4 comments about Event-Cities 2.

1. Simultaneously I have on my desk Peter Hall Cities in Civilization and Bernard Tschumi Event Cities 2. Well, you should try it. It is quite a challenge! Peter Hall describes in (sometimes boring) length the histories of great cities. Bernard Tschumi offers drawings, emphasizing concepts. A large part of the Tschumi book pays attention to the Parc de la Villette in Paris. A park I have loved since I first visited it in the early nineties. I fairly well remember my first impressions. I was stunned at the assumption that this could be named a park. There were buildings, follies, the French national technology museum. In all respects, this was not what a park was meant to be. But, I loved it. The lay out of the park invited me to wander around. It was a very exciting experience: nature, culture, technology, playground, people just strolling around. During my second visit I began to understand more theoretically what the park was meant to represent. I was vaguely aware of the combination nature and culture. By reading the book of Tschumi I developed a sense of the purpose and intention. I admire the theoretical concepts in the book because I have seen actually how well the park functions. I realized that Tschumi considered the park as one of the greatest buildings ever been constructed. The park ought not to be an image of nature. The park is contributing to the city! This concept of the park as an open air cultural center is nicefully being explained in Event Cities. My third visit was in 2005. I realized I had come a long way in understanding this park, or rather this concept. The preliminary thoughts and drawings of Tschumi in Event Cities did help me a lot. So, I suggest the forthcoming visitor to the Parc de la Villette should read this book before having a coffee in one of the follies.
   
   Luuk Oost



2. Item recieved well packaged, on-time, and as described. Will do business with again.



3. If the architecture of Frank Gehry, has been described as a movie composed entirely of special effects, then Tschumi's is like special effects that don't quite come off. Herbert Muschamp, the modernist cheerleader who is the architecture critic for the NY Times, began his review of Tschumi's Lerner Student Center at Columbia University by saying "By now, everyone knows that Bernard Tschumi's new Lerner Hall is a dud." And City Journal described his work as ""an agitated, irrational mix of limestone, brick, metal, and glass... giving the impression of a building on the edge of a nervous breakdown." Journalist Robert Locke has written, ""Tschumi's theoretical writings, the basis of his reputation, are a tangled mess that alternately induces dizziness and puzzlement as to whether the author actually knows what philosophy is, or merely heard it described by someone in a bar once ...... The worst of this stuff is so self-evidently empty as to defy attack". - It only remains for you to ask yourself whether you are one of those fools who will be taken in by this confidence trickster who has ruined the cities we live in, or whether you will move on to more intelligent reading. [Hint: Try Louis Kahn. it's a good start!]



4. In Event Cities 2, Benard Tschumi lists out his five design devices or strategies applied in his "in-between" architecture.

   The first device is using space, event and movement as beginning of analysis. The famous Parc de la Villette is a typical example.

   The second one is using the concept of "movement vector" to organize space. Vector can be applied as landscape in an office building in Geneva or as infrastructure in railaway station in Lausanne.

   The third one is to explore the relationship between soild and void in his design. The fourth one is to activate the movenment vector is this void.

   The fifth "envelope" strategy is to explore the potential of building envelope as animated and integrated in-between space, instead of just building skin.

   Through the explanation of the above strategies in Event-Cities 2 by Tschumi, all the complex ideas behind his recent design projects from 94 to 99 can be well-organized and easily understood by both design professionals and students.

No comments about Comparative Planning Cultures.

No comments about The Sacred Geometry of Washington, D.c.: The Integrity And Power of the Original Design.

5 comments about Global City Blues.

1. Professional architect Daniel Solomon presents Global City Blues, a passionate and sharply worded warning against the harm that modernist architectural ideals can cause at the expense of city places constructed with the goal of creating community and fellowship. Chapters discuss the importance of style, "Why the City is Not a Work of Art", the massive impact of technology upon architecture, and much more. Written especially for current and aspiring city architects and architectural planners, Global City Blues combines theory with practicality in search of the highest goal - creating places that foster lasting bonds between people, rather than simply serving as flashy showcases.



2. Although Solomon is a New Urbanist, his book is far less nuts-and-bolts than other prominent New Urbanist books such as Duany's Suburban Nation. Instead, Solomon has written a group of short, data-light, footnote-free essays on architecture and urban planning.
   
