History of architecture Books
John Wiley and Sons Ltd A Companion to Roman Architecture
Book SynopsisThis Companion provides a comprehensive review of the critical issues and approaches that have transformed scholarly understanding of Roman architecture in the last 20 years. It serves as an indispensable teaching and reference work for English-speaking undergraduates and graduates.Trade Review"This comprehensive volume of almost 600 pages deserves praise. Its 25 chapters have a chronological as well as a thematic focus, and cover the broader Roman Empire as well as specific case studies." (Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 1 March 2015) "The Companion is an important study that opens up new avenues for discussion and consideration, challenges what is currently perceived to be the approved wisdom on Roman architecture and encourages a new approach to understanding the material culture of a society that remains evident and influential in our own." (Reference Reviews, 1 October 2014) "Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through graduate students." (Choice, 1 June 2013) "The line-up of contributers is extremley impressive, with most chapters written by the very scolors whose names immediately sprang to my own mind on seeing their titles" (The Journal of Roman Studies, May 2016)Table of ContentsList of Illustrations viii Contributors xiii Maps/General Images xviii Introduction 1 1. Italic Architecture of the Earlier First Millennium BCE 6 Jeffrey A. Becker 2. Rome and Her Neighbors: Greek Building Practices in Republican Rome 27 Penelope J.E. Davies 3. Creating Imperial Architecture 45 Inge Nielsen 4. Columns and Concrete: Architecture from Nero to Hadrian 63 Caroline K. Quenemoen 5. The Severan Period 82 Edmund V. Thomas 6. The Architecture of Tetrarchy 106 Emanuel Mayer 7. Architect and Patron 127 James C. Anderson, jr. 8. Plans, Measurement Systems, and Surveying: The Roman Technology of Pre-Building 140 John R. Senseney 9. Materials and Techniques 157 Lynne C. Lancaster and Roger B. Ulrich 10. Labor Force and Execution 193 Rabun Taylor 11. Urban Sanctuaries: The Early Republic to Augustus 207 John W. Stamper 12. Monumental Architecture of Non-Urban Cult Places in Roman Italy 228 Tesse D. Stek 13. Fora 248 James F.D. Frakes 14. Funerary Cult and Architecture 264 Kathryn J. McDonnell 15. Building for an Audience: The Architecture of Roman Spectacle 281 Hazel Dodge 16. Roman Imperial Baths and Thermae 299 Fikret K. Yegül 17. Courtyard Architecture in the Insulae of Ostia Antica 324 Roger B. Ulrich 18. Domus/Single Family House 342 John R. Clarke 19. Private Villas: Italy and the Provinces 363 Mantha Zarmakoupi 20. Romanization 381 Louise Revell 21. Streets and Facades 399 Ray Laurence 22. Vitruvius and his Influence 412 Ingrid D. Rowland 23. Ideological Applications: Roman Architecture and Fascist Romanità 426 Genevieve S. Gessert 24. Visualizing Architecture Then and Now: Mimesis and the Capitoline Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus 446 Melanie Grunow Sobocinski 25. Conservation 462 William Aylward Glossary 480 References 501 Index 565
£126.85
Johns Hopkins University Press The Day Commodus Killed a Rhino Understanding
Book SynopsisDrawing on notions of personal honor, manly vigor, and sophisticated craftsmanship, the games were a story that the Romans loved to tell themselves about themselves.Trade ReviewJust clear facts, clearly told. It is, in other words, a delight. -- Catherine Nixey The Times Jerry Toner's excellent new book provides the historical context for Ridley Scott's emperor-gladiator... Toner's wry comments and personal observations make this book a pleasure to read. -- Claire Holleran History Today Successful, and stimulating overview of a complex topic... ChoiceTable of ContentsPrologueThe Rhino DiesI. Commodus's Great GamesII. When in CommodianaIII. An Emperor Loves His PeopleIV. Feeding the MonsterV. Win the CrowdVI. How to Be a RomanEpilogue: Fighting BackAcknowledgmentsNotesSuggested Further ReadingIndex
£19.95
Johns Hopkins University Press Building Washington
Book SynopsisA richly illustrated behind-the-scenes tour of how the nation's capital was built. In 1790, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson set out to build a new capital for the United States of America in just ten years. The area they selected on the banks of the Potomac River, a spot halfway between the northern and southern states, had few resources or inhabitants. Almost everything needed to build the federal city would have to be brought in, including materials, skilled workers, architects, and engineers. It was a daunting task, and these American Founding Fathers intended to do it without congressional appropriation. Robert J. Kapsch's beautifully illustrated book chronicles the early planning and construction of our nation's capital. It shows how Washington, DC, was meant to be not only a government center but a great commercial hub for the receipt and transshipment of goods arriving through the Potomac Canal, then under construction. Picturesque plans would not be enough; the endeaTrade ReviewRich in period detail thanks to Kapsch's extensive use of original documents, drawings and illustrations, and cost data for context, Building Washington is a fascinating look at the creation of the seat of our democracy.—Ray Bert, Civil EngineeringKapsch, a historian of engineering, focuses principally on the decades between the passage of the Residence Act of 1790, which selected the site for the new nation's capital, and the repair and reconstruction efforts that followed the burning of public buildings by British troops in 1814. The narrative centers on the transition from an eighteenth-century mode of construction led by "gentleman planters" to one orchestrated by professionally trained "architect-engineers." Along the way, Kapsch examines the supply chains, building techniques, financial expedients, and political wrangling that went into making the city.—David Schley, Journal of Southern HistoryBuilding Washington is a meticulously detailed account of the early construction of the capital city . . . The work will provide a treasure trove for research specialists in engineering and construction practices of the early republic and an informative reference work for enthusiastic Washingtonians.—Thomas J. Brown, University of South Carolina, Journal of American HistoryTable of ContentsTimelineAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I1. Pierre L’Enfant’s Two Plans for Executing the President’s Vision2. Financing the Federal City3. Constructing the Federal City4. Developing a Commercial Center5. Early Infrastructure and Transport Improvements6. Building Military Defenses for the CapitalPart II7. The First Public Building Campaign (1791-1802)8. The Second Public Building Campaign (1803-1811)9. The Third Public Building Campaign (1815-1824)10. Later Transportation ImprovementsEpilogueBibliographyIndex
£54.00
Johns Hopkins University Press The Year of Julius and Caesar
Book SynopsisHow Caesar's attack on Bibulus marked the beginning of the end of the Roman free state and the descent of the Republic into violence and civil war. The year 59 BCwhen Gaius Julius Caesar and Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus served as joint consulsmarked a major turning point in the history of the Roman Republic. It was a dramatic and momentous time of political intrigue, bloodshed, and murder, one that boasted some of the most famous personalities ever to grace the Roman historical stage. Arguing that this pivotal year demands extended study, Stefan G. Chrissanthos's The Year of Julius and Caesar is the first focused investigation of the period. Chrissanthos uses a single event as his centerpiece: the violent attack orchestrated by Caesar and the First Triumvirate on Bibulus and his followers in the Forum on April 4. Before that day, he reveals, 59 had been a typical year, one that provides valuable insight into Roman government and political gamesmanship. But the assault on Bibulus changTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsMapsPrologue. Caesar and Bibulus: April 4, 59 BC/695 AUCI Caesar and Cato: 60 BC/694 AUCII Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus: 59 BC/695 AUCIII Clodius: 58 BC/696 AUC 00Epilogue. Transformation: 57-31 BC/697-723 AUCAppendixesA. The Roman Republican GovernmentB. Cast of CharactersC. ChronologyD. The Ancient EvidenceE. Dating of Events of the Year 59GlossaryNotesSelected Further ReadingIndex
£19.95
Johns Hopkins University Press A Monument to Dynasty and Death
Book SynopsisGo behind the scenes to discover why the Colosseum was the king of amphitheaters in the Roman worlda paragon of Roman engineering prowess. Early one morning in 80 CE, the Colosseum roared to life with the deafening cheers of tens of thousands of spectators as the emperor, Titus, inaugurated the new amphitheater with one hundred days of bloody spectacles. These games were much anticipated, for the new amphitheater had been under construction for a decade. Home to spectacles involving exotic beasts, elaborate executions of criminals, gladiatorial combats, and evenwhen floodedsmall-scale naval battles, the building itself was also a marvel. Rising to a height of approximately 15 stories and occupying an area of 6 acresmore than four times the size of a modern football fieldthe Colosseum was the largest of all amphitheaters in the Roman Empire. In A Monument to Dynasty and Death, Nathan T. Elkins tells the story of the Colosseum's construction under Vespasian, its dedication under Titus,Trade ReviewElkins' focus on the political and ideological importance of the Flavian amphitheater and the events it housed offers a valuable addition to the growing body of general audience resources on Rome's Colosseum.—Elisha Ann Dumser, University of Akron, Bryn Mawr Classical ReviewTable of ContentsPrologue. Opening Day at the Colosseum I. The Rise of a New Dynasty II. A Modern Amphitheater in Ancient RomeIII. An Amphitheater in the Heart of RomeIV. A Hundred Days of GamesV. The Colosseum and Its First Games in Flavian Art and LiteratureEpilogue. The End of the "Flavian" AmphitheaterAcknowledgmentsNotesSuggested Further ReadingIndex
£19.95
Johns Hopkins University Press The Great Fire of Rome
Book SynopsisA thrilling and momentous account of the Great Fire of Rome and how a modern city arose from its embers. Peril was everywhere in ancient Rome, but the Great Fire of 64 CE was unlike anything the city had ever experienced. No building, no neighborhood, no person was safe from conflagration. When the fire finally subsidedafter burning for nine days straightvast swaths of Rome were in ruins. The greatest city of the ancient world had endured its greatest blow. In The Great Fire of Rome, Joseph J. Walsh tells the true story of this deadly episode in Rome's history. He explains why Rome was such a vulnerable tinderbox, outlines the difficulties of life in that exciting and dangerous city, and recounts the fire's aftermath and legacya legacy that includes the transformation of much of ancient Rome into a modern city. Situating the fire within the context of other perils that residents of Rome faced, including frequent flooding, pollution, crime, and dangerously shoddy construction, he highTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Prologue I Perils of Life in Rome II Inferno III The Day After IV Neropolis V Legacy Appendix A. Sources Appendix B. Proposed Timeline of the Great Fire Notes Suggested Further Reading Index
£19.95
Johns Hopkins University Press Broken Cities
Book SynopsisA comparative study of cities that fell into ruin through human involvement. We have been taught to think of ruins as historical artifacts, relegated to the past by a catastrophic event. Instead, Martin Devecka argues that we should see them as processes taking place over a long present. In Broken Cities, Devecka offers a wide-ranging comparative study of ruination, the process by which monuments, architectural sites, and urban centers decay into ruin over time. Weaving together four case studiesof classical Athens, late antique Rome, medieval Baghdad, and sixteenth-century Mexico CityDevecka shows that ruination is a complex social process largely contingent on changing imperial control rather than the result of immediate or natural events. Drawing on literature, legal texts, epigraphic evidence, and the narratives embodied in monuments and painting, Broken Cities is an expansive and nuanced study that holds great significance for the field of historiography.Trade ReviewThe prose is very elegant and lucid, well suited for upper-level undergraduate classes pertinent to matters of pre modern urbanism and thus worth assigning.—Nathanel Andrade, Binghamton University (SUNY), The Classical OutlookTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsPrologueChapter 1. Athens: Democracy, Oligarchy, and Ruins in Classical GreeceChapter 2. Rome: Ruins and Empire in the Late Antique WorldChapter 3. Baghdad: Postclassical Ruins and the Islamic CityscapeChapter 4. Tenochtitlan: Preservationism and Its Failures in Early Modern MexicoEpilogueNotesBibliography Index
£68.42
Johns Hopkins University Press Frederick Law Olmsted
Book SynopsisFull of original plans and historic photographs, this beautifully illustrated collection is the first comprehensive presentation of Olmsted's design concepts for communities and private estates. Silver Winner of the 2021 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Coffee Table BookMaster landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (18221903) is renowned for his public parks, but few know the extent of his accomplishment in meeting other needs of society. Lavishly illustrated with over 500 images, this book presents Olmsted's design commissions for a wide range of projects. The rich collection of studies, lithographs, paintings, and historical photographs depicts Olmsted's planning for residential communities, regional and town plans, academic campuses, grounds of public buildings, zoos, arboreta, and cemeteries. Focusing on living spaces designed to promote physical and mental well-being, the book showcases more than seventy of Olmsted's designs, including the community of Riverside, IL; theTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Chapter One. Residential CommunitiesChapter Two. Industrial AreasChapter Three. Regional and Town PlanningChapter Four. Private EstatesChapter Five. Academic CampusesChapter Six. Residential InstitutionsChapter Seven. Grounds of Government and Public BuildingsChapter Eight. ExpositionsChapter Nine. Summer CommunitiesChapter Ten. Resorts and HotelsChapter Eleven. Zoos and Arboreta Chapter Twelve. Cemeteries and MemorialsList of IllustrationsList of RepositoriesIndex
£52.70
Johns Hopkins University Press AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington DC
