page_title: The Metropolis of Tomorrow
section_title: Publication
hierarchical_section_title: The Metropolis of Tomorrow / Publication
caption_attribution_description: English: Hugh Ferriss, image courtesy of Princeton Architectural Press.
context_page_description: The Metropolis of Tomorrow is a 1929 book written and illustrated by Hugh Ferriss. Prominently featuring 60 of Ferriss' drawings, the book is divided into three sections. The first, "Cities of Today", underscores the lack of planning in contemporary cities and the powerful psychological impact that cities have on their inhabitants while also profiling 18 influential modern buildings in five cities. The second section, "Projected Trends", prominently discusses practical concerns related to population density and traffic congestion, demonstrates Ferriss' adherence to some of the key elements of modern architecture, and then analyzes projected trends in urban design that he supports, as well as a few that he opposes. The third and final section, "An Imaginary Metropolis", describes an ideal future city complete with towering skyscrapers spaced well apart from each other, broad avenues, and a strongly geometric city layout based around centers and sub-centers of buildings that are segregated by function.
  First published by Ives Washburn in 1929, The Metropolis of Tomorrow was out of print long before the Princeton Architectural Press republished it in 1986.
context_section_description: Ferriss received an advance royalty of $1,000 from the book's publisher, Ives Washburn, in 1929. The book was published in late 1929, after the Wall Street crash. Of the 60 illustrations featured in the book, only 13 of them were created specifically for The Metropolis of Tomorrow, and all of these 13 appear in the final section "An Imaginary Metropolis".
  Writing in 1986, architectural historian Carol Willis noted that the book had been "long out of print". In 1986, Princeton Architectural Press republished The Metropolis of Tomorrow (along with an essay by Willis) as a companion to the exhibition Hugh Ferriss: Metropolis, which was sponsored by the Architectural League of New York and partially supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The exhibit opened at the Whitney Museum in New York City and then traveled to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., the Centre de Création Industrielle at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Architectural Association in London.
caption: Ferriss at work in 1925
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