Studies On Lewis Mumford's Writings

In this paper,we have conducted a study on Mumford's work,by using the method of literature and context restoration.By combing the analysis of Lewis Mumford's articles,this paper will explore the core concepts of his design thinking and vertical development regulation of his critical thinking.The thing we do would make his evolution of thinking clear and prominent.Base on that,I try to restore the context of the history of design thought from mumford's works through the comparison of Mumford and coeval artists thinking.we chose typical significance design thinker as cases in point and We made a deep analysis,which was beneficial to the domestic research on mumford's thoughts from the perspective of design ideology history.We expected that this paper would be a useful reference for people who make in-depth exploration within design thinking area.Moreover,we hope our work could provide ideological enlightenment to domestic design practice.As a foreshadowing of the study,the fourth section of the opening chapter gives an entirely new concept to the design thinking theory and its history,which helps us to have a better understanding on how to do the Mumford's research from the perspective of design.In the second chapter,we analyzed all of Mumford's life and made a conclusion of his articles.According to the development order of time,we conducted a deeper analysis of his growing process,the key person affected him at his young age,and how his We shaped Mumford's article in a vertical way,summarizing his writing background,main content,ideas,contemporary design context,and impact of the work,which aimed to highlight the evolution of his critical thinking.By combing the design thought of Mumford's works and combining with the interpretation and definition of design thought,the third chapter summarizes and combs the design thought of Mumford.It sums up the development of Mumford's design ideas from humanistic society to architecture and culture,then to technology and city,and finally to the theme of human and society.Base on that,I systematically combs Mumford's scattered design ideas through two main lines: human and technology,human and city and help us to systematically understand mumford's more general and fragmented design ideas.Within the fourth chapter,the author restored the design context of mumford's representative works in the first,middle and last three periods through two major dimensions : History of design culture and design ideology.Meanwhile the author selected the artistic work of artists who live in the same age as Mumford,Especially typical significance design thinkers,and made comparisons between them.It made Mumford unique perspective and differentiated design ideas stand out by comparing and analyzing the same and different design ideas and presented the rich cultural context and ideological context as its design ideas come into being and develop.From the above analysis,we can see that Mumford's design ideas mainly focus on the relationship between society,culture,architecture,technology,city and human.It is from advocating new humanism to criticizing mechanism,and from regional city theory to urban drama theory.The research has developed from shallow to deep,from surface to inside,covering a wide range of fields.Although it has its limitations and biases,many of its design ideas about society,humanities,technology and so on still have academic value and practical significance.The study of Mumford's historical outlook on design idea has reference value to the current social values,technological development orientation and humanistic regionalization of urban design and planning.