Book SynopsisThe model of what a concise, attractive guidebook should be.Mid-Atlantic CountryThis lively and informative guide offers tourists, residents, and architecture aficionados insights into nearly 450 of Washington, DC's, most noteworthy buildings and monuments. Organized into 19 discrete walking tours, plus one general tour of peripheral sites, this thoroughly revised sixth edition features projects ranging from early federal landmarks to twenty-first-century commercial, institutional, and residential buildings. It includes some 80 new entries covering dozens of recently completed buildings, along with some historic structures that may have been overlooked in the past. The guide also has updated maps, and many existing entries have been rewritten to reflect recent renovations, changes to the buildings' contexts, or additional scholarship. G. Martin Moeller, Jr., blends informed, concise descriptions with engaging commentary on each landmark, revealing surprising details of the buildings'Trade ReviewLively and informative.Whether you are looking for a tour of must-see monuments or would like to discover emerging neighborhoods and their architectural gems, this book is the ultimate resource.—Travel by ENTREESince 2006, when the AIA published the fourth edition, the book's author has been G. Martin Moeller Jr., a genial and knowledgeable guide.Moeller's entries stray well beyond design, engineering and materials. He is interested in the larger story of Washington—its social, symbolic and political history. He is opinionated, though his opinions are eminently reasonable and often entertaining.Visitors (and residents) who want to discover a history far richer than the usual pieties of the double-decker tour bus will profit from time with this guide. Put it in your bag, take the Metro to a stop from which you have never alighted, and start walking. The lessons learned will be far richer than a stroll on the Mall or down Pennsylvania Avenue.—Philip Kennicott, Washington PostTable of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsNotes to the ReaderIntroduction. The Architecture of Washington, DC, 1791–2021ToursA. Governmental Capitol HillB. The MallC. Near Southwest D. Capitol RiverfrontE. Residential Capitol HillF. NoMa / Union MarketG. Judiciary Square / Mount Vernon Square / Penn QuarterH. Pennsylvania AvenueI. Downtown—East EndJ. White House / Lafayette SquareK. Downtown—West EndL. Foggy BottomM. GeorgetownN. FoxhallO. Sheridan-Kalorama / Massachusetts Avenue HeightsP. Dupont/LoganQ. Shaw / U StreetR. Meridian HillS. Woodley Park / Cleveland Park / Van NessT. Other Buildings of InterestIndexPhoto Credits
£26.10
Temple University Press,U.S. Building a Social Contract
Book SynopsisThe dream of the modern worker’s house emerged in early twentieth-century America as wage earners gained access to new, larger, and better-equipped dwellings. Building a Social Contract is a cogent history of the houses those workers dreamed of and labored for. Michael McCulloch chronicles the efforts of employers, government agencies, and the building industry who, along with workers themselves, produced an unprecedented boom in housing construction that peaked in the mid-1920s. Through oral histories, letters, photographs, and period fiction, McCulloch traces wage earners’ agency in negotiating a new implicit social contract, one that rewarded hard work with upward mobility in modern houses. This promise reflected workers’ increased bargaining power but, at the same time, left them increasingly vulnerable to layoffs.Building a Social Contract focuses on Detroit, the quintessential city of the era, where migrant workers came and
£77.35
Temple University Press,U.S. Building a Social Contract
Book SynopsisThe dream of the modern worker’s house emerged in early twentieth-century America as wage earners gained access to new, larger, and better-equipped dwellings. Building a Social Contract is a cogent history of the houses those workers dreamed of and labored for. Michael McCulloch chronicles the efforts of employers, government agencies, and the building industry who, along with workers themselves, produced an unprecedented boom in housing construction that peaked in the mid-1920s. Through oral histories, letters, photographs, and period fiction, McCulloch traces wage earners’ agency in negotiating a new implicit social contract, one that rewarded hard work with upward mobility in modern houses. This promise reflected workers’ increased bargaining power but, at the same time, left them increasingly vulnerable to layoffs.Building a Social Contract focuses on Detroit, the quintessential city of the era, where migrant workers came and
£25.19
MP-NCA Uni of North Carolina Building the Italian Renaissance Brunelleschis
Book SynopsisFocuses on the competition to select a team to execute the final architectural challenge of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore - the erection of its dome. Although the model for the dome was widely known, the question of how this was to be accomplished was the great challenge of the age.
£25.46
MP-NCA Uni of North Carolina The Column of Marcus Aurelius The Genesis and
Book SynopsisOne of the most important monuments of Imperial Rome and at the same time one of the most poorly understood, the Column of Marcus Aurelius has long stood in the shadow of the Column of Trajan. In this volume, Martin Beckmann makes a thorough study of the form, content, and meaning of this infrequently studied monument.
£26.36
University of Texas Press Banking on Beauty
Book SynopsisExpansively researched and illustrated, this lively history recounts how the extraordinary partnership of financier Howard Ahmanson and artist Millard Sheets produced outstanding mid-century modern architecture and art for Home Savings and Loan.Trade ReviewLovers of California art and architecture will swoon at the photos of the murals, statues and mosaics that Sheets designed for about 200 Home Savings and Loan branches between the 1960s and 1980s. . . . Banking on Beauty invites readers to remember a time when our captains of industry cared about public spaces as much as they did the bottom line — and it also challenges us to preserve those remaining buildings that possess Sheets originals. -- Gustavo Arellano * Los Angeles Times *Banking on Beauty is a thoroughly researched and thought-provoking exploration of the distinctive Home Savings Bank branches designed by the Millard Sheets Studio…Banking on Beauty provides a compelling case for preserving these structures. * Journal of American History *Once upon a time, a visit to a department store or a branch bank was a chance to be inspired by fine art…waves of corporate takeovers doomed most of the art, but some remain, like the 1968 masterpiece at Sunset and Vine that's now a Chase bank. This richly illustrated book finally tells their story. * Los Angeles Magazine *[L]avishly illustrated…If you'd like to explore [Millard Sheets's art] yourself, you won't find a better guide than Arenson's Banking on Beauty." * The Objective Standard *Banking on Beauty…shows that commercial architecture does not have to be drab. * World Magazine *Arenson alternates between telling the story of, on the one hand, [Howard F.] Ahmanson and the growth of his savings and loan business, and, on the other hand, [Millard] Sheets and the development of his artistic practice, to great effect. * Journal of Urban History *This lavishly illustrated book by Adam Arenson offers an in-depth and insightful history of Millard Sheets…With almost 160 color plates, this beautiful book is a stunner that not only gives Sheets's lifework a place to shine but also offers an unusually rich study of the places, people, and events that shaped the artists creative vision over a fifty-year period. * California History *Table of Contents Introduction: The Story, the Letter, the Building 1. Origins: Millard Sheets, Howard Ahmanson, and Architecture before the Letter 2. Creating the Millard Sheets Studio, Creating the Home Savings Style 3. Building New Places 4. Home Savings in Your Changing Community 5. Expansion and Change after Howard Ahmanson 6. Beyond Millard Sheets, Beyond California 7. Preservation after Home Savings Acknowledgments Appendix A: List of Sheets Studio Artists and Contractors and Home Savings Artists Appendix B: How the Sheets Studio Mosaics Were Made, by Brian Worley, Sheets Studio Artist List of Interviews and Archival Collections Consulted Notes Index
£999.99
University of Texas Press Millennials in Architecture
Book SynopsisThe first book to explore the impact of the newest generation of architectswith a call for firms and educators to foster leadership in Millennials, tapping their innovative capacity to shape the twenty-first century.Table of Contents Part One: A Twenty-First-Century Generation 1. Introduction: Millennials, Architecture, and Disruption 2. Who Are the Millennials? 3. Generations in Historical Context: Generation X, Boomers, Silents, GIs 4. Working with Generational Theory 5. Architectural History by Generation Part Two: Challenges, Benefits, Vulnerabilities 6. Generational Alignment Strategies: Millennials, Generation X, Boomers, Silents 7. Collaboration: Millennial Values and the Work of Architecture 8. Anytime, Anywhere: Digital Natives and Nomads 9. An Accelerated Tempo: Millennial Time and Territory Part Three: Disruption, Innovation, Continuity 10. Medicine, Law, Architecture: Comparing the Professions 11. What’s Next? The Academy, Licensure, Practice Appendix I. Millennials in Architecture Survey Appendix II. NAAB-Accredited Program Enrollments 2007–2017 Acknowledgments Notes Index
£21.59
University of Texas Press Improbable Metropolis
Book SynopsisBeautifully illustrated, Improbable Metropolis is one of the few books to use architecture and urban planning to explain the growth of a major world city, and the only one of its kind on Houston or any other city in Texas.Trade ReviewBradley conveys [the story of Houston through its buildings and places] in an even and accessible writing style...Improbable Metropolis is a visual treat...the book object would hold its own on any Houstonian’s coffee table. * Cite Magazine *Throughout Improbable Metropolis, Bradley intertwines Houston’s two dominant and diverging narratives of southern gentility and aggressive economic policies to reveal an often contradictory and yet incredible architectural history that challenges our assumptions about the generative principles of a metropolis. * ARRIS *[Improbable Metropolis] is big, beautiful and comprehensive...starting with the startling book jacket, which shows the downtown skyline from an unexpected angle at night, it is a feast for the eyes...I cannot imagine how much labor went into this magnificent book. * Austin American Statesman *Bradley has spent a lifetime dedicated to architecture, planning, and historic preservation in Houston and her encyclopedic knowledge of the city makes this ambitious work possible. The text is richly accompanied by a wealth of color maps and photographs that increase the depth of documentation...Improbable Metropolis provides further argument that Houston should not be treated as a regional subject, but one that reflects the central importance of private capital, rather than public planning, in shaping the modern American city. * Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum *Although Houston has been the fourth-largest city in the United States since 1969, it does not receive the scholarly attention from historians that its size deserves; Bradley’s handsome volume helps rectify this neglect...Bradley’s deep familiarity with her subject will enthrall lay readers and will inspire specialists to enrich Houston’s story by exploring numerous topics further. * Journal of Southern History *Table of ContentsPreface Introduction Chapter 1. Bayou City, 1830–1865 Chapter 2. Magnolia City, 1866–1899 Chapter 3. Progressive Houston, 1900–1919 Chapter 4. Energy Capital of the World, 1920–1939 Chapter 5. Golden Buckle of the Sunbelt, 1940–1959 Chapter 6. Space City, 1960–1979 Chapter 7. H-Town, 1980–1999 Chapter 8. Petro Metro, 2000–2017 Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index
£31.50
University of Texas Press In the Land of the Patriarchs
Book Synopsis2024 PROSE Award in Architecture and Urban PlanningAn on-the-ground account of the design and evolution of West Bank settlements, showing how one of the world’s most contested landscapes was produced by unexpected conflicts and collaborations among widely divergent actors. Since capturing the West Bank in 1967, Israel has overseen the construction of scores of settlements across the territory’s rocky hilltops. The settlements are part of a fierce political conflict. But they are not just hotly contested political ventures. They are also something more everyday: residential architectural projects. In the Land of the Patriarchsis an on-the-ground account of the design and evolution of West Bank settlements. Noam Shoked shows how settlements have been shaped not only by the decisions of military generals, high-profile politicians, and prominent architects but also by a wide range of actors, including real estate developers, envTable of Contents Preface Introduction Chapter 1. Urban Transplants Chapter 2. Community Settlements Chapter 3. Quality-of-Life Settlements Chapter 4. Faithful Cities Chapter 5. Outposts Conclusion Acknowledgments Appendix: Planning, Design, and Development Agencies Mentioned in the Book Notes Index
£73.95
University of Texas Press In the Land of the Patriarchs
Book Synopsis2024 PROSE Award in Architecture and Urban PlanningAn on-the-ground account of the design and evolution of West Bank settlements, showing how one of the world’s most contested landscapes was produced by unexpected conflicts and collaborations among widely divergent actors. Since capturing the West Bank in 1967, Israel has overseen the construction of scores of settlements across the territory’s rocky hilltops. The settlements are part of a fierce political conflict. But they are not just hotly contested political ventures. They are also something more everyday: residential architectural projects. In the Land of the Patriarchsis an on-the-ground account of the design and evolution of West Bank settlements. Noam Shoked shows how settlements have been shaped not only by the decisions of military generals, high-profile politicians, and prominent architects but also by a wide range of actors, including real estate developers, envTable of Contents Preface Introduction Chapter 1. Urban Transplants Chapter 2. Community Settlements Chapter 3. Quality-of-Life Settlements Chapter 4. Faithful Cities Chapter 5. Outposts Conclusion Acknowledgments Appendix: Planning, Design, and Development Agencies Mentioned in the Book Notes Index
£25.19
Duke University Press Building Socialism
