Best of
Cities

2013

Cool Gray City of love: 49 Views of San Francisco


Gary Kamiya - 2013
    Each of its 49 chapters explores a specific site or intersection in the city, from the mighty Golden Gate Bridge to the raunchy Tenderloin to the soaring sea cliffs at Land's End.This unique approach captures the exhilarating experience of walking through San Francisco's sublime terrain, while at the same time tying that experience to a history as rollicking and unpredictable as the city herself. From her absurd beginnings as the most distant and moth-eaten outpost of the world's most extensive empire, to her instantaneous fame during the Gold Rush, from her apocalyptic destruction by earthquake and fire to her perennial embrace of rebels, dreamers, hedonists and misfits of all stripes, the City by the Bay has always followed a trajectory as wildly independent as the untrammeled natural forces that created her.This ambitious, eclectic, and beautifully written book draws on everything from on-the-ground reporting to obscure academic papers to the author's 40-year life in San Francisco to create a rich and insightful portrait of a magical corner of the world. Complete with hand-drawn maps ofthe 49locations, this handsome package will sit comfortably on the short shelf of enduring books about places, alongside E. B. White's Here is New York, Jose Saramago's Journey to Portugal, or Alfred Kazin's A Walker in the City.

Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas


Rebecca Solnit - 2013
    More than twenty essays assemble a chorus of vibrant voices, including geographers, scholars of sugar and bananas, the city's remarkable musicians, prison activists, environmentalists, Arab and Native voices, and local experts, as well as the coauthors' compelling contributions. Featuring 22 full-color two-page-spread maps, Unfathomable City plumbs the depths of this major tourist destination, pivotal scene of American history and culture and, most recently, site of monumental disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill.The innovative maps' precision and specificity shift our notions of the Mississippi, the Caribbean, Mardi Gras, jazz, soils and trees, generational roots, and many other subjects, and expand our ideas of how any city is imagined and experienced. Together with the inspired texts, they show New Orleans as both an imperiled city--by erosion, crime, corruption, and sea level rise--and an ageless city that lives in music as a form of cultural resistance. Compact, lively, and completely original, Unfathomable City takes readers on a tour that will forever change the way they think about place.Read an excerpt here: Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas by Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker by University of California PressListen to an interview with the authors here:http://www.ucpress.edu/blog/16097/new...

Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City


Russell Shorto - 2013
    But the deeper history of Amsterdam, what makes it one of the most fascinating places on earth, is bound up in its unique geography-the constant battle of its citizens to keep the sea at bay and the democratic philosophy that this enduring struggle fostered. Amsterdam is the font of liberalism, in both its senses. Tolerance for free thinking and free love make it a place where, in the words of one of its mayors, "craziness is a value." But the city also fostered the deeper meaning of liberalism, one that profoundly influenced America: political and economic freedom. Amsterdam was home not only to religious dissidents and radical thinkers but to the world's first great global corporation. In this effortlessly erudite account, Russell Shorto traces the idiosyncratic evolution of Amsterdam, showing how such disparate elements as herring anatomy, naked Anabaptists parading through the streets, and an intimate gathering in a sixteenth-century wine-tasting room had a profound effect on Dutch-and world-history. Weaving in his own experiences of his adopted home, Shorto provides an ever-surprising, intellectually engaging story of Amsterdam from the building of its first canals in the 1300s, through its brutal struggle for independence, its golden age as a vast empire, to its complex present in which its cherished ideals of liberalism are under siege.

High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing


Audrey Petty - 2013
    These stories of community, displacement, and poverty in the wake of gentrification give voice to those who have long been ignored, but whose hopes and struggles exist firmly at the heart of our national identity.

Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain


John Grindrod - 2013
    FLYOVERS. STREETS IN THE SKY. ONCE, THIS WAS THE FUTURE. Was Britain's postwar rebuilding the height of midcentury chic or the concrete embodiment of Crap Towns? John Grindrod decided to find out how blitzed, slum-ridden and crumbling 'austerity Britain' became, in a few short years, a space-age world of concrete, steel and glass. On his journey he visits the sleepy Norfolk birthplace of Brutalism, the once-Blitzed city centre of Plymouth, the futuristic New Town of Cumbernauld, Sheffield's innovative streets in the sky, the foundations of the BT tower, and the brave 1950s experiments in the Gorbals. Along the way he meets New Town pioneers, tower block builders, Barbican architects, old retainers of Coventry Cathedral, proud prefab dwellers and sixties town planners: people who lived through a time of phenomenal change and excitement. What he finds is a story of dazzling space-age optimism, ingenuity and helipads -- so many helipads -- tempered by protests, deadly collapses and scandals that shook the government. Concretopia is an accessible, warm and revealing social history of an aspect of Britain often ignored, insulted and misunderstood. It will change the way you look at Arndale Centres, tower blocks and concrete forever.

How to Study Public Life


Jan Gehl - 2013
    Jan Gehl has been examining this question since the 1960s, when few urban designers or planners were thinking about designing cities for people. But given the unpredictable, complex and ephemeral nature of life in cities, how can we best design public infrastructure—vital to cities for getting from place to place, or staying in place—for human use? Studying city life and understanding the factors that encourage or discourage use is the key to designing inviting public space. In How to Study Public Life Jan Gehl and Birgitte Svarre draw from their combined experience of over 50 years to provide a history of public-life study as well as methods and tools necessary to recapture city life as an important planning dimension. This type of systematic study began in earnest in the 1960s, when several researchers and journalists on different continents criticized urban planning for having forgotten life in the city. City life studies provide knowledge about human behavior in the built environment in an attempt to put it on an equal footing with knowledge about urban elements such as buildings and transport systems. Studies can be used as input in the decision-making process,  as part of overall planning, or in designing individual projects such as streets, squares or parks. The original goal is still the goal today: to recapture city life as an important planning dimension. Anyone interested in improving city life will find inspiration, tools, and examples in this invaluable guide.

