Vertical City: the concept genesis understood through Le Corbusier and Ludwig Hilberseimer

Abstract

This article aims to promote the understanding of a concept that has been commonly used in both theoretical and propositional approaches of urban studies: the vertical city. The terminology is used in different research fields with various connotations, which indicates that “vertical city” may not have a fully established conceptualization. In this sense, a broad understanding of its meaning is necessary, as well as the revealing of its historic in urban theory. This article presents the ideals and pioneering projects that subsidized the formulation of the vertical city concept, with data extracted from a bibliographic review process. The primary results emphasized the importance of the concept sedimentation in the period between the beginning of the 20th century and the 1930s, in which most of the theories and projects of vertical cities are related to the progressive urbanism ideals. Among them, the work of Le Corbusier and Hilberseimer, complementarily, helps understanding the presuppositions that conform the vertical city concept in its genesis.