Linear City

Leonidov’s Linear City model was birthed out of 1920s Soviet Russia; a context where communism logic lets people not own but share all land “through the organ of government”. Leonidov become quite interested in “the working people” (being quite poor himself, he did plea to art schools to admit him on scholarship) and began imagining a “worker’s utopia”. The form came out of linear parallel bands, each holding a different slice of a city’s program, of course, centered on a worker’s city. The widely accepted bands go in this precise sequence:

1. Railway

2. Industry

3. Green

( BAND OF TRANSPORTATION )

4. Residential

5. Park/ Sport

6. Agricultural

The “band of transportation” as the center piece of the sequence seemed to be a strong anchor to impose this on the transport-based city of Streetsboro. Siting the route to the highway, and then unfolding the sequence on the land caused an interesting phenomenon, the green trees would line the highways as opposed to the current state, industry/retail on the transportation band. With a Linear City model, you would drive along the most beautiful band, and industry would be pushed away from the highway, hence, a new façade is offered to people driving through one of the busiest roads of America.