Synopses & Reviews
An exploration of urbanism, personal identity, and how the space we live in shapes us According to philosopher and cultural critic Mark Kingwell, the transnational global cityNew York and Shanghaiis the most significant machine our species has ever produced. And yet, he says, we fail again and again to understand it. How do cities shape us, and how do we shape them? That is the subject of Concrete Reveries, which investigates how we occupy city space and why place is so important to who we are.
Kingwell explores the sights, smells, and forms of the city, reflecting on how they mold our notions of identity, the limits of social and political engagement, and our moral obligations as citizens. He offers a critique of the monumental architectural supermodernism in which buildings are valued more for their exteriors than for what is inside, as well as some lively writing on the significance of threshold structures like doorways, lobbies, and porches and the kinds of emotional attachments we form to ballparks, carnival grounds, and gardens. In the process, he gives us a whole new set of models and metaphors for thinking about the city.
With a spectacular interior design and more than seventy-five photos, Concrete Reveries will appeal to fans of Jane Jacobs, Witold Rybczynski, and Alain de Bottons The Architecture of Happiness.
Review
In this stunning treatise on the transnational global city, philosopher and cultural critic Kingwell (
Better Living) meditates on how the architecture of the modern city must cater efficiently yet aesthetically to a combination of basic human requirementsthe cemetery within the city doubling as a park; the prison or madhouse as public architecture; the toilet within the house; the dump or recycling center within the city limitsand how the city in turn is an extension and embodiment of human consciousness. More than 75 photos punctuate essays that meander around the poetry of porches, doorways, spiral staircases (a line circling) and the political implications of generic, airport-style designs. The book is not a travelogue; New York and Shanghai are merely stops along an intellectual walk, which also takes up geometry, boundaries, thresholds and other elements of urban design that are metaphors for the mind and body. No room is just a space; it is always a place we are either entering, occupying, or exiting, writes Kingwell in this book that is at once mesmerizing, indulgent, romantic, complex and perceptive.
--Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
About the Author
Mark Kingwell is a philosopher and critic who is currently professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is the author of ten books, including Better Living: In Pursuit of Happiness from Plato to Prozac and Nearest Thing to Heaven: The Empire State Building and American Dreams. He is a contributing editor for Harpers Magazine and he has written for The New York Times Magazine, Adbusters, Forbes, and Utne Reader.