"Similar in spirit to Lewis Mumford's The City in History and Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities . . . wonderful, funny, idiosyncratic." —Frederick R. Steiner, author of The Living LandscapeBig Plans: The Allure and Folly of Urban Design springs from the idea that human aspirations for the city tend to overstate the role of rationality in public life. Inspired by the architectural and urban criticism of such ...

Big Plans: The Allure and Folly of Urban Design springs from the idea that human aspirations for the city tend to overstate the role of rationality in public life. Inspired by the architectural and urban criticism of such writers as Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, and John Brinckerhoff Jackson, Kolson adopts a user's perspective on issues of urban design, an approach that highlights both the futility of social engineering and the resilience of the human spirit.

The story of the growth and destruction of Toronto's first 'priority neighbourhood.'From the 1840s until the Second World War, waves of newcomers who migrated to Toronto – Irish, Jewish, Italian, African American and Chinese, among others – landed in 'The Ward.' Crammed with rundown housing and immigrant-owned businesses, this area, bordered by College and Queen, University and Yonge streets, was home to bootleggers, Chinese bachelors, workers from the nearby Eaton...

In a country this diverse, 'culture' has different meanings. Vance tells a story from the wind-swept Arctic where a stranded Innu woman, fighting to survive, took the time to decorate her clothing with rich designs. A British explorer was amazed at her efforts, but Vance reminds us of the inseparable connection between life and art in Inuit culture (the Innu word for 'breathe' also means 'to make poetry,' and both derive from the word for 'the soul'). No surprise that Aboriginal culture began...

This first full-scale history of the development of the American suburb examines how "the good life" in America came to be equated with the a home of one's own surrounded by a grassy yard and located far from the urban workplace. Integrating social history with economic and architectural analysis, and taking into account such factors as the availability of cheap land, inexpensive building methods, and rapid transportation, Kenneth Jackson chronicles the phenomenal growth of the American su...

"An excellent and novel exploration of key ideas behind city spaces and the behaviors they engender." — Wall Street JournalFrom the acclaimed landscape designer, historian and author of American Eden, a lively, unique, and accessible cultural history of modern cities.Dream Cities explores our cities in a new way—as expressions of ideas, often conflicting, about how we should live, work, play, make, buy, and believe. It tells the sto...

In the first volume of Makers of Modern Architecture (2007), Martin Filler examined the emergence of that revolutionary new form of building and explored its aesthetic, social, and spiritual aspirations through illuminating studies of some of its most important practitioners, from Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright to, in our own time, Renzo Piano and Santiago Calatrava.Now, in Makers of Modern Architecture, Volume II, Filler continues his investigations into t...

“American Eden moves luminously through landscapes of history, literature, biography, and design theory. . . . fusing sharp-edged analysis and graceful American prose.” —Kevin Starr, author of Golden Gate: The Life and Times of America's Greatest Bridge“Informative and absolutely engrossing.” —Ross King, author of Brunelleschi's DomeGarden designer and historian Wade Graham offers a unique vision of the story of America in this riveting exploration of the nation’s gardens a...

A noted urban historian traces the story of the suburb from its origins in nineteenth-century London to its twentieth-century demise in decentralized cities like Los Angeles.

A deep exploration of modern life that examines our cities, public places, and homes.Following How Architecture Works, Witold Rybczynski casts a seasoned critical eye over the modern scene with Mysteries of the Mall. His subject is nothing less than the broad setting of our metropolitan world.In thirty-five discerning essays, Rybczynski ranges over subjects as varied as shopping malls, Central Park, the Paris opera house, and America's shrin...

The iconic images of Uncle Sam and Marilyn Monroe, or the "fireside chats" of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the oratory of Martin Luther King, Jr.: these are the words, images, and sounds that populate American cultural history. From the Boston Tea Party to the Dodgers, from the blues to Andy Warhol, dime novels to Disneyland, the history of American culture tells us how previous generations of Americans have imagined themselves, their nation, and their relationship to the world and its people...

This "fascinating, engaging" history of St. Louis's monument to American expansion reveals a story of greed, discrimination, and community displacement (NextSTL.com).Rising to a triumphant height of 630 feet, the Gateway Arch is one of the world's most widely recognized structures and attracts millions of tourists to St. Louis every year. Envisioned in 1947 but not completed until the mid-1960s, its story is one of innovation and greed; civic pride and backroom dea...