Placing words : symbols, space, and the city / William J. Mitchell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mitchell, William J. (William John), 1944-2010.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Communication in architecture.

Cities and towns.

Public spaces.

Physical Description:

ix, 224 pages ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, [2005]

Summary:

Mitchell questions the necessity of flashy downtown office towers in an age of corporate Web sites. He casts the shocked-and-awed Baghdad as a contemporary Guernica. He describes architectural makeovers throughout history, listing Le Corbusier's Fab Five Points of difference between new and old architecture, and he discusses the architecture of Manolo Blahniks. He pens an open letter to the Secretary of Defense recommending architectural features to include in torture chambers. He compares Baudelaire, the Parisian flaneur, to Spiderman, the Manhattan traceur. He describes the iPod-like galleries of the renovated MoMA and he recognizes the camera phone as the latest step in a process of image mobilization that began when artists stopped painting on walls and began making pictures on small pieces of wood, canvas, or paper. The endless flow of information, he makes clear, is not only more pervasive and efficient than ever, it is also generating new cultural complexities.

Contents:

In the First Place 1

Text and the City 21

1 Do We Still Need Skyscrapers? 23

2 After 9/11 29

3 Poison Ivy 35

4 The Cobblestones and the Beach 41

5 Guernica II 45

6 Beyond the City Limits 49

7 Palladio in the Piazza 55

8 Things That Think 61

9 Twilight at the Drive-In 65

10 Smackdown in Cyberspace 71

11 Smelling the Brie 77

12 An Eye for an Eye 83

13 What Does a Pixel Want To Be? 87

14 Elegy for a G4 93

15 The Wireless Groves 99

16 Vagabond Shoes 105

17 Manolos 111

18 A Neutron Walks Into a Bar 117

19 Gauguin's House in Paradise 123

20 Architectural Principles of the Torture Chamber 129

21 King of Bling 135

22 The Theatrics of Terror 141

23 Crash and Burn 147

24 The Spiderman Cometh 153

25 My Two Cents 159

26 The Munchkin Modulor 165

27 Less Is More Is Back 171

28 Desperate Urbanists 175

29 Homo Electronicus 181

30 After the Tsunami 187

31 Gated Community 193

32 Camp Cupcake Blues 199

Carriage Return 205.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

0262633221

OCLC:

60798513