Unknown City : Contesting Architecture and Social Space

by Iain Borden, Joe Kerr, Jane Rendell and Alicia Pivaro (Eds.)

• ISBN13: 9780262523356
• ISBN10: 0262523353
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-09-09
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

The Unknown Citytakes 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.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Things, Flows, Filters, Tactics	p. 2
Twice-Told Stories: The Double Erasure of Times Square	p. 30
That Place Where: Some Thoughts on Memory and the City	p. 54
The Uncompleted Monument: London, War, and the Architecture of Remembrance	p. 68
From Tribeca to Triburbia: A New Concept of the City	p. 90
"Bazaar Beauties" or "Pleasure Is Our Pursuit": A Spatial Story of Exchange	p. 104
I Am a Videocam	p. 122
Stories of Plain Territory: The Maidan, Calcutta	p. 138
Colonialism, Power, and the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank	p. 160
Another Pavement, Another Beach: Skateboarding and the Performative Critique of Architecture	p. 178
The Royal Festival Hall - a "Democratic" Space?	p. 200
The Cityscape and the "People" in the Prints of Jose Guadalupe Posada	p. 212
The Claremont Road Situation	p. 228
The Lesbian Flaneur	p. 246
The Un(known) City ... or, an Urban Geography of What Lies Buried below the Surface	p. 262
On Spuistraat: The Contested Streetscape in Amsterdam	p. 280
Home and Away: The Feminist Remapping of Public and Private Space in Victorian London	p. 296
Brief Encounters	p. 314
Live Adventures	p. 328
It's Not Unusual Projects and Tactics	p. 340
Claiming Women's History in the Urban Landscape: Projects from Los Angeles	p. 356
Architecture and the City	p. 370
"The Accident of Where I Live" - Journeys on the Caledonian Road	p. 386
Architecture, Amnesia, and the Emergent Archaic	p. 408
Reflections from a Moscow Diary, 1984-1994	p. 422
City Living: Love's Meeting Place	p. 436
Port Statistics	p. 442
Living in Wythenshawe	p. 458
The Last Days of London	p. 476
Around the World in Three Hundred Yards	p. 492
Sources of Illustrations	p. 504
Index	p. 506
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.