Book SynopsisChristina Schwenkel analyzes the collaboration between East German and Vietnamese architects and urban planners as they attempted to transform the bombed-out industrial city of Vinh into a model socialist city.Trade Review“A triumph of interdisciplinary and transnational scholarship! Following a compelling new case of international ‘high-socialist’ architecture, Christina Schwenkel bridges the histories of and scholarship on Eastern European and Asian socialisms. The oft-maligned but poorly understood city of Vinh proves to be an unexpected center of international solidarity and a riveting example of human resilience. Its story offers a significant perspective on Vietnamese history, socialist internationalism, postwar reconstruction, post-socialism, neoliberal redevelopment, and urban history.” -- Erik Harms, author of * Luxury and Rubble: Civility and Dispossession in the New Saigon *“In this extraordinary book, the anthropological and architectural histories of the city of Vinh emerge between the hour zero when B-52s fly over Vinh and the ebbing of obsolescence. Christina Schwenkel addresses urban space and design in an enlightening and unsettling manner, evoking and explaining the ‘building of socialism’ as both a Vietnamese and an East German phenomenon in its postcolonial and postmodern contexts.” -- Rudolf Mrázek, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Michigan“Schwenkel explores the main built legacy of this alliance [between Vietnam and East Germany], the Quang Trung housing estate in Vinh.... The story she has to tell, and the research she has undertaken in several years living on the estate...[is] informative, surprising, and often very moving.” -- Owen Hatherley * Jacobin Magazine *“A model of transnational urban research, Building Socialism uncovers the history of Vinh’s role as a global planning hub, while also attending to the afterlife of socialist modernism for those residing in the city today." -- Katherine Zubovich * The Metropole *"Building Socialism is . . . an indispensable addition to our understanding of urban Asia." -- Abidin Kusno * Journal of Asian Studies *"The book offers a novel and broader understanding of the urban development projects in postwar Vietnam with its social and political trajectories aided by an impressive collection of archival material. . . . Altogether, Christina Schwenkel’s work is a refreshing and groundbreaking addition not only to the study of the global history of the GDR but, first and foremost, to the study of Vietnam’s building of socialism." -- Katrin Bahr * German Studies Review *"Exemplary scholarship. . . . The book's theoretical reflections challenge some calcified notions in current scholarship and intelligentsia, and show the incredibly similar housing experiences and cultural-imperialist tendencies of both capitalism and socialism." -- Esra Ackan * Berlin Journal *"Building Socialism is a remarkably illuminating transnational and interdisciplinary study of socialist nation building, examined through the lenses of internationalism, urban planning and architecture, and an ethnography of a mass housing estate. . . . The author very much succeeds in presenting a cohesive, theoretically rich work of in-depth investigation." -- Hazel Hahn * H-Urban *"Building Socialism is a captivating, imaginative, and significant contribution in anthropology, Vietnamese history, urban history, and history of urban planning. It is suitable for assigning in both graduate and upper-division undergraduate courses." -- Hazel Hahn * H-Urban, H-Net Reviews *"This engaging book ties together the legacies of the Vietnam War, East German urbanism, and contemporary neoliberal development to produce a narrative that is greater than the sum of its parts, shedding much-needed light on the complexity of modernism’s social and material durabilities." -- Samantha Maurer Fox * Anthropological Review *"Though somewhat theoretical, this book is ultimately accessible to a broad readership. It will be of most interest to scholars and students of urban planning, urban anthropology, and urban studies. Highly recommended. Lower division undergraduates through faculty; professionals" -- M. E. Pfeifer * Choice *"The book’s strength is that it expands our understanding of the multiplicity of urbanisms. . . . Building Socialism is an achievement that warrants the attention of every scholar interested in the urbanism of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, well beyond Vietnam." -- Takanari Fujita * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *Table of ContentsList of Figures, Plates, and Tables vii Abbreviations xi A Note on Translation and Transliteration xiii Acknowledgments xv Introduction 1 Part I. Ruination 1. Annihilation 25 Interlude. Urban Fragments 1 43 2. Evacuation 45 Interlude. Urban Fragments 76 3. Solidarity 78 Part 2. Reconstruction 4. Spirited Internationalism 105 Interlude. Urban Fragments 3 129 5. Rational Planning 131 Interlude. Urban Fragments 4 159 6. Utopian Housing 161 Part 3. Obsolescence 7. Indiscipline 211 8. Decay 232 9. Renovation 260 10. Revaluation 293 Conclusion. On the Future of Utopias Past 316 Notes 323 References 357 Index
£123.75
Duke University Press Architecture and Development
Book SynopsisAyala Levin charts the settler colonial imagination and practices that undergirded Israeli architectural development aid in Africa.Trade Review“A remarkable addition to the growing literature on the intrinsic plurality of global development experiences. Placing architectural expertise at the center of knowledge transfer between the newly-formed nation-states of Israel and on the African continent, Ayala Levin depicts state building as a parallel activity being undertaken by both provider and receiver of expertise, undoing received notions about ‘developed’ and ‘underdeveloped’ contexts. The sections comparing Israeli approaches toward kibbutzim at home and rural-urban migration patterns in Sierra Leone and Nigeria are nothing short of spectacular.” -- Arindam Dutta, author of * The Bureaucracy of Beauty: Design in the Age of Its Global Reproducibility *“In this rich and wonderfully detailed study, Ayala Levin provides a careful, learned, and multidisciplinary assessment of Israel’s architectural and developmental impact in Africa in which the characters and mindsets of Israeli architects and planners come alive. Scholars of Israeli-African relations, African development studies, African and Israeli architecture, and urban planning in the global South will find Levin’s exposé of Israeli-African geopolitics to be a valuable contribution.” -- Garth Myers, author of * Rethinking Urbanism: Lessons from Postcolonialism and the Global South *“Levin takes the reader on a well-detailed and multifaceted journey.” -- Gabriel Schwake * Connections *"Architecture and Development provides far more than the sum of its case studies: this volume presents excellent scholarship. ... It significantly enriches our knowledge of Israeli and African planning and architecture. It critically reveals fascinating connections between national ideologies and international relations and provides new perspectives on global junctions of architecture culture and knowledge production." -- Inbal Ben Asher Gitler * Israel Studies Review *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction. Settler Colonial Expertise in the Theater of Development 1 1. Fast-Tracking the Nation-State: The Design and Construction of the Sierra Leone Parliament 25 2. Rootedness and Open-Ended Planning: The Sierra Leone National Urbanization Plan 68 3. Planning a Postcolonial University Campus: The University of Ife, Nigeria 97 4. Designing the University of Ife: Climate, Regeneration, and Ornament 125 5. Israeli Aid, Private Entrepreneurship, and Architectural Education in Addis Ababa 165 Postscript. Ghosts of Modernity 195 Notes 219 Bibliography 269 Index 295
£75.65
Duke University Press Architecture and Development
Book SynopsisIn Architecture and Development Ayala Levin charts the settler colonial imagination and practices that undergirded Israeli architectural development aid in Africa. Focusing on the “golden age” of Israel’s diplomatic relations in and throughout the continent from 1958 to 1973, Levin finds that Israel positioned itself as a developing-nation alternative in the competition over aid and influence between global North and global South. In analyses of the design and construction of prestigious governmental projects in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Ethiopia, Levin details how architects, planners, and a trade union--owned construction company staged Israel as a new center of nonaligned expertise. These actors and professionals paradoxically capitalized on their settler colonial experience in Palestine, refashioning it as an alternative to Western colonial expertise. Levin traces how Israel became involved in the modernization of governance, education, and agriculture in Trade Review“A remarkable addition to the growing literature on the intrinsic plurality of global development experiences. Placing architectural expertise at the center of knowledge transfer between the newly-formed nation-states of Israel and on the African continent, Ayala Levin depicts state building as a parallel activity being undertaken by both provider and receiver of expertise, undoing received notions about ‘developed’ and ‘underdeveloped’ contexts. The sections comparing Israeli approaches toward kibbutzim at home and rural-urban migration patterns in Sierra Leone and Nigeria are nothing short of spectacular.” -- Arindam Dutta, author of * The Bureaucracy of Beauty: Design in the Age of Its Global Reproducibility *“In this rich and wonderfully detailed study, Ayala Levin provides a careful, learned, and multidisciplinary assessment of Israel’s architectural and developmental impact in Africa in which the characters and mindsets of Israeli architects and planners come alive. Scholars of Israeli-African relations, African development studies, African and Israeli architecture, and urban planning in the global South will find Levin’s exposé of Israeli-African geopolitics to be a valuable contribution.” -- Garth Myers, author of * Rethinking Urbanism: Lessons from Postcolonialism and the Global South *“Levin takes the reader on a well-detailed and multifaceted journey.” -- Gabriel Schwake * Connections *"Architecture and Development provides far more than the sum of its case studies: this volume presents excellent scholarship. ... It significantly enriches our knowledge of Israeli and African planning and architecture. It critically reveals fascinating connections between national ideologies and international relations and provides new perspectives on global junctions of architecture culture and knowledge production." -- Inbal Ben Asher Gitler * Israel Studies Review *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction. Settler Colonial Expertise in the Theater of Development 1 1. Fast-Tracking the Nation-State: The Design and Construction of the Sierra Leone Parliament 25 2. Rootedness and Open-Ended Planning: The Sierra Leone National Urbanization Plan 68 3. Planning a Postcolonial University Campus: The University of Ife, Nigeria 97 4. Designing the University of Ife: Climate, Regeneration, and Ornament 125 5. Israeli Aid, Private Entrepreneurship, and Architectural Education in Addis Ababa 165 Postscript. Ghosts of Modernity 195 Notes 219 Bibliography 269 Index 295
£20.69
Duke University Press Architecture and the Right to Heal
£108.75
New York University Press The House of Serenos Part II
Book SynopsisA comprehensive study of the archaeology of the House of SerenosThe House of Serenos, Part II is the second of four books devoted to publishing the archaeology of the House of Serenos, a richly decorated, late antique villa of a local élite, located in Amheida (ancient Trimithis) in the Dakhla Oasis of Egypt. The House of Serenos, Part II synthesizes the archaeological information presented in detail in other volumes in a comprehensive study of the architectural and archaeological history of the house and its relationship to its natural and built environments, from construction through expansion and renovation to its eventual abandonment around the end of the fourth century. The volume includes discussions of archaeological method, stratigraphy, architecture, and the archaeological assemblages discovered in the House of Serenosand reveals what all this can tell us about the inhabitants and their experience living in this high-status residence at the
£66.60
Cornell University Press Counterpreservation
Book SynopsisIn Berlin, decrepit structures do not always denote urban blight. Decayed buildings are incorporated into everyday life as residences, exhibition spaces, shops, offices, and as leisure space. As nodes of public dialogue, they serve as platforms for dissenting views about the future and past of Berlin. In this book, Daniela Sandler introduces the concept of counterpreservation as a way to understand this intentional appropriation of decrepitude. The embrace of decay is a sign of Berlin''s iconoclastic rebelliousness, but it has also been incorporated into the mainstream economy of tourism and development as part of the city''s countercultural cachet. Sandler presents the possibilities and shortcomings of counterpreservation as a dynamic force in Berlin and as a potential concept for other cities. Counterpreservation is part of Berlin''s fabric: in the city''s famed Hausprojekte (living projects) such as the Køpi, Tuntenhaus, and KA 86; in cultural centers such as the HaTrade ReviewSandler concludes with a brilliantly argued case for the worldwide significance of counterpreservation as a conceptual force that challenges the fundamental tenets of historic preservation as it is practiced in the West today. * Choice *Sandler imagines how architecture might grapple with the concept of transience, creating buildings that show the futility of hanging on to the past.... Any good contemporary reading of Berlin must come to grips with the city's relationship to its own decay. Sandler's accessible, smart book deserves a place on the reading list for the thoughtful kind of Berlin tourist, for student study abroad groups, and for those writing about the many rises and falls that have happened in the capital city of what has come to be known as 'The Berlin Republic.' * The German Quarterly *Sandler sees a categorical difference between counterpreservation and the fascination with ruins and ancient monuments inherent in some traditional conservationist approaches.... In general Sandler’s book stands out for her perspicacious perspective, which is also related to the fact that she looks at the city from the perspective of an outsider.... A must-read for any student or scholar interested in Berlin’s history and the fascinating ways in which the past manifests in the city’s urban fabric. * Planning Perspectives *Daniela Sandler presents rugged methods of stewardship and alteration of Berlin buildings that constitute a 'reflective nostalgia' instead of a 'restorative nostalgia,' revealing preservation as a productive practice with its own embedded political and cultural editorial power.... May spur the field to reconsider that very basic mode of always interrogating, sometimes appreciating, and often conserving heritage artifacts as we find them—which has long been called simply preservation. * buildings & landscapes *
£23.19
Cornell University Press Follies in America A History of Garden and Park
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis interdisciplinary look at the cultural and architectural history of follies in America is illustrated with examples with examples from literature, the arts, and the landscape itself. Carso gives us a broad sweep using the primary model for America, the eighteen-century English landscape garden. Less concerned with style, she grapples with the meaning of this building type, one that is at once 'recreational and amusing' but also 'didactic and enlightening. * Nineteenth Century *Follies in America delves into the history of the ornamental structures, or follies, that dotted, as some still do, many a private garden, public park, rural cemetery, or site of natural beauty in the nineteenthcentury United States * Winterthur Portfolio *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The English Landscape Garden in America 2. Temples: Neoclassicism and the Nation 3. Summerhouses: Nature Meets Culture 4. Towers: The Belvedere and the Panoptic Sublime 5. Ruins: The Nineteenth-Century Delight in Decay Conclusion
£21.59
Cornell University Press Spatial Revolution
