The Dialectics of Utopia and Reality in Architecture -

the dogmatic thinking.

by Brunno Douat

Utopian ideas are the ones that seem useful and propose a different style, a different procedure, a different motive from the usual in that particular moment.1 - Paul Goodman

More than providing reality with answers, the goal of utopian thinking is to frame specific
fragments of reality and exaggerate them in other to provide new questions. The objective of the
present essay is to dialectically analyze the dogmatic thinking present in utopian and real architectonic and urban projects. The idea of dialectics that will be used as a tool of analyzing both
concepts will be the one presented in Hegels system of thought. Hegels dialectic thinking can
be understood as the attempt to show that even concepts that apparently seem to be incompatible with each other , when analyzed through a different set of categories and in the same context
can appear as compatible ideas2. In other words, the confrontation of apparently opposed ideas
inside a context and taking in consideration categories of confrontation, ends up by showing
that not just these ideas are not incompatible but are also complementaries. The dogmatic element is inserted in the analyses as one of this denominated categories of confrontation, an aspect that will be used to link both ideas and frame the study. The choice of this specific element
is due to the fact that, as is going to be discussed later, the dogmatic thinking can be considered
one of the characteristics of the utopian practice that can be strongly connected and confronted
with aspects of reality. By dogmatic thinking I consider the presumption that a single part of a
whole constitutes the whole itself through its exaggeration or even negligence of the other parts.
In order to exemplify and organize a sequence of thought , it was chosen to analyze and confront
three urban ideas that have as similar characteristic the use of a dogmatic approach, being
1 ORAZI, Manuel and PRICE, Alta. Utopias Revival. In Log, No 13/14. Fall 2008. p.39
2 PINKARD, Terry. Hegels Dialectic - The Explanation of Possibility. Philadelphia, Temple University Press 1988. p.19

them : Superstudios utopian projects, Abraham Levitt Levittowns and the City Beautiful
Movement (being here represented by Burnhams plan for Chicago). This case studies were selected as they maintain manifestations of dogmatic thinking in specific realms:the dogmatic
thinking as a tool of utopian design, the dogmatic thinking in a realistic project applied to a non
pre existent environment and the dogmatic approach of interventions in a pre existent urban
environment, respectively. Besides a personal organization of thought regarding the subject, this
essay initiates the construction of a better understanding of the practical relation of utopia and
reality in architecture and urban design, the biggest concern being how the utopian dogmatic
imaginary can be reflected in real practical studies in a pre-existing urban environment.

!
Superstudios Negative Utopia
Described by its creators at the 1969 Trigon Biennial in Graz as a moderate Utopia for the
immediate future3, Superstudios project Continuous Monument was more than a view of the
immediate future - of a society yet to come .The Florentine group project was a direct critic reflection of the sociological, cultural and architectonic reality of the 1960s, a vivid moment of cultural revolutions exemplified by the events of 1968 in France . The events brought to light the
debate about the role of culture in the economic and political spectrum of a increasingly technological and capitalist society. As shown by Peter Lang , such technological and capitalist environment was also present in Italian cities, that became more mobile, urbanized and adapted to
this new consumer-oriented lifestyle.At the same time, the late economical expansion in Italy
provided the country with a massive growth of students, increasing the sense of a mass student
culture4. This upsurge of a provocative and rebellious youth5, added to the frustration of the

3 STAUFFER, T, Marie. Reflections, Reflected Utopias : Urban Designs by Archizoom and Superstudio. AA Files, No.47 p.25
4 LANG, Peter. Suicidal Desires. In Lang and Menking, eds. Superstudio : Life Without Objects. 31-51. p.32
5 Paul Goodmans Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized System can be mentioned as one of the most influen-

tial writings that inspired the emerging student movements of the period, as mentioned by Manuel Orazi and Alta L. Price in Utopias
Revival, Log No.13/14. Fall 2008 p.40

students and architects that lived in Florence with the historicist curriculum of the Faculty of
Architecture of Florence which ignored the contemporary debates and suffered from a lack of
critical purpose. This atmosphere fostered an environment for the creation of groups of young
architects ex. Archizoom, Superstudio, UFO and 9999 that would later be grouped and labeled as Architettura Radicale6. The understanding of these social and cultural implications is
crucial for the understanding of Superstudios ethos. Opposed to the traditional sensus of utopia
as an anticipation or provocative view of the future, Superstudio evokes the idea of a negative
utopia, which their provocations regards as a critical view of the relation between past and
present7. It is then , based on a critical analyses of the increasingly urbanized and technological
environment, that Superstudio then formed by Adolfo Natalini, Cristiano Toraldo di Francia,
Roberto Magris, Alessandro Magris and Piero Frassinelli designed in 1969 their most iconic
project : The Continuous Monument. Described by its own authors as An Architectural Model
for Total Urbanization, The Continuous Monument represent a memorable exemple of a dogmatic approach in an utopia design. The work is here described as dogmatic, as it represents an
exaggeration of a specific group of aspects of reality in detriment of others, in this case urbanization, being the chosen aspect represented as the constitution of the whole.

