This book traces the historic evolution of urban form, principles, and design; it serves as a compendium, or reference, of city design; and is a polemic about the necessity for the recovery of the city and a contemporary urban architecture. It begins with the planned cities of Greece and the Roman Empire from about 500 BC, through the late-medieval Bastides, the Ideal Renaissance cities, and Baroque new towns, to the urban planning strategies of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It covers anti-urban modernist architecture and the resulting disintegration of the city. It concludes with late-twentieth-century efforts to recover the city, a contemporary urban architecture, and urbanism's potential contribution to the contemporary ecological crisis.

The book is project oriented and extensively illustrated. It may be read graphically, textually, or both. As such, it falls into the long tradition of illustrated treatises in which theory is embedded in the projects, with only occasional assistance or clarification from the text. Architecture and urban design are physical arts, not verbal arts, and they are best understood from graphic representations.

About the Author

Michael Dennis is an architect, author, and educator. He is Professor of Architecture Emeritus at MIT. He was the Thomas Jefferson Professor of Architecture at the University of Virginia, and the recipient of the CNU Athena Medal for contributions to urbanism.

Other contributors Steven K. Peterson, Foreword

Book Information
ISBN 9781957183022
Author Michael Dennis
Format Paperback
Page Count 504
Imprint Goff Books
Publisher Oro Editions
Weight(grams) 2434g