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What does the Western city at the end of the twentieth century look like? How did the modern metropolis of congestion and density turn into a posturban or even postsuburban cityscape? What are edge cities and technoburbs? How has the social composition of cities changed in the postwar era? What do gated communities tell us about social fragmentation? Is public space in(...)
January 1900, Rotterdam
The urban condition : space, community, and self in the contemporary metropolis
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What does the Western city at the end of the twentieth century look like? How did the modern metropolis of congestion and density turn into a posturban or even postsuburban cityscape? What are edge cities and technoburbs? How has the social composition of cities changed in the postwar era? What do gated communities tell us about social fragmentation? Is public space in the contemporary city being privatized and militarized? How can the urban self still be defined? What role does consumer aestheticism have to play in this? These and many more questions are addressed by this uniquely conceived multidisciplinary study. "The Urban Condition" seeks to interfere in current debates over the future and interpretation of our urban landscapes by reuniting studies of the city as a physical and material phenomenon and as a cultural and mental (arte)fact. The Ghent Urban Studies Team responsible for the writing and editing of this volume is directed by Kristiaan Versluys and Dirk De Meyer at the University of Ghent, Belgium. It is an interdisciplinary research team of young academics that further consists of Kristiaan Borret, Bart Eeckhout, Steven Jacobs, and Bart Keunen. The collective expertise of GUST ranges from architectural theory, urban planning, and art history to philosophy, literary criticism and cultural theory.
books
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The city in the twenty-first century faces major challenges, including social and economic stratification, wasteful consumption of resources, transportation congestion, and environmental degradation. More than half of the world’s population lives in cities and major metropolitan areas, and in the next two decades the number of city dwellers is estimated to reach five(...)
Sustainable urbanism and beyond: rethinking cities for the future
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The city in the twenty-first century faces major challenges, including social and economic stratification, wasteful consumption of resources, transportation congestion, and environmental degradation. More than half of the world’s population lives in cities and major metropolitan areas, and in the next two decades the number of city dwellers is estimated to reach five billion. This puts enormous pressures on transportation systems, housing stock, and infrastructure such as energy, waste, and water, which directly influences the emissions of greenhouse gases. As the long emergency awaits us, urgent questions remain: How will our cities survive? How can we combat and reconcile urban growth with sustainable use of resources for future generations to thrive? Where and how urbanism comes into the picture and what “sustainable” urban forms can do in light of these events are some of the issues Sustainable Urbanism and Beyond explores. With more than sixty essays, including contributions by Andrés Duany, Saskia Sassen, Peter Newman, Douglas Farr, Henry Cisneros, Peter Hall, Sharon Zukin, Peter Eisenman, and others, this book is a unique perspective on architecture, urban planning, environmental and urban design, exploring ways for raising quality of life and the standard of living in a new modern era by creating better and more viable places to live.
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April 2012
Urban Theory
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Why is it so hard to make up our minds? Adam and Eve set the template : do we or don’t we eat the apple? They chose, half-heartedly, and nothing was ever the same again. With this book, Kenneth Weisbrode offers an introduction to the age-old struggle with ambivalence. Ambivalence results from a basic desire to have it both ways. This is only natural - although(...)
On ambivalence : the problems and pleasures of having it both ways
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Why is it so hard to make up our minds? Adam and Eve set the template : do we or don’t we eat the apple? They chose, half-heartedly, and nothing was ever the same again. With this book, Kenneth Weisbrode offers an introduction to the age-old struggle with ambivalence. Ambivalence results from a basic desire to have it both ways. This is only natural - although insisting upon it against all reason often results not in "both" but in the disappointing "neither." Ambivalence has insinuated itself into our culture as a kind of obligatory reflex, or default position, before practically every choice we make. It affects not only individuals; organizations, societies, and cultures can also be ambivalent. How often have we asked the scornful question, "Are we the Hamlet of nations"? How often have we demanded that our leaders appear decisive, judicious, and stalwart? And how eager have we been to censure them when they hesitate or waver? Weisbrode traces the concept of ambivalence, from the Garden of Eden to Freud and beyond. The Obama era, he says, may be America’s own era of ambivalence: neither red nor blue but a multicolored kaleidoscope. Ambivalence, he argues, need not be destructive. We must learn to distinguish it from its symptoms - selfishness, ambiguity, and indecision - and accept that frustration, guilt, and paralysis felt by individuals need not lead automatically to a collective pathology. Drawing upon examples from philosophy, history, literature, and the social sciences, On Ambivalence is a pocket-sized portrait of a complex human condition.
Critical Theory
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Of all the visual arts, illustration shares a unique relationship with the written word, often serving to visualize, enhance, or respond to a text. "Reading Pictures" presents a global history of this versatile art form, linking its emergence to modern developments such as the illustrated news, recreational reading, and ad-driven consumer culture. From the advent of(...)
