Futurist thinking in urbanism: A retrospective & prospective view in the global context of transforming socio-economic structures


Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mimarlık Fakültesi, Şehir ve Bölge Planlama Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2018

Öğrenci: HULUSİ EREN EFEOĞLU

Danışman: OLGU ÇALIŞKAN

Özet:

The idea of future has always emerged as a major concept for humanity. Each and every period of the civilizations, there has been always a motivation for people to manifest their ideal futures. In the context of urbanism, the intellectual capacity of utopian thinking has influenced most of the discussions on urbanism during the history. In this regard, destructive impacts of industrial revolutions have become the triggering forces to construct the ideal image of the future city. When the first industrial revolution occurred, most of the people were not aware of the forthcoming changes that were going to affect their life significantly, as it happened in the second and the third industrial revolutions. While each industrial revolution brought unexpected outcomes, utopian thinking has generated responses to overcome those negative impacts. Today, we are on the verge of another industrial revolution. Unlike the previous ones, the fourth industrial revolution is expected to change not only the way to produce things but also to change ‘us’ (Schwab, 2016). Therefore, it is possible to claim that the forthcoming era will completely alter the current socio-economic structure. The subject is a newly emerging issue, yet the intellectual history of futurist thinking together with the contemporary future urban models and speculative projects would provide the guidance to generate prospective ideas for the possible future. In this context, the main purpose of the research is to examine the existence and validity of futuristic thinking in urbanism in the context of emerging concepts of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and to revisit the reconstruction of the idea of future urbanism within the framework of utopian thought.