The misery in which so many Spaniards lived in 1930 had barely improved since the start of the industrial revolution the century before. Illiteracy and great social inequality continued while the authorities, the Church and the bourgeoisie did nothing. Anarchism, which seemed like a Utopian socialist proposal to fight against social injustice had been gradually establishing itself among the country’s poorest classes. ibid.
For anarchists it is the people who have to acquire a revolutionary awareness and get to know reality so as to change it. ibid.
In 1923 with the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera the CNT was outlawed and many anarchists went into exile. ibid.
‘The unions were being constantly closed down; the jails were full of workers.’ ibid. witness
It was the citizens who organised the new society. ibid.
The people put into practice all the libertarian ideas cherished over a century … Barcelona became the advanced guard of the revolution. ibid.
‘Money was abolished. All landowners would have their property expropriated whether they were to the left or to the right. All machinery would be at the people’s disposal. All buildings would be used for lodging inhabitants no matter who the owner was. Work was done collectively.’ ibid. witness
‘Everyone adapted very well.’ ibid.
The social revolution in rural Spain had the support of most of the peasants. 3 million Spaniards were living under the principles of libertarian communism. ibid.
The structure was complicated but everyone was involved. ibid.
‘Anarchism is the greatest thing.’ ibid. witness
‘Lister did that because just as in Russia the Bolsheviks, the dictators, wouldn’t allow the existence of a libertarian movement.’ ibid.
‘We’d lost our ideals and we knew that it was for ever. The struggle was lost. The retreat began.’ ibid.
‘They arrested all of us.’ ibid.
Is it part of the human condition to dream of living in a better world? In a Utopia? … Utopian dreams have driven popular culture … whole new genres of fiction and radical experimental communities. Richard Clay, Utopia: In Search of the Dream I: Blueprints for Better, BBC 2017
The road towards a better world is rarely smooth. ibid.
‘There was a utopian feel about it.’ ibid. John Motson, re football
[Thomas] More set out the blueprint for a better world, an imaginary idealised society. ibid.
The concept of the commons, the idea of shared ownership by a community is I think a vital but often overlooked strand of utopian thought. ibid.
The concept of a commons of ideas and knowledge on the internet is championed today by Wikipedia. ibid.
Space exploration launched a new-wave of utopian story-telling. ibid.
Utopia: that good place, a hope, a dream, always tantalizingly just out of reach. Utopia has been imagined a thousand different ways. Yet when people try to build utopia they struggle and very often fail. I want to explore why. Richard Clay, Utopia: In Search of the Dream II: Build It and They Will Come, BBC 2017
Utopian architects with a faith that humanity’s lot can be improved through better design. ibid.
The Shakers relied on new recruits, taking in orphans and teaching them their way of life. ibid.
Tension between the utopian ideal and hard reality, the collective vision and individual freedom, has been played out in communities all across the world. ibid.
It isn’t easy to fit into utopia. ibid.
Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal declared a war on slums. ibid.
Housing the workers was another key drive of the Soviet project. ibid.
Buckminster Fuller’s utopian legacy has been profound. ibid.
Perhaps it is time to put aside prejudices and look afresh at a garden city in the English Home Counties. ibid.
Utopias come and utopias go. In this series we’ve explored these visions of a good place as blueprints for future societies and new ways of living. Grand designs and experimental communities that have often failed. But is there another path to utopia? Smaller, more human in scale, a spark of creativity, a moment of perfection, a sense of transcendence? Can we find utopia within? Is utopia after all just a state of mind? Richard Clay, Utopia: In Search of the Dream III: A Good Place Within
Perhaps the most commonly held utopian dream is the idea that you can buy your way to happiness. ibid.
Music has often been at the leading edge of this revolt against the mainstream. ibid.
A roof terrace, a primary school with a paddling pool, a movie screen made of concrete, a sports hall; inside corridors that stretch one hundred and fifty metres, 337 apartments for 1,600 residents under one roof. The Bauhaus Spirit, Sky Arts 2019
The twentieth century was rich in visions of utopia and better societies. The question was, How to build a new world. And who could build it. ibid.
It was first and foremost a school: a campus home for utopians, inventors and dreamers. ibid.
‘This kind of interdisciplinary thinking and working.’ ibid.
The Bauhaus moved far away from its Arts & Crafts room, and with this building it jumped straight into the industrial movement. ibid.
Now it was time for large apartment buildings. ibid.
Modern architecture from Europe lived on in the international style of New World cities. ibid.
‘First they had to improve buildings, then the city had to be viewed globally. The most famous congress was when a group travelled by boat from Marseilles to Athens: Walter Gropius Le Corbusier, Miles van der Rohe. Together, these modernists developed the idea of a charter which was intended to be a guide for urban planners.’ ibid. dude
100 years ago, an art school opened in Germany that would change the world forever. It was called the Bauhaus. A century later, its radical thinking still shapes our lives today. Bauhaus 100, BBC 2019 captions
The Bauhaus was the first truly revolutionary design movement. It’s a movement that only existed for fourteen years and yet it had a kind of worldwide impact. ibid. Michelle Ogundehin
The Bauhaus was the brainchild of Walter Gropius who created the school and became its first director, and is now considered one of the greatest architects and educators of the twentieth century. ibid.
Gropius now produced a manifesto, a kind of mission statement in which he outlined his vision. At the Bauhaus all the disciplines would come together to create what he considered to be the pinnacle of artistic achievement: a building. ibid.
August 1923 marked the opening of the first great Bauhaus exhibition. ibid.
‘Nazis go into the building and throw furniture out the window. There’s talk of burning the building down.’ ibid. art lady
Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. Helen Keller
It was a vision of a planned utopia. Everything in the new Russia was to be designed and controlled from the centre of Moscow. Adam Curtis, Pandora’s Box I: The Engineer’s Plot: A Fable From the Age of Science, BBC 1992
He [Bernays] was about to help create a vision of the utopia that free market capitalism would build in America if it was unleashed. Adam Curtis, The Century of the Self I: Happiness Machines, BBC 2002