Book SynopsisSpatial Revolution is the first comparative parallel study of Soviet architecture and planning to create a narrative arc across a vast geography. The narrative binds together three critical industrial-residential projects in Baku, Magnitogorsk, and Kharkiv, built during the first fifteen years of the Soviet project and followed attentively worldwide after the collapse of capitalist markets in 1929.Among the revelations provided by Christina E. Crawford is the degree to which outside experts participated in the construction of the Soviet industrial complex, while facing difficult topographies, near-impossible deadlines, and inchoate theories of socialist space-making. Crawford describes how early Soviet architecture and planning activities were kinetic and negotiated and how questions about the proper distribution of people and industry under socialism were posed and refined through the construction of brick and mortar, steel and concrete projects, Trade ReviewCrawford brilliantly showcases the materiality of the planning process. Her skills as licensed architect are on full display as she walks readers through planners' maps, travel notes, cartograms and similar documents, using these to produce a lived and practised genealogy of socialist design. * Contemporary European History *The contribution of Spatial Revolution to the history of socialism and Soviet architecture is remarkable for the scope of covered topics and the method chosen by its author. * Eurasian Geography and Economics *One can discern the outlines of a framework for the study of socialism that is not caught up in the tired paradigm of an oscillation between brilliant utopias and their mundane failures, but rather one that sees in the evolution of plans and meta-plans a version of the flexibility and adaptation often thought to be absent from state socialism. * Journal of Urban History *Christina Crawford's richly illustrated Spatial Revolution provides a fascinating view into the distinctive, experimental, often ad hoc, yet globally connected development of Soviet planning and housing strategies in the 1920s and 1930s. * Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians *Spatial Revolution is an expertly written and beautifully crafted book that reshapes conversations about early Soviet architecture and planning. The book is of interest not just to urban and architectural historians, but to scholars of the Soviet period broadly. * The Russian Review *Crawford's skillful handling of technical detail ensures that Spatial Revolution remains accessible for nonspecialists, allowing it to provide a valuable entry point into this area for scholars and students of cognate disciplines. Perhaps most important, the work highlights the fact that the lessons from these revolutionary efforts to materialize environments based on principles of livability, social equity, and sustainability have significant currency for us today. * Technology and Culture *Spatial Revolution examines the first fifteen years of Soviet architecture and planning in Baku, Magnitogorsk, and Kharkiv—three economically central cities where early socialist architecture and planning first took shape in the built environment. * The Russian Reviewer *Christina E. Crawford's rich and engaging new monograph, and its deep examination of the internal dynamics of Soviet urbanism — in particular, the way plans were framed, cultivated and put into practice — makes the existence of uniquely Soviet spatial politics clear. * SEER *SPATIAL REVOLUTION IS A PARALLEL STORY OF THEORETICAL debates and the physical realisation of socialist space-making in the early Soviet Union * Europe-Asia Studies *Crawford has produced an eloquently written and subtly argued book that willnd a wide audience among architecture historians, planning historians, urban historians, historians of the Soviet Union, and many others. * Journal of Planning History *Table of ContentsIntroduction Part I. Oil City: Baku, 1920–1927 1. Socialism Means Housing 2. From Garden Cities to Urban Superblocks 3. A Plan for the Proletariat Part II. Steel City: Magnitogorsk, 1929–1932 4. The Great Debate 5. Competition and Visions 6. Frankfurt on the Steppe Part III. Machine City: Kharkiv, 1930–1932 7. From Tractors to Territory 8. Socialist Urbanization through Standardization Conclusion
£26.99
Cornell University Press Chicago in Stone and Clay
Book SynopsisChicago in Stone and Clay explores the interplay between the city''s most architecturally significant sites, the materials they''re made of, and the sediments and bedrock they are anchored in. This unique geologist''s survey of Windy City neighborhoods demonstrates the fascinating and often surprising links between science, art, engineering, and urban history. Drawing on two decades of experience leading popular geology tours in Chicago, Raymond Wiggers crafted this book for readers ranging from the region''s large community of amateur naturalists, citizen scientists, and architecture buffs to geologists, architects, educators, and other professionals seeking a new perspective on the themes of architecture and urbanism. Unlike most geology and architecture books, Chicago in Stone and Clay is written in the informal, accessible style of a natural history tour guide, humanizing the science for the nonspecialist reader. Providing an exciting neTrade Review[Chicago in Stone and Clay] adds a fascinating new layer of history to your brain that will change the way you see the city. * Chicago Reader, Best Chicago Books of 2022 *As one who has had his eyes opened to the unexpected wonders to be found as the result of staring closely and intently as a stone wall, I very much hope that my readers will take the opportunity to investigate this handy new book, as well as – for those not in the Chicago area itself – to investigate their own local stone edifices to discover what geological surprises they may hold. * The Well-read Naturalist *Table of ContentsIntroduction Part I: Fundamentals 1. Notes on the Book's Format, and Tips for Exploring Chicago's Geology 2. Chicago's Geologic Setting and History 3. The Geology of Building Materials 4. Foundations: Engineering in a Birthplace (And Worst Place) For Skyscrapers Part II: Exploring Chicago's Neighborhoods 5. The Loop: Northeastern Quadrant 6. The Loop: Southeastern Quadrant 7. The Loop: Southwestern Quadrant 8. The Loop: Northwestern Quadrant 9. Near West Side, Garfield Park, & Humboldt Park 10. South Loop, Museum Campus, Prairie Avenue, Douglas, & Bronzeville 11. McKinley Park, Back of the Yards, Kenwood, Washington Park, Hyde Park, Woodlawn, & Englewood 12. Auburn Gresham, South Shore, South Chicago, & Pullman 13. The Magnificent Mile & Streeterville 14. River North 15. The Gold Coast & Old Town 16. Logan Square, Lincoln Park, & Lake View 17. Uptown & Ravenswood 18. Edgewater, Rogers Park, & Sauganash
£18.99
University of Pennsylvania Press Landscape and Authority in the Early Modern World
Book SynopsisCourts and societies across the early modern Eurasian world were fundamentally transformed by the physical, technological, and conceptual developments of their era. Evolving forms of communication, greatly expanded mobility, the spread of scientific knowledge, and the emergence of an increasingly integrated global economy all affected how states articulated and projected visions of authority into societies that, in turn, perceived and responded to these visions in often contrasting terms. Landscape both reflected and served as a vehicle for these transformations, as the relationship between the land and its imagination and consumption became a fruitful site for the negotiation of imperial identities within and beyond the precincts of the court. In Landscape and Authority in the Early Modern World, contributors explore the role of landscape in the articulation and expression of imperial identity and the mediation of relationships between the court and its many audiences in the early modern world. Nine studies focused on the geographical areas of East and South Asia, the Islamic world, and Europe illuminate how early modern courts and societies shaped, and were shaped by, the landscape, including both physical sites, such as gardens, palaces, cities, and hunting parks, and conceptual ones, such as those of frontiers, idealized polities, and the cosmos. The collected essays expand the meaning and potential of landscape as a communicative medium in this period by putting an array of forms and subjects in dialogue with one another, including not only unique expressions, such as gardens, paintings, and manuscripts, but also the products of rapidly developing commercial technologies of reproduction, especially print. The volume invites a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the complexity with which early modern states constructed and deployed different modes of landscape for different audiences and environments. Contributors: Robert Batchelor, Seyed Mohammad Ali Emrani, John Finlay, Caroline Fowler, Katrina Grant, Finola O’Kane, Anton Schweizer, Larry Silver, Stephen H. Whiteman.
£57.60
University of Minnesota Press Betting on Macau: Casino Capitalism and China's
Book SynopsisA comprehensive look into how Macau’s recent decades of gambling-related growth produced one of the wealthiest territories on the planetBetting on Macau delves into the radical transformation of what was formerly the last remaining European territory in Asia, returned to the People’s Republic of China in 1999 after nearly half a millennium of Portuguese rule. Examining the unprecedented scale of its development and its key role in China’s economic revolution, Tim Simpson follows Macau’s emergence from historical obscurity to become the most profitable casino gaming locale in the world. Identified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and renowned for its unique blend of Chinese and Portuguese colonial-era architecture, contemporary Macau has metamorphosed into a surreal, hypermodern urban landscape augmented by massive casino megaresorts, including two of the world’s largest buildings. Simpson situates Macau’s origins as a strategic trading port and its ensuing history alongside the emergence of the global capitalist system, charting the massive influx of foreign investment, construction, and tourism in the past two decades that helped generate the territory’s enormous wealth. Presented through a cross section of postcolonial studies and social theory with extensive insight into the global gambling industry, Betting on Macau uncovers the various roots of the territory’s lucrative casino capitalism. In turn, its trenchant analysis provides a distinctive view into China’s broader project of urbanization, its post-Mao economic reforms, and the continued rise of its consumer culture. Trade Review "In this timely and impressive book, Tim Simpson charts the predicament of Macau—a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China—as a laboratory of consumption, and of planning and architecture as disciplinary technologies, all employed toward prototyping a scholastic program for the production and naturalization of commodity-driven social imaginaries in post-Mao China. A must-read for scholars and practitioners of urban planning and architecture, particularly those working in or studying urbanization in China."—Miodrag Mitrašinović, coeditor of The Emerging Public Realm of the Greater Bay Area: Approaches to Public Space in a Chinese Megaregion "Betting on Macau is a creative, engaging, wide-ranging, and insightful analysis that both dazzles the reader with a litany of the astonishing transformations Macau has undergone in the past two decades and provides a solid conceptual framework for understanding those changes in a world-historical context."—Cathryn H. Clayton, author of Sovereignty at the Edge: Macau and the Question of Chineseness "Presented through a cross section of postcolonial studies and social theory with extensive insight into the global gambling industry, Betting on Macau uncovers the various roots of the territory’s lucrative casino capitalism. In turn, its trenchant analysis provides a distinctive view into China’s broader project of urbanization, its post-Mao economic reforms, and the continued rise of its consumer culture."—Progressive Geographies "Betting on Macau is a worthy introduction to Macau and suitable for anyone, inside and outside academia, interested in a place of exception for Chinese gambling tourists."—Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change "Tim Simpson’s book is a timely contribution to a slender yet growing volume of works that have sought to reposition Macau within a cocktail of national, regional, and global themes."—Current History
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press Modernism's Visible Hand: Architecture and
Book SynopsisA groundbreaking history of the confluence of regulatory thinking and building design in the United States What is the origin of “room temperature”? When did food become considered fresh or not fresh? Why do we think management makes things more efficient? The answers to these questions share a history with architecture and regulation at the turn of the twentieth century. This pioneering technological and architectural history of environmental control systems during the Gilded Age begins with the premise that regulation—of temperature, the economy, even the freshness of food—can be found in the guts of buildings. From cold storage and scientific laboratories to factories, these infrastructures first organized life in a way we now call “modern.”Drawing on a range of previously unexplored archival resources, Michael Osman examines the increasing role of environmental technologies in building design from the late nineteenth century. He shows how architects appropriated and subsumed the work of engineers as thermostats, air handlers, and refrigeration proliferated. He argues that this change was closely connected to broader cultural and economic trends in management and the regulation of risk. The transformation shaped the evolution of architectural modernism and the development of the building as a machine. Rather than assume the preexisting natural order of things, participants in regulation—including architects, scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers, managers, economists, government employees, and domestic reformers—became entangled in managing the errors, crises, and risks stemming from the nation’s unprecedented growth.Modernism’s Visible Hand not only broadens our conception of how industrial capitalism shaped the built environment but is also vital to understanding the role of design in dealing with ecological crises today. Trade Review"Michael Osman weaves a complex web of interaction between architecture, science, and technology, as well as between architecture, business, and management. Modernism's Visible Hand is not only brilliant, it is also path-breaking."—Antoine Picon, author of Smart Cities: A Spatialised Intelligence"Michael Osman takes us on an extraordinary journey through turn-of-the-twentieth-century modern American life, travelling from temperature-controlled homes and cold-storage warehouses, to Pennsylvania's factories and Indiana's sand dunes. This engrossing, brilliant book is an altogether new look at American architecture, technology, and everyday life; it will be of immense value to readers interested in all these subjects."—Daniel M. Abramson, author of Obsolescence: An Architectural HistoryTable of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction1. The Thermostatic Interior and Household Management2. Cold Storage and the Speculative Market of Preserved Assets3. Representing Regulation in Nature’s Economy4. Imaging Brainwork5. Regulation through Paperwork in Architectural PracticeConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press Heart of St. Paul: A History of the Pioneer and
Book SynopsisWhen the Pioneer Press Building opened its doors in 1889, it was news. The twelve-story skyscraper, the tallest at the time in the heart of St. Paul—featuring the first glass elevator in the country—merited a forty-page special edition of the Pioneer Press, whose editors modestly proclaimed it “the greatest newspaper building mother earth carries.” A year later, another architectural monument, the Endicott Complex—which wraps around the Pioneer Building—opened its doors. Designed by rising St. Paul architect Cass Gilbert, the Endicott included two office buildings linked by a one-story L-shaped shopping arcade crowned by a stained-glass ceiling. Journalist and architectural historian Larry Millett tells the story of these two icons of downtown St. Paul from conception through numerous alterations to their present incarnation as vibrant cultural and living spaces in the city’s center. He describes how the Pioneer came to be designed by noted Chicago architect Solon Beman, who in 1910 added four floors to create a sixteen-story light court that remains one of Minnesota’s great architectural spaces. Millett also describes Gilbert’s meticulous work in designing the Endicott complex, which was inspired by the Renaissance palaces of Florence. Gilbert would later go on to produce such masterpieces as the Minnesota State Capitol and the Woolworth Building in New York. As entertaining as it is edifying, Heart of St. Paul combines architectural history with the rich human story behind two buildings that have played a prominent role in the life of the city for over a century. The book includes an introduction by Kristin Makholm, Director of the Minnesota Museum of American Art, which has found a new home in the buildings. Trade Review"If a building’s famous for its height or style, someone may tell its tale. If a building’s lucky, it gets Larry Millett. The Pioneer Endicott at 4th and Roberts streets in St. Paul is lucky."—Star Tribune"Millett explores more than the history and architecture of this St.Paul landmark, telling the human stories behind the buildings, from the architects to the tenants to the elevator operators."—Midwest Home
