The cultural criticism of Lewis Mumford and the creative city planning as an answer to the ecological crisis of modern civilisation
Abstract
The book of young Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) entitled Sticks and Stones: A Study of American Architecture and Civilization (first published in 1924) is a condensed version of his philosophy of city and a research program completed in his rich oeuvre. The title is telling: the starting point of Mumford is the idea that the architecture of a city is an objectified presentation of the value-system of the given civilisation. Stick and stones are not only sticks and stones: the material infrastructure is an embodiment of the values of civilisation, which are the basic motivating factors behind human actions. In other words: city is a mirror of civilisation; if the observer decodes the message encoded in sticks and stones, he/she gets the value-structure of the civilisation having produced the city. However, there is a mutual interdependence: human beings living in the city are not only passive possessors of a heritage determining one-sidedly their actions but they modify and restructure urban spaces: sticks and stones form our values, at the same time our values influence the concrete arrangement of sticks and stones. Creative city-planning is vital important. It gives possibility for the redirection of a civilisation’s future historical way. At the same time, creativity, in Mumford’s interpretation, does not mean the profit-generating capacity of the city; it has to serve the well-being of all citizens.
Keyword : architecture, city, city-planning, civilisation, creativity, ecology, Lewis Mumford, Sticks and Stones, values
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
References
Bury, J. B. (2014). The idea of progress: An inquiry into its origin and growth. Dover Publications, Inc.
Butler, S. (2006). Elibron classics. Erewhon. Adamant Media Corporation.
Darwin, Ch. (2009). On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. EZ Reads. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511694295
Descartes, R. (2006). Oxford world’s classics. Discourse on the method of rightly conducting the reason, and seeking truth in the sciences. Oxford University Press.
Emerson, R. W. (1951). English traits, representative men and other essays. J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.
Farrenkopf, J. (2001). Prophet of decline: Spengler on world history and politics. Louisiana State University Press.
Felken, D. (1988). Oswald Spengler: Konservativer Denker zwischen Kaiserreich und Diktatur. Verlag C. H. Beck.
Florida, R. (2005). Cities and the creative class. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203997673
Florida, R. (2012). The rise of the creative class, revisited. Basic Books.
Himmelfarb, G. (2005). The roads to modernity: The British, French, and American enlightenments. Vintage Books.
Howard, E. (1965). The Massachusetts Institute of Technology paperback series. Garden cities of to-morow. F. J. Osborn (Ed.). The MIT Press.
Jefferson, Th. (2007). Letter to Mrs. Bingham. Paris, February 7, 1787. In A. A. Lipscomb (Ed.-in-Chief), The writings of Thomas Jefferson Library edition containing his autobiography, notes on Virginia, Parliamentary manual, official papers, messages and addresses, and other writings, official and private, now collected and published in their entirety for the first time including all of the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State and published in 1853 by order of the Joint Committee of Congress with numerous illustrations and a comprehensive analytical index. Vol. 6. Project Gutenberg’s “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, by Thomas Jefferson. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21002/21002-h/21002-h.htm#81
Jefferson, Th. (1999). Penguin classics. Notes on the State of Virginia. F. Shuffelton (Ed.). Penguin Books.
Kasson, J. F. (1999). Civilizing the machine: Technology and republican values in America, 1776–1900. Hill and Wang.
Koktanek, A. M. (1968). Oswald Spengler in seiner Zeit. Verlag C. H. Beck.
Kovács, G. (2009). A forefather of environmentalism – Lewis Mumford, the critic of technology and civilization. Philobiblon: Transylvanian Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Humanities, 14, 294–300.
Kovács, G. (2011a). A short history of modernity from “The fable of the bees to brave new world”: Lewis Mumford and his critique of modernity. In J. Juhant & B. Žalec (Eds.), Humanity after Selfish Prometheus: Chances of dialogue and ethics in a technicized world (pp. 201–208). LIT Verlag.
Kovács, G. (2011b). The myth of the wicked city in the cultural criticism of O. Spengler. LIMES: Borderland Studies, 4(1), 64–74. https://doi.org/10.3846/20290187.2011.577175
Krätke, S. (2012). The new urban growth ideology of “Creative Cities”. In N. Brenner, P. Marcuse, & M. Mayer (Eds.), Cities for people, not for profit: Critical urban theory and the right to the city (pp. 138–149). Routledge.
Kropotkin, P. (2019). Fields, factories, and workshops, or industry combined with agriculture and brain work with manual work. Anodos Books.
Landry, Ch. (2008). The creative city: A toolkit for urban innovators. Comedia/Earthscan.
Marx, L. (2000). The machine in the garden: Technology and the pastoral ideal in America. Oxford University Press.
Meller, H. (2005). Patrick Geddes: Social evolutionist and city planner. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203985366
Miller, D. L. (1989). Lewis Mumford: A life. Grove Press.
Mumford, L. (1975). Findings and keepings: Analects for an autobiography. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Mumford, L. (1973). Interpretations and forecasts: 1922–1972. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Mumford, L. (1979). My works and days: A personal chronicle. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Mumford, L. (1982). Sketches from life: The autobiography of Lewis Mumford. The early years. Dial Press.
Mumford, L. (2021). Sticks and stones: A study of American architecture and civilization. Boni and Liveright.
Mumford, L. (1934). Technics and civilization. Harcourt, Inc.
Mumford, L. (1962). The city in history: Its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. Harcourt, Brace & World.
Mumford, L. (1970). The culture of cities. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Mumford, L. (1926). The Golden day: A study in American literature and culture. Boni and Liveright.
Mumford, L. (1922). The story of utopias. Boni and Liveright.
Nisbet, R. (2017). History of the idea of progress. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203789940
Novak, Jr. F. G. (Ed.). (1995). Lewis Mumford and Patrick Geddes: The correspondence. Routledge.
Pratt, A. C. (2011). The cultural contradictions of the creative city. City, Culture and Society, 2(3), 123–130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2011.08.002
Rattray, R. F. (1914). The philosophy of Samuel Butler. Mind, 23(91), 371–385. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/XXIII.1.371
Rohkrämer, Th. (1999). Eine andere Moderne? Zivilisationskritik, Natur und Technik in Deutschland, 1880–1933. Brill/Schöningh.
Scott, A. J. (2014). Beyond the creative city: Cognitive–cultural capitalism and the new urbanism. Regional Studies, 48(4), 565–578. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2014.891010
Spengler, O. (1926). The decline of the West. Vol. 1: Form and actuality. Alfred A. Knopf. https://doi.org/10.2307/3901804
Spengler, O. (2018). Classic reprint series. The decline of the West. Vol. 2: Perspectives of World-History. Forgotten Books.
Sussman, H. L. (1968). Victorians and the machine: The literary response to technology. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674865235
Taylor, T., & Dorin, A. (2020). Rise of the self-replicators: Early visions of machines, AI and robots that can reproduce and evolve. Springer Nature Switzerland AG. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48234-3
Thomas, J. L. (1990). Lewis Mumford, Benton MacKaye, and the regional vision. In Th. P. Hughes & A. C. Hughes (Eds.), Lewis Mumford: Public intellectual (pp. 66–99). Oxford University Press.
Vivant, E. (2013). Creatives in the city: Urban contradictions of the creative city. City, Culture and Society, 4(2), 57–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2013.02.003
White, M. G., & White, L. (2022). The intellectual versus the city: From Thomas Jefferson to Frank Lloyd Wright. Barakaldo Books.
Wood, J. S. (1991). “Build, therefore, your own world”: The New England village as settlement ideal. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 81(1), 32–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8306.1991.tb01677.x