Revisiting Constantinos Doxiadis’s entopia as a place theory

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2014

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Pak, Melodi

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The thesis makes an analysis of Constantinos Doxiadis’s “Entopia” (in-place), which was suggested as a building system to counter the dystopian conditions of the 1960s. Since Entopia was raised as a new concept for the “betterment” of human settlements, the thesis aims to examine its historical and spatial context by investigating its “uniqueness” among its contemporaries. The study will re-open a discussion of Ekistics (the Science of Human Settlements) that dates back to the 1940s that dealt with Entopia “as” a place theory. Embodying the criticism of the architectural and urban trends of the day, Entopia was coined as a practicable concept between the “unbuildable” utopia and the “existing” dystopia by Doxiadis in 1966 as a complementary term among Ekistics. It was his intention in this regard to prepare for the oncoming world city – Ecumenopolis – with Entopia referring to a “place” that is both buildable and livable with applicable principles. Entopia suggests a Dynapolis (dynamic city) model, with a grid plan and urban tissues that are based on the human scale for future settlements, sharing the Modernist environment of the war-veteran European cities. In this context, four historical facts are discussed as mediums for the building of the historical context of Entopia: the Athens Charter, as an example of published modernist principles in urbanism; the grid plan and linear city, as the examples of Entopia’s dynamic-city model; modernist utopias, as examples for other “…topia” projections; and the place theories of the 1960s, to interpret the contemporary debates of Entopia. This is followed by an examination of the architectural appearances of Entopia in the works of Doxiadis.

Subject Keywords

Architecture, Modern., Urbanization., Cities and towns., Human settlements.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12617078/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/23440

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Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

M. Pak, “Revisiting Constantinos Doxiadis’s entopia as a place theory,” M.Arch. - Master of Architecture, Middle East Technical University, 2014.