It is important ,

however, to clarify the complex dogmatic approach in Superstudios Continuous Monument:

being the work a critical reflection of their contemporary reality, the dogmatic aspect of the
project is inherent to the demonstrate quia absurdum9 of urbanization proposed by them. In
other words, the purpose of the Continuous Monument is not to present a dogmatic approach as
the solution for a realistic total urbanization, but through the use of a dogmatic approach aims

6 STAUFFER, T, Marie. Reflections, Reflected Utopias : Urban Designs by Archizoom and Superstudio. AA Files, No.47 p.34
7 Superstudio : the Middelburg Lectures / edited by Valentijn Byvanck. De Vleeshal : Zeeuws Museum, 2005 , p.25
8 The exaggeration of single aspects of reality was part of Superstudio agenda that described their work as demonstrate quia ab-

surdum of reality, in order to emphasis its provocative and critical argument.

9 CHIESA, Laura . Superstudio Double-Take : Rescue Operations in the Realms of Architecture . In Chirumbolo Neovanguardia :

Italian Experimental Literature and Arts in the 1960s. Ch.11 p.303.

to ironically criticize urbanization. The dogmatic approach present in Superstudios utopian

work is one of their main tools to reach the critical of reality through exaggeration. This specific
use of dogmatism becomes successful when applied in an utopian work once Utopia is free of the
complex pluralism of reality. When the goal of utopian thinking being the emphasizing of a single aspect of reality its expansion in a magnifying glass in order to a posterior deep analyses
and reflection of the isolated element the use of a dogmatic approach becomes helpful in the
achievement of the proposed goal once it is inherent to the idea of dogmatic thinking the isolation of a single part from the whole , neglecting the other parts.
This approach can be identified in Superstudios project in several ways. Being described as an
architecture created with a single act, The Continuous Monument is an attempt to make architecture regain its full power, consequently appearing as the only alternative to nature.10 The
Continuous Monument is, thus, the uniformization of technology and culture and all the other
inevitable forms of imperialism. The dogmatic approach of Superstudio design is also reflected
in the formal aspect of the work. The infinite multiplication of the clear and reflective square
block guarantee the most evocative and impactful representational quality of the project. The
use of the square block is justified as being the first and ultimate act in the history of ideas in
architecture. Architecture becomes a closed, immobile object that leads nowhere but to itself
and to the use of reason.11 The idea of an architecture that leads to itself is a recurrent theme in
Superstudios work and it is brought to its limit with the idea of a non-architecture, or as Natalini refer to it, the disappearance of architecture and the suicide of the architect.12
Peter Lang on his essay Suicidal Desire writes: The creeping expansion of the monument
across the global landscape is subtly revealed as its own neutralizer, thereby putting an end to its

10 Mindscapes DQ89 . Volume 89 of Design Quarterly . Walker Art Center, 1973. p. 38

11 Ibid.
12LANG, Peter. Suicidal Desires. In Lang and Menking, eds. Superstudio : Life Without Objects. 31-51. p.31

sublime terror.13 Throughout its practice, Superstudio seems to gradually develop the idea of a
reductive architecture, until the complete annihilation of three-dimensional structures in the
late project Fundamental acts: Life , Education , Ceremony , Love and Death.14 These counter
projects were idealized as short-films, however only two were produced , Life and Ceremony,
the others being registered only through storyboards and photo-collages.15 The short film Supersurface : An Alternative Model of Life on Earth was presented at the exhibition Italy: The
New Domestic Landscape, curated by Emilio Ambasz at MoMA in 1972. About the Fundamental Acts, Natalini writes After all the irony, sacrilege, negativity and demolition work, the work
on Fundamental Acts constitutes an attempt to redefine architecture on an anthropological and
philosophical basis in a sequence of reductive processes.16 Supersurface represents a different
approach of dogmatic thinking in the utopian practice of Superstudio. From this moment, the
focus of critique and reflection of the Florentine group switched from an isolated analyses of urbanization and technology to the study of the human being as the final architectonic act. This
switch of interest is clarified on the introduction of the work :