£30.60
University of Minnesota Press Modernism as Memory: Building Identity in the
Book SynopsisAfter World War II, West Germans and West Berliners found ways of communicating both their recent sufferings and aspirations for stable communities through buildings that fused the ruins of historicist structures with new constructions rooted in the modernism of the 1910s and ‘20s. As Modernism as Memory illustrates, these postwar practices undergird the approaches later taken in influential structures created or renovated in Berlin following the fall of the Wall, including the Jewish Museum and the Reichstag, the New Museum and the Topography of Terror.While others have characterized contemporary Berlin’s museums and memorials as postmodern, Kathleen James-Chakraborty argues that these environments are examples of an “architecture of modern memory” that is much older, more complex, and historically contingent. She reveals that churches and museums repaired and designed before 1989 in Düren, Hanover, Munich, Neviges, Pforzheim, Stuttgart, and Weil am Rhein contributed to a modernist precedent for the relationship between German identity and the past developed since then in the Ruhr region and in Berlin. Modernism as Memory demonstrates that how one remembers can be detached from what one remembers, contrasting ruins with recollections of modernism to commemorate German suffering, the Holocaust, and the industrial revolution, as well as new spaces for Islam in the country.Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Making Memory Modern1. Making German Architecture Modern2. Inserting Memory into Modern Architecture: West German Churches3. An Architecture of Fragmentation and Absence: West German Museums4. Critical Reconstruction or Neo-Modernist Shards? Post-unification Berlin5. Manufacturing Memory in the Ruhr Region6. Assimilating Modern MemoryConclusion: The Kolumba Museum in CologneAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£100.00
University of Minnesota Press Modernism as Memory: Building Identity in the
Book SynopsisAfter World War II, West Germans and West Berliners found ways of communicating both their recent sufferings and aspirations for stable communities through buildings that fused the ruins of historicist structures with new constructions rooted in the modernism of the 1910s and ‘20s. As Modernism as Memory illustrates, these postwar practices undergird the approaches later taken in influential structures created or renovated in Berlin following the fall of the Wall, including the Jewish Museum and the Reichstag, the New Museum and the Topography of Terror.While others have characterized contemporary Berlin’s museums and memorials as postmodern, Kathleen James-Chakraborty argues that these environments are examples of an “architecture of modern memory” that is much older, more complex, and historically contingent. She reveals that churches and museums repaired and designed before 1989 in Düren, Hanover, Munich, Neviges, Pforzheim, Stuttgart, and Weil am Rhein contributed to a modernist precedent for the relationship between German identity and the past developed since then in the Ruhr region and in Berlin. Modernism as Memory demonstrates that how one remembers can be detached from what one remembers, contrasting ruins with recollections of modernism to commemorate German suffering, the Holocaust, and the industrial revolution, as well as new spaces for Islam in the country.Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Making Memory Modern1. Making German Architecture Modern2. Inserting Memory into Modern Architecture: West German Churches3. An Architecture of Fragmentation and Absence: West German Museums4. Critical Reconstruction or Neo-Modernist Shards? Post-unification Berlin5. Manufacturing Memory in the Ruhr Region6. Assimilating Modern MemoryConclusion: The Kolumba Museum in CologneAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£26.99
University of Minnesota Press Constructing Imperial Berlin: Photography and the
Book SynopsisHow photography and a modernizing Berlin informed an urban image—and one another—in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the city that once visually epitomized a divided Europe has thrived in the international spotlight as an image of reunified statehood and urbanity. Yet research on Berlin’s past has focused on the interwar years of the Weimar Republic or the Cold War era, with much less attention to the crucial Imperial years between 1871 and 1918. Constructing Imperial Berlin is the first book to critically assess, contextualize, and frame urban and architectural photographs of that era. Berlin, as it was pronounced Germany’s capital in 1871, was fraught with questions that had previously beset Paris and London. How was urban expansion and transformation to be absorbed? What was the city’s understanding of its comparably short history? Given this short history, how did it embody the idea of a capital? A key theme of this book is the close interrelation of the city’s rapid physical metamorphosis with repercussions on promotional and critical narratives, the emergence of groundbreaking photographic technologies, and novel forms of mass distribution. Providing a rare analysis of this significant formative era, Miriam Paeslack shows a city far more complex than the common clichés as a historical and aspiring place suggest. Imperial Berlin emerges as a modern metropolis, only half-heartedly inhibited by urban preservationist concerns and rather more akin to North American cities in their bold industrialization and competing urban expansions than to European counterparts.Trade Review"A late starter among European capitals, Imperial Berlin was eager to be recognized as a Weltstadt (‘World City’). Miriam Paeslack has carefully analyzed a trove of rarely seen images that perfectly document the city’s feverish development at the end of the nineteenth century and the parallel evolution of its self-conscious imagery. Taken together, the photographs present a compelling psychogram of the city on its way to becoming the 'Capital of the Twentieth Century'—the place where the dramatic tides of modernity and its traumatic conflicts would leave their most visible scars."—Dietrich Neumann, Brown University"Miriam Paeslack has written a compelling account of the multifarious ways in which photographers mediated in the construction of Berlin’s urban imaginary. She brilliantly demonstrates photography’s potency as Berlin contended with modernity by simultaneously promoting progress and inventing the past."—Nancy Stieber, University of Massachusetts, BostonTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction1. Crafting the Metropolis: Photo-Panoramas in the Illustrated Journal Berliner Leben2. Framing Progress: Ludwig Hoffmann, Ernst von Brauchitsch, and Berlin Architectural Photography 1902–19123. Tracing Transformation: Berlin’s Urban Palimpsest in Photogrammetry and “Rubble Photography”4. Inventing Tradition: Berlin’s Märkische Museum and Its Photo Survey Picturesque BerlinConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press Constructing Imperial Berlin: Photography and the
Book SynopsisHow photography and a modernizing Berlin informed an urban image—and one another—in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the city that once visually epitomized a divided Europe has thrived in the international spotlight as an image of reunified statehood and urbanity. Yet research on Berlin’s past has focused on the interwar years of the Weimar Republic or the Cold War era, with much less attention to the crucial Imperial years between 1871 and 1918. Constructing Imperial Berlin is the first book to critically assess, contextualize, and frame urban and architectural photographs of that era. Berlin, as it was pronounced Germany’s capital in 1871, was fraught with questions that had previously beset Paris and London. How was urban expansion and transformation to be absorbed? What was the city’s understanding of its comparably short history? Given this short history, how did it embody the idea of a capital? A key theme of this book is the close interrelation of the city’s rapid physical metamorphosis with repercussions on promotional and critical narratives, the emergence of groundbreaking photographic technologies, and novel forms of mass distribution. Providing a rare analysis of this significant formative era, Miriam Paeslack shows a city far more complex than the common clichés as a historical and aspiring place suggest. Imperial Berlin emerges as a modern metropolis, only half-heartedly inhibited by urban preservationist concerns and rather more akin to North American cities in their bold industrialization and competing urban expansions than to European counterparts.Trade Review"A late starter among European capitals, Imperial Berlin was eager to be recognized as a Weltstadt (‘World City’). Miriam Paeslack has carefully analyzed a trove of rarely seen images that perfectly document the city’s feverish development at the end of the nineteenth century and the parallel evolution of its self-conscious imagery. Taken together, the photographs present a compelling psychogram of the city on its way to becoming the 'Capital of the Twentieth Century'—the place where the dramatic tides of modernity and its traumatic conflicts would leave their most visible scars."—Dietrich Neumann, Brown University"Miriam Paeslack has written a compelling account of the multifarious ways in which photographers mediated in the construction of Berlin’s urban imaginary. She brilliantly demonstrates photography’s potency as Berlin contended with modernity by simultaneously promoting progress and inventing the past."—Nancy Stieber, University of Massachusetts, BostonTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction1. Crafting the Metropolis: Photo-Panoramas in the Illustrated Journal Berliner Leben2. Framing Progress: Ludwig Hoffmann, Ernst von Brauchitsch, and Berlin Architectural Photography 1902–19123. Tracing Transformation: Berlin’s Urban Palimpsest in Photogrammetry and “Rubble Photography”4. Inventing Tradition: Berlin’s Märkische Museum and Its Photo Survey Picturesque BerlinConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£23.39
University of Minnesota Press Avant-Garde in the Cornfields: Architecture,
Book SynopsisA close examination of an iconic small town that gives boundless insights into architecture, landscape, preservation, and philanthropyAvant-Garde in the Cornfields is an in-depth study of New Harmony, Indiana, a unique town in the American Midwest renowned as the site of two successive Utopian settlements during the nineteenth century: the Harmonists and the Owenites. During the Cold War years of the twentieth century, New Harmony became a spiritual “living community” and attracted a wide variety of creative artists and architects who left behind landmarks that are now world famous. This engrossing and well-documented book explores the architecture, topography, and preservation of New Harmony during both periods and addresses troubling questions about the origin, production, and meaning of the town’s modern structures, landscapes, and gardens. It analyzes how these were preserved, recognizing the funding that has made New Harmony so vital, and details the elaborate ways in which the town remains an ongoing experiment in defining the role of patronage in historic preservation.An important reappraisal of postwar American architecture from a rural perspective, Avant-Garde in the Cornfields presents provocative ideas about how history is interpreted through design and historic preservation—and about how the extraordinary past and present of New Harmony continue to thrive today. Contributors: William R. Crout, Harvard U; Stephen Fox, Rice U; Christine Gorby, Pennsylvania State U; Cammie McAtee, Harvard U; Nancy Mangum McCaslin; Kenneth A. Schuette Jr., Purdue U; Ralph Schwarz; Paul Tillich.Trade Review"New Harmony has long been the American Eden that almost was—a place of learning, spirituality, and experimental architecture lost somewhere south of Indianapolis. This eclectic and sweeping volume brings its many lives, from utopian outpost on the frontier to center for contemplation and tourist site anchored by great works of modern architecture, to life. The equally diverse figures who animated the place, from the English industrialist Robert Owen to his distant heir Jane Blaffer Owen, and including architects Philip Johnson and Richard Meier, each receives a careful historic and formal analysis in this masterful collection of essays."—Aaron Betsky, president, School of Architecture at Taliesin"A detour to the rural heartland can alter many presumptions about American modern culture. Reformers included Robert Owen, who bought the communitarian settlement of New Harmony, Indiana, in 1825, espousing equal rights for workers, women, and former slaves. This book looks closely at New Harmony in the post-WWII era, when historic preservation and environmentalism held sway, while protean architects like Philip Johnson and Richard Meier collaborated with their visionary client, Jane Blaffer Owen. Readers too will look at American modernism from a radically new perspective."—Gwendolyn Wright, Columbia University"Three visionaries created New Harmony, and their visions could hardly be more different. Ben Nicholson and Michelangelo Sabatino, with their splendidly comprehensive study of Jane Blaffer Owen, the most elusive of the three, have completed the story of one of America’s most consequential experiments in town-building."—Michael Lewis, Williams College"The book is carefully produced and edited, with abundant photographs and is well suited for college readers at all levels, particularly those in heritage preservation studies."—ARLIS/NA Reviews"This anthology, filled with insights on design, philanthropy, and the making of place, will be most valued by specialists but should also attract many readers interested in the built environment and historic preservation."—CHOICE"Avant-Garde in the Cornfields, a scholarly history of New Harmony's built environment in the second half of the twentieth century, is very welcome."—A Daily Dose of Architecture"Avant-Garde in the Cornfields is a tremendous achievement that promises to be the crucial resource for chronicling New Harmony’s long and important utopian evolution."—The Annals of Iowa"Avant-Garde in the Cornfields is a comprehensive and beautifully illustrated resource for architectural scholars and lovers of the modern portion of the eclectic place that is New Harmony."—Winterthur Portfolio
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press Avant-Garde in the Cornfields: Architecture,