A Field Guide to American Houses (Revised): The Definitive Guide to Identifying and Understanding America's Domestic Architecture


Virginia Savage McAlester - 2013
    With more than 1,600 detailed photographs and line illustrations, and a lucid, vastly informative text, it will teach you not only to recognize distinct architectural styles but also to understand their historical significance. What does that cornice signify? Or that porch? The shape of that door? The window treatment? When was this house built? What does the style say about its builders and their eras? You'll find the answers to these and myriad other questions in this encyclopedic and eminently practical book.Here are more than fifty styles and their variants, spanning seven distinct historical periods. Each style is illustrated with a large schematic drawing that highlights its most important identifying features. Additional drawings and photographs provide, at a glance, common alternative shapes, principal subtypes, and close-up views of typical small details--windows, doors, cornices, etc.--that can be difficult to see in full-house illustrations. The accompanying text explains the identifying features of each style, describing where and in what quantity they can be found, discussing all of its notable variants, and tracing their origin and history.The book's introductory chapters provide invaluable general discussions of construction materials and techniques, house shapes, and the various traditions of architectural fashion that have influenced American house design through the past three centuries. A pictorial key and glossary simplifies identification, connecting easily recognized architectural features--the presence of a tile roof, for example--to the styles in which that feature is likely to be found.Among the new material included in this edition are chapters on styles that have emerged in the thirty years since the previous edition; a groundbreaking chapter on the development and evolution of American neighborhoods; an appendix on approaches to construction in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; an expanded bibliography; and 600 new photographs and line drawings throughout.Here is an indispensable resource--both easy and pleasurable to use--for the house lover and the curious tourist, for the house buyer and the weekend stroller, for neighborhood preservation groups, architecture buffs, and everyone who wants to know more about their own homes and communities. It is an invaluable book of American architecture, culture, and history.

A History of Future Cities


Daniel Brook - 2013
    Pouring into developing-world “instant cities” like Dubai and Shenzhen, these urban newcomers confront a modern world cobbled together from fragments of a West they have never seen. Do these fantastical boomtowns, where blueprints spring to life overnight on virgin land, represent the dawning of a brave new world? Or is their vaunted newness a mirage?In a captivating blend of history and reportage, Daniel Brook travels to a series of major metropolitan hubs that were once themselves instant cities— St. Petersburg, Shanghai, and Mumbai—to watch their “dress rehearsals for the twenty-first century.” Understanding today’s emerging global order, he argues, requires comprehending the West’s profound and conflicted influence on developing-world cities over the centuries.In 1703, Tsar Peter the Great personally oversaw the construction of a new Russian capital, a “window on the West” carefully modeled on Amsterdam, that he believed would wrench Russia into the modern world. In the nineteenth century, Shanghai became the fastest-growing city on earth as it mushroomed into an English-speaking, Western-looking metropolis that just happened to be in the Far East. Meanwhile, Bombay, the cosmopolitan hub of the British Raj, morphed into a tropical London at the hands of its pith-helmeted imperialists.Juxtaposing the stories of the architects and authoritarians, the artists and revolutionaries who seized the reins to transform each of these precociously modern places into avatars of the global future, Brook demonstrates that the drive for modernization was initially conflated with wholesale Westernization. He shows, too, the ambiguous legacy of that emulation—the birth (and rebirth) of Chinese capitalism in Shanghai, the origins of Bollywood in Bombay’s American-style movie palaces, the combustible mix of revolutionary culture and politics that rocked the Russian capital—and how it may be transcended today.A fascinating, vivid look from the past out toward the horizon, A History of Future Cities is both a crucial reminder of globalization’s long march and an inspiring look into the possibilities of our Asian Century.

Urban Street Design Guide


National Association of City Transportation Officials - 2013
    Case studies from around the country clearly show how to implement best practices, as well as provide guidance for customizing design applications to a city’s unique needs.  Urban Street Design Guide outlines five goals and tenets of world-class street design:•    Streets are public spaces. Streets play a much larger role in the public life of cities and communities than just thoroughfares for traffic. •    Great streets are great for business. Well-designed streets generate higher revenues for businesses and higher values for homeowners.•    Design for safety. Traffic engineers can and should design streets where people walking, parking, shopping, bicycling, working, and driving can cross paths safely.•    Streets can be changed. Transportation engineers can work flexibly within the building envelope of a street. Many city streets were created in a different era and need to be reconfigured to meet new needs.•    Act now! Implement projects quickly using temporary materials to help inform public decision making.Elaborating on these fundamental principles, the guide offers substantive direction for cities seeking to improve street design to create more inclusive, multi-modal urban environments.  It is an exceptional resource for redesigning streets to serve the needs of 21st century cities, whose residents and visitors demand a variety of transportation options, safer streets, and vibrant community life.

London Underground by Design


Mark Ovenden - 2013
    London Underground by Design is the first meticulous study of every aspect of that feat, a comprehensive history of one of the world's most celebrated design achievements, and of the visionaries who brought it to life.Beginning in the pioneering Victorian age, Mark Ovenden charts the evolution of architecture, branding, typeface, map design, interior and textile styles, posters, signage and graphic design and how these came together to shape not just the Underground's identity, but the character of London itself. This is the story of celebrated designers - from Frank Pick, the guru who conceptualised the modern Tube's look under the 'design fit for purpose' mantra, to Harry Beck, Tube diagram creator, and from Marion Dorn, one of the twentieth century's leading textile designers, to Edward Johnston, creator of the distinctive font that bears his name, as well as Leslie Green, designer of central London's distinctive ruby-red tiled stations, and the Design Research Unit's head, Misha Black, who in the 1960s rebranded British Railways and created the Victoria line's distinctive style, and Sir Norman Foster, architect of Canary Wharf station.

