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More than four decades of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe has left deep scars in Europe. The post-1945 cultural fixation of countries in Central and Eastern Europe on the USSR stands in sharp contrast with Western Europes orientation towards the United States. The contradistinctions and similarities between East and West are subject to critical examination in a(...)
Architecture since 1900, Europe
October 2004, Rotterdam
Ideals in concrete : exploring Central and Eastern Europe
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More than four decades of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe has left deep scars in Europe. The post-1945 cultural fixation of countries in Central and Eastern Europe on the USSR stands in sharp contrast with Western Europes orientation towards the United States. The contradistinctions and similarities between East and West are subject to critical examination in a series of essays in text and image. Many of these subsidiary themes are associated with the city, since the impact of Communism is nowhere more evident than in this urban space. In the planning euphoria and the building of a completely new society on rational and scientific principles we can glimpse a mirroring of the ideas and views of Communist politicians, architects and urban planners. The contemporary phenomenon of the shrinking city calls for solutions which extend beyond restructuring, conservation or regeneration; it is sooner about constructing an identity that can rival Europe and the rest of the world.
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October 2004, Rotterdam
Architecture since 1900, Europe
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Epstein began his latest series in 2017 at Standing Rock, where thousands protested the installation of the Dakota Access Pipeline on Sioux land. Over four years, he charted other contested lands from Pennsylvania and Hawaii to the Mexican border, as well as land loss through wildfires and flooding due to egregious environmental negligence. In keeping with Epstein’s(...)
Mitch Epstein: Property rights
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Epstein began his latest series in 2017 at Standing Rock, where thousands protested the installation of the Dakota Access Pipeline on Sioux land. Over four years, he charted other contested lands from Pennsylvania and Hawaii to the Mexican border, as well as land loss through wildfires and flooding due to egregious environmental negligence. In keeping with Epstein’s 50-year exploration of American life, ''Property rights'' questions the relationship between institutions, civil rights and the rights of nature itself. Acknowledging our bodies and lives as our most fundamental property, the book examines other forms of trespass and destruction in an elegy to the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre, and in photographs of Black Lives Matter protests during COVID-19. ''Property rights'' includes the voices of activists Epstein interviewed while making this deeply personal and political work. In a time of alarming division, the book describes diverse communities in a common fight against politicians and plutocrats willing to sacrifice the people’s well-being.
Photography monographs
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The Open Call in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking, northern part of Belgium) is more than just another architecture competition: any governmental agency or public institution can choose to work with an Open Call for any given construction project. Since its invention by the first Flemish Government Architect Bob Van Reeth in 2000, more than 700 assignments have been published(...)
Architecture since 1900, Europe
February 2022
Celebrating public architecture: Buildings from the Open Call in Flanders 2000-2021
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The Open Call in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking, northern part of Belgium) is more than just another architecture competition: any governmental agency or public institution can choose to work with an Open Call for any given construction project. Since its invention by the first Flemish Government Architect Bob Van Reeth in 2000, more than 700 assignments have been published in this procedure, resulting in almost 350 completed public architectural and infrastructural projects so far. This volume compiles 70 of these, from all over Flanders—from its west coast to the Dutch border in the east—to illustrate the astounding quality of these projects. They prove that public architecture can be daring, thought-provoking, cooperative, and well-done at the same time. The book takes an extensive look at how this procedure works, how it is received by architects, politicians, and clients—and ultimately, at the outstanding public architecture in Flanders as an example for other countries to study closely.
Architecture since 1900, Europe
Against creativity
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Everything you have been told about creativity is wrong. From line managers, corporate CEOs, urban designers, teachers, politicians, mayors, advertisers and even our friends and family, the message is ‘be creative’. Creativity is heralded as the driving force of our contemporary society; celebrated as agile, progressive and liberating. It is the spring of the knowledge(...)
Against creativity
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Everything you have been told about creativity is wrong. From line managers, corporate CEOs, urban designers, teachers, politicians, mayors, advertisers and even our friends and family, the message is ‘be creative’. Creativity is heralded as the driving force of our contemporary society; celebrated as agile, progressive and liberating. It is the spring of the knowledge economy and shapes the cities we inhabit. It even defines our politics. What could possibly be wrong with this? In this brilliant, counter intuitive blast Oli Mould demands that we rethink the story we are being sold. Behind the novelty, he shows that creativity is a barely hidden form of neoliberal appropriation. It is a regime that prioritizes individual success over collective flourishing. It refuses to recognise anything – job, place, person – that is not profitable. And it impacts on everything around us: the places where we work, the way we are managed, how we spend our leisure time. Is there an alternative? Mould offers a radical redefinition of creativity, one embedded in the idea of collective flourishing, outside the tyranny of profit.
