In Utopia: Decline and Fall I was really fascinated by the concept of Classical Utopia vs Platonic Utopia. The Classical Utopia, was more rooted in it’s Christian values and how it’s ultimate goal is the “final good” (Koetter and Rowe 14) and how modernism was gospel or “good news” (Koetter and Rowe 11). For me I found for the ties from Christianity to modernism fascinating because when I think of modernism I think about challenging traditional ideas and I would argue that Christianity is the most traditional idea. The Platonic utopia really reminds me of Jane Jacobs in how it was founded more in activism and transformation. Very interesting to just see these two schools of thought that are rooted in very different foundations yet they both failed in not being strong enough. I was rather surprised by the authors take on the reaction to modernism. How people flocked to the picture book aesthetic and how essentially they weren’t just being sold on a style but rather a life that had certain expectations so ultimately it failed. It reminds me a lot of the Thomas Kinkade paintings and how people adored them because of the experience they were being sold on, like a them park. It was also interesting to see how they tied WWII to the publics view on rationalism, something that I would argue is the foundation to modernism especially in the early 1900s, a good example of that in my opinion is Ray and Charles Eames and their work for IBM. There is a shift in tone in both Koetter and Rowe in the Collision City chapter in how the move from the actual buildings to their makers instead. The phrases “total design” and “total architecture” are thrown about to describe how previously designers would create things that just worked. However on the other hand they also remarked on how going to abstract wasn’t a good idea either. The “collision” that they are talking about in my opinion is the collision between pragmaticism and aesthetic. Based on the text and my interpretation of it basically says that this collision can only be avoided if a middle ground is found and used to bridge the gap between the two.