Dream Cities: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the World
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.25 (857 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B00Y8413LE |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 119 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-01-20 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
So many books of this type get lost in boring and academic prose Michael Falk I just devoured this book. I read a lot of books on history and architecture and I must say this one really stands out for a couple of reasons. First, it is just plain well written. So many books of this type get lost in boring and academic prose. It is the opposite of a tome – just a nicely proportioned book that is easy to dig into. Second, it is well documented and researched without bogging down in references. (I like the use of end notes rather than footnotes.) Obviously we turn to a book like this with the expectation that the topics are well researched and no fancy writing can substitute for that. Fina. Fascinating look at features of urbanism "Dream Cities: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape The World", by Wade Graham, is a dream book for armchair urbanists. The book is not long, but Graham covers the seven architectural concepts that he claims have influenced the development of cities over the years. His seven, "Castles", "Monuments", "Slabs", "Homesteads", "Corals", "Malls", and "Habitats" , are fleshed out by giving the prime architects who either conceived the ideas or were leading practitioners of them.Let's take "Slabs". These are those rows of tall buildings designed to house people on masse. Think Robert Moses - city planner of New York City - who pro. Interesting perspective on architecture Jeri L. Miller Fascinating book, very well written, clever and insightful review of seven different architectural concepts, complete with photos.
Wade Graham is a Los Angeles–based garden designer, historian, and writer whose work on the environment, landscape, urbanism, and the arts has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s, the Los Angeles Times, Outside, and other publications. An adjunct professor of public policy at Pepperdine University, he is the author of American Eden: From Monticello to Central Park to Our Backyards: What Our Gard
Dream Cities is nothing less than a field guide to our modern urban world.Illustrated with 59 black-and-white photos throughout the text.. In this elegantly designed and illustrated book, Graham uncovers the original plans of brilliant, obsessed, and sometimes megalomaniacal designers, revealing the foundations of today’s varied municipalities. It tells the stories of the real architects and thinkers whose imagined cities became the blueprints for the world we live in.From the nineteenth century to today, what began as visionary concepts—sometimes utopian, sometimes outlandish, always controversial—were gradually adopted and constructed on a massive scale in cities
“An excellent and novel exploration of key ideas behind city spaces and the behaviors they engender. Graham wants us to see these urban and architectural forms afresh, not as the drab commonplaces they have become but as the work of visionaries ‘whose dreamed-of cities became the blueprint for the world we actually live in.’” (New York Times Book Review) . Mr. Graham is as masterly as a novelist when it comes to character development and narrative.” (Wall Street Journal)“An intriguing architectural history and an effective antidote to the excesses of urban renewal and city planning.” (Kirkus)“Dream Cities offers a fascinating look at seven trends in urban planning that shaped the modern world.” (Shelf Awareness)