Superstudio's Twelve Ideal Cities project is a wry comment on twentieth-century modernist utopias, and it supposedly represents "the supreme achievement of twenty thousand years of civilization." In the First City, or 2,000-Ton City, shown here, cubic cells stacked atop one another form a continuous building that stretches across a green, undulating landscape. Each cell is equipped with technology capable of accommodating all human desires and physiological needs. In this city, humans are in a state of equality and death no longer exists, but if an inhabitant tries to rebel against this ideal state, the ceiling of his or her cell will descend with a two-thousand-ton force, obliterating the dissenter and making way for a new perfect citizen.
Gallery label from 75 Years of Architecture at MoMA, 2007.