   Some of the essays were quite educational. I especially liked his efforts to explain the mentality of modernist architects and planners. For example, he points out that even though the Craftsman bungalows that dominated early 20th-century America delivered beautiful public spaces, their kitchens were "dark and segregated." By contrast, 1950s architects sought to make houses lighter and airier, but neglected public space.
   
   Their ideological heirs, the 21st-century "starchitects" tend to be from Los Angeles, a place that "teaches an architect to survive in, even to revel in, a world that is disjointed, irredeemably ugly to many outsiders, and far beyond the normal kind of civic grace that cities have aspired to." And because they are used to ugly streets, they are not so interested in creating buildings that engage with the street or neighborhood around them. By contrast, Solomon is from San Francisco, a place that teaches architects that urbanity still works.
   
   He also speculates that the urban renewal-induced destruction of American cities had a psychological cause: young men who served in World War II had "an absolutely unprecedented and life-forming experience of competence" during their military service, and thus were "ready to build the world anew." But Solomon admits that some of the intellectual ammunition behind postwar sprawl was built earlier: for example, R.G. Tugwell, part of Franklin Roosevelt's "brain trust" suggested something very similar in 1935: "[go] outside centers of population, pick up cheap land, build a whole community and entice people to go into it. Then go back into the cities and tear down whole slums and make parks of them."
   
   And Solomon also explains the psychology of New Urbanism, pointing out that New Urbanism, unlike environmentalism, is not motivated primarily by concern over dirty air of global warming, but by the desire to recreate "the quality of experience", to create places where we can connect with the world around us.
   
   An environmentalist's list of necessary attributes of a good place might include hybrid cars or solar power; Solomon's list includes "places to walk", "encounters with others, particularly others who are different", "real air", and "knowledge of what town you're in and where you are in town". Where these elements are missing, people have no reason to go outside, and nothing but a "steady unrelenting diet" of indoor technology (internet, TV, air conditioning, etc.) that makes it difficult for people to distinguish between the virtual world of media experience and the real world of direct experience. (Thus the absurd spectacle of people mourning for dead celebrities such as Princess Diana).
   
   However, some of Solomon's glittering, unsupported generalizations are not so persuasive - for example, his suggestion that Mohammed Atta's hostility towards America was a reaction to "world tourism".



3. I question the premise of the books criticism.
   
   One cannot blame the inadequacies of the modern city on one or two architects (Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe). Those revolutionary architects were purely responding the changing environment that surrounded them; namely the industrial revolution.
   
   To continue to construct buildings and plan communities as they were a thousand years ago would be akin to using wax paper for windows and traveling via horse (as Solomon suggests). Fortunately technology does indeed affect us all and Architects have a responsibility to respond to it accordingly.
   
   I do agree that there are numerous problems with today's cities but turning the clock back to more idealistic times is not the answer, as the self proclaimed "New Urbanists" say.



4. Solomon's book was just the tonic I needed to regain my faith in the real value of the design professions. I had begun to despair that I was the only person who found the Prada posing of Rem Koolhaas and his ilk reminded me ever so much of the children's story "The Emperor's New Clothes." Solomon is apparently another like-minded soul, though his book touches on so much more than the soulless modernism that pervades the design professsion (esp. the academy and the press) today. A committed urbanist, Solomon attempts to show that a very few showoff buildings may have their place in a city, but that a city cannot be made of Frank Gehry monuments. And most especially not of imitation Frank Gehry monuments! He writes with wit, passion, and clarity, three qualities that are often in short supply in tomes by architects. Major kudos to the author, and a strong "buy" recommendation to the reader.



5. This author really states with such power and imagery how screwed up the modern world is. He describes the 'odorless gas of Modernist thinking' that has affected the way we design, plan and build that is anti-human and incredibly destructive to civilized living.
   Great stuff. I couldn't put it down.

No comments about Making a Middle Landscape.

2 comments about Eden by Design: The 1930 Olmsted-Bartholomew Plan for the Los Angeles Region.

1. It's true that the maps are often too small and would be better in color, as the originals are. However, the reprints are far from illegible, and the text of the Olmsted-Bartholomew proposal is captivating in and of itself.

   I was fascinated to read the astute predictions of these men of vision, and their thoughtful proposals for increasing the quality of life for Angelenos. I remarked at the urgency of their recommendations; they seem to genuinely fear the social consequences of allowing a city to grow with inadequate space reserved for recreation and natural beauty.

