Ricardo Bofill // "The ideal city is impossible to create, just as the ideal island is impossible to build. The ideal is forever in flux; it must always be evolving. From there, I thought, 'Since total utopia is not possible, since total change leads to disaster, we’re going to divvy up utopia by theme and ensure that every architectural exercise is the development of one of those themes.' So, I changed strategies and tried to focus on concrete subjects to conduct partial experiments. I think each of the multiple projects I’ve done constitutes a part of a total city that has not been…and can never be…built. Each of my projects is a part of a possible city. These parts are the partial realization of what is possible…but not the manifestation of an overall utopia, as such utopias are always doomed to disaster and failure. This is the strategy that has stimulated me and enabled me to preserve an ambition…but with greater humility. I’ve abandoned my former conception of things, where I wanted to conceive a whole. A totality is impossible to conceive, so you instead conceive a part. Hence…my projects are the realization of utopia’s impossibility, of partial utopias, attempts to avert their inevitable failure, but with an inner logic."