Best of
Urbanism

2008

Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives


Carolyn Steel - 2008
    Yet few eaters are conscious of the processes that are required to bring food into a metropolis. This original and revolutionary study examines the way in which modern food production has damaged the balance of human existence, and reveals a centuries-old dilemma that holds the key to a host of current problems, among them obesity, the inexorable rise of the supermarkets, and the destruction of the natural world. The rise and impact of such American hallmarks as industrialized food and meat production, the supermarket, fast food restaurant chains, and processed edibles on city life is examined alongside the historical roots and the contemporary issues at each stage of the food cycle, from farm to plate to landfill. Original and inspiring, this is a warning call to the waste and destruction caused by today’s food systems, and a guide to correcting its errors.

Sou Fujimoto - Primitive Future (English and Japanese Edition)


Sou Fujimoto - 2008
    This volume, the first in a new contemporary architecture series, presents his manifesto for architecture and in so doing showcases the architect's works and projects to date. Recently realized buildings, such as the T-House' and House O' are presented alongside designs, sketches and models of unrealized works and competition entries.

On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change


Ada Louise Huxtable - 2008
    Her keen eye and vivid writing have reinforced to readers how important architecture is and why it continues to be both controversial and fascinating.In her new book--which gathers together the best of her writing, from one of her first pieces in the New York Times in 1962 on le Corbusier's Carpenter Center at Harvard, to essays in the New York Review of Books, to more recent writing in the Wall Street Journal--Huxtable bears witness to some of the twentieth century's best--and worst--architectural masters and projects.With a perspective of more than four decades, Huxtable examines the century's modernist beginnings and then turns her critic's eye to the seismic shift in style, function, and fashion that occurred midcentury--all leading to a dramatic new architecture of the twenty-first century. Much of the writing in On Architecture has never appeared in book form before, and Huxtable's many admirers will be delighted to once again have access to her elegant, impassioned opinions, insights, and wisdom."Looking back, I realize that my career covered an extraordinary period of change, that I was writing at a time in which architecture was changing slowly but radically--a time when everything about modernism was being incrementally questioned and rejected as we moved into a new kind of thinking and building." And while it was a quiet, nearly stealth revolution, it was a absolutely a revolution in which the past was reaccepted and reincorporated, periods and styles ignored by modernism were reexamined and reevaluated. History and theory, once considered irrelevant, became central to the practice of architecture again."

The Endless City


Ricky Burdett - 2008
    It includes a wealth of material that has emerged from a sequence of six conferences held by influential figures in the field of urban development and its related disciplines, and examines the requisite tools for creating a thriving modern city. The book has been edited by Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic in collaboration with one of the most important educational institutions in this field, the London School of Economics, which assures that the information and data provided is reliable, accurate and informed. Taking 6 key cities as its focal point: New York, Shanghai, London, Mexico City, Johannesburg and Berlin, The Endless City discusses in depth not only the infrastructure and architectural expansion necessary for continuous urban growth, but also the social and economic factors that are critical to urban development in the 21st century. Clearly organised into separate sections for each city, the book will have a strong visual impact and make detailed scholarly research straightforward and manageable. Images of each city will complement the discussions and enrich the discussion presented in the text.With contributions by experts in urban development, this book will appeal to architects, city planners, economists, students, politicians and anyone with an interest in the future of our cities.

Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City


Peter D. Norton - 2008
    By 1930, most streets were primarily a motor thoroughfares where children did not belong and where pedestrians were condemned as "jaywalkers." In Fighting Traffic, Peter Norton argues that to accommodate automobiles, the American city required not only a physical change but also a social one: before the city could be reconstructed for the sake of motorists, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as places where motorists belonged. It was not an evolution, he writes, but a bloody and sometimes violent revolution. Norton describes how street users struggled to define and redefine what streets were for. He examines developments in the crucial transitional years from the 1910s to the 1930s, uncovering a broad anti-automobile campaign that reviled motorists as "road hogs" or "speed demons" and cars as "juggernauts" or "death cars." He considers the perspectives of all users--pedestrians, police (who had to become "traffic cops"), street railways, downtown businesses, traffic engineers (who often saw cars as the problem, not the solution), and automobile promoters. He finds that pedestrians and parents campaigned in moral terms, fighting for "justice." Cities and downtown businesses tried to regulate traffic in the name of "efficiency." Automotive interest groups, meanwhile, legitimized their claim to the streets by invoking "freedom"--a rhetorical stance of particular power in the United States. Fighting Traffic offers a new look at both the origins of the automotive city in America and how social groups shape technological change.Peter D. Norton is Assistant Professor in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at the University of Virginia.