   If only we could know what L.A. would have been if the plan had been adopted!




2. This reprint of "The 1930 Olmsted-Bartholemew Plan for the Los Angeles Region" is more exactly a low-quality copy. The maps are so dark they are very difficult to read, and the way they are bound into the book, much of the details are lost into the seams. The original maps were color, so any references to colors in the legends are lost, and the gray scales blended together make the maps even less articulate. It's important that a document such as this is reprinted for all to see, but it seems as if this volume has missed an opportunity of becoming a library keepsake.

1 comments about 'scape: The International Magazine of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism (Scape).

1. This is a great journal for professionals, or the aspiring urban planners and landscape architects. It covers environmental design from an international perspective with extensive essays, interviews in a well though out academic manner; without the ubiquitous adverts. This periodical can be enjoyed by any one from professionals to backyard gardeners, just about anyone whom is devoted to environmental conservation and sustainability.
   A. Thomas

5 comments about Site Engineering for Landscape Architects.

1. I bought this book to help me better understand how to do grading, evaluate contours, etc. All well and good. I begin doing the problems at the end of a chapter, and there is no answer key anywhere in the book. Can't find any reference to answers anywhere.
   
   I would have rated the book higher but for this little issue.



2. I am a first-year BLA student, and this text is required for an introductory course in site grading and drainage. This book is very difficult for me to read and understand. Descriptions of calculations are very poorly presented in paragraph narrative, which is mind-numbing to read and comprehend. If the calculations were presented in a step-by-step format, like a math text, they would be dramatically more clear and understandable. I agree with a previous reviewer, as well, that the layout is dysfunctional because the text and corresponding graphics are not on facing pages. This problem is particularly annoying, considering that landscape architecture is a design profession that emphasizes legibility in graphics and presentation material. I would welcome anyone's recommendations for a text that explains this subject in a more helpful way.



3. Site Engineering is a difficult subject for many landscape students and designers, yet it is a very important aspect of landscape architecture. As a landscape architect, you probably do not have to produce a grading plan (it can be done by a civil engineer), but you do need to have some basic site engineering knowledge to be able to coordinate your work with civil and other consultants. You do need to be able to read and visualize an ALTA survey map, or a grading plan; you do need to be able to understand what a concave or convex landform is, what a swale or ridge is, how to read contour or spot elevations, etc.
   
   "Site Engineering for Landscape Architects" will give you a very comprehensive knowledge of site engineering. It covers contours and form (constructing a section, contour signature and landform, characteristic of contour lines), interpolation and slope, grading constraints, grading design and process, earthwork, grading landform and architecture, storm water management, the methods to determine the rates and volumes of storm water runoff, natural resources conservation services, required detention storage, designing and sizing storm water management system, horizontal road alignment, vertical road alignment, and various case studies. It is so comprehensive that you can probably do a civil engineer's work after your read it. My suggestion is to buy this book, and look through it to have a general idea of what it covers and know where to find the information when you need it later. You can also look through the portions that you already know and focus on reading the portions that you are not very familiar with and improve your site engineering knowledge.
   
   "Site Engineering for Landscape Architects" has 352 pages and many line drawings and interior black-and-white photos. It is a great site engineering reference book for architects, landscape architects, urban planners, and engineers.
   
   Gang Chen, Author of "LEED AP Exam Guide" & "Planting Design Illustrated." LEED AP, AIA
   
   



4. I was a bit tentative when I started to use this text. The book has some minor editing problems, but if your desire is to really understand site design with an emphasis on drainage and grading plan design this text does the trick and does it well. I would recommend this book to any Jr. land development designer/engineer as a must have reference.



5. This is a great book to have on your shelf. Kept referring to it for my Site Technology classes and I know I'll be referring to it in the future. I found it very helpful and clearly written. Would highly recommend it.

No comments about Urban Spaces: Squares & Plazas.

5 comments about Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World.

