The unknown city : contesting architecture and social space : a Strangely Familiar project / edited by Iain Borden [et al.].

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Borden, Iain.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Architecture and society.

Architecture--Human factors.

Architecture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxvii, 533 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Essays on architecture as narrative and urban space as experience and the new geographies they create.The Unknown City takes its place in the emerging architectural literature that looks beyond design process and buildings to discover new ways of looking at the urban experience. A multistranded contemplation of the notion of "knowing a place," it is about both the existence and the possibilities of architecture and the city. An important inspiration for the book is the work of Henri Lefebvre, in particular his ideas on space as a historical production. Many of the essays also draw on the social critique and tactics of the Situationist movement. The international gathering of contributors includes art, architectural, and urban historians and theorists; urban geographers; architects, artists, and filmmakers; and literary and cultural theorists. The essays range from abstract considerations of spatial production and representation to such concrete examples of urban domination as video surveillance and Regency London as the site of male pleasure. Although many of the essays are driven by social, cultural, and urban theory, they also tell real stories about real places. Each piece is in some way a critique of capitalism and a thought experiment about how designers and city dwellers working together can shape the cities of tomorrow.

Contents:

1. Things, Flows, Filters, Tactics / Iain Borden, Jane Rendell and Joe Kerr / [and others]

2. Twice-Told Stories: The Double Erasure of Times Square / M. Christine Boyer

3. That Place Where: Some Thoughts on Memory and the City / Barry Curtis

4. The Uncompleted Monument: London, War, and the Architecture of Remembrance / Joe Kerr

5. From Tribeca to Triburbia: A New Concept of the City / William Menking

6. "Bazaar Beauties" or "Pleasure Is Our Pursuit": A Spatial Story of Exchange / Jane Rendell

7. I Am a Videocam / Philip Tabor

8. Stories of Plain Territory: The Maidan, Calcutta / Helen Thomas

9. Colonialism, Power, and the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank / Shirley Wong

10. Another Pavement, Another Beach: Skateboarding and the Performative Critique of Architecture / Iain Borden

11. The Royal Festival Hall

a "Democratic" Space? / Adrian Forty

12. The Cityscape and the "People" in the Prints of Jose Guadalupe Posada / Tom Gretton

13. The Claremont Road Situation / Sandy McCreery

14. The Lesbian Flaneur / Sally R. Munt

15. The Un(known) City ... or, an Urban Geography of What Lies Buried below the Surface / Steve Pile

16. On Spuistraat: The Contested Streetscape in Amsterdam / Edward W. Soja

17. Home and Away: The Feminist Remapping of Public and Private Space in Victorian London / Lynne Walker

18. Brief Encounters.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

ISBN:

0-262-26901-5

0-585-44663-6

OCLC:

52475062