The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles


Kazys Varnelis - 2008
    Infrastructure has ceased to support architecture's plans for the city. This provocative collection looks at infrastructure as a way of mapping residents' place in the city, remaining optimistic about the role of architecture to affect change.

Designing the High Line: Gansevoort Street to 30th Street


Adrian Benepe - 2008
    This full-color book includes design renderings, maps, and photographs depicting the High Line from its construction in the 1930s through its current re-construction into New York City's most-anticipated new public space.About Friends of the High LineFriends of the High Line is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and reuse of the High Line, a 1.5-mile-long historic elevated rail structure on the West Side of Manhattan. Visit www.thehighline.org for more information.

Nurturing Dreams: Collected Essays on Architecture and the City


Fumihiko Maki - 2008
    Influenced by post-Bauhaus internationalism, sympathetic to the radical urban architectural vision of Team X, and a participant in the avant-garde movement Metabolism, Maki has been at the forefront of his profession for decades. This collection of essays documents the evolution of architectural modernism and Maki's own fifty-year intellectual journey during a critical period of architectural and urban history.Maki's treatment of his two overarching themes -- the contemporary city and modernist architecture -- demonstrates strong (and sometimes unexpected) linkages between urban theory and architectural practice. Images and commentary on three of Maki's own works demonstrate the connection between his writing and his designs. Moving through the successive waves of modernism, postmodernism, neomodernism, and other isms, these essays reflect how several generations of architectural thought and expression have been resolved within one career.

New York for Sale: Community Planning Confronts Global Real Estate


Tom Angotti - 2008
    Most of these were developed during fierce struggles against gentrification, displacement, and environmental hazards, and most got little or no support from government. In fact, community-based plans in New York far outnumber the land use plans produced by government agencies. In New York for Sale, Tom Angotti tells some of the stories of community planning in New York City: how activists moved beyond simple protests and began to formulate community plans to protect neighborhoods against urban renewal, real estate mega-projects, gentrification, and environmental hazards. Angotti, both observer of and longtime participant in New York community planning, focuses on the close relationships among community planning, political strategy, and control over land. After describing the political economy of New York City real estate, its close ties to global financial capital, and the roots of community planning in social movements and community organizing, Angotti turns to specifics. He tells of two pioneering plans forged in reaction to urban renewal plans (including the first community plan in the city, the 1961 Cooper Square Alternate Plan -- a response to a Robert Moses urban renewal scheme); struggles for environmental justice, including battles over incinerators, sludge, and garbage; plans officially adopted by the city; and plans dominated by powerful real estate interests. Finally, Angotti proposes strategies for progressive, inclusive community planning not only for New York City but for anywhere that neighborhoods want to protect themselves and their land. New York for Sale teaches the empowering lesson that community plans can challenge market-driven development even in global cities with powerful real estate industries

I.M. Pei: Complete Works


Philip Jodidio - 2008
    M. Pei was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1983, the jury said he had "given this century some of its most beautiful interior spaces and exterior forms." I. M. Pei: Complete Works, the first and definitive survey of the master architect, attests to this statement by showcasing Pei’s transcendent, sculptural forms in over fifty projects and more than 300 illustrations, culminating in the last works he is currently completing. Often working in a spare geometry with a palette of stone, concrete, glass, and steel, Pei—who began his career pioneering public housing projects in New York City—has taken his vision of modern architecture across the globe with commissions in locations as diverse as Quatar, China, Luxembourg, Japan, and Germany. Meanwhile, major projects such as the JFK Library in Boston and the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., have made him a household name in the United States.