!
Architecture never touches the great themes, the fundamental themes
of our lives. Architecture remains at the edge of our life, and intervenes only at a certain point in the process, usually when behavior has
already been codified, furnishing answers to rigidly stated problems.
Even if its answers are aberrant or evasive, the logic of their production and consumption avoids any real upheaval. Architecture presents

13 Ibid. , p.45
14 CHIESA, Laura . Superstudio Double-Take : Rescue Operations in the Realms of Architecture . In Chirumbolo Neovanguardia :

Italian Experimental Literature and Arts in the 1960s. Ch.11 p.303.

15 Ibid. , p.302
16 NATALINI, Adolfo . How Great Architecture Still Was in 1966 . In Superstudio : the Middelburg Lectures / edited by Valentijn By-

vanck. De Vleeshal : Zeeuws Museum, 2005 , p.33

no alternative proposal, since it uses those instruments, which are accurately predisposed to avoid any deviation.17

In Supersurface, the dogmatic approach is represented by the creation of a single surface that
represents the final reduction of three dimensional architecture which supports different types
of equipments that have purpose as the fulfillment of the human being physical and psychological necessities with its imposition in an infinitum landscape. However, the dogmatic idea of a
life without objects , and of a final reduced architecture, is here presented as a a path to a exposure of the human being as the final architectonic act and, consequently , a proposal for a new
behavior when the human being becomes self-conscious of its own act of existence and use the
material environment, instead of being used by them . In other words, the formal dogmatic aspect of Supersurface is to act as a background to the proposal of a pluralistic new view of the
relationship between the human being and the material world. The dogmatic proposal of the supersurface's life without objects, once proposed in the realm of utopia as a critique and exaggeration of the aspects of reality brought by the advent of technology and capitalism, ends up by
working as a tool of destruction of the dogmatism presented in reality regarding the prefabricated monopoly of alienated objects. In this sense, and as shown by Chiesa, the approach proposed
by Superstudio is not with the intent of a revolution, but rather a rescue operation.18 The use of
dogmatic thinking in the Supersurface uses the already presented quality of the utopian practice
the detaching from the complex real environment with the posterior exaggeration of isolated
parts as if it conformed the entire whole to reverse the formal dogmatic proposal into an argument in defense of the pluralistic approach of the relation between the human being, life and
space. A rescue operation of the natural pluralistic human being from the dogmatism imposed

17 LANG, Peter and MENKING, William. Superstudio : Life Without Objects. p. 177
18 CHIESA, Laura . Superstudio Double-Take : Rescue Operations in the Realms of Architecture . In Chirumbolo Neovanguardia :

Italian Experimental Literature and Arts in the 1960s. Ch.11 p.303.

by the objectified contemporary society. However, this attitude of imposing a dogmatic quality
in order to reach a pluralistic goal is only successful when used in an utopian practice, once
when applied to reality, it enters directly in conflict with the complexity inherent to the realistic
environment. Consequently, the dogmatic aspect of utopian projects becomes one of the main
constraints of applying ideals created on this realm to reality.

!
Levittowns Dogmatism from Scratch
If Superstudios utopian projects were a demonstrate quia absurdum of the phenomena of urbanization and the influence of technology in a capitalist society, Levittown is the absurdum
per se of the results of American urban expansion post World War II. As shown by Raymond
Mohl, the implementation of highway in America during the middle of the XX century is strongly related to the problem of housing in the post war United States. More than just a tool for a
mass urban expansion outwards the city nucleus, the highway planning was seen as a tool for
redevelopment of the urban environment of cities itself, more precisely, a program of slum
clearance.19 The problem of housing in American cities during the first half of the XX century
regarded extremely severe health issues as well as quantity, and as argued by Alex Krieger, represented efforts from the government to increase the quality of life of public housing in American metropolis and the expansion of the number of public dwellings towards the suburbs.20 In
this scenario, highway planning appears as a contradictory solution for the problem of housing,
once Henry Fords idea of We shall solve the problems of the city by leaving the city, ended up
not being entirely a choice, but an imposition once the construction and implementation of
highways systems crossing already developed urban centers forced dozens of thousands of families to leave their houses that were placed in unsightly and unsanitary districts where land val-

19 MOHL, A, Raymond . Planned Destruction : The Interstates and Central City Housing . In From Tenements to the Taylor Homes :

