THE CITY OF OTHER PLACES: DESIGNING UTOPIAN CITIES FROM FOUCAULT'S HETEROTOPIA

Back to Page Authors: Somayyeh Shahhoseiny, Zahra Mohammadganjee

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Keywords: heterotopia, utopia, semi-spaces, borders, place, space

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Abstract: Heterotopia is a complex notion first outlined by Michel Foucault to describe other places in the cities. This paper addresses the ways of realizing utopia based on Foucault's heterotopia. In the modern era, heterotopias are places emplaced among dystopias for humans to arise for their desires. This article discusses heterotopias as they can be extended from single places to the neighborhoods and to the whole city. This leads a society to become closer to its realized utopia. In such a society, the places (public and private) are much more than purely material attributes. Marc Augé refers to such places as places of identity, of relations and of history. The qualities that are neglected in modern binary-like urban planning and architecture. Heterotopias are places humans desire to be and find themselves in them. The essence of these places remains bound to human existence who dwells in them. The characteristic of such places could be qualitatively described by a phenomenological approach in that the abstract language is not applied to create the places of living. This approach is in contradiction to modern architecture that its simplifying concept is empty of humanistic, cultural and even topographical elements. The article illustrates the nature of boundaries and borders, hierarchy transition from private to public spaces and the significance of semi-spaces in creating unity with the place and also understanding the spirit of place. It suggests a growth pattern of heterotopic places through analyzing the architecture and urban design of the cities that were formed before dominating the determined and instrumental approach of modern science and technology in architecture and urban planning.

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