Arabic-Islamic Cities: Building and Planning Principles


Besim S. Hakim - 2008
    Sources were used that date back to the fourteenth century and earlier. Although the study is embedded in the Arab-Islamic culture of North Africa and the Middle East, its implications are universal particularly in light of scientific discoveries of natural processes and the underlying principles of complexity theory and the processes that bring about emergence. Generative processes that shaped urban form are clearly demonstrated in the book. The study also sheds light on the implications of responsibility allocation to the various parties who are involved in the development process and the resulting patterns of decision-making that affect change and growth in the built environment. All of these issues are of significance when trying to understand the concepts that relate to various aspects of sustainability, the future potential of eco-cities, and the nature of policies and programs that are required for the immediate present and for the future. This work is a major contribution for enhancing the theories and practice of urban planning and design.

Branding New York: How a City in Crisis Was Sold to the World


Miriam Greenberg - 2008
    Greenberg addresses the role of "image" in urban history, showing who produces brands and how, and demonstrates the enormous consequences of branding. She shows that the branding of New York was not simply a marketing tool; rather it was a political strategy meant to legitimatize market-based solutions over social objectives.

Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes


Andrew Blauvelt - 2008
    Portrayed alternately as a middle-class domestic utopia and a dystopic world of homogeneity and conformity--with manicured suburban lawns and the inchoate darkness that lurks just beneath the surface--these stereotypes belie a more realistic understanding of contemporary suburbia and its dynamic transformations. Organized by the Walker Art Center in association with the Heinz Architectural Center at Carnegie Museum of Art, Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes is the first major museum exhibition to examine both the art and architecture of the contemporary American suburb. Featuring paintings, photographs, prints, architectural models, sculptures and video from more than 30 artists and architects, including Christopher Ballantyne, Center for Land Use Interpretation, Gregory Crewdson, Estudio Teddy Cruz, Dan Graham and Larry Sultan, Worlds Away demonstrates the catalytic role of the American suburb in the creation of new art and prospective architecture. Conceived as a revisionist and even contrarian take on the conventional wisdom surrounding suburban life, the catalogue features new essays and seminal writings by John Archer, Robert Beuka, Robert Breugmann, David Brooks, Beatriz Colomina, Malcolm Gladwell and others, as well as a lexicon of suburban neologisms.

Intersection


Marci Nelligan - 2008
    Essays. Urban Studies. INTERSECTION is the first volume in a series called ChainLinks, a spinoff project of the journal Chain edited by Jena Osman and Juliana Spahr. The goal of this new series is to produce books that might change people's minds, might agitate for (thought) reform, might shift perspectives. This project also continues Chain's desire to provide space for work that slips through genre cracks and falls outside of disciplinary boundaries. INTERSECTION is a collection of essays concerning sidewalks and public spaces in contemporary society by Jane Jacobs, Claire Potter, William Pope.L, Mitchell Duneier, Melissa Ngo, and includes a photo essay by Paul Madonna on stencil art on the sidewalks of San Francisco's Mission District.

Form-Based Codes: A Guide for Planners, Urban Designers, Municipalities, and Developers


Daniel G. Parolek - 2008
    Reading it and putting it to practice is an excellent point of departure for individuals and municipalities to safeguard and to grow their communities. - From the Foreword by noted architect and urbanist Stefanos Polyzoides Form-Based Codes are the latest evolutionary step in the practice of development and land-use regulation. A growing alternative to conventional zoning laws, Form-Based Codes go beyond land use to address not just the physical form of buildings but also surrounding streets, blocks, and public spaces in order to create, protect, and revitalize sustainable communities. Written by three recognized leaders in the field of New Urbanism, including an urban planner and an architect, this book is the first to address this subject comprehensively. After defining Form-Based Codes and explaining why they are a necessary alternative to conventional zoning regulations, the authors detail the various components of Form-Based Codes and then go step by step through the process of creating and implementing them. Finally, a series of case studies illustrates best practice applications of Form-Based Coding at various scales from county-wide to site specific, and various project types from city-wide development code replacement to the preservation or evolution of downtowns. This timely and accessible text features: * More than 200 clear illustrations of Form-Based Codes * Studies of real-world applications of Form-Based Coding by leading planners, urban designers, and architects Form-Based Codes is a must-read for today's urban designers, urban planners, architects, and anyone with a vested interest in utilizing the latest regulatory tool to help create compact, walkable, and sustainable communities.