In Search of an Urban Housing Policu in Twentieth-Century America. edited by Bauman, Biles and Szylvian. p.230
20 KRIEGER, Alex. Lecture series Designing the American City: Civic Aspirations and Urban Form. april.21.2015

ues are constantly depreciating. as stated by Henry Wallace, quoted by Mohl.21

The inspiration to move the urban growth of cities in a suburbanize direction, added to the industrial development of these peripheral areas in the early XX century created the background
to the suburbanization of America on the first half of the century. New York and its expansion
towards Long Island , more precisely Nassau, being an example of this phenomenon.22

As

shown by Keller, New York City looked at Long Island as the solution for its urban congestion
and confusion, having designated the island as the place to send their excess of population.23
Between the years of 1930s and 1940s, however, Nassau increased its independence in relation
to New York, becoming a self sustainable city with a developed industry with the aviation being one of the main industrial economies and an increasing number of residences that followed the work opportunities and the possibility of a better quality of life on the suburbs.24 During the years that surrounded World War II, the number of workers and posterior veterans that
came to Long Island area increased considerable , and the need for a large housing investment
appeared. This sequence of facts created the background for the creation of Levittown: a massive
plan of affordable housings in communities built from scratch. As previously mentioned, Superstudio described their Continuous Monument as an architecture created with a single act. Levittown also evokes the idea of a urbanization in single act : a surrealistic and absurd multiplication of a single objectified architecture element in the middle of nowhere. If Continuous Monument single act is the multiplication and infinite expansion of square block in a homogeneous
surface, Levittowns block can be represented by the units multiplied in order to create an homogeneous environment. It is due to this goal of creating an homogeneous environment
through the standardize units massive multiplication that I suggest the analyses of Levittown as

21 MOHL, A, Raymond . Planned Destruction : The Interstates and Central City Housing . In From Tenements to the Taylor Homes :

In Search of an Urban Housing Policu in Twentieth-Century America. edited by Bauman, Biles and Szylvian. p.230
22 KELLER, Mollie . Levittown and the Transformation of the Metropolis . Ph.D. New York University, 1991. p.195
23 Ibid,. p204
24 Ibid,. p.202

an example of an utopian dogmatic approach applied to reality. The homogeneous dogmatic aspect of Levittown was target of several critics by the time, as pointed out by Keller while mentioning Lewis Mumford thoughts Lewis Mumford disagreed, and mourned that the Levitts
had taken a giant step backward, warning that putting up such a vast, homogeneous, old-fashioned place would kill the vitality once inherent in both urban and suburb environments.25
The building of several Levittowns represented an idea of production line of affordable houses,
reaching the average of one house built a day during the summer of 1939.26 The dogmatic approach of Levittown, however, goes beyond the idea of an infinite multiplication of a pre standardize unit in an homogeneous environment. As William Levitt states, the citizen that choose
to live in Levittown is not just buying a house, hes buying a way of life.27 Levittown did not
proposed only an homogeneous formal environment, but also an homogeneous way of life. This
life homogenization found support in the [dogmatic] relationship between the human being and
the objectified world present in Levittown. Superstudios idea of a Supersurface with a Life
Without Objects, as was already argued, was a rescue operation against the dogmatic imposition
of pre fabricated and alienated objects that inverted the relation man/object, once the human
being started to be used more by the objects than merely using them. This dogmatic relation between man and object that Superstudio positioned against, was strongly present in the attempt
of Levittown to provide its inhabitants with a new way of life, as described by Keller : Titled
the American Home the house introduced many Levitt innovations hitherto unknown in what
was still essentially tract housing, including recess lighting and a basement finished with a fourteen foot long bar, a dance floor , an aquarium set into the wall, and , just down the hall, a laundry room with sparking new automatic machines.28

25 KELLER, Mollie . Levittown and the Transformation of the Metropolis . Ph.D. New York University, 1991. p.223
26 Ibid, . p. 213
27 Ibid,. p.222
28 Ibid,. p.211