Book SynopsisA close examination of an iconic small town that gives boundless insights into architecture, landscape, preservation, and philanthropyAvant-Garde in the Cornfields is an in-depth study of New Harmony, Indiana, a unique town in the American Midwest renowned as the site of two successive Utopian settlements during the nineteenth century: the Harmonists and the Owenites. During the Cold War years of the twentieth century, New Harmony became a spiritual “living community” and attracted a wide variety of creative artists and architects who left behind landmarks that are now world famous. This engrossing and well-documented book explores the architecture, topography, and preservation of New Harmony during both periods and addresses troubling questions about the origin, production, and meaning of the town’s modern structures, landscapes, and gardens. It analyzes how these were preserved, recognizing the funding that has made New Harmony so vital, and details the elaborate ways in which the town remains an ongoing experiment in defining the role of patronage in historic preservation.An important reappraisal of postwar American architecture from a rural perspective, Avant-Garde in the Cornfields presents provocative ideas about how history is interpreted through design and historic preservation—and about how the extraordinary past and present of New Harmony continue to thrive today. Contributors: William R. Crout, Harvard U; Stephen Fox, Rice U; Christine Gorby, Pennsylvania State U; Cammie McAtee, Harvard U; Nancy Mangum McCaslin; Kenneth A. Schuette Jr., Purdue U; Ralph Schwarz; Paul Tillich.Trade Review"New Harmony has long been the American Eden that almost was—a place of learning, spirituality, and experimental architecture lost somewhere south of Indianapolis. This eclectic and sweeping volume brings its many lives, from utopian outpost on the frontier to center for contemplation and tourist site anchored by great works of modern architecture, to life. The equally diverse figures who animated the place, from the English industrialist Robert Owen to his distant heir Jane Blaffer Owen, and including architects Philip Johnson and Richard Meier, each receives a careful historic and formal analysis in this masterful collection of essays."—Aaron Betsky, president, School of Architecture at Taliesin"A detour to the rural heartland can alter many presumptions about American modern culture. Reformers included Robert Owen, who bought the communitarian settlement of New Harmony, Indiana, in 1825, espousing equal rights for workers, women, and former slaves. This book looks closely at New Harmony in the post-WWII era, when historic preservation and environmentalism held sway, while protean architects like Philip Johnson and Richard Meier collaborated with their visionary client, Jane Blaffer Owen. Readers too will look at American modernism from a radically new perspective."—Gwendolyn Wright, Columbia University"Three visionaries created New Harmony, and their visions could hardly be more different. Ben Nicholson and Michelangelo Sabatino, with their splendidly comprehensive study of Jane Blaffer Owen, the most elusive of the three, have completed the story of one of America’s most consequential experiments in town-building."—Michael Lewis, Williams College"The book is carefully produced and edited, with abundant photographs and is well suited for college readers at all levels, particularly those in heritage preservation studies."—ARLIS/NA Reviews"This anthology, filled with insights on design, philanthropy, and the making of place, will be most valued by specialists but should also attract many readers interested in the built environment and historic preservation."—CHOICE"Avant-Garde in the Cornfields, a scholarly history of New Harmony's built environment in the second half of the twentieth century, is very welcome."—A Daily Dose of Architecture"Avant-Garde in the Cornfields is a tremendous achievement that promises to be the crucial resource for chronicling New Harmony’s long and important utopian evolution."—The Annals of Iowa"Avant-Garde in the Cornfields is a comprehensive and beautifully illustrated resource for architectural scholars and lovers of the modern portion of the eclectic place that is New Harmony."—Winterthur Portfolio
£30.60
University of Minnesota Press The Decorated Tenement: How Immigrant Builders
Book SynopsisWinner of the International Society of Place, Landscape, and Culture Fred B. Kniffen AwardA reexamination of working-class architecture in late nineteenth-century urban AmericaAs the multifamily building type that often symbolized urban squalor, tenements are familiar but poorly understood, frequently recognized only in terms of the housing reform movement embraced by the American-born elite in the late nineteenth century. This book reexamines urban America’s tenement buildings of this period, centering on the immigrant neighborhoods of New York and Boston. Zachary J. Violette focuses on what he calls the “decorated tenement,” a wave of new buildings constructed by immigrant builders and architects who remade the slum landscapes of the Lower East Side of Manhattan and the North and West Ends of Boston in the late nineteenth century. These buildings’ highly ornamental facades became the target of predominantly upper-class and Anglo-Saxon housing reformers, who viewed the facades as garish wrappings that often hid what they assumed were exploitative and brutal living conditions. Drawing on research and fieldwork of more than three thousand extant tenement buildings, Violette uses ornament as an entry point to reconsider the role of tenement architects and builders (many of whom had deep roots in immigrant communities) in improving housing for the working poor.Utilizing specially commissioned contem-porary photography, and many never-before-published historical images, The Decorated Tenement complicates monolithic notions of architectural taste and housing standards while broadening our understanding of the diversity of cultural and economic positions of those responsible for shaping American architecture and urban landscapes. Winner of the International Society of Place, Landscape, and Culture Fred B. Kniffen AwardTrade Review "Shifting the focus away from the era’s frequently studied housing reformers, Zachary J. Violette instead explores distinctive ‘decorated tenements’ in New York and Boston. The result is a rich array of unique historical insights into market-driven design, urban building and financing practices, and the consumer desires and aesthetic preferences of immigrant renters grasping for modernity in America."—Donna Gabaccia, University of Toronto "Americans have long regarded the tenement as an unmitigated scourge while celebrating efforts by housing reformers to contain it. In this astonishing study of the architecture of tenements in New York and Boston (and of the architects and developers who built them), Zachary J. Violette topples the familiar narrative, revealing how the tenement represented not just immiseration but betterment: an effort by immigrants, for immigrants to rebuild neighborhoods like the Lower East Side and West End on their own terms. Along the way, Violette brilliantly highlights the role that xenophobia played in housing reform and the degree to which well-meaning experts dismissed the agency of those they sought to help."—Matthew Gordon Lasner, author of High Life: Condo Living in the Suburban Century "With a penetrating analysis into the way average apartment buildings were constructed, especially by little-known ethnic builders, Zachary J. Violette introduces us to the underdocumented process of building design usually associated with the construction of upper-class apartments. Violette’s well-researched book gives us fresh, surprising insights into the tenement and challenges our understanding of this monolithic building type."—Thomas C. Hubka, author of Houses without Names: Architecture Nomenclature and the Classification of America’s Common Houses "The utility of this sturdy volume is facilitated by the inclusion of extensive plans and photos (in both color and black and white), and end notes with extensive documentation and discussion."—CHOICE "Drawing on research and fieldwork of more than three thousand extant tenement buildings, Violette uses ornament as an entry point to reconsider the role of tenement architects and builders (many of whom had deep roots in immigrant communities) in improving housing for the working poor."—New York History "The Decorated Tenement deserves a wide readership and engagement by academic colleagues and by a broader public."—Gotham: A Blog for New York City History "The Decorated Tenement breaks new scholarly ground while remaining an accessible and enjoyable read for anyone interested in New York or Boston history, immigration history, urbanism, and architecture."—Winterthur Portfolio "The book contains a wealth of information and important insights into this iconic piece of the urban landscape."—Labour/Le Travail
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press Metropolitan Dreams: The Scandalous Rise and
Book SynopsisThe story of one of Minnesota’s most famous and most mourned buildings, set against the history of downtown Minneapolis When it opened in 1890, the twelve-story Northwestern Guaranty Loan Building was the tallest, largest, and most splendid commercial structure in Minneapolis—a mighty stone skyscraper built for the ages. How this grand Richardsonian Romanesque edifice, which later came to be called the Metropolitan Building, rose with the growth of Minneapolis only to fall in the throes of the city’s postwar renewal, is revealed in Metropolitan Dreams in all its scandalous intrigue. It is a tale of urban growing pains and architectural ghosts and of colorful, sometimes criminal characters amid the grandeur and squalor of building and rebuilding a city’s skyline.Against the thrumming backdrop of turn-of-the-century Minneapolis, architectural critic and historian Larry Millett recreates the impressive rise of the massive office building, its walls of green New Hampshire granite and red Lake Superior sandstone surrounding its true architectural wonder, a dazzling twelve-story iron and glass light court. The drama, however, was far from confined to the building itself. A consummate storyteller, Millett summons the frenetic atmosphere in Gilded Age Minneapolis that encouraged the likes of Northwestern Guaranty’s founder, real estate speculator Louis Menage, whose shady deals financed this Minneapolis masterpiece—and then forced him to flee both prosecution and the country a mere three years later.Dubious as its financial beginnings might have been, the economic circumstances of the Metropolitan’s demise were at least as questionable. Anchoring Minneapolis’s historic Gateway District in its heyday, the building’s fortunes shifted with the city’s demographics and finally it fell victim to the fervor of one of the largest downtown urban renewal projects ever undertaken in the United States. Though the long and furious battle to save the Metropolitan ultimately failed in 1962, its ghost persists in the passion for historic preservation stirred by its demise—and in Metropolitan Dreams, whose photographs, architectural drawings, and absorbing narrative bring the building and its story to vibrant, enduring life.Trade Review"Minneapolis was booming and bursting, and the new wonder in green New Hampshire granite and red Lake Superior sandstone housed a magnificent twelve-story iron and glass light court, with six elevator cages, thousands of feet of detailed ironwork, and a rooftop observation tower 222 feet above the street. And there was drama: finagling, nefarious deals and vanished money through founder and speculator Louis Menage."—Lavendar"Larry Millett does a thorough job of conveying the beauty and uniqueness of this lost landmark, and its role in helping ignite our country’s preservation movement."—Minnesota Alumni"In Metropolitan Dreams, Millett dives deeply into the building's design and realization, the Midwest city's decisions to develop and demolish, and even how parts of the building live on elsewhere in the city: a great read for Minnesotans but also preservationists in any state."—A Daily Dose of Architecture BooksTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction: “They Will Damn Us, They Will”1. “Risen Like an Exhalation”2. “A Man of Peculiar Genius and Business Methods”3. “One of the Great Architects of the Day”4. “The Best Office Building in the World”The Northwestern Guaranty Loan Building, 1890–19005. “One of the Most Colossal Swindles of the Decade”6. “The Lower Loop is Sunk”7. “How Sick Is This Heart of Minneapolis?”8. “A Monstrosity in the Eyes of Most Observers”Epilogue: “The Most Unfortunate Thing”AcknowledgmentsNotesIllustration CreditsIndex
£23.39
University of Minnesota Press The Invention of Public Space: Designing for
Book SynopsisThe interplay of psychology, design, and politics in experiments with urban open space As suburbanization, racial conflict, and the consequences of urban renewal threatened New York City with “urban crisis,” the administration of Mayor John V. Lindsay (1966–1973) experimented with a broad array of projects in open spaces to affirm the value of city life. Mariana Mogilevich provides a fascinating history of a watershed moment when designers, government administrators, and residents sought to remake the city in the image of a diverse, free, and democratic society.New pedestrian malls, residential plazas, playgrounds in vacant lots, and parks on postindustrial waterfronts promised everyday spaces for play, social interaction, and participation in the life of the city. Whereas designers had long created urban spaces for a broad amorphous public, Mogilevich demonstrates how political pressures and the influence of the psychological sciences led them to a new conception of public space that included diverse publics and encouraged individual flourishing. Drawing on extensive archival research, site work, interviews, and the analysis of film and photographs, The Invention of Public Space considers familiar figures, such as William H. Whyte and Jane Jacobs, in a new light and foregrounds the important work of landscape architects Paul Friedberg and Lawrence Halprin and the architects of New York City’s Urban Design Group.The Invention of Public Space brings together psychology, politics, and design to uncover a critical moment of transformation in our understanding of city life and reveals the emergence of a concept of public space that remains today a powerful, if unrealized, aspiration.Trade Review"Deeply researched and wonderfully written, The Invention of Public Space will inspire a re-thinking of a concept—public space—and a place and time—New York City in the 1960s and ’70s—that we thought we knew well. Mariana Mogilevich captures the unique excitement of that moment when the top-down framework of modernist urban design and planning had collapsed and a new world of open, inclusive, and participatory design seemed to be beginning."—Robert Fishman, Taubman College of Architecture + Planning, University of Michigan"Mariana Mogilevich avoids the expected judgements about the spaces she surveys—how ‘public’ were they, really?—and shows how the idea of ‘public space,’ with all its paradoxes and exclusions, was itself devised as a response to urban crisis in 1960s New York City. Pithy, clever, and wise, The Invention of Public Space is a much-needed reminder that ideas about self and society are at the heart of the cultural history of urbanism."—Samuel Zipp, coeditor of Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs"Thanks to the author's original research and acute analysis, this an important book, not just for the history of 20th-century New York but also for the history of urban America more broadly."—CHOICE"Design and planning of public space play an important role in creating the physical conditions for imagining and experiencing democratic citizenship. But rather than settling on a conclusion whether Lindsay, or later Bloomberg, failed in achieving this goal, Mogilevich leaves us with encouragement to continue the experiment."—Journal of Urban Design"Mogilevich successfully explores how design projects driven by high-minded ideals of spatial politics impacted or even contributed to ongoing racial injustice in the city, and often overlooked the experiences of communities whose lives designers and urbanists were seeking to improve."—ARLIS/NA"This timely book squashes naïveté and inspires, leaving the reader energized and better prepared to pursue spatial justice anew."—The Architect’s NewspaperTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction: The Invention of Public Space1. Space and Politics in Lindsay’s New York2. Topographies of Experience: Jacob Riis Plaza3. Strangers and Neighbors: Residential Territories4. Open Space as Interface: Vest-Pocket Parks5. Pedestrian Experiments: Designs on the Street6. Metropolitan Environments: The Waterfront ParkEpilogue: The Deaths and Lives of Urban Public SpaceAcknowledgmentsAbbreviations for Frequently Cited Archival CollectionsNotesIndex
