GENEALOGY OF UTOPIA
GE NE OF AL UT OG OP Y IA
ca. 1450 1516 1543 1602 1619 1620 1627 1651
PIET VOLLAARD
8
1676 1687 1714 1719 1726 1735–1758 1751–1776 1762
Thinking about and expressions of Utopia are as old as humanity. This genealogy of Utopia pinpoints some 150 moments in time, crucial to the history of the utopian narrative. They are initially rooted in literature - the medium par excellence to articulate and create alternative worlds - and over the course of history cross reference into many different genres: science fiction, film, fashion, technological innovation, and architecture.
1775 1781 1784 1798 1821 1825 ca. 1830 1831 1837 1842 1848 1851 1852 1854 1859 1859
Bureau Europa invited the artist Dieuwke Spaans to represent the essence of utopian thought in a collage using the genealogy’s vast amount of images. This commissioned installation is the result of a workshop with students from the Academy of Fine arts in Maastricht. Using the flag both as a metaphor and a medium, the work aims to investigate nonlinear elements and reoccurring themes when thinking (or dreaming) about the marking of new land, new territories or a new societal structure.
1864 1867 1883 1884 1886 1898 1902 1903 1904 1905 1905-1915
Book printing, first movable type setting and printing system Johannes Gutenberg Utopia (On the Best State of a Republic and on the New Island of Utopia) Thomas More De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) Nicolaus Copernicus La città del Sole (The City of the Sun) Tommaso Campanella Christianopolis Johann Valentin Andreae Novum Organum Scientiarium (New Method) Francis Bacon New Atlantis Francis Bacon Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiastical and Civil Thomas Hobbes Terre Australe Gabriel de Foigny Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica Isaac Newton An Enquiry into the Nature and Place of Hell Tobias Swinden Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift Systema Naturae Carl Linnaeus Encyclopédie Denis Diderot, Jean le Rond d’Alembert Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique (The Social Contract) Jean-Jacques Rousseau Salines de Chaux Claude Nicolas Ledoux Steam Engine James Watt Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton Étienne-Louis Boullée An Essay on the Principle of Population Malthusius (Thomas Malthus) Electric Motor Michael Farraday New Harmony Robert Owen Phalanstère Charles Fourier Frankenstein Mary Shelliey Electrical Telegraph Samuel Morse Manufactured Fertilizers John Bennet Lawes The Communist Manifesto Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx Great Exhibition//Crystal Palace Joseph Paxton Safety Elevator Elisha Otis Walden Henry David Thoreau On Liberty John Stuart Mill On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life Charles Darwin Journey to the Center of the Earth Jules Verne Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie Karl Marx Solid state photovoltaic cell Charles Fritts Television Paul Gottlieb Nipkow Automobile Karl Benz Garden Cities of To-morrow Ebenezer Howard Electrical Air Conditioning Willis Carrier Airplane Wright Brothers La Cité Industrielle Tony Garnier A Modern Utopia HG Wells Theory of Relativity Albert Einstein
p.14 p.15 p.16
p.17
p.18
p.19
p.20
p.21
p.22
p.23 9