The American Vitruvius: An Architects' Handbook of Civic Art


Werner Hegemann - 2008
    Today, their reference serves as one of the foundation texts for New Urbanism and associated movements. Civic Art presents over 1200 examples of urban planning principles spanning from classic Roman and Greek times through turn of the twentieth century American design. Hegemann and Peets' work provides a highly relevant context through which to evaluate modern city planning.

Shanghai: The Architecture of China's Great Urban Center


Jay Pridmore - 2008
    Shanghai now has more skyscrapers than New York City.Pridmore tells a story that combines art, technology, capitalism, and Communism in vivid prose backed up by extensive reporting and illustrated with superb photographs. After surveying Shanghai’s traditional Chinese and colonial architecture, Pridmore turns to the amazing city of today. In the last decades of the 20th century, Shanghai was seen as the engine of modernization in China. Leading architects from around the world, including Norman Foster, Paul Andrew, Adrian Smith, Kohn Petersen Fox, John Portman, Chang Yung Ho, Ma Qingyun, and Benjamin Wood were lured into competitions to design vastly ambitious projects, and towering buildings in a riot of different styles sprung up before planners could even map their neighborhoods. Out of this ferment of creative growth came the most significant “new” city of the 21st century.

Urban Art Photography


Jürgen Grobe - 2008
    But the impressions that these artists leave are inevitably fleeting, as their art falls victim to the city's unrelenting development. Luckily, the book Urban Art Photography serves as a permanent documentation and time capsule of both the creation and evolution of these constantly changing images.

Rethinking Federal Housing Policy: How to Make Housing Plentiful and Affordable


Edward L. Glaeser - 2008
    Particularly along the coasts, housing remains extremely expensive. In Rethinking Federal Housing Policy: How to Make Housing Plentiful and Affordable, Edward L. Glaeser and Joseph Gyourko explain why housing is so expensive in some areas and outline a plan for making it more affordable. Policymakers must recognize that conditions differ across housing markets, so housing policies need to reflect those differences. The poor and the middle class do not struggle with the same affordability issues, so housing policy needs to address each problem differently. The poor cannot afford housing simply because their incomes are low; the solution to that problem is direct income transfers to the poor, rather than interference with the housing market. In contrast, housing is unaffordable for the middle class because of local zoning restrictions on new home construction that limit the supply of suitable housing. The federal government can sensibly address this issue by providing incentives for local governments in these markets to allow more construction. Ironically, current subsidies for construction of low-income housing only tie impoverished Americans to areas where they have limited job prospects. These supply subsidies also crowd out private-sector construction and benefit politically-connected developers. Mortgage interest deductions, which are intended to make housing more affordable for the middle class, simply allow families who can already afford a house to purchase a bigger one. In restricted, affluent markets, these deductions increase the amount families can pay for a house, driving up prices even higher. Glaeser and Gyourko propose a comprehensive overhaul of federal housing policy that takes into account local regulations and economic conditions. Reform of the home mortgage interest deduction would provide incentives to local governments to allow the market to provide more housing, preventing un

Pirate Modernity: Delhi's Media Urbanism


Ravi Sundaram - 2008
    Focusing on the culture of piracy in the Indian capital, this book looks at what has happened to the city in the wake of the dissemination of the new media and the ways in which it has, and will, affect urban cultures in an age of globalization.

Historical Atlas of Toronto


Derek Hayes - 2008
    This book is the first to illustrate Toronto's history through contemporary maps, drawn at the time to record, promote or illustrate major events. Collected together for the first time, these beautiful, revelatory documents add up to a fascinating visual history of the city's development. The book covers all of today's Greater Toronto Area, from Mississauga in the west to Oshawa in the east.