense of the word, at least.
Characteristics of Placelessness:
inauthenticity
monotony
uniformity
scalelessness
soullessness
lacking diversity
lacking nature
As James Kunstler has said, “If you were thrown in the trunk of a car, driven around America, and let out in any given parking lot, odds are you wouldn’t know if you were in Illinois, Tennessee, or Washington until you checked the license plates around you.”
If you have the time, watch his exasperated yet hilarious elaboration in his TED Talk on this problem and solution.
Places with a sense of place
Kunstler shares, “Your ability to create places that are meaningful and places of quality and character depends entirely on your ability to define space with buildings and to employ the vocabularies, grammars, syntaxes, rhythms, and patterns of architecture in order to inform us who we are.
…The public realm has to inform us not only where we are, geographically, but it has to inform us where we are in our culture. Where we’ve come from, what kind of people we are… It needs to afford us a glimpse of where we’re going in order to allow us to dwell in a hopeful present.”
Our hope
We have no delusions of making a perfect place.
Yes, everyone has failed so far to make a perfect place. We will, too.
But we’re not going to let a fear of failure stop us from trying.
We’re just going to try our best to learn from all the failures to date and try to fail a little less. Hopefully even a lot less!
We’re going to do our best, keep an open mind, and when we learn ways to do things better, we’ll try to do better.
What else can we do? Not try to make the world better? Give up?
No thanks.
We’re might not be able to make a perfect place, but we know we can do better than what we’ve got going on right now in most of our world. So…we’re going to collectively try.
Places with a Great Sense of Place
So what are some things we think make a place more Eutopian than Utopian?
At their best, the places we make embody their time and place and culture.
Agadir, Morocco
Fujian, China
Siena, Italy
Natural, local materials
All the places above are great, in part, because they are made of natural, local materials.
Siena, Italy is a fantastic example of a pretty magical place, in large part because it is completely built from the actual earth from that site. When you enter the town it’s like the earth rises up around you, takes the form of 12th century Italy, and you are immersed in a color, smell, culture so distinct it has become a UNESCO World Heritage site, is still one of Italy’s most visited tourists sites, and it’s name is used internationally to describe the specific color of its earth. Siena is a masterful example of embracing and embodying terroir in a place.
Building with natural, minimally processed local materials is one of the surest and fastest ways to connect a built environment to it’s place in the world. (And instantly lends a sense of history and timelessness that tends to be desperately lacking in most new construction.)
Site-specific
Of course it’s easier and faster to level a place before you build, but it is a short-sited move. You are far more likely to achieve magic if you work with the site’s idiosyncrasies, quirks, topography, site lines, etc. The site-specific elements that come with your land are the first layer of character that can ultimately result in charm and make the finished result unrepeatable. (Max points: save the best features to be shared by the public.)
Summary
Utopia actually means a placeless place. However, one of the marks of a truly beautiful and magical place is that it is completely unique to that time and place in the world, considering its land, climate, and the local human practices, much like the word terroir describes those aspects of a specific wine. It is the terroir of a wine that makes it special, just as the specificity of a place makes it special.
So, we are not trying to create Utopia. We think that is actually where most of us live now.
But Eutopians? Ok. That’s a name we can live with.
