The rise of suburbs and the disinvestment from cities have been defining features of life in many countries over the course of the twentieth century, especially English-speaking countires. The separation of different aspects of life, such as living and working, and the diffusion of the population in far-flung garden homes have necessitated the enormous consumption of natural lands and the constant use of mechanized transportation. Why did we abandon our dense,
complex urban places and seek to find 'the best of the city and the country' in the flowery suburbs?
Looking back at the architecture and urban design of the 1800s offers some answers, but a missing piece in the story is found in Victorian utopian literature. The replacement of cities with high-tech suburbs was repeatedly imagined and breathlessly described in the socialist dreams and science-fiction fantasies of dozens of British and American authors. Some of these visionaries-such as Robert Owen, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Bellamy, William Morris, Ebenezer Howard, and H.G. Wells-are
enduringly famous, while others were street vendors or amateur chemists who have been all but forgotten. Together, they fashioned strange and beautiful imaginary worlds built of synthetic gemstones, lacy metal colonnades, and unbreakable glass, staffed by robotic servants and teeming with flying
carriages. As different as their futuristic visions could be, however, most of them were unified by a single, desperate plea: for humanity to have a future worth living, we must abandon our smoky, poor, chaotic Babylonian cities for a life in shimmering gardens.
Industry Reviews
Walker's study excels in its interdisciplinary approaches, and scholars in a wide array of fields should benefit by it, including nineteenth-century American literature, Victorian British literature, sf, utopian studies, and historians of urban planning and architecture * James Hamby, Science Fiction Studies *
In this prodigious book, architectural historians and urbanists alike will find a familiar cast of characters such as Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Jacob Riis. Yet Walker's contribution lies in his efforts to recontextualize these figures alongside utopian science fiction of that period... Walker situates these writings and their authors within cities themselves, locating a suburban yearning within the dense squalor of places such as London, Manchester, and New York. Victorian Visions operates at the intersection of Victorian literary history and architectural history. Walker treats his evidence, which ranges from romance novels to political essays, as a form of architectural documentation, deploying the spatial and material tools of built environment scholars to understand the physical implications of science-fiction texts. * Willa Granger, Harvard University, Arris, vol. 32, 2021 *
Walker's mastery of these essential writings is impressive, replete with thorough analysis ... this well-written, authoritative study will appeal to social and urban historians. * W. S. Rodner, CHOICE *
An astoundingly thorough excavation of the 'prehistory of the modern suburb' in nineteenth century, Anglo-American utopian literature...In addition to a cultural history, Victorian Visions is an architectural history...The contribution of Victorian Visions is its exploration of a century of 'visioning,' prior to the twentieth century homeownership, renewal, redlining, racial zoning, land use zoning, and transportation policies that realized the pastoral vision....In exploring the realm of fantasy fiction, it effectively recaptures, in a way few other texts can, the horror and urgency with which Victorian, middle-class Anglo-Saxon Britons and Americans viewed their cities. In so doing, it helps to explain why the 20th century descendants of these fantasy fiction readers and authors so enthusiastically pursued destructive policies of renewal, selective disinvestment, slum clearance, apartheid, and highway building. * Andrew Whittemore, Journal of Planning History *
In this prodigious study of architecture, literature and dreams, Nathaniel Walker takes his readers on a marvel-filled tour of Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia and shows that the line dividing "real" architecture and fantasy is thin indeed. Walker reviews a plethora of strange, wonderful, and terrifying texts, images, and buildings that represent the dreams of utopian visionaries. It is in this discourse of dreams that he finds the DNA of the Anglo-American suburb and of Modernism itself, even as he also shows us how the urge to pursue "Jerusalem" while fleeing "Babylon" has pervaded the whole history of architecture and urbanism. There can be little doubt that his findings will inspire and inform ongoing conversation about the role of utopian and dystopian fantasy in the design and construction of our buildings and cities. * 2021 Publication Awards Committee, SESAH (Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians) *
This is a book that was waiting to be written. The fundamental point of Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia may seem obvious, but never before has it been worked out so thoroughly, on this scale or in such depth, across disciplines and in both Britain and America (and even further afield). Better still, it is written with enthusiasm and clarity, and generously illustrated. * Jacqueline Banerjee, Victorian Web *
Walker cleverly combines literary criticism with architectural history and explores how building design and urban planning were major components of Victorian utopic literature and presented nineteenth-century readers with a vision of the future that in many ways came true...Walker's study excels in its interdisciplinary approaches, and scholars in a wide array of fields should benefit by it, including nineteenth-century American literature, Victorian British literature, [science fiction], utopian studies, and historians of urban planning and architecture. Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia is a reminder of how reading the fiction of the past can offer many insights into our world today. * James Hamby, Science Fiction Studies *
Nathaniel Robert Walker's detailed and absorbing Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia...works painstakingly to help us understand the rise of the suburbs in the first place and, more particularly, the language of utopian possibility associated by some reformers with peripheral, suburban, and exurban spaces...Walker is first-rate at bringing into productive conversation an enormous range of well-known and less-familiar texts, spanning centuries and continents. New turning points emerge in a long tradition of urban and suburban literary engagement...a capacious, erudite, and fascinating examination of utopian discourse. * Sarah Bilston, Victorian Studies *