Marshland: Dreams and Nightmares on the Edge of London


Gareth E. Rees - 2013
    He discovers a lost world of Victorian filter plants, ancient grazing lands, dead toy factories and tidal rivers on the edgelands of a rapidly changing city. Ghosts are his friends. As strange tales of bears, crocodiles, magic narrowboats and apocalyptic tribes begin to manifest themselves, Rees embarks on a psychedelic journey across time and into the dark heart of London. It soon becomes clear that the very existence of this unique landscape is at threat. For on all sides of the marshland, the developers are closing in… Marshland is a deep map of the East London marshes, a blend of local history, folklore and weird fiction, where nothing is quite as it seems. This book contains striking illustrations from artist Ada Jusic.

A Dream Foreclosed: Black America and the Fight for a Place to Call Home


Laura Gottesdiener - 2013
    financial crisis and the rise of a people s movement for economic justice, dignity, and freedom from foreclosure. With power and humanity, Laura Gottesdiener bears witness to the ordinary people organizing their communities to challenge the banks and legal system. Their stories are extraordinary but the situation is all too common. The ongoing mortgage crisis has created one of the longest and largest mass displacements in U.S history. While profiting from government bailouts, banks have evicted more than ten million Americans from their homes, their life savings, and their dreams. As many of the families victimized by bank fraud, predatory loans and other corporate crimes are African American, communities of color have been among the most outspoken and organized in confronting the banks. Woven throughout Gottesdiener s page-turning narrative are clear explanations of the origins of the crisis, the consequences for housing, and how community organizing and social movements are having national impact. PRAISE FOR LAURA GOTTESDIENER AND"A DREAM FORECLOSED" Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of The Color Purple"I m spreading the word about Laura Gottesdiener s FINE book wherever I go and wherever I am. [It's] a wonderful book." Naomi Klein, author of "The Shock Doctrine""A riveting book." Ralph NaderLaura Gottesdiener has the acute eye and pen of a young progressive star with extraordinary talent. Her pages should grip you with motivational indignation." Johanna Fernandez professor in the Department of History at Baruch College From the time of their capture in Africa, through Emancipation and the Great Migration, to the national economic and housing crisis of today, people of African descent in the United States have been defined by their search for home. Using the dreams and aspirations of four families as her point of departure, Laura Gottesdiener narrates a beautifully crafted story about predatory lending, foreclosure abuse, the racial politics of home ownership, and the brave struggles launched by African American communities to keep their dignities and their homes. ... a powerful, impressive and page-turning testimony that ordinary people can fight back and win. Noam Chomsky The legislation to rescue the perpetrators of the current financial crisis included provisions for limited compensation to their victims...the enormity of the crime strikes home vividly in the heart-rending accounts of those who are brutally thrown out of their modest homes for African Americans particularly, almost all they have then survive in the streets, struggle on, and sometimes even regain something of what was stolen from them thanks to the courageous and inspiring work of the home liberation activists, now reinforced by the Occupy movement. All recounted with historical depth and analytic insight." Tim Wise A brilliant and needed narrative by an insightful and inspiring author. Clarence Lusane, author of "The Black History of the White House" [a] brilliant discourse on the battle over home and community by African Americans... [w]e owe Gottesdiener a great debt for her research and powerful argument that permeates A Dream Foreclosed. ... She takes sides in this battle and gives voice to those who are rarely if ever heard. Mumia Abu-Jamal, "Counterpunch" "A Dream Foreclosed" finds beauty amidst immense pain and sufferingthe beauty of people continuing to fight back against rapacious banks, the politicians they buy and the lawyers they hire. It is a work both beautiful and terrible that deserves to be read by many. Marc Lamont Hill, "Huffington Post Live""An incredible booka great set of stories being told hereand more importantly, a powerful narrative about the relationship between black people and ownership""

Cant - A Gentleman's Guide: The Language of Rogues in Georgian London


Stephen Hart - 2013
    This fascinating guide will teach you all you need to know about the vocabulary of the Rogues of Georgian London and how to function in society at the lowest level. Along the way you will acquire some much-needed information and advice on how to make false dice; how to pick pockets; how best to rob a man on a horse; and where to find a good cup of coffee at 3:00am in the morning.

Potluck Supper with Meeting to Follow: Essays


Andy Sturdevant - 2013
    Craigslist ads, homemade signs at Target Field, and alleyways all open up with possibilities for measuring cultural time and the resonance, not provincialism, of spaces closely observed. Published to coincide with Sturdevant's solo show at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Potluck Supper with Meeting to Follow reveals the essayist as pied piper and artist, whose canvas is the city.Andy Sturdevant is an artist, writer, and arts administrator living in south Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has written about art, history, and culture for a variety of Twin Cities–based publications and websites, including mnartists.org, Rain Taxi, Art Review, Preview!, Mpls.St.Paul, and heavytable.com. His essays have also appeared in publications of the Walker Art Center, and he writes a weekly column on arts and visual culture in Minneapolis–St. Paul for MinnPost. His work has been exhibited at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and The Soap Factory. Andy was born in Ohio, raised in Kentucky, and has lived in Minneapolis since 2005.

Grand Central Terminal: 100 Years of a New York Landmark: 100 Years of a New York Landmark


Anthony W. Robins - 2013
    Over the next century, it evolved into an unofficial town square for New York. Today, it sits astride Park Avenue at 42nd Street in all its original splendor, attracting visitors by the thousands. This new book celebrates Grand Central’s Centennial by tracing the Terminal’s history and design, and showcasing 200 photographs of its wonders—from the well-trodden Main Concourse to its massive power station hidden 10 stories below. The stunning photographs, some archival and some taken by Frank English, official photographer of Metro-North Railroad for more than 25 years, capture every corner of this astonishing complex.