!
This dogmatic imposition of an homogeneous objectified environment is even more contrasting
when the image of a Levittowns American House in construction with all the furniture and
objects already placed in site is positioned side by side with Superstudios Supersurface. In
Levittown, the dogmatic relation man/object imposed to the homogeneous design puts the existence of man behind the object, in an alienated position regarding its own independent existence
in relation with the space. Conversely, the infinite dogmatic expansion of the homogeneous and
non-objectified Supersurface , provides the conditions for the human being to put itself in front
of the relation man/object, making man totally conscious about his own act of existence and its
free relation with the material world, leading it to a pluralistic existence. However, it is not possible to neglect the fact that similarly to Superstudios Supersurface, that started with a dogmatic formal approach in order to lead to the goal of a pluralistic notion of man and space, Levittowns dogmatic imposition of a new way of life shifted, during the following decades of its construction, to a much more pluralistic and heterogeneous environment. This is due to the fact
that, once being built as a new community from scratch, the dogmatic proposal of the Levitts
didn't have any barrier with pre-existed material urban realities. Once the human factor was
more integrated with the proposed homogeneous environment, it transformed into a more individual and heterogeneous reality, as described by William Levitt : The American male is an individual, he changes things. It would be hard to find a home in Levittown that looks exactly the

way it was when we built it. People have put on extra rooms, added garages, patios.29 In other
words, the dogmatic approach of Levittown succeeded due to the fact that it was implemented as
a reality from zero, being able of organizing itself as a dogmatic reality waiting to a posterior
adaptation to a pluralistic reality brought by its settled inhabitants.
Another example of a dogmatic reality constructed from scratch that was later adapted to the
pluralistic nature of the human being is Brasilia, as Lucio Costa beautifully states:

!
They took over what was not designed for them. Then, I realized that
Brasilia has Brazilian roots, concrete, not a flower in a greenhouse as it
could be, Brasilia is working and will work every time more. Actually , the
dream was smaller than reality. Reality was bigger and more beautiful. I
was satisfied, felt proud of having contributed.30

However, the possibility of creating new urban realities from zero is being gradually less accepted in the contemporary urban context. As argued by Krieger, the center of many American
cities ignored and abandoned by waves of suburbanization are coming back to life. The
famous statement by Henry Ford We shall solve the problems of the city by leaving the city,
for Krieger, it is not applicable to our contemporary reality, where few today advocate leaving
the city as the solution to improving it.31 Jane Jacobs already claimed half a century ago that
the solution for the improvement of cities is its concentration as she question Why waste a city
districts and a city populations potential for creating interesting and vigorous city life?.32 Once
the contemporary urban context being of an urban revival, the solutions to the XXI century me-

29 KELLER, Mollie . Levittown and the Transformation of the Metropolis . Ph.D. New York University, 1991. p.232
30 SEGAWA, Hugo. Arquiteturas no Brasil ,1900 - 1990. Sao Paulo, EDUSP. Arquitetura e Urbanismo edition, 1998
31 KRIEGER, Alex . An Urban Revival for a Suburban Culture
32 JACOBS, Jane . The Death and Life of Great American Cities . Vintage Books. 1992 p.212

tropolis are being discussed as solutions within the cities and not as merely decisions of sprawling outwards from the center of the urban core. Consequently, the application of dogmatic
utopian thoughts in reality starts to relate with a mainly pre-existent urban structure , instead of
isolated environments built from scratch, as was the case of Levittown.

!
The Issue of the Pre-existing Urban Structure
The implementation of dogmatic thought in a pre existing urban structure is naturally conflictual, due to the fact that once a urban environment is already presented in a certain level of
development, it possess in its essence the idea of pluralism inherent to the reality of its complexity. Thus, the dogmatic view of one part exaggerated and implemented as if it was the constitution of the whole, enter in direct conflict with the pluralistic idea of the conformation of the
whole from distinct and complementary parts. An example of a dogmatic ideal that failed in trying to be imposed to a pre existent pluralistic reality is the City Beautiful Movement, here exemplified by Burnhams Plan for Chicago. The City Beautiful Movement was originated on the turn
of the XX century, and had as its main agenda the beautification, spatial organization and homogenization of the chaotic urban environment generated after the settlement of industrial activities in American big metropoles. The movement represents the grouping of several small
groups that had as goal a piecemeal action, seeking the improvement and development of the
urban environment in a block-by-block basis. As argued by Emily Talen, these small groups
then called Civic Beautification had as a main characteristic, the pluralistic view of their actions.33 This is due to the fact that the groups that constituted the movement did not consider
their intent to improve specific aspects of society as if it was the whole of the city necessary improvement. In other words, the Civic Beautification movement had a clear notion that their
practice would provide changes in parts of society that would then affect the improvement of
whole, but not constituted the whole itself. This pluralistic view of a civic action was distorted
33 TALEN, Emily. New Urbanism and American Planning : The Conflict of Cultures. (Florence: Routledge, 2005) 71