1. In Shadow Cities, Robert Neuwirth asserts that squatter communities are effective despite the lack of formal law or law enforcement. He says that the only rule in many squatter communities is that no one may build anything permanent, and often construction groups based on family or friendship ties are formed to help each other. No one owns the land underneath their homes, but intricate structures have developed organically to manage land tenure, and the author praises these structures over formal property titling. In support of his contentions, Neuwirth states that formal title to land in some countries brought about an industry of document forgery, with dozens of people claiming ownership of some parcels, thus actual possession of land still takes precedence over an official (or forged) document. Further, he states that loans are almost impossible to obtain from banks, yet entrepreneurialism remains high; for example Kiberan women operate a system of investment/savings to help each other pay for business expenses or education. Neuwirth also argues that land titling does not unleash the value of dead capital, but rather brings in speculators, tax collectors, planners, and red tape; no bank will give a loan to someone whose collateral is ten square feet of land covered by a mud hut with no electricity, gas, or running water. Further, residents must pay bribes to get construction permits for titled land, and once constructed the residents are forced to pay higher taxes despite the fact that they get no services from the government. To him, the key is not titling, but rather assurance against eviction.
   
   To critique Neuwirth's analysis, he argues against titling because corrupt officials ask for bribes and the government raises taxes on titled land, but this seems to be an argument not necessarily against titling, but against government corruption and high taxes. He also contradicts himself in describing some of the benefits of titling, for instance that people were able to use their land as collateral to get credit cards (yet he also says that banks will not give loans to people who put up their mud huts as collateral--the contention that a dwelling can't be used as collateral for a loan but can be used to obtain a credit card is interesting), but then dismisses these benefits with little explanation for their dismissal.
   
   On a more theoretical level, Neuwirth's contentions taken to their logical conclusion at times seem to support anarchy and at other times support totalitarianism. For instance, he argues that squatters live by an ancient contention that everyone deserves to have a home, and they respect the territorial lines that each person or family draws around their property and thus the government does not need to title land. This is an indirect argument for anarchy, but at other times he asserts a veritable totalitarianism in saying that the government should demolish homes in areas that may be affected by flooding--allowing people to formulate their own rules, build their own homes, and set up their own property lines in some areas and demolish settlements in others seems inconsistent. This contention is not only inconsistent but also impractical; the City of New Orleans is built in a flood prone area, but the people in that city would be better served by having the government help them protect against and/or recover from flooding than by having the government demolish any structure built in the area. Even further, Neuwirth's arguments against property titling assume that everyone will respect each other's boundaries based on the fact that some people in some urban areas respect each other's boundaries, but he gives no evidence that these boundaries will be respected by all members of every society to the same degree that well enforced formal law and property rights must be respected by any member of any society. In conclusion, Neuwirth has done a good deal of interesting research in this book, but further explanation of his reasoning would be helpful.



2. This book was very disappointing. Although at 54 I am getting to the point where I need granny glasses to read those books where the print is too fine, this book goes way in excess to the other side: large print and triple spacing. This book is a 60 page article inflated to 300 pages.
   
   The author has endured privation and offers many useful observations in the book, which makes it one of passing utility, but I put book down feeling somewhat dismayed as well as disappointed. Unlike C. K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks),which made the very compelling case for taking the five billion poor's four trillion a year economic needs much more seriously, this book left me with absolutely no sense of "what is to be done."
   
   This is a travelogue, not a policy book. Worth reading, but it could have been so much more than I am obliged to give it my lowest rating for any book that makes my reading list--three stars.



3. SHADOW CITIES: A BILLION SQUATTERS, A NEW URBAN WORLD confronts the issue of nations of squatters. Cities are home to a billion such squatters and that number is projected to double in a generation, so any college-level student of urban planning needs to understand the experiences, issues and results herein. Reporter Robert Neuwirth spent two years living in squatter neighborhoods on four continents, so his exploration comes not just from an outsider's perspective, but from one who has lived amongst them. Myths are dispelled and realities outlined in a hard-hitting consideration of facts and social issues.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



4. This is one of the best books I have read in a while. The author - Robert Neuwirth - lived in four slum areas in or near major cities in the third world and then reported what he found. Neuwirth seems to have a unique knack for putting threads of stories together in a way that produces a compelling and fascinating tale. He reports bits and pieces of information received from local squatters, landlords, politicians, social activists, etc., and put together a story that seems so complete that you feel that you have the "feel" of life in these places.
   
   The book does have weaknesses. His historical accounts of slums strike the reader as piecemeal and thrown together. The portions of the book which deal with various proposed solutions fail to even discuss the significance of overpopulation in the etiology of slum development.
   
