Twelfth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Modernism in urban planning had a utopian image of modern cities, altering the face of modern cities in dramatic and irreparable ways. It ignored the impact of market and economic conditions, as well as the complex relationship between humans and their built environment. Although desiring a perfectly democratic and utopian society, the non-democratic process of modern urban planning, worsened by an absence of interdisciplinary, led to cities with alienated residents. Pioneers like Le Corbusier imagined heroic urban planners who were professionally qualified, and all-knowing. Because of modern principles, people have little interest in claiming space or having a sense of belonging to the community. The data used in this study comes from an in-depth literature review of critics of modern urbanism. The grounded theory approach is used to evaluate, code, and categorize the collected points of view on the reasons for its failure: neglecting the impact of market and economic conditions, dismissing the fundamental connection between people and their built environment, and the non-democratic urban planning process exacerbated by a lack of multidisciplinary study. Integrating, refining, and writing out theories was the final step. This research indicates the fundamental premise of societal uniformity was the major misconception of modernist concepts. Le Corbusier’s overestimation of urban planners’ heroic role has had detrimental psychological and social consequences. Although the intentions of modernism in pursuing individual liberty and human well-being were arguably noble, the result was a more commodified human existence and the loss of a sense of belonging to the place.