Critical Theory
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In this first English-language edition of Oscar Niemeyer’s memoirs, the architect reveals how his many passions – among them his large family, many friends, the sensuous landscape of Brazil, women, communism, art and literature – have influenced his life and in turn inspired his architecture. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Niemeyer graduated from the National School of Fine Arts(...)
The curves of time : the memoirs of Oscar Niemeyer
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In this first English-language edition of Oscar Niemeyer’s memoirs, the architect reveals how his many passions – among them his large family, many friends, the sensuous landscape of Brazil, women, communism, art and literature – have influenced his life and in turn inspired his architecture. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Niemeyer graduated from the National School of Fine Arts in 1934. As a student he worked in the office of Lucio Costa, and on graduation he began collaborating with Le Corbusier on a new Ministry of Education and Health Building in Rio. Yet in contrast to the International Style, Niemeyer’s curvilinear forms reflected Brazil’s lush, undulating landscape and the emotive style of its music and dance. Here Niemeyer recounts his life in an informal, fluid narrative that moves from his childhood in Rio to friendships with intellectuals and politicians such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Fidel Castro, to tales of adventurous road trips. The book includes forty sketches by Niemeyer executed specially for these memoirs, a chronology of his life and career, notes and an index.
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October 2000, London
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Postmodernism stood for everything modernism rejected: fun, exuberance, irresponsibility. But beneath its glitzy surface, postmodernism had a dirty secret: it was the fig leaf for a rapacious new kind of capitalism. It was the forcing ground of ''post truth,'' by means of which western values were turned upside down. But where do these ideas come from and how have they(...)
Everything all the time, everywhere: How we became Postmodern
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Postmodernism stood for everything modernism rejected: fun, exuberance, irresponsibility. But beneath its glitzy surface, postmodernism had a dirty secret: it was the fig leaf for a rapacious new kind of capitalism. It was the forcing ground of ''post truth,'' by means of which western values were turned upside down. But where do these ideas come from and how have they impacted on the world? In this brilliant history of a dangerous idea, Stuart Jeffries tells a narrative that starts in the early 1970s and still dominates our lives today. He tells this history through a riotous gallery that includes, among others: David Bowie, the iPod, Madonna, Jeff Koons’s the Nixon Shock, Judith Butler, Las Vegas, Margaret Thatcher, Grand Master Flash, I Love Dick, the RAND Corporation, the Sex Pistols, Princess Diana, Grand Theft Auto, Jean Baudrillard, Netflix, and 9/11. We are today scarcely capable of conceiving politics as a communal activity because we have become habituated to being consumers rather than citizens. Politicians treat us as consumers to whom they must deliver. Can we do anything other than suffer from buyer’s remorse?
Social
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In the councils and magistracies of the Venetian Republic, politicians argued intently over civic building projects in a manner curiously reminiscent of a modern democracy, taking advice from architects, engineers, and the public. Written by a leading authority on Venetian architecture, the book explores the complex dialectic between theory and practice; utopia and(...)
Venice disputed: Marc Antonio Barbaro and venetian architecture
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In the councils and magistracies of the Venetian Republic, politicians argued intently over civic building projects in a manner curiously reminiscent of a modern democracy, taking advice from architects, engineers, and the public. Written by a leading authority on Venetian architecture, the book explores the complex dialectic between theory and practice; utopia and reality; and design and technology that infused these disputes. The bitterly contested debates are seen through the experiences of one particular Venetian nobleman, Marc'Antonio Barbaro (1518-1595). Recognized as a gifted stuccoist and draftsman, Barbaro played a prominent role in the discussions about major state building projects such as Palladio's church of the Redentore, the restoration of the Doge's Palace, and the erection of the Rialto Bridge. He was a distinguished statesman and orator, but his idealistic views about the rhetorical power of classicism frequently clashed with local technological expertise. Venice Disputed recounts not only his public role but also his private life, centered on the now-famous family villa that he and his brother commissioned. Barbaro's compelling story thus weaves together politics, architectural history, and private life in early modern Venice.
