Customer Reviews

The Seduction of Place: The History and Future of Cities

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Rykwert is extremely knowledgeable regarding architecture and western civilization in general. The book holds my interest in spite of its length and technical slant.

Joseph Rykwert's new book is perhaps his most radical, although he elaborates on themes that have preoccupied him for more than 4 decades. Never has he so emphatically stated his conviction that the cities we desire can become the cities we have, but only if we take hold of our capacity to effect meaningful reform. Rykwert's position is particularly encouraging and insightful at a time when most of us perceive the built environment as the result of abstract and impersonal economic and political forces seemingly beyond any individual influence. Rykwert's stance is a challenge to architect's, urban designers, planners and other citizens who cannot imagine an alternative between revolution and acquiescence other than surrender to conditions as they are. Such inertia is countered by Rykwert, as are rationalist and quantitative approaches to the city, with affirmation of the city as a fundamental setting of and for human will, dreams, and desire. It follows then, according to Rykwert, that any successful making and re-making of cities depends on a set of rational principles that are flexible enough to accomodate chance, elaboration, and improvisation. Features Rykwert believes can become the special qualities of contemporary and future cities (if they are not eradicated). Rykwert's consideration of the city investigates the full-range of attempts to make cities places of and for people; a thread he pursues from ancient cities, to the revolutions of 1848 to the Seattle demonstrations in 1999 in opposition to the World Trade Organization. It is for these reasons, and many others, that Rykwert's book is a must-read for all lovers of cities and perhaps especially for all those who don't yet love them.

From a lay perspective, "tradition" arises from a repeated series of human acts. In many cases, those acts were first spontaneous or induced by some external event.

Can you "create tradition?"

The most interesting part of this book to me was Rykwert's analysis of Celebration, Florida. This was, of course, Disney's effort to create a brand-new "small town" from the ground up. He correctly diagnoses the effort as being dominated by profitable real estate development. In fairness, he distinguishes Celebration from a typical suburban development because of its dependency on "Olde World" design principles.

What he foresaw, almost inadvertantly, is the more widespread use of this modality for commercial/residential developments now springing up in revived, older suburban areas. These have been commercially successful and have created the sorts of delightful spaces he describes in his coverage of older urban spaces.

It's a good book, albeit a little dogmatic.

What's Joseph Rykwert's perspective and what's his view of the city? It's not very easy to peg down. It's not that of "sociologists, traffic experts, and politicians" as he says that he's "always been struck at how little the physical fabric of the city - its touch and smell as well as its sights - occupies their attention". Maybe he's more inclined to take an economists view and see things as Jane Jacobs does. Then again maybe not. Rykwert says quite plainly that cities do not develop "naturally". The perspective is definitely not that of a speeding, disinterested motorist. Rykwert refers to the impact of cars as "catastrophic" and says "I am not, nor have I ever been a driver." Now we're getting somewhere - a supporter of New Urbanism? Not quite. He has this to say about one of those showpiece communities: "the whole business of 'community' at Celebration is about...real estate". Rykwert is equally critical of a few architects (modernists), certain building designs (government and institutional), a couple of city plans (Brasilia and New Delhi), and some approaches to urbanism (the New Town concept of post WWII Europe).

With all that's wrong it's amazing that this book didn't turn out to be a miserable reading experience. That's partly due to Rykwert's writing skill but moreso because of his very obvious love for the city. THE SEDUCTION OF PLACE and affection for city space is obvious. The depths of his thinking about the urban form is manifest and Rykwert offers a synopsis of what's wrong and also what's to love about a city. "My polemic is not against the disordered, even chaotic city but against the anonymous and alienating one." With this we finally understand what his perspective is. It's that of a person open to experiencing the personality of a city; that of someone at ground level. Our difficulty with coming up with a clear view of the city might be due to the fact that we haven't experienced the city as Rykwert has and it doesn't yet occupy the same space in our hearts and minds. He invites us to begin. "The very condition of openess is what makes our city of conflicts so attractive to its growing crowd of inhabitants. The lack of any coherent, explicit, image may therefore, in our circumstances, be a positive virtue, not a fault at all, or even a problem."