Reading pictures: A history of illustration
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Of all the visual arts, illustration shares a unique relationship with the written word, often serving to visualize, enhance, or respond to a text. "Reading Pictures" presents a global history of this versatile art form, linking its emergence to modern developments such as the illustrated news, recreational reading, and ad-driven consumer culture. From the advent of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century to the modernist artistic and cultural movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, D. B. Dowd traces the development of illustration as an integral part of the reading experience. He examines the move from ancient scrolls to pamphlets and book forms, and a return to the scroll in electronic form on smartphones and tablets. His story begins with relief prints and woodcuts in ancient China and Japan before moving to printing and platemaking in early modern Europe. Dowd discusses how book and periodical publishing rose sharply with the innovations of wood engraving and lithography, leading to a boom in cultural literacy; and how the illustrated press reached its zenith between the 1860s and 1960s, as printed entertainment and the news of the world became commonplace in every household, bringing with them advertising, propaganda, and consumer culture. Richly illustrated with more than four hundred images spanning the iconic to the unexpected, Reading Pictures reframes the story of illustration within the broader histories of race, gender, literacy, and the transmission of cultural memory. It reveals how reading and looking have become increasingly integrated, and that, as images have become ever more prevalent today with the digital revolution, what is meant by literacy has evolved.
Illustration
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Although the seemingly apocalyptic scale of the World Trade Center disaster continues to haunt people across the globe, it is only the most recent example of a city tragically wounded. Cities are, in fact, perpetually caught up in cycles of degeneration and renewal. As with the WTC, from time to time these cycles are severely ruptured by a sudden, unpredictable event.(...)
Wounded cities : destruction and reconstruction in a globalized world
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Although the seemingly apocalyptic scale of the World Trade Center disaster continues to haunt people across the globe, it is only the most recent example of a city tragically wounded. Cities are, in fact, perpetually caught up in cycles of degeneration and renewal. As with the WTC, from time to time these cycles are severely ruptured by a sudden, unpredictable event. In the wake of recent terrorist activities, this timely book explores how urban populations are affected by "wounds" inflicted through violence, civil wars, overbuilding, drug trafficking, and the collapse of infrastructures, as well as "natural" disasters such as earthquakes. Mexico City, New York, Beirut, Belfast, Bangkok and Baghdad are just a few examples of cities riddled with problems that undermine, on a daily basis, the quality of urban life. What does it mean for urban dwellers when the infrastructure of a city collapses – transport, communication grids, heat, light, roads, water, and sanitation? What are the effects of foreign investment and huge construction projects on urban populations and how does this change the "look" and character of a city? How does drug trafficking intersect with class, race, and gender, and what impact does it have on vulnerable urban communities? How do political corruption and mafia networks distort the built environment? Drawing on in-depth case studies from across the globe, this book answers these intriguing questions through its rigorous consideration of changing global and national contexts, social movements, and corrosive urban events. Adopting a "grass roots up" approach, it places emphasis on people’s experiences of uneven development and inequality, their engagement with memory in the face of continual change, and the relevance of political activism to bettering their lives. It is especially attentive to the historical interaction of particular cities with wider political and economic forces, as these interactions have shaped local governance over time. Imagining each city as a "body politic", the authors consider its capacity both to mediate local conflict and to broach the healing of wounds.
Urban Theory
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Post, ex, sub and dis - these are but a few of the prefixes that have been used to compose neologisms for describing the contemporary cityscape in Western Europe and North America. Terms such as posturban space, postsuburbia, exurbia, exopolis, suburban downtown and disurbia are part of a dizzying collection of often hotly contested labels. The plethora of neologisms(...)
Post ex sub dis : urban fragmentations and constructions
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Post, ex, sub and dis - these are but a few of the prefixes that have been used to compose neologisms for describing the contemporary cityscape in Western Europe and North America. Terms such as posturban space, postsuburbia, exurbia, exopolis, suburban downtown and disurbia are part of a dizzying collection of often hotly contested labels. The plethora of neologisms demonstrates how difficult it has become to name, map and analyse the contemporary cityscape. To many observers, urban environments and urban society have come to evince a radically chaotic and fragmented structure. This book explores how in recent decades the notion of fragmentation - a mainstay already of reflections on urban modernity - has acquired new meanings and how, within the current decentralized and centrifugal context, the urban landscape is constantly being deconstructed and reconstructed, both materially and discursively. Richly illustrated with works by artists and photographers who have visualized various new kinds of urban fragmentation, the volume brings together a series of essays on spatial, social and cultural issues written by distinguished scholars and practitioners from an unusual variety of disciplines. It will be especially useful to students of urban planning, architecture, sociology, literature and the arts. With text contributions by Aaron Betsky, Sophie Body-Gendrot, Stefano Boeri, Lizabeth Cohen, Rosalyn Deutsche, Bart Eeckhout, Adriaan Geuze, Paul Gilroy, Steven Jacobs, Regine Leibinger, Scott Malcomson, Peter Marcuse, Bruce Robbins, Luc Sante, William Sharpe, Edward W. Soja and Mark Wigley.
Urban Theory
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The successful conversion and expansion of abandoned buildings and relics from the industrial past have been the mission of Atelier Deshaus from Shanghai since 2001. The question of how formerly closed industrial complexes can be transformed into new, attractive places for the public is the core theme of this exhibition. It focuses on the transformation along the Huangpu(...)