Liquor, Lust and the Law: The Story of Vancouver's Legendary Penthouse Nightclub


Aaron Chapman - 2013
    Founded in 1947 by the Filippone family, the Penthouse became the place to see and be seen in Vancouver in the 1950s and '60s; acts like Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole, and Duke Ellington regularly performed on the Penthouse stage, and the venue was one of the few in town not only to welcome African American entertainers, but to lodge them as well, at a time when Vancouver hotels refused to. Audiences often included visiting stars such as Frank Sinatra, Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper, and many others.In the 1970s, the Penthouse became infamous for its exotic dancers, resulting in a colorful, lurid history involving vice squads, politicians, judges, and con men, and culminating in the murder of co-owner Joe Filippone in the Penthouse's office in 1983. However, through decades of evolving social mores and changing cultural styles in a city constantly trying to reinvent itself, the Penthouse has somehow survived, a testament to its storied history and the fortitude of the Filippone family that still owns it.Rife with nostalgia and just a hint of scandal, Liquor, Lust and the Law is a fascinating history of a Rat Pack-era nightclub that also reveals a darkly beautiful and slightly naughty view of Vancouver after dark.Aaron Chapman is a writer and musician with a special interest in entainment history. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Building Seagram


Phyllis Lambert - 2013
    Considered one of the greatest icons of twentieth-century architecture, the building was commissioned by Samuel Bronfman, founder of the Canadian distillery dynasty Seagram. Bronfman’s daughter Phyllis Lambert was twenty-seven years old when she took over the search for an architect and chose Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969), a pioneering modern master of what he termed “skin and bones” architecture. Mies, who designed the elegant, deceptively simple thirty-eight-story tower along with Philip Johnson (1906–2005), emphasized the beauty of structure and fine materials, and set the building back from the avenue, creating an urban oasis with the building’s plaza. Through her choice, Lambert established her role as a leading architectural patron and singlehandedly changed the face of American urban architecture.Building Seagram is a comprehensive personal and scholarly history of a major building and its architectural, cultural, and urban legacies. Lambert makes use of previously unpublished personal archives, company correspondence, and photographs to tell an insider’s view of the debates, resolutions, and unknown dramas of the building’s construction, as well as its crucial role in the history of modern art and architectural culture.

Azizi and the Little Blue Bird


Laïla Koubaa - 2013
    The people suffer and live in fear, until one day a little blue bird escapes from the cage. Together with Azizi it sets out on a long journey to free the people of their cruel and relentless rulers. A contemporary fairytale that meets the demand for more culturally diverse picture books in an increasingly multicultural society

Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City


Robert A.M. Stern - 2013
    These bucolic settings offered an ideal lifestyle typically outside the city but accessible by streetcar, train, and automobile.   Today, the principles of the garden city movement are once again in play, as retrofitting the suburbs has become a central issue in planning. Strategies are emerging that reflect the goals of garden suburbs in creating metropolitan communities that embrace both the intensity of the city and the tranquility of nature.   Paradise Planned is the comprehensive, encyclopedic record of this movement, a vital contribution to architectural and planning history and an essential recourse for guiding the repair of the American townscape.

Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction


Alastair Gordon - 2013
    Growing up on the beaches of Florida, Gifford forged a deep connection with coastal landscapes. Pairing this sensitivity with jazzy improvisations on modernist themes, he perfected a sustainable modernism in cedar and glass that was as attuned to natural landscapes as to our animal natures. Gifford's serene 1960s pavilions provided refuge from a hostile world, while his exuberant post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS masterpieces orchestrated bacchanals of liberation. Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift once spurned Hollywood limos for the rustic charm of Fire Island's boardwalks. Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's here. Diane von Furstenburg showed off her latest wrap dresses to an audience that included Halston, Giorgio Sant' Angelo, Calvin Klein and Geoffrey Beene. Today, such a roster evokes the aloof, gated compounds of the Hamptons or Malibu. But these celebrities lived in modestly scaled homes alongside middle-class vacationers, all with equal access to Fire Island's natural beauty. Blending cultural and architectural history, Fire Island Modernist ponders a fascinating era through an overlooked architect whose life, work and colorful milieu trace the operatic arc of a lost generation, and still resonate with artistic and historical import.

Madam Walker Theatre Center: An Indianapolis Treasure


A'Lelia Perry Bundles - 2013
    This new headquarters of the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, with its terra-cotta trimmed facade, was to be more than corporate offices and a factory for what then was one of America's most successful black businesses. In fact, it was designed as "a city within a city," with an African Art Deco theater, ballroom, restaurant, drugstore, beauty salon, beauty school, and medical offices. Generations of African American families met for Sunday dinner at the Coffee Pot, enjoyed first-run movies and live performances in the Walker Theatre, and hosted dances in the Casino. Today, this National Historic Landmark is an arts center anchoring the Indiana Avenue Cultural District.

City Abandoned: Charting the Loss of Civic Institutions in Philadelphia


Vincent David Feldman - 2013
    Some of his subjects have succumbed to neglect or demolition (the Ridge Avenue Farmers' Market, for example); some have been successfully rehabilitated to new uses (the Victory Building); while others remain in limbo in their ruined states—their futures far from secure.Yet besides recording the current state of the buildings, Feldman's photographs can play an active role in their preservation and renovation. His photos can serve, not only as documentary records, but also as catalysts for the rescue and rehabilitation of some of Philadelphia's most significant and neglected "abandoned" city architecture."By focusing on buildings that embody the civic aspirations of decades past and by portraying them in such stark terms, Vincent Feldman has created a body of work that is a vivid reminder of the fragile nature of what we have inherited and the need to remain ever diligent in its preservation."—John Andrew Gallery, "On Vincent Feldman's Philadelphia""[Feldman's] images move us to a deeper feeling and understanding of the city, as they pose important questions about our stewardship and the city's future. It's the story of a city on the edge, and we're glad to be along for this freeze-frame journey of photographic brinksmanship."—Kenneth Finkel, "Looking at the Past""By inviting you to look carefully at buildings from Philadelphia's past, I hope to promote inquiry about our history and also to inspire thoughtful discussion about what we might do for our future."—Vincent D. Feldman, from his Introduction"[Vincent] Feldman is not the kind of photographer who shoots and runs. An old-school craftsman, he uses a large-format view camera much like the one Mathew Brady hauled around to record the devastation of the Civil War. Feldman then retreats to the darkroom to print his images on paper, rendering them with such precision that bricks and stones appear to leap from the page in three-dimensional relief."—Inga Saffron, Philadelphia InquirerThe Wall Street Journal writes that the images of City Abandoned are "a melancholy catalog of such civic failures. In understated compositions that transcend merely local appeal, [Feldman] documents schools, theaters, hotels and churches left to deteriorate even as Philadelphia's downtown has boomed."Vincent D. Feldman, a lifelong resident of Philadelphia, has been photographing architecture and the urban landscape for three decades. In the early 1990s his photography came to concentrate on the conflicts and questions that often surround historic buildings in Philadelphia. Feldman's photography helps uncover the stories attached to buildings, thus revealing the nature of the societies in which these structures were built—and then neglected.Feldman received a Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 2001. His work is held in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and in museums and private collections internationally. He is a Master Lecturer in photography at the University of the Arts.

