This almost overwhelming accumulation of words and images illuminates the condition of architecture today--its splendors and miseries--exploring and revealing the corrosive effects of politics, context, the economy, and globalization. In some ways, this is the "Medium is the Message" of 1990s architectural discourse: guaranteed to be hugely influential in the coming decades, but grossly misunderstood by those who have not read it. The core arguments it makes about metropolitan architecture--accepting complexity and lack of centralized control--are similar to those of Kevin Kelly's Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World. Very highly recommended.

    His writings reveal the powerful insight and dispassionate, authoritative intelligence that mark him as one of the preeminent architectural thinkers of this perplexing half century.Divided into three volumes, in more or less chronological order, As I Was Saying includes articles, essays, eulogies, lectures, reviews, and memoranda. Some appeared only in obscure journals, and many are published here for the first time.

    Does anything remain of the old city?The internationally known Japanese architectural historian Jinnai Hidenobu set out on foot to rediscover the city of Tokyo. Armed with old maps, he wandered through back alleys and lanes, trying to experience the city's space as it had been lived by earlier residents. He found that, despite an almost completely new cityscape, present-day inhabitants divide Tokyo's space in much the same way that their ancestors did two hundred years before.Jinnai's holistic perspective is enhanced by his detailing of how natural, topographical features were incorporated into the layout of the city. A variety of visual documents (maps from the Tokugawa and Meiji periods, building floorplans, woodblock prints, photographs) supplement his observations. While an important work for architects and historians, this unusual book will also attract armchair travelers and anyone interested in the symbolic uses of space.(A translation of Tokyo no kûkan jinruigaku.)

    He is rare among elected officials as a thoughtful interpreter of and commentator on the nature of citizenship and political responsibility; even more rare, he is a fluent and engaging writer. The Good City and the Good Life is a wide-ranging discussion of democracy as a human enterprise. Kemmis uses personal experience and the experience of other cities and citizens in exploring key issues before the public. These issues include economic growth and development, education, health, and cultural life, from hometown Missoula to Baltimore, Dallas, and Seattle in the United States, to Germany and Japan in looking around the world. Though laced with references to literature, philosophy, history, and the work of important contemporary urbanologists, this is a down-to-earth and deeply felt work intended to reach out to all levels in a society concerned about its future