Atelier Deshaus, Shanghai: Common Landscape, Re-Cultivating Industrial Sites
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The successful conversion and expansion of abandoned buildings and relics from the industrial past have been the mission of Atelier Deshaus from Shanghai since 2001. The question of how formerly closed industrial complexes can be transformed into new, attractive places for the public is the core theme of this exhibition. It focuses on the transformation along the Huangpu River in Shanghai, whose seamless accessibility as a public space was heralded by Expo 2010 Better City - Better Life. Aedes is showing seven projects that have used the potential of former industrial sites to bring new functions to the riverbank and to which the residents attach both emotional and cultural significance. Abandoned production sites and relics of inner-city heavy industry, warehouses, and port facilities can be a huge burden on the sustainable development of a city, especially if they are seen as waste to be disposed of. With its projects, Atelier Deshaus shows how the grey energy used in them can be preserved, at least in parts, through conversion and reconstruction, and how new functions can be assigned. In the face of climate change and the generally far too energy-hungry construction industry, it is also an obvious necessity in China to take an unbiased look at existing buildings. Nevertheless, demolition is still often the priority. Atelier Deshaus counters this with a strategy of minimal intervention that sensitively heralds the transformation of the existing buildings without destroying the historical reminders.
Architecture Monographs
The plan of Chicago
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Arguably the most influential document in the history of urban planning, Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago, coauthored by Edward Bennett and produced in collaboration with the Commercial Club of Chicago, proposed many of the city’s most distinctive features, including its lakefront parks and roadways, the Magnificent Mile, and Navy Pier. Carl Smith’s history reveals(...)
The plan of Chicago
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Arguably the most influential document in the history of urban planning, Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago, coauthored by Edward Bennett and produced in collaboration with the Commercial Club of Chicago, proposed many of the city’s most distinctive features, including its lakefront parks and roadways, the Magnificent Mile, and Navy Pier. Carl Smith’s history reveals the Plan’s central role in shaping the ways people envision the cityscape and urban life itself. Smith’s narrative begins with a survey of Chicago’s stunning rise from a tiny frontier settlement to the nation’s second-largest city. He then offers an illuminating exploration of the Plan’s creation and reveals how it embodies the renowned architect’s belief that cities can and must be remade for the better. The Plan defined the City Beautiful movement and was the first comprehensive attempt to reimagine a major American city. Smith points out the ways the Plan continues to influence debates, even a century after its publication, about how to create a vibrant and habitable urban environment.
Urban Theory
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For this 63rd issue, The Funambulist teamed-up with Tunisian anthropologist and visual artist Myriam Amri and invites you to "Follow the money." In it, the issue enters the crevices of a capitalist system and trace it back to its central nodes: property, land, capital, and class. It reads how money is central to colonial and imperial projects, but also how sovereignty and(...)
The Funambulist n.63 : follow the money
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For this 63rd issue, The Funambulist teamed-up with Tunisian anthropologist and visual artist Myriam Amri and invites you to "Follow the money." In it, the issue enters the crevices of a capitalist system and trace it back to its central nodes: property, land, capital, and class. It reads how money is central to colonial and imperial projects, but also how sovereignty and the liberation of our monetary imaginary can be tools of emancipation. From the CFA franc (Ndongo Samba Sylla, Moses März) to the US dollar (Lily H. Chumley) or the Palestinian Pound (Hicham Safieddine), The Funambulist navigates monetary politics around the world, and more specifically in Sudan (Nisrin Elamin & Laleh Khalili), Puerto Rico (Roque Salas Rivera) or Brazil (Cho). The issue also contains a board game entitled "You’ve Got Yourselves a Revolution, Now What?" imagined by the issue editors Myriam Amri and Léopold Lambert and designed by Aude Abou Nasr. As for the cover, it features an artwork by Adriana Martínez Barón.
Magazines
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Much has been said about the Arts & crafts spirit of Californians, their appreciation of the land, their desire to build "simple" yet interesting houses that connect with the outdoors (sleeping porches, gardens, verandas, terraces, and so on), and their love of wilderness areas. This new edition of the classic, "Building with nature: roots of the San Francisco Bay region(...)
Building with nature : inspiration for the arts & crafts home
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Much has been said about the Arts & crafts spirit of Californians, their appreciation of the land, their desire to build "simple" yet interesting houses that connect with the outdoors (sleeping porches, gardens, verandas, terraces, and so on), and their love of wilderness areas. This new edition of the classic, "Building with nature: roots of the San Francisco Bay region tradition", focuses on the beginnings (1865 and on) of the Bay area shingle style and Arts & crafts collaboration in California, and the origins of the trend toward building simple rustic homes in harmony with nature. Freudenheim explores how and why a small, influential group of Californians (including Joseph Worcester, Bernard Maybeck, Charles Keeler, William Keith, Charles Lummis, A. Page Brown, and others)-all of whom had come from the East or from England-were especially devoted to Ruskin and the Arts & crafts style and how this combined with their dedication to California's natural beauty to create a unique architectural movement.
History until 1900