Joseph Rykwert's new book is perhaps his most radical, although he elaborates on themes that have preoccupied him for more than 4 decades. Never has he so emphatically stated his conviction that the cities we desire can become the cities we have, but only if we take hold of our capacity to effect meaningful reform. Rykwert's position is particularly encouraging and insightful at a time when most of us perceive the built environment as the result of abstract and impersonal economic and political forces seemingly beyond any individual influence. Rykwert's stance is a challenge to architect's, urban designers, planners and other citizens who cannot imagine an alternative between revolution and acquiescence other than surrender to conditions as they are. Such inertia is countered by Rykwert, as are rationalist and quantitative approaches to the city, with affirmation of the city as a fundamental setting of and for human will, dreams, and desire. It follows then, according to Rykwert, that any successful making and re-making of cities depends on a set of rational principles that are flexible enough to accomodate chance, elaboration, and improvisation. Features Rykwert believes can become the special qualities of contemporary and future cities (if they are not eradicated). Rykwert's consideration of the city investigates the full-range of attempts to make cities places of and for people; a thread he pursues from ancient cities, to the revolutions of 1848 to the Seattle demonstrations in 1999 in opposition to the World Trade Organization. It is for these reasons, and many others, that Rykwert's book is a must-read for all lovers of cities and perhaps especially for all those who don't yet love them.

Joseph Rykwert's new book is perhaps his most radical, although he elaborates on themes that have preoccupied him for more than 4 decades. Never has he so emphatically stated his conviction that the cities we desire can become the cities we have, but only if we take hold of our capacity to effect meaningful reform. Rykwert's position is particularly encouraging and insightful at a time when most of us perceive the built environment as the result of abstract and impersonal economic and political forces seemingly beyond any individual influence. Rykwert's stance is a challenge to architect's, urban designers, planners and other citizens who cannot imagine an alternative between revolution and acquiescence other than surrender to conditions as they are. Such inertia is countered by Rykwert, as are rationalist and quantitative approaches to the city, with affirmation of the city as a fundamental setting of and for human will, dreams, and desire. It follows then, according to Rykwert, that any successful making and re-making of cities depends on a set of rational principles that are flexible enough to accomodate chance, elaboration, and improvisation. Features Rykwert believes can become the special qualities of contemporary and future cities (if they are not eradicated). Rykwert's consideration of the city investigates the full-range of attempts to make cities places of and for people; a thread he pursues from ancient cities, to the revolutions of 1848 to the Seattle demonstrations in 1999 in opposition to the World Trade Organization. It is for these reasons, and many others, that Rykwert's book is a must-read for all lovers of cities and perhaps especially for all those who don't yet love them.

Never judge a book by its cover, or its title. Alluring as it sounds, Seduction of Place has nothing to do with place but rather endless facts about architecture and urbanism from two centuries ago. In a nutshell, this book reads like a frustratingly drab encyclopedic entry with 3 pages of photos.

You'll get the sense that something is amiss after reading the first 25 pages about the Industrial Revolution. The relevance of urban growth and new manufacturing techniques is clear enough, but describing who invented what and when is hardly helpful in understanding `place.' Starting from the first chapter, you'll be presented with a dizzying array of minor historical tangents of names, cities, academic/political trends, and suddenly be transported to something new altogether like a discourse on styles. For example the 4th chapter, "Lived Space and Virtual Space," covers architectural and urban trends in early Soviet Russia, communist China, then skips to the UN building in New York and finally finishes on Disney Land. There are a few paragraphs about reliance on virtual devices, including facts like: "sexual intercourse -for instance- may be achieved over long distances." This is one of many examples of sentences appearing out of nowhere, much like the conclusion to the third chapter which skips from a critique of the box-like World Trade centers to graffiti on empty street walls. If you are interested in modernism's failure at the street level, simply go to Jane Jacobs for a detailed and empirical account of how New York's "place" eroded.

Rykwert rattles off most of the European Utopias and historical interpretations but never goes beyond the surface. Lonely Planet does a better job with Paris, London, Chicago, D.C., Brasilia, and New York. What's so seductive about New York? Beyond a search for a `heart' (he settles mostly on Rockefeller Plaza), NYC is all about tall buildings creeping North along the island. Paris meanwhile is about preserving the historic core after Haussmann creates the boulevards. Of course Mr. Rykwert has spent much time in both cities, but his writing displays no field-tested opinions about these two "places," let alone the question of seduction.

Rykwert finally loosens up and sheds the lecturing historian tone during the afterword, giving some personal perspectives on the future of the city. In all honesty, I felt as I though I was reading Rykwert at the introduction and the afterword. In between is just a dry lecture that has nothing to do with the seduction of place. Nothing.