Houston Rap


Lance Scott Walker - 2013
    Photographer Peter Beste (photographer of "True Norwegian Black Metal") and writer Lance Scott Walker spent nine years documenting the most influential style in twenty-first-century hip hop and the vibrant inner city culture from which it stems. "Houston Rap," edited by Johan Kugelberg, profiles noted artists such as Bun B of UGK, Z-Ro, Big Mike, K-Rino, Willie D of the Geto Boys, Lil' Troy and Paul Wall, alongside reflections on the lives of departed legends such as DJ Screw, Pimp C and Big Hawk. The book also features community leaders, rappers, producers, businessmen and family members, all providing an astonishing and important insight into a great American cultural narrative. In addition to featuring Beste's previously unseen images of the contemporary Houston rap scene, "Houston Rap" includes a detailed timeline charting the growth of rap music in Houston from its origins to the present.

The Changs Next Door to the Díazes: Remapping Race in Suburban California


Wendy Cheng - 2013
    suburbs are typically imagined to be predominantly white communities, but this is increasingly untrue in many parts of the country. Examining a multiracial suburb that is decidedly nonwhite, Wendy Cheng unpacks questions of how identity—especially racial identity—is shaped by place. She offers an in-depth portrait, enriched by nearly seventy interviews, of the San Gabriel Valley, not far from downtown Los Angeles, where approximately 60 percent of residents are Asian American and more than 30 percent are Latino. At first glance, the cities of the San Gabriel Valley look like stereotypical suburbs, but almost no one who lives there is white.The Changs Next Door to the Díazes reveals how a distinct culture is being fashioned in, and simultaneously reshaping, an environment of strip malls, multifamily housing, and faux Mediterranean tract homes. Informed by her interviews as well as extensive analysis of three episodic case studies, Cheng argues that people’s daily experiences—in neighborhoods, schools, civic organizations, and public space—deeply influence their racial consciousness. In the San Gabriel Valley, racial ideologies are being reformulated by these encounters. Cheng views everyday landscapes as crucial terrains through which racial hierarchies are learned, instantiated, and transformed. She terms the process “regional racial formation,” through which locally accepted racial orders and hierarchies complicate and often challenge prevailing notions of race.There is a place-specific state of mind here, Cheng finds. Understanding the processes of racial formation in the San Gabriel Valley in the contemporary moment is important in itself but also has larger value as a model for considering the spatial dimensions of racial formation and the significant demographic shifts taking place across the national landscape.

Design for an Empathic World: Reconnecting People, Nature, and Self


Sim Van der Ryn - 2013
    The US green building market has expanded dramatically since 2008 and is projected to double in size by 2015 (from $42 billion in construction starts to $135 billion). But green-building pioneer Sim Van der Ryn says, “greening” our buildings is not enough.  He advocates for “empathic design”, in which a designer not only works in concert with nature, but with an understanding of and empathy for the end user and for ones self.  It is not just one of these connections, but all three that are necessary to design for a future that is more humane, equitable, and resilient. Sim’s lifelong focus has been in shifting the paradigm in architecture and design. Instead of thinking about design primarily in relation to the infrastructure we live in and with—everything from buildings to wireless routing—he advocates for a focus on the people who use and are affected by this infrastructure. Basic design must include a real understanding of human ecology or end-user preferences. Understanding ones motivations and spirituality, Sim believes, is critical to designing with empathy for natural and human communities. In Design for an Empathic World Van der Ryn shares his thoughts and experience about the design of our world today. With a focus on the strengths and weaknesses in our approach to the design of our communities, regions, and buildings he looks at promising trends and projects that demonstrate how we can help create a better world for others and ourselves. Architects, urban designers, and students of architecture will all enjoy this beautifully illustrated book drawing on a rich and revered career of a noted leader in their field. The journey described in Design for an Empathic World will help to inspire change and foster the collaboration and thoughtfulness necessary to achieve a more empathic future.

Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City


Gordon Young - 2013
    Hoping to rediscover and help a place that once boasted one of the world’s highest per capita income levels, but is now one of the country's most impoverished and dangerous cities, he returned to Flint with the intention of buying a house. What he found was a place of stark contrasts and dramatic stories, where an exotic dancer can afford a lavish mansion, speculators scoop up cheap houses by the dozen on eBay, and arson is often the quickest route to neighborhood beautification.Skillfully blending personal memoir, historical inquiry, and interviews with Flint residents, Young constructs a vibrant tale of a once-thriving city still fighting—despite overwhelming odds—to rise from the ashes. He befriends a rag-tag collection of urban homesteaders and die-hard locals who refuse to give up as they try to transform Flint into a smaller, greener town that offers lessons for cities all over the world. Hard-hitting, insightful, and often painfully funny, Teardown reminds us that cities are ultimately defined by people, not politics or economics. Read an excerpt here: Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City by Gorfon Young by University of California PressLearn more: http://www.teardownbook.com/

Nairn's Towns


Ian Nairn - 2013
    In each of them, there are several things happening at once – assessments of historic townscape, capsule reviews of new buildings, attempts to find the specific character of each place…”Sixteen short essays on places as varied as Glasgow and Norwich, Llanidloes and Sheffield, by the finest English architectural writer of the twentieth century. ‘Nairn invented a way of looking, a way of writing.’ — Jonathan Meades‘Nairn’s emergence as a maverick, inspiring figure in midtwentieth century architectural writing (and broadcasting) was sudden, and his claim on the public’s attention all too brief . . . On a good day he could turn phrases like an angel and gave his readers, listeners and viewers insights others could only dream of. And he did this by ignoring all differences between high- and low-brow, between aristocracy and working class, between fine art and fine engineering.’ – Gillian Darley, AA FilesIan Nairn (1930–1983) made his name with a special issue of the Architectural Review in which he coined the term ‘Subtopia’ for the areas around cities that had been failed by urban planning. He was largely responsible for the volumes on Surrey and Sussex in Nikolaus Pevsner’s Buildings of England series, and published two guidebooks, Nairn’s London (1966) and Nairn’s Paris (1968), as well as presenting several BBC television series. His work has influenced writers as diverse as J. G. Ballard, Will Self, Iain Sinclair and Patrick Wright.Owen Hatherley is the author of the acclaimed Militant Modernism, a defence of the modernist movement, and A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain. He writes regularly for a variety of publications, including Building Design, Frieze, the Guardian and the New Statesman. He blogs on political aesthetics at nastybrutalistandshort.blogspot.com.

The City as a Project


Pier Vittorio Aureli - 2013
    This collection of essays, edited by Pier Vittorio Aureli, makes the case for the opposite hypothesis: The city is always the result of political intention, often in the form of specific architectural projects. Cities are shaped not only by material forces, but also by cultural and didactic visions. This thesis is substantiated by eight thoroughly researched essays scrutinizing a fascinating line-up of urban conditions across more than two thousands years of history: from the political theology of the Islamic city to the political economy of Renaissance architecture; from the rise of public architecture in 17th-century France to the laissez-faire development of the contemporary Greek city; from the exemplary teachings of Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand to the collaborative work of Hannes Meyer; and from the plan of the Mesoamerican metropolis to that of the Fordist factory floor. In challenging the split between theory and practice, The City as a Project reveals the powerful ways in which the city arises from the constant interaction between ideas and spatial conditions.

New Orleans: Days and nights in the dreamy city


Mary Fitzpatrick - 2013
    From celebrities like John Stirratt of WILCO, David Simon of "Tremé," and the mumblecore Duplass Brothers to the powder room attendant at Brennan’s, the Harley-Davidson dealer, the pediatrician, nanny, silversmith, developer, and homeless drifter who was a fixture on Julia Street for four decades, there’s a corner of New Orleans for everybody. Days and Nights in the Dreamy City takes you around the clock and in and out of your comfort zone.

Urban Smellscapes: Understanding and Designing City Smell Environments


Victoria Henshaw - 2013
    Scent has unique qualities: ubiquity, persistence, and an unparalleled connection to memory, yet it has gone overlooked in discussions of sensory design. What scents shape the city? How does scent contribute to placemaking? How do we design smell environments in the city?Urban Smellscapes makes a notable contribution towards the growing body of literature on the senses and design by providing some answers to these questions and contributing towards the wider research agenda regarding how people sensually experience urban environments. It is the first of its kind in examining the role of smell specifically in contemporary experiences and perceptions of English towns and cities, highlighting the perception of urban smellscapes as inter-related with place perception, and describing odour s contribution towards overall sense of place. Additionally, this book identifies processes by which urban smell environments are managed and controlled, also introducing tools to assist in designing urban smell environments, without reliance upon scenting practices alone.

Projective Ecologies (Cancelled)


Chris Reed - 2013
    The field of ecology has movedfrom classical determinism and a reductionistNewtonian concern with stability, certainty, and order in favor of more contemporaryunderstandings of dynamic systemic change andthe related phenomena of adaptability, resilience, and flexibility.But ecology is not simply a project of thenatural sciences. Researchers, theorists, socialcommentators, and designers have all usedecology as a broader idea or metaphor for a setof conditions and relationships with political, economic, and social implications.Projective Ecologies takes stock of the diversity ofcontemporary ecological research and theory--embracing Felix Guattari's broader definitionof ecology as at once environmental, social, and existential--and speculates on potentialpaths forward for design practices. Where areecological thinking and theory now? What docurrent trajectories of research suggest for futurepractice? How can advances in ecological researchand modeling, in social theory, and in digitalvisualization inform, with greater rigor, morerobust design thinking and practice?New original essays by Peter Del Tredici, Erle Ellis, Christopher Hight, Sanford Kwinter, Sean Lally, Nina-Marie Lister, Chris Reed, Jane WolffReprinted/excerpted essays by Robert Cook, David Fletcher, Richard T.T. Forman, C.S. Holling.With drawings by, Gross.MAX, James CornerField Operations, Sean Lally, Anuradha Mathurand Dilip DaCunha, OMA, Stoss LandscapeUrbanism, West 8.

The Rise of the Chicago Police Department: Class and Conflict, 1850-1894


Sam Mitrani - 2013
    Chicago was roiling with political and economic conflict, much of it rooted in class tensions, and the city's lawmakers and business elite fostered the growth of a professional municipal police force to protect capitalism, its assets, and their own positions in society. Together with city policymakers, the business elite united behind an ideology of order that would simultaneously justify the police force's existence and dictate its functions. Tracing the Chicago police department's growth through events such as the 1855 Lager Beer riot, the Civil War, the May Day strikes, the 1877 railroad workers strike and riot, and the Haymarket violence in 1886, Mitrani demonstrates that this ideology of order both succeeded and failed in its aims. Recasting late nineteenth-century Chicago in terms of the struggle over order, this insightful history uncovers the modern police department's role in reconciling democracy with industrial capitalism.

