The Modern Urban Landscape - Brossura

Relph, Edward

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0801835607 ISBN 13: 9780801835605

Casa editrice: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr, 1987

Riassunto

Why do the cities of the late twentieth century look as they do? What values do their appearance express and enfold? Their sheer scale and the durability of their materials assure that our cities will inform future generations about our era, in the same way that gothic cathedrals and medieval squares tell us something of the Middle Ages. In the meantime, our urban landscapes can tell us much about ourselves.

For Edward Relph, the urban landscape must be envisioned as a total environment—not just streets and buildings but billboards and parking meters as well.The Modern Urban Landscape traces the developments since 1880 in architecture, technology, planning, and society that have formed the visual context of daily life. Each of these shaping influences is often viewed in isolation, but Relph surveys the ways in which they have operated independently to create what we see when we walk down a street, shop in a mall, or stare through a windshield on an expressway.

Two sets of ideas and fashions, Relph argues, have had an especially important impact on urban landscapes in the twentieth century. An "internationalism" made possible by new building technologies and more rapid communications has replaced regional style and custom as the dominant feature of city appearance, while a firm belief in the merits of self-consciousness has imposed logical analysis and technical manipulation on such commonplace objects as curbstones and park benches. "As a result," writes Relph, "the modern urban landscape is both rationalized and artificial, which is another way of saying that it is intensely human."

Su questo libro

Recensione:

Brings together urban history, urban form, public planning history, the literature of utopianism, and the architecture of cities in an intelligent, coherent, lively, and controversial portrayal of the evolution of the physical characteristics of Anglo-American urban environments since 1880.

(Landscape Journal)

L'autore:

Edward Relph is an associate professor geography as Scarborough College at the University of Toronto. He is the author ofPlace and Placeleessness and Rational Landscapes.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0801835607
• ISBN 13: 9780801835605
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 288