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press The Metabolist Imagination: Visions of the City
Book SynopsisJapan’s postwar urban imagination through the Metabolism architecture movement and visionary science fiction authors The devastation of the Second World War gave rise to imaginations both utopian and apocalyptic. In Japan, a fascinating confluence of architects and science fiction writers took advantage of this space to begin remaking urban design. In The Metabolist Imagination, William O. Gardner explores the unique Metabolism movement, which allied with science fiction authors to foresee the global cities that would emerge in the postwar era.This first comparative study of postwar Japanese architecture and science fiction builds on the resurgence of interest in Metabolist architecture while establishing new directions for exploration. Gardner focuses on how these innovators created unique versions of shared concepts—including futurity, megastructures, capsules, and cybercities—making lasting contributions that resonate with contemporary conversations around cyberpunk, climate change, anime, and more.The Metabolist Imagination features original documentation of collaborations between giants of postwar Japanese art and architecture, such as the landmark 1970 Osaka Expo. It also provides the most sustained English-language discussion to date of the work of Komatsu Sakyō, considered one of the “big three” authors of postwar Japanese science fiction. These studies are underscored by Gardner’s insightful approach—treating architecture as a form of speculative fiction while positioning science fiction as an intervention into urban design—making it a necessary read for today’s visionaries.Trade Review"A compelling and visionary analysis. William O. Gardner traces shared imaginations of the future city in postwar Japanese fiction, film, and architecture, brilliantly demonstrating the originality of Japanese visions of cities and societies to come. At the same time, he shows how even the most innovative urban visions of recent novels and anime are anchored in ancient Japanese aesthetic and building traditions. A must-read for anyone interested in urban studies, architecture, and science fiction—or, quite simply, the future."—Ursula K. Heise, author of Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species"The Metabolist Imagination is an ambitious and meticulously researched study of the intersections of science fiction and architectural discourse in postwar through contemporary Japan, an innovative pairing that leads to numerous insights across disciplines."—Seiji Lippit, author of Topographies of Japanese Modernism"William O. Gardner is a splendid scholar-critic of Japanese cityscape. The Metabolist Imagination brilliantly foregrounds the postmodern transactions between cutting edge architecture and emergent Japanese science fiction. No one has ever succeeded in exploring so provocatively the singular point between Metabolist works exhibited at EXPO70 and hardcore science fiction novels as represented by Sakyo Komatsu, one of the producers of the very exposition."—Takayuki Tatsumi, Keio University"The Metabolist Imagination—dense and scholarly but highly enjoyable and revealing, especially for someone who likes Japanese architecture and the occasional anime."—Daily Dose of Architecture"Eye-opening in more ways than one."—ArchiECHO"The Metabolist Imagination is a thrilling new contribution that disentangles Japan’s complex 1960s and 1970s from the vantage of interdisciplinary insight."—Journal of Asian Studies "The significant contribution of this book is to invite us to consider our relationship to the ever-changing natural/cultural environment by exploring the interrelationship between future-oriented architecture (and the city) and science fiction."—Journal of Japanese Studies "The Metabolist Imagination is an important contribution to Japanese urban studies and to the burgeoning scholarly discussion of Japan’s 1960s and 1970s. In its attention to architecture, popular literature, film, anime, collage, performance, and the ferment among those, it admirably demonstrates the rewards of an intermedial approach."—Monumenta NipponicaTable of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. City Visions: Metabolism and Science Fiction2. Ruined Cities: Isozaki Arata and Komatsu Sakyô3. Planetary Cities: Komatsu Sakyô’s Disaster Fiction4. Future City: The 1970 Osaka Expo5. Liquid Cities: The Technopolis from Expo to Cyberpunk6. Metabolist Echoes: Akira, Patlabor, and Yanobe KenjiNotesSelected FilmographyBibliographyIndex
£77.60
University of Minnesota Press Design Technics: Archaeologies of Architectural
Book SynopsisLeading scholars historicize and theorize technology’s role in architectural design Although the question of technics pervades the contemporary discipline of architecture, there are few critical analyses on the topic. Design Technics fills this gap, arguing that the technical dimension of design has often been flattened into the broader celebratory rhetoric of innovation. Bringing together leading scholars in architectural and design history, the volume’s contributors situate these tools on a broader epistemological and chronological canvas. The essays here construct histories—some panoramic and others unfolding around a specific episode—of seven techniques regularly used by the designer in the architectural studio today: rendering, modeling, scanning, equipping, specifying, positioning, and repeating.Starting with observations about the epistemological changes that have unfolded in the discipline in recent decades but seeking to offer a more expansive meaning for technics, the volume casts new light on concepts such as form, experience, and image that have played central roles in historical architectural discourses. Among the questions addressed: How was the concept of form immanent in practices of scanning since the late nineteenth century? What was the historical relationship between rendering and experience in Enlightenment discourses? How did practices of specifying reconfigure the distinction between intellectual and manual labor? What kind of rationality is inherent in the designer’s constant clicking of the mouse in front of her screen? In addressing these and other questions, this engaging and timely collection thereby proposes technics as a site for historical and philosophical reflection not only for those engaged in architectural design but also for any scholar working in the humanities today.Contributors: Lucia Allais, Edward Eigen, Orit Halpern, John Harwood, Matthew C. Hunter, and Michael Osman.Trade Review"Weaving together material instruments and mental habits, professional organization and artistic imagination, Design Technics brilliantly demonstrates that design techniques such as modeling, scanning, and specifying enable us to write a different history of architecture. Instead of focusing on authors and buildings, Zeynep Çelik Alexander and John May focus on the concrete operations of the discipline—operations that are nevertheless inseparable from larger perspectives, for techniques contribute to the construction of the human."—Antoine Picon, author of Smart Cities: A Spatialised Intelligence"The historical range of the essays is broad, allowing the reader to see the development of these different practices starting in the 19th century and continuing though the 20th century."—CHOICE"The essays gathered in Design Technics: Archaeologies of Architectural Practice propose a welcome departure from historiographical entrapments."—Critical Inquiry "Questioning and engaging with the mantra of the digital, this collection unearths the old relationship of architecture with techne, the ancient Greek word that best uncovers the root of this ongoing problem."—Technology and Culture"This deeply researched kaleidoscopic investigation of architecture’s technics operates on several levels: as histories of tools, as media archaeologies of their matter and handling, as genealogies of architectural processes, and, not least, as stories told of the historization of the discipline of architecture."—Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society"The editors redefine architectural practice as a plural field of activities entangled with technics—a key term they use to signify both artifacts and processes."—Journal of Architectural Education
£23.39
University of Minnesota Press The Responsive Environment: Design, Aesthetics,
Book SynopsisHow new conceptions of human–environment interaction became central to design theories and practices in the 1970s At the end of the 1960s, new models of responsiveness between humans and their environments had a profound impact on theories and practices in architecture, design, art, technology, media, and the sciences. The resulting initiatives—design philosophies, art installations, architectural projects, exhibitions, publications, and symposia—sought to bring together insights from biology, systems theory, psychology, and anthropology with modernist legacies of total design.In The Responsive Environment, Larry D. Busbea takes up this concept of environment as an object and method of design at the height of its aesthetic, technical, and discursive elaboration. Exploring emerging paradigms of environmental perception, patterning, and control as developed by Gregory Bateson, Edward T. Hall, Wolf Hilbertz, György Kepes, Marshall McLuhan, Nicholas Negroponte, Paolo Soleri, and others, he shows how living space itself was reimagined as a domain capable of modification through input from its newly sensitized inhabitants.The Responsive Environment intercuts the development of new ideas about environmental awareness with case studies of specific architecture and design projects for responsive environments. Throughout, Busbea connects these theories and practices to the contemporary obsession with “smart” things: responsive technologies, intelligent environments, biomimetic materials, and digital atmospherics.Trade Review"The Responsive Environment contributes vital research on the emergence of responsive environments within design experiments and projects undertaken in the 1970s. Abounding with remarkable archival materials, this detailed study of designers and practices offers a valuable historical account of the rise of the smart surrounds that now characterize contemporary computerized worlds."—Jennifer Gabrys, author of Program Earth: Environmental Sensing Technology and the Making of a Computational Planet"The Responsive Environment is a necessary book, one that helps us understand how concepts of environment, subjectivity, and aesthetics underpin historical and conceptual developments in art and architecture. It is a carefully crafted journey through essential thinkers in this field, and it opens new pathways for exploring how we relate to objects, environments, and ourselves."—Daniel A. Barber, author of A House in the Sun: Modern Architecture and Solar Energy in the Cold War
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press The Responsive Environment: Design, Aesthetics,
Book SynopsisHow new conceptions of human–environment interaction became central to design theories and practices in the 1970s At the end of the 1960s, new models of responsiveness between humans and their environments had a profound impact on theories and practices in architecture, design, art, technology, media, and the sciences. The resulting initiatives—design philosophies, art installations, architectural projects, exhibitions, publications, and symposia—sought to bring together insights from biology, systems theory, psychology, and anthropology with modernist legacies of total design.In The Responsive Environment, Larry D. Busbea takes up this concept of environment as an object and method of design at the height of its aesthetic, technical, and discursive elaboration. Exploring emerging paradigms of environmental perception, patterning, and control as developed by Gregory Bateson, Edward T. Hall, Wolf Hilbertz, György Kepes, Marshall McLuhan, Nicholas Negroponte, Paolo Soleri, and others, he shows how living space itself was reimagined as a domain capable of modification through input from its newly sensitized inhabitants.The Responsive Environment intercuts the development of new ideas about environmental awareness with case studies of specific architecture and design projects for responsive environments. Throughout, Busbea connects these theories and practices to the contemporary obsession with “smart” things: responsive technologies, intelligent environments, biomimetic materials, and digital atmospherics.Trade Review"The Responsive Environment contributes vital research on the emergence of responsive environments within design experiments and projects undertaken in the 1970s. Abounding with remarkable archival materials, this detailed study of designers and practices offers a valuable historical account of the rise of the smart surrounds that now characterize contemporary computerized worlds."—Jennifer Gabrys, author of Program Earth: Environmental Sensing Technology and the Making of a Computational Planet"The Responsive Environment is a necessary book, one that helps us understand how concepts of environment, subjectivity, and aesthetics underpin historical and conceptual developments in art and architecture. It is a carefully crafted journey through essential thinkers in this field, and it opens new pathways for exploring how we relate to objects, environments, and ourselves."—Daniel A. Barber, author of A House in the Sun: Modern Architecture and Solar Energy in the Cold War
£23.39
University of Minnesota Press The Shape of Utopia: The Architecture of Radical
Book SynopsisHow nineteenth-century social reformers devised a new set of radical blueprints for society In the middle of the nineteenth century, a utopian impulse flourished in the United States through the circulation of architectural and urban plans predicated on geometrically distinct designs. Though the majority of such plans remained unrealized, The Shape of Utopia emphasizes the enduring importance of these radical propositions and their ability to visualize alternatives to what was then a newly emerging capitalist nation. Drawing diagrammatic plans for structures such as octagonal houses, a hexagonal anarchist city, and circular centers of equitable commerce, these various architectural utopians applied geometric forms to envision a more just and harmonious society. Highlighting the inherent political capacity of architecture, Irene Cheng showcases how these visionary planners used their blueprints as persuasive visual rhetoric that could mobilize others to share in their aspirations for a better world. Offering an extensive and uniquely focused view of mid-nineteenth-century America’s rapidly changing cultural landscape, this book examines these utopian plans within the context of significant economic and technological transformation, encompassing movements such as phrenology, anarchism, and spiritualism. Engaging equally with architectural history, visual culture studies, and U.S. history, The Shape of Utopia documents a pivotal moment in American history when ordinary people ardently believed in the potential to reshape society. Trade Review "Irene Cheng's discovery of geometric utopias uncovers a little-known yet fascinating dimension of nineteenth-century America. Combining architectural and social analysis, she offers a deeply informed interpretation of the complex interactions between political ideals and geometric form. This exciting book should generate a new interest in the utopian impulse."—Margaret Crawford, University of California, Berkeley "Offering a highly original account of nineteenth-century American reform movements and ideals, The Shape of Utopia analyzes ideal community and architectural plans as forms of politics set within vivid cultural, social, and economic contexts. Irene Cheng points the way toward advanced approaches to nineteenth-century American architecture, away from the canon and toward new modes of thinking about representation, culture, society, politics, aesthetics, and the built environment. The Shape of Utopia is a timely, important, and much welcome contribution to nineteenth-century American architectural historiography, joining work by Michael Osman, Joanna Merwood-Salisbury, and Charles Davis."—Daniel M. Abramson, Boston University Table of Contents Contents Introduction: The Visual Rhetoric of Reform 1. Antinomies of American Utopia: Thomas Jefferson’s Grids and Octagons 2. The Visual Rhetoric of Equality: The Land Reformers’ Grid 3. Cultivating the Liberal Self: Orson Fowler’s Octagon House 4. Picturing Sociality without Socialism: The Kansas Vegetarian Octagon Colony 5. Toward More Transparent Representation: The Hexagonal “Anarchist” City of Josiah Warren 6. Models, Machines, and Manifestations: The Spiritualists’ Circular Utopias Epilogue: Whither Geometric Utopianism Acknowledgments Notes Selected Bibliography Index