   But I gave the book four stars nonetheless. Neuwirth's first hand account of slum life in the modern world is almost spellbinding. Contrary to what one would expect, the book is not just an endless recitation of privation and poverty. The "slums" that he describes contain tales of triumph as well as oppression; ingenuity as well as exploitation. The book celebrates the human spirit as well as it pointing out its sins.
   
   Some of things reported in the book will surprise. For instance, the Brazilian "slum" of Rocinha is so vibrantly alive, one almost feels envious of those who reside there. Similarly, the tenacity of slum-dwellers in confronting adversity is often breathtaking. Then again, on the other hand, the brutal exploitation of the poor by people only slightly more advantaged is a disheartening commentary on the human race.
   
   Overall, this is quite a tale. Robert Neuwirth's book is a great read and well worth the time and the price.



5. This rather haphazard book functions well as a sociological portrait of four squatter cities as well as a spirited PR piece for the people living there, but fails on other fronts. The best parts are the first four chapters, which outline Neuwirth's field work in the shantytowns of Rio, Nairobi, Mumbai, and Istanbul. This consisted of living in situ for several months and talking to as many people as possible in order to get the pulse of a place. These 150 pages are fairly engaging insider views of places few of us are likely to venture, and are worth reading as a kind of non-traditional travelogue.
   
   The book really loses its way after this. There is a meandering chapter about urban squatting throughout time, including snippets on ancient Rome, Medieval Europe, Victorian London, '20s Shanghai, and various cities in the U.S. This is followed by another meandering chapter about squatters in New York over the last 150 years. Both of these contains some interesting stories and factoids, but fail to cohere into anything more than that. Next is a brief, rather snide chapter skewering the efforts of the NGO Habitat, which takes the rather predictable line that well-intentioned aid from outsiders accomplishes nothing. Then a chapter addressing crime in the four communities he lived in -- why this needs to be broken out into it's own chapter is unclear. Next is a rather muddled chapter on the concept of "property" and the various theoretical tugs-of-war surrounding it, which feels quite like the obligatory "theory" chapter of a Master's thesis.
   
   A rather significant flaw running through the book is that Neuwirth writes as if his readers all hold some kind of ridiculous stereotype about who lives in shantytowns. Few readers are likely to believe that millions of shantytown-dwellers around the world are simply lazy and/or criminal -- yet the writing is rather shrilly pitched as if the reader was some kind of reactionary nincompoop. His profiles in courage of ingenious hard-working and optimistic poor (and a few who aren't so poor) shantytowners are welcome, but get rather repetitive. Furthermore, while these profiles are certainly heart-warming, they are ultimately little more than anecdotal data. They are also ironically similar to the sustaining American capitalist myths of "rugged individualism" and "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps." However, the reality is that the vast majority of the people living in the communities he passed through are going to be born poor, live poor, and die poor -- regardless of how hard they work or how ingenious they are.
   
   The book's larger aims fail because Neuwirth tries to uncouple housing issues from broader issues of poverty when the reality is that the one is embedded deeply in the other. Shantytowns have exploded around the world thanks to rural-to-urban migration patterns driven by global capitalism. In his book The Mystery of Capital, Hernan de Soto addresses this larger problem quite specifically and offers a possible way forward (within a traditional capitalism framework). Unfortunately, Neuwirth seems to have not quite grasped de Soto's ideas, and instead offers only sneering potshots at only portions of them. This problem with his dubious analysis is that by singling out specific elements of de Soto's proposal (notably property titles) from his larger framework (which includes addressing corruption, elitism, stagnant bureaucracies and a great many other things), the critique has no meaning. It's especially disappointing because de Soto and Neuwirth are both on the side of squatters, and both want better lives for them. One of the underlying themes of de Soto's book is that when citizens create facts on the ground, their government should change its methods to accommodate them, not isolate them.
   
   Ultimately, this is a rather disappointing work with some genuine bright spots. It's great that Neuwirth went and spent a year of his life in these communities, and he's good at capturing the flavor of them. It's just a shame that his broader analysis is so flighty. There is an running underlying tension whereby Neuwirth provides case after case of how squatters get taken advantage of because they have no legal protections, and yet he refuses to admit that valid, enforceable property titles are part of the solution to exactly these inequities. In any event, worth a quick read by those with a deep interest in the subject, but on the whole it's a letdown.