Urban Avant-Gardes presents original research on a range of recent contemporary practices in and between art and architecture giving perspectives from a wide range of disciplines in the arts, humanities and social sciences that are seldom juxtaposed, it questions many assumptions and accepted positions.

This book looks back to past avant-gardes from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries examining the theoretical and critical terrain around avant-garde cultural interventions, and profiles a range of contemporary cases of radical cultural practices. The author brings together material from a wide range of disciplines to argue for cultural intervention as a means to radical change, while recognizing that most such efforts in the past have not delivered the dreams of their perpetrators.

Distinctive in that it places works of the imagination in the political and cultural context of environmentalism, this book asks how cultural work might contribute to radical social change. It is equally concerned with theory and practice - part one providing a theoretical framework and part two illustrating such frameworks with examples.

About the Author

Malcolm Miles is Reader in Cultural Theory at the University of Plymouth, author of Art, Space & the City and co-editor of The City Cultures Reader. He is also Editor of the European Journal of Higher Arts Education.

Book Information
ISBN 9780415266888
Author Malcolm Miles
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 566g