£100.00
University of Minnesota Press The Shape of Utopia: The Architecture of Radical
Book SynopsisHow nineteenth-century social reformers devised a new set of radical blueprints for society In the middle of the nineteenth century, a utopian impulse flourished in the United States through the circulation of architectural and urban plans predicated on geometrically distinct designs. Though the majority of such plans remained unrealized, The Shape of Utopia emphasizes the enduring importance of these radical propositions and their ability to visualize alternatives to what was then a newly emerging capitalist nation. Drawing diagrammatic plans for structures such as octagonal houses, a hexagonal anarchist city, and circular centers of equitable commerce, these various architectural utopians applied geometric forms to envision a more just and harmonious society. Highlighting the inherent political capacity of architecture, Irene Cheng showcases how these visionary planners used their blueprints as persuasive visual rhetoric that could mobilize others to share in their aspirations for a better world. Offering an extensive and uniquely focused view of mid-nineteenth-century America’s rapidly changing cultural landscape, this book examines these utopian plans within the context of significant economic and technological transformation, encompassing movements such as phrenology, anarchism, and spiritualism. Engaging equally with architectural history, visual culture studies, and U.S. history, The Shape of Utopia documents a pivotal moment in American history when ordinary people ardently believed in the potential to reshape society. Trade Review "Irene Cheng's discovery of geometric utopias uncovers a little-known yet fascinating dimension of nineteenth-century America. Combining architectural and social analysis, she offers a deeply informed interpretation of the complex interactions between political ideals and geometric form. This exciting book should generate a new interest in the utopian impulse."—Margaret Crawford, University of California, Berkeley "Offering a highly original account of nineteenth-century American reform movements and ideals, The Shape of Utopia analyzes ideal community and architectural plans as forms of politics set within vivid cultural, social, and economic contexts. Irene Cheng points the way toward advanced approaches to nineteenth-century American architecture, away from the canon and toward new modes of thinking about representation, culture, society, politics, aesthetics, and the built environment. The Shape of Utopia is a timely, important, and much welcome contribution to nineteenth-century American architectural historiography, joining work by Michael Osman, Joanna Merwood-Salisbury, and Charles Davis."—Daniel M. Abramson, Boston University Table of Contents Contents Introduction: The Visual Rhetoric of Reform 1. Antinomies of American Utopia: Thomas Jefferson’s Grids and Octagons 2. The Visual Rhetoric of Equality: The Land Reformers’ Grid 3. Cultivating the Liberal Self: Orson Fowler’s Octagon House 4. Picturing Sociality without Socialism: The Kansas Vegetarian Octagon Colony 5. Toward More Transparent Representation: The Hexagonal “Anarchist” City of Josiah Warren 6. Models, Machines, and Manifestations: The Spiritualists’ Circular Utopias Epilogue: Whither Geometric Utopianism Acknowledgments Notes Selected Bibliography Index
£26.99
University of Minnesota Press The End of the Village: Planning the Urbanization
Book SynopsisHow China’s expansive new era of urbanization threatens to undermine the foundations of rural life Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, China has vastly expanded its urbanization processes in an effort to reduce the inequalities between urban and rural areas. Centered on the mountainous region of Chongqing, which serves as an experimental site for the country’s new urban development policies, The End of the Village analyzes the radical expansion of urbanization and its consequences for China’s villagers. It reveals a fundamental rewriting of the nation’s social contract, as villages that once organized rural life and guaranteed rural livelihoods are replaced by an increasingly urbanized landscape dominated by state institutions. Throughout this comprehensive study of China’s “urban–rural coordination” policy, Nick R. Smith traces the diminishing autonomy of the country’s rural populations and their subordination to larger urban networks and shared administrative structures. Outside Chongqing’s urban centers, competing forces are at work in reshaping the social, political, and spatial organization of its villages. While municipal planners and policy makers seek to extend state power structures beyond the boundaries of the city, village leaders and inhabitants try to maintain control over their communities’ uncertain futures through strategies such as collectivization, shareholding, real estate development, and migration.As China seeks to rectify the development crises of previous decades through rapid urban growth, such drastic transformations threaten to displace existing ways of life for more than 600 million residents. Offering an unprecedented look at the country’s contentious shift in urban planning and policy, The End of the Village exposes the precarious future of rural life in China and suggests a critical reappraisal of how we think about urbanization.Trade Review "This excellent book provides important insights into the complexities of Chinese urbanization. Through a thorough and grounded investigation of a peri-urban village, Nick R. Smith produces a lively and remarkably informative account of how the village has been transformed by both state-led planning and reactions from its inhabitants against these external forces. Highly recommended to anyone interested in China and urban studies."—Fulong Wu, author of Planning for Growth: Urban and Regional Planning in China "The End of the Village is a grounded and masterfully executed project on the ever-evolving relationship between two moving targets: the city and the village. It is a go-to text for all students concerned about the spatial question in the political economy of China’s transformation today."—You-tien Hsing, University of California, Berkeley "An essential authoritative text on urban-rural coordination and the contingencies of China’s urbanization processes. It should be read by scholars not only of urban planning, but also those interested in China’s party-state, development, and rural society."—China Quarterly "Overall, this book is very well written and has a nice narrative arc—starting from the perspectives of different stakeholders in Hailong, then moving to different key planning and development themes. Smith also skillfully articulates the contradictions generated from China’s coordinative planning and presents these contradictions through episodes of conflicts between various stakeholders, making the book highly readable. "—Journal of Urban Affairs "Overall, this book presents a detailed and comprehensive case study of local actions in the rural development crisis and urban-rural coordination program in China. "—H-Net Reviews "This is an exceptional book that provides compelling insights on the complex processes of urbanization in China."—Buildings & Landscapes "The book documents a living history of China’s urban transition and leaves the reader pondering the nation’s urban–rural relations and integration."—China Information "The book provides a vivid and meticulous account of the tension, fragmentation, conflict, and contingency surrounding the Chinese state."—Contemporary Sociology "This book is a delightful read and undoubtedly an essential contribution to Chinese Urban Studies. It is recommended to professionals as well as those wishing to gain a deeper understanding of multi-scalar negotiation processes accompanying urban planning and rural development in China."—European Journal of East Asian Studies "The lucid argumentation and enjoyable writing style make the book a valuable resource for undergraduate and graduate teaching in area studies, urban studies, and in interdisciplinary contexts."—Pacific Affairs "The book provides a comprehensive account of planning for the urbanisation of rural China from socio-economic, political, spatial and individual perspectives."—Urban Research & Practice "It is impossible to do justice to the depth of exploration and breadth of research that has gone into Smith’s highly engaging and thoughtfully penned exploration of rural China under rapid urbanisation."—Thesis Eleven Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: China’s New Era of Urbanization 1. Urbanization by Other Means: Planning under Urban–Rural Coordination 2. Village Growth Machine: Charismatic Authority and the Urbanization of the Party 3. Living on the Edge: Residents’ Urban–Rural Strategies of Survival 4. Coordinative Planning: Property, Politics, and Uncertainty at the Urban–Rural Edge 5. Village-as-the-City: Land Commodification, Shareholding, and Self-Urbanization 6. The End of the Village: Experiences of Displacement Conclusion: Disjunctural Urbanization AcknowledgmentsNotesBibliography Index
£77.60
University of Minnesota Press The End of the Village: Planning the Urbanization
Book SynopsisHow China’s expansive new era of urbanization threatens to undermine the foundations of rural life Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, China has vastly expanded its urbanization processes in an effort to reduce the inequalities between urban and rural areas. Centered on the mountainous region of Chongqing, which serves as an experimental site for the country’s new urban development policies, The End of the Village analyzes the radical expansion of urbanization and its consequences for China’s villagers. It reveals a fundamental rewriting of the nation’s social contract, as villages that once organized rural life and guaranteed rural livelihoods are replaced by an increasingly urbanized landscape dominated by state institutions. Throughout this comprehensive study of China’s “urban–rural coordination” policy, Nick R. Smith traces the diminishing autonomy of the country’s rural populations and their subordination to larger urban networks and shared administrative structures. Outside Chongqing’s urban centers, competing forces are at work in reshaping the social, political, and spatial organization of its villages. While municipal planners and policy makers seek to extend state power structures beyond the boundaries of the city, village leaders and inhabitants try to maintain control over their communities’ uncertain futures through strategies such as collectivization, shareholding, real estate development, and migration.As China seeks to rectify the development crises of previous decades through rapid urban growth, such drastic transformations threaten to displace existing ways of life for more than 600 million residents. Offering an unprecedented look at the country’s contentious shift in urban planning and policy, The End of the Village exposes the precarious future of rural life in China and suggests a critical reappraisal of how we think about urbanization.Trade Review "This excellent book provides important insights into the complexities of Chinese urbanization. Through a thorough and grounded investigation of a peri-urban village, Nick R. Smith produces a lively and remarkably informative account of how the village has been transformed by both state-led planning and reactions from its inhabitants against these external forces. Highly recommended to anyone interested in China and urban studies."—Fulong Wu, author of Planning for Growth: Urban and Regional Planning in China "The End of the Village is a grounded and masterfully executed project on the ever-evolving relationship between two moving targets: the city and the village. It is a go-to text for all students concerned about the spatial question in the political economy of China’s transformation today."—You-tien Hsing, University of California, Berkeley "An essential authoritative text on urban-rural coordination and the contingencies of China’s urbanization processes. It should be read by scholars not only of urban planning, but also those interested in China’s party-state, development, and rural society."—China Quarterly "Overall, this book is very well written and has a nice narrative arc—starting from the perspectives of different stakeholders in Hailong, then moving to different key planning and development themes. Smith also skillfully articulates the contradictions generated from China’s coordinative planning and presents these contradictions through episodes of conflicts between various stakeholders, making the book highly readable. "—Journal of Urban Affairs "Overall, this book presents a detailed and comprehensive case study of local actions in the rural development crisis and urban-rural coordination program in China. "—H-Net Reviews "This is an exceptional book that provides compelling insights on the complex processes of urbanization in China."—Buildings & Landscapes "The book documents a living history of China’s urban transition and leaves the reader pondering the nation’s urban–rural relations and integration."—China Information "The book provides a vivid and meticulous account of the tension, fragmentation, conflict, and contingency surrounding the Chinese state."—Contemporary Sociology "This book is a delightful read and undoubtedly an essential contribution to Chinese Urban Studies. It is recommended to professionals as well as those wishing to gain a deeper understanding of multi-scalar negotiation processes accompanying urban planning and rural development in China."—European Journal of East Asian Studies "The lucid argumentation and enjoyable writing style make the book a valuable resource for undergraduate and graduate teaching in area studies, urban studies, and in interdisciplinary contexts."—Pacific Affairs "The book provides a comprehensive account of planning for the urbanisation of rural China from socio-economic, political, spatial and individual perspectives."—Urban Research & Practice "It is impossible to do justice to the depth of exploration and breadth of research that has gone into Smith’s highly engaging and thoughtfully penned exploration of rural China under rapid urbanisation."—Thesis Eleven Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: China’s New Era of Urbanization 1. Urbanization by Other Means: Planning under Urban–Rural Coordination 2. Village Growth Machine: Charismatic Authority and the Urbanization of the Party 3. Living on the Edge: Residents’ Urban–Rural Strategies of Survival 4. Coordinative Planning: Property, Politics, and Uncertainty at the Urban–Rural Edge 5. Village-as-the-City: Land Commodification, Shareholding, and Self-Urbanization 6. The End of the Village: Experiences of Displacement Conclusion: Disjunctural Urbanization AcknowledgmentsNotesBibliography Index
£20.69
