X-Urbanism: Architecture and the American City [Paperback]

Mario Gandelsonas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1999 | ISBN-10: 1568981511 | ISBN-13: 978-1568981512 | Edition: 1

For most of his career, architect Mario Gandelsonas has been exploring the American city through his writings, designs, lectures, and, above all, through a series of remarkable analytical drawings. X-Urbanism raises questions about the form of the city by examining various configurations of urban space, analyzing them in ways that blur the traditional opposition between figure and ground. This title serves as a visual lexicon of the formal properties of American urbanism-fabric, void, grid, wall-that reveal the hidden structure of the cities New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, New Haven, Des Moines, and Atlantic City. In the process, X-Urbanism confounds our expectations: it shows us the subtle order of chaotic Los Angeles, and the disruptions of New York's rigorous grid.
X-Urbanism carefully reproduces Gandelsonas's drawings, which range from crisp, elegant pen-and-ink to colorful computer renderings and are as beautiful as they are instructive.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a new book by architect, educator, and theorist Mario Gandelsonas provides a useful framework for thinking about cities in unprecedented ways. His new way of envisioning urban form is particularly welcome now that the New York City Zonning Resolution is being revised, because the proposed changes concern mass, height and architectural character. Gandelsonas' book entitled X-Urbanism, Architecture of the American City, approaches the subject with all those factors in mind." -- Oculus

What is X-Urbanism? It is the city that cannot be named, the city outside the city and the city with that certain something. It is a historical, virtual, infinite and now. What a great concept. When I opened the package containing this book I thought: "This is a beautiful object. What a great cover."

Then I started to read... I realised we came from different planets. Like most readers of Building Design, I suspect, I am too immersed in the European tradition of the textual/textural city and life lived on the street to be able to comment on X-Urbanism. But here goes. -- Building Design

About the Author

Mario Gandelsonas is a professor of architecture at Princeton University who has also taught at Yale, the University of Illinois, Harvard University, and the Rhode Island School of Design. His New York-based design practice with Diana Agr

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press; 1 edition (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568981511
• ISBN-13: 978-1568981512
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 9.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #939,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An inspired analysis of the city's marriage to fantasy., July 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: X-Urbanism: Architecture and the American City (Paperback)

Both eloquently and clearly, X-Urbanism explores the historical and continuing development of the American City through the lens of an eye opening thesis: fantasy and desire have been pivotal factors in the shaping of Urban Space. As the author illustrates, the implications of this point of departure reach far beyond the conventional boundaries of urban studies to include a wealth of other disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, and popular culture. Through the course of this book, the affects of fantasy on the Renaissance City, the Baroque City, the Modern City, and the Post-modern City are charted. Without being dogmatic or judgmental, Mr. Gandelsonas frames the City as a simultaneous object and subject that is influenced by the desires of architects while also influencing its inhabitants with its own wishes.

After reading the text and viewing the drawings that conclude this book it was as though I was walking around an object that until now I had only understood from a stationary position.

This book is a must read for anyone who lives inside or outside of a city.

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well done., September 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: X-Urbanism: Architecture and the American City (Paperback)

It is a rare moment when text and image collaborate to tell a story that could be told by neither alone. X-Urbanism is one of these moments. The dialog between the writing and drawings in this book is brilliant. The ultimate result of the conversation between the two is a nuanced understanding of the relationship that cities have with the subconscious of their inhabitants.