City Catalyst Architecture in the Age of Extreme Urbanisation

by Eisenschmidt, Alexander

• ISBN13: 9781119972662
• ISBN10: 1119972663
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-10-29
• Publisher: Academy Press

Summary

This publication allows architects to become familiar with the type of constantly changing, urban conditions that architecture has commonly avoided. A resource for a new generation of designers, young professionals, students, and academics who want to engage with the city on its own grounds, to abet its potentials and seek opportunities in its existing condition, City Catalyst demonstrates how todays architecture is redefining its position within the city.

Author Biography

Alexander Eisenschmidt is an architect, writer, historian and theorist, who teaches design and history & theory at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and his Diploma in architecture from the University of Leipzig in Germany. Before moving to Chicago, Eisenschmidt taught at Pratt Institute in New York and Syracuse University. Most recently, Eisenschmidt chaired a conference panel on the Metropolis and hosted a symposium at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, entitled Informal Cities. He has written widely for journals and recently accepted the co-editorship for the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Modern and Contemporary Architecture, which will have a worldwide distribution.

Table of Contents

EditorIal 5
Helen Castle

About the GUEST-EDITOR 6
Alexander Eisenschmidt

SPOTLIGHT 8
Visual highlights of the issue

Introduction 14
Stranger Than Fiction: A Mission Statement
Alexander Eisenschmidt

The City’s Architectural Project: From Formless City to Forms of Architecture 18
Alexander Eisenschmidt

Patrons & Prototypes: Walmart’s Catalytic Urbanism 26
Jesse LeCavalier

Localising the Global 36
Kyong Park

Revolution of the Ordinary 42
Daniela Fabricius

China’s Macro-Planning Policies: Architectural Catalyst or Constraint? 50
Edward Denison

We Will Be Making Active Form 58
Keller Easterling

Counterpoints With Crisis 64
Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss

Metropol Parasol, Seville 70
Jürgen Mayer H

The Perfect Storm: Urbanism and Architecture 74
Ron Witte

The Unified Project 80
Albert Pope

Void Metabolism 88
Yoshiharu Tsukamoto

Urban Wash 94
Sean Lally

African Water Cities 98
Kunlé Adeyemi

Make No Big Plans 102
Michelle Provoost and Wouter Vanstiphout

Shape and the City 108
RE Somol

Too Big To Fail 114
Sarah Dunn and Martin Felsen

Parc Des Expositions (PEX), Toulouse: A Condenser for Diversity 120
Clément Blanchet

Dancing with Entropy 124
Adriaan Geuze and Matthew Skjonsberg

Importing the City into Architecture: An Interview with Bernard Tschumi 130
Alexander Eisenschmidt

Counterpoint 136
Hello Stranger: Phenomenology and Topography of the Megacity
Caroline Bos

Contributors 142