Against the smart city (The city is here for you to use)


Adam Greenfield - 2013
    As promoted by enterprises like IBM, Siemens and Cisco Systems, the vision of the "smart city" proposes that this technology can be harnessed by municipal administrators to achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency,security, convenience and sustainability. But a closer look at what this body of ideas actually consists of suggests that such a city will not, and cannot, serve the interests of the people who live in it. In this pamphlet, Everyware author Adam Greenfield explores the ways in which this discourse treats the city as an abstraction, misunderstands (or even undermines) the processes that truly do generate meaning and value — and winds up making many of the same blunders that doomed the High Modernist urban planning of the twentieth century. “Against the smart city” provides an intellectual toolkit for those of us interested in resisting this sterile and unappealing vision, and lays important groundwork for the far more fruitful alternatives to come.

The Art of the Watchdog: Fighting Fraud, Waste, Abuse, and Corruption in Government


Daniel L. Feldman - 2013
    Feldman and David R. Eichenthal show how to fight back. Based on their own work in federal, state, and local government over the last forty years, they will arm you with the tools and techniques needed to put the spotlight on those who cheat and steal from the public or who squander valuable taxpayer dollars through waste and inefficiency. At the same time, Feldman and Eichenthal outline what they see as the good and the bad of current oversight efforts based on case studies from across the nation. Ultimately their goal is to ensure that the "art of the watchdog" does not become a lost one and to improve the quality and integrity of government and strengthen democracy.

Masterplanning the Adaptive City: Computational Urbanism in the Twenty-First Century


Tom Verebes - 2013
    Practitioners and researchers here discuss ideas from the fields of architecture, urbanism, the natural sciences, computer science, economics, and mathematics to find solutions for managing urban change in Asia and developing countries throughout the world. Divided into four parts (historical and theoretical background, our current situation, methodologies, and prototypical practices), the book includes a series of essays, interviews, built case studies, and original research to accompany chapters written by editor Tom Verebes to give you the most comprehensive overview of this approach.Essays by Marina Lathouri, Jorge Fiori, Jonathan Solomon, Patrik Schumacher, Peter Trummer, and David Jason Gerber.Interviews with Dana Cuff, Xu Wei Guo, Matthew Prior, Tom Barker, Su Yunsheng, and Brett Steele.Built case studies by Zaha Hadid Architects, James Corner Field Operations, XWG Studio, MAD, OCEAN Consultancy Network, Plasma Studio, Groundlab, Peter Trummer, Serie Architects, dotA, and Rocker-Lange Architects.

Black Citymakers: How the Philadelphia Negro Changed Urban America


Marcus Anthony Hunter - 2013
    DuBois immortalized Philadelphia's Black Seventh Ward neighborhood, one of America's oldest urban black communities, in his 1899 sociological study The Philadelphia Negro. In the century after DuBois's study, however, the district has been transformed into a largely white upper middleclass neighborhood.Black Citymakers revisits the Black Seventh Ward, documenting a century of banking and tenement collapses, housing activism, black-led anti-urban renewal mobilization, and post-Civil Rights political change from the perspective of the Black Seventh Warders. Drawing on historical, political, andsociological research, Marcus Hunter argues that black Philadelphians were by no means mere casualties of the large scale social and political changes that altered urban dynamics across the nation after World War II. Instead, Hunter shows that black Americans framed their own understandings of urbansocial change, forging dynamic inter- and intra-racial alliances that allowed them to shape their own migration from the old Black Seventh Ward to emergent black urban enclaves throughout Philadelphia. These Philadelphians were not victims forced from their homes - they were citymakers and agents ofurban change.Black Citymakers explores a century of socioeconomic, cultural, and political history in the Black Seventh Ward, creating a new understanding of the political agency of black residents, leaders and activists in twentieth century urban change.

Houses without Names: Architectural Nomenclature and the Classification of America’s Common Houses


Thomas C. Hubka - 2013
    Many of the 80 million homes in the United Statestoday have only loose-fitting, general names like ranch, duplex, bungalow, and flat.Most, however, cannot even be identified by these common names, much less by anarchitectural type such as Colonial, Italianate, or Queen Anne. The few regionallyrecognized vernacular terms— shotgun, Cape (Cod), three-decker, and the like—remainexceptions rather than the rule. In this innovative, copiously illustrated guide, Thomas C.Hubka considers why most ordinary, working-class houses lack an adequate identifyingnomenclature and proposes new ways to name and classify these anonymous structures,shedding a fresh light on their role in the development of American domestic culture andits housing landscape.Popular, developer-built, tract, speculative, everyday—whatever they are called,these common homes constitute the largest portion of American housing in all regionsand historic periods. Without classification, these dwellings tend to be left out of historiesof American building, neglected in preservation surveys and plans, and ignored when itcomes to considering their impact on American culture. Current methods of interpretingcommon houses need not be replaced, Hubka shows, but only modified to include abroader, more complete spectrum of common dwellings. As Hubka explains, by applyingan order of census and a floor-plan analysis, scholars can adequately characterizethe actual homes in which most Americans live, particularly in recent times after thewidespread growth of suburban homes.Based on years of field observations, measured drawings, and surveys of regionalhouse types, this handbook provides a working vocabulary for the study and appreciationof America¹s common houses and will prove useful to preservationists, academics, andarchitects, as well as owners and residents of America¹s most ubiquitous residences.

