THE IMAGE OF THE CITY IN THE TREATISES BY T. MORE AND T.CAMPANELLA

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of the aspects of urban planning and architecture in utopian cities in the context of the connection with social and political ideology based on the treatises by Sir Thomas More and Tommaso Campanella. This article presents an analysis of the two most famous socio-utopian treatises - “Utopias” by T. More and “The City of the Sun” by T. Campanella. These works are considered to be the first to describe the models of utopian states and have a stronginfluence on all subsequent works of utopian philosophers. In their works, utopian philosophers focused on architectural and urban planning aspects as an important background for the development of social utopia. In their writings, particular importance was primarily placed on the functional purpose of certain elements of the urban structure, expressed in the correct geometry of urban education (aesthetic and visual characteristics, as a rule, were ignored by philosophers). For example, Thomas More used a shape of a square for his ideal city, and divided it into small patterns, with regular structure of the streets and neighborhoods (grid plan). Tomasso Campanella on the contrary used a circle, but also divided his city into smaller parts – city consists of seven rings (circumferential and radial roads). Forming perfect models of social structure, they used architecture as a background to provide a comfortable and functional space that would meet the requirements of an ideal society.The analysis of the descriptions of urban planning and architectural elements in the writings of prominent philosophers allows us to gain an understanding of how the city and its architecture are seen by people whose professions were not directly related either to architecture or urbanism, and, in contrast, are oriented on people and their living standards. Also, the article presents the schemes of city-states developed by the authors, according to their description in the treatises by T. More and T. Campanella.