when the block-by-block practice was grouped in a bigger movement denominated City Beautiful.
The agenda of beautification and urban organization persisted, however the pluralistic approach of the Civic Beautification groups switched to a dogmatic practice by the new movement,
that proposed the imposition of its beliefs in a general reform in urban scale. Burnham and
Bennetts Plan of Chicago (1909) is considered to be the maturation of the City Beautiful as
stated by William H. Wilson.34 The dogmatic aspect of the Burnhams plan was the target of several critics, that argued that the project neglected extremely important issues of contemporary
Chicago, such as the problem of housing. This lack of attention to a serious issue of the time
ended up by creating a myth that the plan was only concern with beautification aspects of the
urban environment and neglected all the other urban problems, what is denied by Krieger when
pointing out that Burnhams plan actually proposed important and avant-garde solution for
transportation and environmental problems.35 However, one can argue that the fact that Burnham did not pay enough attention to such basic and important realm of the urban condition as
housing, shows that the ideal behind the project in fact considered only a part of the urban environment as if it was the constitution of the whole, imposing its utopian dogmatic view over the
entire frame of the city, idealized in dreamy perspectives, neglecting other important parts, essentials to the constitution of the urban environment as a realistic and complex whole. The
short-life of the movement can be considered as a consequence of this attempt of imposing a
dogmatic ideal over a pre existing pluralistic environment. As it was already argued, this approach enters naturally in conflict when the ideal constituted by a part of reality framed and exaggerated is imposed as if it was a new reality for the whole, neglecting and ignoring the fact that
a pre existent reality is a constitution of several heterogeneous factors that constitute its pluralistic composition. However, in what ways could than the utopian dogmatic thinking be applied

34 WILSON, William. The City Beautiful Movement (Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989) 68
35 KRIEGER, Alex. Lecture series Designing the American City: Civic Aspirations and Urban Form. march.05.2015

to a pre existent reality?

Conclusion
As was argued at the beginning of this analysis, the goal of the utopian practice is not provide
the realistic realm with answers and solutions. On the contrary, utopian practices have as main
goal the frame of specific issues of contemporary society and its isolation with a posterior exaggeration of its characteristics, in order to expose to reality questions that wouldn't have been
formulated without its transition to Utopia. It is, however, on the return of this idealized questions to reality that the conflict of relation between dogmatic utopia and pluralistic reality rises,
once the dogmatic approach used in utopia is not possible to be applied in reality. The answer
for this issue might be on the dialectic of utopia and reality itself, through the transition between
a dogmatic approach to a pluralistic practice. In other words, in order to apply a dogmatic thinking in reality, it needs to switch to its counterpart in the dialectic analyses pluralism. Analyzing back Superstudios, Levittown and the City Beautiful projects, is possible to argue that the
element of pluralism presented in all the cases studies, and that countered with a dogmatic imposition, is the same: the human being. Superstudios new man that is put in front of the dogmatic idea of non-architecture in order to free himself from the dogmatism imposed by the objectified alienated society being transformed into a pluralistic self-conscious human being
aware of its own existence and its relation with the material space Levittowns shift from a
dogmatic idealized homogeneous community built from scratch to a pluralistic heterogeneous
environment after the settlement of its inhabitants and City Beautifuls failure in imposing a
dogmatic ideal into an already developed complex and vivid society formed by the grouping of
heterogeneous citizens, are examples of the pluralistic phenomena inherent to the nature of the
human being.
Filiberto Menna, in his essay A Design for new Behaviors, writes:

The negative utopia has a concrete, reverse plan that seeks to operate in the present : to destroy the object, architecture, and the
city means to propose a new philosophy of design, a kind of design that refuses, insofar as possible, to provide rigid, authoritarian structures in which the individual has no possibility for the
independent exercise of his own choices.36

Therefore , to switch from a dogmatic utopian approach to a pluralistic real practice, means to
provide the urban environment with structures that, through the exercise of his own choices,
the individual has the capacity of find himself in a position of self conscious of the relation between his own existence and the space. This condition being provided, it would be possible for
each individual, to change and develop his new behavior, that, when grouped in society, would
provide effective changes on the urban environment applied already in a pluralistic and heterogeneous way. Through the application of the utopian questioning in a pluralistic way in each individual, instead of the imposition of the dogmatic thinking over the entire society, utopia and
reality could finally relate with each other in a complementary and dialectical way, reflecting in
real and effective changes in the architectonic and urban environment.

36 AMBASZ, Emilio. ed. Italy, The New Domestic Landscape : Achievements and Problems of Italian Design. Exhibition catalogue.

New York : Museum of Modern Art, 1972. p.412