Good Night Central Park


Adam Gamble - 2013
    Each book stars a multicultural group of people visiting the featured area's attractions and rhythmic language guides children through the passage of both a single day and the four seasons while saluting the iconic aspects of each place. From the statues to the street performers, the most interesting aspects and features of Central Park are explored in the colorful book, including the zoo, the various pools and ponds, Lasker Pool and Rink, and the Conservatory Garden. Visitors to the Big Apple or children that call New York City home will love reading about the famous urban park.

Talk That Music Talk


Bruce Sunpie Barnes - 2013
    This life history and photography project explores the traditional methods of teaching brass band music in the city that gave birth to jazz. Through in-depth interviews, the bands, social and pleasure clubs, schools, churches, and other neighborhood institutions that have supported the music, and the spirit embodied in it, come to life.

Good Cities, Better Lives: How Europe Discovered the Lost Art of Urbanism


Peter Geoffrey Hall - 2013
    Social inequalities and regional disparities show little sign of going away. Efforts to generate growth, and spread it to the poorer areas of cities, have failed dismally. Much new urban development and redevelopment is not up to standard. Yet there are cities in mainland Europe, which have set new standards of high-quality sustainable urban development. This book looks at these best-practice examples - in Germany, the Netherlands, France and Scandinavia, - and suggests ways in which the UK and other countries could do the same.The book is in three parts. Part 1 analyses the main issues for urban planning and development - in economic development and job generation, sustainable development, housing policy, transport and development mechanisms - and probes how practice in the UK has fallen short.Part Two embarks on a tour of best-practice cities in Europe, starting in Germany with the country's boosting of its cities' economies, moving to the spectacularly successful new housing developments in the Netherlands, from there to France's integrated city transport, then to Scandinavia's pursuit of sustainability for its cities, and finally back to Germany, to Freiburg - the city that 'did it all'.Part Three sums up the lessons of Part Two and sets out the key steps needed to launch a new wave of urban development and regeneration on a radically different basis.

Street Fight: The Politics of Mobility in San Francisco


Jason Henderson - 2013
    In the United States a loosely organized livability movement seeks to reduce car use by reconfiguring urban space into denser, transit-oriented, walkable forms, a development pattern also associated with smart growth and new urbanism. Through a detailed case study of San Francisco, Jason Henderson examines how this is not just a struggle over what type of transportation is best for the city, but a series of ideologically charged political fights over issues of street space, public policy, and social justice.Historically San Francisco has hosted many activist demonstrations over its streets, from the freeway revolts of the 1960s to the first Critical Mass bicycle rides decades later. Today the city's planning and advocacy establishment is changing zoning laws to limit the number of parking spaces, encouraging new car-free housing near transit stations, and applying "transit first" policies, such as restricted bus lanes. Yet Henderson warns that the city's accomplishments should not be romanticized. Despite significant gains by livability advocates, automobiles continue to dominate the streets, and the city's financially strained bus system is slow and often unreliable.Both optimistic and cautionary, Henderson argues that ideology must be understood as part of the struggle for sustainable cities and that three competing points of view -- progressive, neoliberal, and conservative -- have come to dominate the contemporary discourse about urban mobility. Consistent with its iconic role as an incubator of environmental, labor, civil rights, and peace movements, San Francisco offers a compelling example of how the debate over sustainable urban transportation may unfold both in the United States and globally.

Completing Our Streets: The Transition to Safe and Inclusive Transportation Networks


Barbara McCann - 2013
    They have discovered that changing the design of a single street is not enough: they must upend the way transportation agencies operate. Completing Our Streets begins with the story of how the complete streets movement united bicycle riders, transportation practitioners and agencies, public health leaders, older Americans, and smart growth advocates to dramatically re-frame the discussion of transportation safety. Next, it explores why the transportation field has been so resistant to change—and how the movement has broken through to create a new multi-modal approach. In Completing Our Streets, Barbara McCann, founder of the National Complete Streets Coalition, explains that the movement is not about street design. Instead, practitioners and activists have changed the way projects are built by focusing on three strategies: reframe the conversation; build a broad base of political support; and provide a clear path to a multi-modal process. McCann shares stories of practitioners in cities and towns from Charlotte, North Carolina to Colorado Springs, Colorado who have embraced these strategies to fundamentally change the way transportation projects are chosen, planned, and built. The complete streets movement is based around a simple idea: streets should be safe for people of all ages and abilities, whether they are walking, driving, bicycling, or taking the bus. Completing Our Streets gives practitioners and activists the strategies, tools, and inspiration needed to translate this idea into real and lasting change in their communities.

The City as Interface: How Digital Media Are Changing the City


Martijn de Waal - 2013
    Few would deny the convenient and engaging nature of new media. But, probing deeper, de Waal delves into how the rise of these "urban media" also presents an important philosophical issue: how do they affect how the city functions as a community? Employing examples of new media implementations as well as historical case studies, the author shows how these emerging technologies contribute to both the individualization or liberation and the fragmentation of urban society. Most importantly, he also outlines an alternative scenario in which digital media may enable a new definition of the urban public sphere, reinvigorating the classical republican ideal of the city as an open, democratic "community of strangers."

San Francisco Then and Now (Compact)


Christopher Klein - 2013
    The Golden Gate Theatre was once home to vaudeville classics--and its tradition of staging remarkable performances continues today with the latest hits from Broadway. See how much--and how little--this vibrant city by the bay has changed in San Francisco Then and Now.Fans of the foggy city can take a tour of bustling Fisherman’s Wharf, roll down the crookedest street in the world, and hop on a cable car in this completely revised and updated compact edition of San Francisco Then and Now. Historic sites and landmarks are shown in stunning modern and vintage photos, accompanied by informative text about the city’s history. From Haight-Ashbury’s Summer of Love in 1967 to its more gentrified look today, from Alcatraz operating as a prison in the 1930s to its current incarnation as a tourist attraction, readers can leave their hearts in San Francisco without ever leaving home.

Pump Me Up: DC Subculture of the 1980s


Roger Gastman - 2013
    and is released in conjunction with an upcoming exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, curated by Roger Gastman.