We began the class by going over the criticism that we as students provided to Brigitte regarding the course. In general, many had positive feedback, and thought the course material was intriguing. Even so, there were a few points of contention. Some argued there was a lack of expectations. To this end, we went over both what we as students see as the goal of the course, as well as what Brigitte sees as the main goals for our learning. Students highlighted that we were learning about the factual history of urban planning, its societal impacts, and the role of ideology in perpetuating all of this. Brigitte added that the crucial thing is to denaturalize the study of urban planning, therefore coming to the realization that urban planning is a product of a certain time and place, and that this context is what leads urban planners to re imagine their cities. Moving on we discussed Magnitogorsk. We especially highlighted the importance of the fact that the Soviet Union brought in a German Architect and American Engineers to build their model city. Continuing, we began to talk about Milutin and his plan for a linear city. Thus, hypothetically his city could keep expanding infinitely. It is a city based on an assembly line and therefore, production organizes the layout of the city, and rational principles are introduced to govern the development. Also in this case, one sees the separation of agricultural, industrial, and residential areas, as well as the collectivization of different functions. We then moved on to the discussion questions. May was chosen because Germany was an industrial leader, and a technical expert. Additionally, Magnitogorsk was supposed to be rational, industrious, beautiful place, a model city Egalitarian in nature, with equal standards of living. It was supposed that the Idea of the neighborhood unit would also apply, with each superblock having its own services. Ernst May eventually gets kicked out of the Soviet Union. His building work wasn’t good and he was blamed for the problems of topography. Essentially he became the scapegoat for why it wasen’t going to plan. Also one begins to see modernism depicted as a bourgeois style, and hence unsuitable for the model Soviet city. We then moved on to the problems and shortcomings in the cities construction. The ones we highlighted were that there were too many workers and not enough housing, construction efforts were slow, and workers are not provided with suitable materials. Also it fails in its egalitarian efforts, we see new areas like Amerikanka and Berezka, settlements built for American specialists. Although those who end up living there are the bureaucrats and the elites. It also becomes a place where you have to walk enormous distances, there is no access to clean water and this results in a typhus epidemic. There is inadequate heating, And there is really poor transportation and very limited public transportation. Therefore Magnitogorsk was a failure.