The Umwelt as a Project. Designs of the Urban Milieu in the Age of Bio-Power

Abstract

Besides their differences, Hilberseimer´s vision of the metropolis and Wright´s organic architecture seem both to respond to the loss of a clear urban figure; in their designs the project of the city shifts from a total planning to the conception of its organic `cell´. The city is re-invented as a milieu, a metabolic space of flows and transformations that goes along with a novel way of government, described by Foucault as `bio-power´