No comments about Skycar City (MVRDV) (MVRDV) (MVRDV).

No comments about From Welfare State to Real Estate: Regime Change in New York City, 1974 to the Present.

No comments about Asmara: The Frozen City.

1 comments about The Edifice Complex: How the Rich and Powerful--and Their Architects--Shape the World.

1. It took me some time to figure out what the Edifice Complex meant.
   
   
   I first thought, being an "English Patient" in the realms of
   
   
   English-speaking world, edifice complex meant something like "Sports
   
   
   Complex". Later I found out that it was a derivitive of Oedipus Complex,
   
   
   that there is a psychology in a poweful man, an urge to make a mark, a
   
   
   desire to control, and an ambition to build. To build big and high.
   
   
   
   
   
   I found this book particulary interesting because it focuses on the
   
   
   side of clients, their hidden chambers of obsessions, disguised in
   
   
   the form of political beliefs, orchestrated and realized by the hands
   
   
   of architects. Plenty of different types of influential clients and
   
   
   their episodes are portrayed.
   
   
   
   
   
   Some stories are old (or well known)and some stories are new. To the old
   
   
   stories, like that of Hitler/Mitterrand/Hussein, Sudjic gave a different
   
   
   bent, to the new and lesser knowns, like that of
   
   
   Mao/Rockerfeller/Agnelli/ US Presidents, Sudjic wrote electrifying lines.
   
   
   
   
   
   Another remarkable aspect of the book is the political skills of many
   
   
   past and current star architects. Johnson/ Pei/ Piano/
   
   
   Koolhaas/ Gehry (and many more mentioned in the book) are illustrated as
   
   
   true Machiavellian architects of this century that have tongue and pen to
   
   
   realize the dreams of their Princes.
   
   
   
   
   
   In the conclusion, Sudjic sums up by showing what kind of prevailing
   
   
   architectural garments are out there for different political strategists.
   
   
   The author also kindly guides us to the further readings that pertain to
   
   
   the subject matter of the book.
   
   
   
   
   
   One thing that made my head skew: Why are Blair and Libeskind beaten
   
   
   when, in contrast, following French President and English Architect
   
   
   mentioned in the book are promoted? Does it explain Sudjic's political
   
   
   stance and his allies? Just a thought...

1 comments about Streets and the Shaping of Towns and Cities.

1. This books describes the history and evolution of residential streets in the US and Britain. It remains very objective, until the last chapter when the authors push for the shared streets concept. As a transportation planning professional, I found it very informative and compelling. It did the impossible: it changed my mind on the value of cul-de-sacs.

No comments about Spacecraft: Fleeting Architecture and Hideouts.

5 comments about Community By Design: New Urbanism for Suburbs and Small Communities.

1. I like this book because it suggests ways to make our communities better. I really like books that talk about how we can improve the status quo and/or better alternatives to the status quo.



2. This is an excellent introduction to how the philosophy of New Urbanism can be applied to suburbs. It would be very helpful to people serving on Zoning & Planning Commissions or City Councils.



3. The suburban landscape of the United States is the subject of this book, advertised as "the first practical guide to creating communities that truly are communities-not merely enclaves near off-ramps." Guided by the principles of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), the book uses excerpts from that organization's Charter to illuminate its advocacy of more connected development patterns. The book's scope extends beyond the commercial strip to include the major building blocks of towns and suburbs, such as apartment complexes, schools, parks and office campuses.
   
   Hall and Porterfield includes passages of fist-thumping suburbia-bashing similar to James Howard Kunstler's Home From Nowhere (1998, Touchstone Books) or Jane Holtz Kay's Asphalt Nation (1997, Crown). They also include graphic material, much of it adapted their earlier book, A Concise Guide to Community Planning (1994, McGraw-Hill).
   
   Readers knowledgeable about New Urbanism will find few surprises here, other than a few glaring factual errors, like a reference to "Tyson's Corners, Virginia, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States" (p. 7) and a claim that Edge Cities and urban villages are "two names for essentially the same thing" (p. 210). Good points crop up here and there, but recommendations are so limited in scope that it can be difficult to discern whether the sample site designs are intended to be good or bad examples, which limits the book's usefulness pedagogically. The lack of dimensions on most of the drawings also severely limits the book's utility as a practical reference. Hall and Porterfield contrast "conventional suburban development" and "Traditional Neighborhood Development" options for site plans, but the comparisons sometimes seem forced and nearly always ignore the larger regional issues so critical to the debate.
   
   One ideal audience for this book might suburban planning commissioners, who need guidance from designers in order to understand the differences between conventional suburban development pods and walkable, human-scaled neighborhoods.



4. Community by Design is an introduction to the basics of community design and New Urbanism. It's useful if that's what you're after, but not an interesting read if you're anything but a novice on the the topic. It reads like a texbook for a freshman-level course in urban design. Used for that purpose, I'm certain it would be more than successful. As a source of new, insightful commentary on the subject of New Urbanism it falls more than a little short.