Architecture Monographs
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The Salton Sea is a man-made catastrophe, redolent with the smell of algae and decomposing fish. Nevertheless, the lake's vast, placid expanses continue to attract birdwatchers, tourists and artists. In Greetings from the Salton Sea, photographer Kim Stringfellow explores the history of California's largest lake from its disastrous beginnings—the "sea" was formed when(...)
Greetings from the Salton Sea: folly and intervention in the southern California landscape, 1905-2005
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The Salton Sea is a man-made catastrophe, redolent with the smell of algae and decomposing fish. Nevertheless, the lake's vast, placid expanses continue to attract birdwatchers, tourists and artists. In Greetings from the Salton Sea, photographer Kim Stringfellow explores the history of California's largest lake from its disastrous beginnings—the "sea" was formed when Colorado River levees broke and spilled into a depression 280 feet below sea level—to its heyday as a desert paradise in the 1950s and its current state as an environmental battleground. Like the 400-plus species of birds that use the lake as a halfway point in their annual migration, developers flocked to the water too: they planted palm trees, built golf courses, and hired showstoppers such as the Beach Boys to perform at area resorts. These days, politicians seek to redirect the lake's only source of replenishment—agricultural runoff from surrounding farms—to water golf courses and green lawns elsewhere. Greetings from the Salton Sea's photographs capture the war among policymakers, environmentalists, developers, and the individuals still living along the lake's shores. As Stringfellow aptly documents, it is a war for water and, ultimately, for existence.
Urban Theory
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Tower and Slab looks at the contradictory history of the modernist mass housing block - home to millions of city dwellers around the world. Few urban forms have roused as much controversy. While in the United States decades-long criticism caused the demolition of most mass housing projects for the poor, in the booming metropolises of Shanghai and Mumbai remarkably similar(...)
Tower and slab : histories of global mass housing
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Tower and Slab looks at the contradictory history of the modernist mass housing block - home to millions of city dwellers around the world. Few urban forms have roused as much controversy. While in the United States decades-long criticism caused the demolition of most mass housing projects for the poor, in the booming metropolises of Shanghai and Mumbai remarkably similar developments are being built for the wealthy middle class. While on the surface the modernist apartment block appears universal, it is in fact diverse in its significance and connotations as its many different cultural contexts. Florian Urban studies the history of mass housing in seven narratives: Chicago, Paris, Berlin, Brasilia, Mumbai, Moscow, and Shanghai. Investigating the complex interactions between city planning and social history, Tower and Slab shows how the modernist vision to house the masses in serial blocks succeeded in certain contexts and failed in others. Success and failure, in this respect, refers not only to the original goals to solve the housing crisis and provide modern standards for the entire society but equally to changing significance of the housing blocks within the respective societies and their perception by architects, politicians, and inhabitants.
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April 2012
Collective Housing
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Earthquakes. Wildfires. Floods. Drought. Tornadoes. Snakes in the sea, mountain lions, and a plague of bees. In this controversial tour de force of scholarship, unsparing vision, and inspired writing, Mike Davis, the author of ''City of quartz'', revisits Los Angeles as a Book of the Apocalypse theme park. By brilliantly juxtaposing L.A.’s fragile natural ecology with its(...)
Ecology of fear: Los Angeles and the imagination of disaster
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Earthquakes. Wildfires. Floods. Drought. Tornadoes. Snakes in the sea, mountain lions, and a plague of bees. In this controversial tour de force of scholarship, unsparing vision, and inspired writing, Mike Davis, the author of ''City of quartz'', revisits Los Angeles as a Book of the Apocalypse theme park. By brilliantly juxtaposing L.A.’s fragile natural ecology with its disastrous environmental and social history, he compellingly shows a city deliberately put in harm’s way by land developers, builders, and politicians, even as the incalculable toll of inevitable future catastrophe continues to accumulate. Counterpointing L.A.’s central role in America’s fantasy life–the city has been destroyed no less than 138 times in novels and films since 1909–with its wanton denial of its own real history, Davis creates a revelatory kaleidoscope of American fact, imagery, and sensibility. Drawing upon a vast array of sources, ''Ecology of fear'' meticulously captures the nation’s violent malaise and desperate social unease at the millennial end of ''the American century.'' With savagely entertaining wit and compassionate rage, this book conducts a devastating reconnaissance of our all-too-likely urban future.
Urban Theory