Ekistics in Arnold J. Toynbee Works

Abstract

In the article the author examines the origin and development of the research interest of the British historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889–1975) in ekistics, the science of the formation and evolution of human settlements. It describes the circumstances of his meeting and cooperation with the Greek architect Constantinos Doxiadis, the originator of this science, and analyses three of Toynbee’s books written in the course of this collaboration, which have not yet attracted much scholarly attention so far. Toynbee tried to combine the view of the city offered by ekistics with his own historical ideas and his interest in human geography. The author demonstrates that for Toynbee the city is part of the general civilizing process, a general historical phenomenon – both horizontal and vertical – and it is this view of the city that is the least developed aspect of world urbanism. Toynbee makes a number of interesting observations, showing how patterns of urban life developed in antiquity, have been transmitted in time and space, appearing in different areas of the globe, and have been partially transformed under the influence of world processes, especially colonialism and globalization. The author concludes that Toynbee’s observations on the relationship between tradition, modernization, and colonization in the structure of cities, on the specificity of imperial cities, on the peculiarities of creating an urban environment in the space of the modern megacity and Ecumenopolis may have a certain potential for future urban studies.