5. I wanted to take the opportunity to recommend this book to anyone who has wondered why every place in America looks like everywhere else. There's a funny line in the Rocky and Bullwinkle movie where "our heros" are traveling by car across America in a race against time to foil the plan of the arch villan. As they pass the same gas station and fast food franchise again and again Bullwinkle says, "Haven't we been here before?" That was the same reaction my seven-year old had this summer when we were on our family vacation. We were in Richmond, Virginia and he said we've been here before because I remember that place over there. I had to explain to him what franchise architecture was and how just about every town in America has one of those types of buildings. This is a sad commentary on the American landscape that we as consumers expect the to see the familiar sign of our favorite business. This is one reason why I wrote this book; to let folks know that there's a better way. In fact, we used to do it better. The types of places that capture our attention and long to live are the places that were built prior to World War II. The small towns that so many families idealize as the place they'd rather raise their kids are the same places that couldn't be built today because of "modern" zoning ordinances. And the sad thing is today's generation is the first to be raised totally in a suburban environment that requires owning an automobile just to survive. If you're intersted in how this could change and what the alternatives are Community by Design is your book! There's 250 illustrations and photos that show you what's possible right now. The book helps you understand why community can and should be designed and lets you see some places where it has been. If you ask me this is a great book. ...

No comments about Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes: Designing Urban Agriculture for Sustainable Cities.

3 comments about To Scale: One Hundred Urban Plans.

1. To Scale:... is a very good compare exhibition of 100 urban public spaces in many cities of all the world. The plans are a little simple in their representation and details but it is a very good begining for a urban form study.



2. To Scale is an excellent resource for urban design educators and students. The consistent graphic language and scale applied to the 100 plans is useful for drawing comparisons between different urban models and establishing a quick point of reference. The book offers a comprehensive coverage of urban typologies and illustrates fundamental concepts of urban design. I have already used this book to demonstrate to my students examples of: spatial sequences, connections, figural voids and alignments.
   
   As a course text, I would compliment it with other writings that talk about the cultural and theoretical context of the urban environment. This book is a great addition. Good work Jenkins!



3. This project is a very valuable idea but is spoiled by careless inaccuracies and missing information. The idea of comparing city figure-ground maps at the same scale is something of great interest to architects and urban designers. It is too bad that so many of the plans are filled with graphical errors, thereby casting doubt on many of the other drawings. Mr Jenkins writes in the introduction of the importance of going to original sources for accurate information and data, but clearly has not done so in many cases. For example the map of Bath in England shows the street running straight across the park in front of the Royal Crescent, when anyone who has ever studied this marvellous place knows that the road follows the oval shape of the buildings. The footprints of the buildings around the Royal Circus and Crescent by the Wood father and son are inaccurately drawn in relation to their depth, and most significantly, the property lines and garden walls are omitted from the drawings.
   This latter item is a consistent flaw in the whole book because the dimensions of the lot, or parcel lines are of enormous significance in understanding the scale and grain of an urban fabric. Knowing the dimensions of the individual parcel widths is a key to understanding the pattern of a city's building typologies and measuring facts such as residential density, for example.
   San Francisco North of Market blocks have a typical block dimension of 150 x 100 varas (Spanish land measurements) that translate into 412.5' x 275' with a 2:3 ratio of width to length. Portland Oregon has a 200' x 200' block dimension that is the smallest of any US city.
   If this book ever gets revised it would be valuable if all these drawings were corrected and verified.

4 comments about The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City.

1. New unreleased census data bears out what the author predicted 10 years ago:
   cities are revanchist and want to redevelop with the wealthy in mind. Thus
   there is a great emphasis on downtowns with tax subsidized housing for the
   above average household. Indeed, the modern city is best described as
   the revanchist city.



2. Everyone in New Orleans needs to read this book. A tad academic, it is, but his points are valid. Preservationists need to understand that decaying buildings are not historical or the 'fabric' of the community, they are blight. If money does not exist in the community, and if there is not interest from outside within a defind period of time (three years, I propose) then razing the building is acceptable. Vacancy and blight are just as bad an evil as yuppies moving in to bring Starbucks and Walmart (only the new, urban version of their stores) to the old 'hood. It is amoral to force the indiginous inhabitants to live in a blighted area just because it "used to be" a place of substance or have some historical standing. I mean this in the sense of social history as well as with historical events. New Orleans: "bring on the chains" because the city is not getting any better with the local citizenry doing there part, or lack thereof!



3. The most useful part of the book in terms of understanding cities is the chapter on the economic theory of gentrification, that economic incentives force landlords in a declining residential area to under-maintain their building, causing further deterioration of the neighborhood's housing stock until the buildings are so undercapitalized relative to the land value underneath that capital swooshes back in with rich people. (OK so this is kind of complicated for us non-economists but it's an important theory) The role of artists and the rhetoric of "urban pioneers" is very interesting too.

   The downside that I kept thinking about in later chapters is that it's a shame that left-wing authors' writing tends to be very academic in tone compared to those of establishment thinkers. The content in this book is interesting if you can get past that. If you just want a good left-wing view of cities, Mike Davis' City of Quartz is much a more crisply-written and compelling read.




4. I have to be careful when writing about the book that has become the backbone to my undergraduate dissertation. Smith goes where others have not dared by suggesting the real reasons behind change in New York and other western cities. His ideas are sound, but as with so many reactionary books I got the impression that he had decided on the answers before asking the questions. Research has little balance at all, and you begin to worry about its values when the book somehow manages to link revanchism to such wide ranging issues as "the organized murder of street kids in Rio de Janeiro, the Hindu massacres in Bombay, the pre-election slaughter of South Africans in Durban, the mayhem in Baghdad streets after the barbaric US bombing in 1991". However once he gets down from his socialist soapbox, the theories of revanchism can be useful for interperating change in western inner-cities. Not a book you will put down easily, but also one not to taken at face value...

   If you are interested in this subject check out M. Davis (1990) City of Quartz, H. Liggett & D. Perry (1995) Spatial Practices, and P. Knox (1992) The Restless Urban Landscape.