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The Art of Classic Planning: Building Beautiful and Enduring Communities Hardcover – January 28, 2020

by Nir Haim Buras (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 30 ratings
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An accomplished architect and urbanist goes back to the roots of what makes cities attractive and livable, demonstrating how we can restore function and beauty to our urban spaces for the long term.

Nearly everything we treasure in the world’s most beautiful cities was built over a century ago. Cities like Prague, Paris, and Lisbon draw millions of visitors from around the world because of their exquisite architecture, walkable neighborhoods, and human scale. Yet a great deal of the knowledge and practice behind successful city planning has been abandoned over the last hundred years―not because of traffic, population growth, or other practical hurdles, but because of ill-considered theories emerging from Modernism and reactions to it.

The errors of urban design over the last century are too great not to question. The solutions being offered today―sustainability, walkability, smart and green technologies―hint at what has been lost and what may be regained, but they remain piecemeal and superficial. In The Art of Classic Planning, architect and planner Nir Haim Buras documents and extends the time-tested and holistic practices that held sway before the reign of Modernism. With hundreds of full-color illustrations and photographs that will captivate architects, planners, administrators, and developers, The Art of Classic Planning restores and revitalizes the foundations of urban planning.

Inspired by venerable cities like Kyoto, Vienna, and Venice, and by the great successes of L’Enfant’s Washington, Haussmann’s Paris, and Burnham’s Chicago, Buras combines theory and a host of examples to arrive at clear guidelines for best practices in classic planning for today’s world. The Art of Classic Planning celebrates the enduring principles of urban design and invites us to return to building beautiful cities.

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  1. Print length
    496 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press
  4. Publication date
    January 28, 2020
  5. Dimensions
    10 x 1.6 x 10.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0674919246
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0674919242
  8. See all details
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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
30 global ratings

Customers say

Customers say the book presents a wealth of design knowledge and history. They also find the writing style well-written, easy to understand, and free of jargon. Readers also say it's accessible to professional planners, city officials, and engaged citizens.

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4 customers mention "Content"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book's content to be a great source for planners, architects, community builders, and futurists. They also say it presents a wealth of design knowledge and history, and is well-written and supported by relevant examples.

"...Buras gives a biting critique of modernism; gives a primer on classical design; and reviews eminent historic places and why they work...." Read more

"This is a beautifully bound book that presents a wealth of design knowledge and history. Truly a must have resource...." Read more

"...Great source for planners, aficionados, architects, community builders, futurists...Daniel" Read more

"Excellent! Very comprehensive, well-written, and supported by relevant examples. Definitely, a book for your permanent library." Read more

4 customers mention "Writing style"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the writing style well-written and easy to understand. They also appreciate the sense approach that is free of jargon. Customers also mention that the book is beautifully bound and presents a wealth of design knowledge.

"...All of the above is conveyed in a common sense approach that is free of jargon and readily accessible to the professional planner, city official,..." Read more

"This is a beautifully bound book that presents a wealth of design knowledge and history. Truly a must have resource...." Read more

"Well written in an easy to understand language.You feel that you are traveling the world while reading the book...." Read more

"Excellent! Very comprehensive, well-written, and supported by relevant examples. Definitely, a book for your permanent library." Read more

Our cities are in trouble
5 out of 5 stars
Our cities are in trouble
Undoubtedly with the best of intentions every new idea under the sun has been thrown at them for the past century to solve the many problems they face. During that time no other author has taken up the subject of Classic Planning. In the Art of Classic Planning Dr. Nir Buras unpacks for the reader the embedded wisdom of the previous 5,000 years of city building that carries many a legacy of beautiful places created to meet the aspirations of their community. All of the above is conveyed in a common sense approach that is free of jargon and readily accessible to the professional planner, city official, and engaged citizen alike. The Art of Classic Planning is not merely a “must have” book for the old library, it is a once in a generation treatise that contains within its pages the power to heal the world. - Patrick Webb
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Top reviews from the United States

Alastair Waddington
5.0 out of 5 stars Remembering What Was Forgotten
Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2022
Verified Purchase
Jane Jacobs in her last book wrote that you know when the dark age arises because the very knowledge of what was forgotten is forgotten. For the past 80 years we have largely lived in a dark age of urban planning. Americans have lost the language and intuition of what real urban places should look and feel like. Buras in this book reviews the vast history of city building and provides archetypical examples of urban places. Buras gives a biting critique of modernism; gives a primer on classical design; and reviews eminent historic places and why they work. (However, it must be stated that if your first interest is in streets and boulevards, go straight to the works of Allan Jacobs as well as Dover and Massengale.) With 8,000 years of trial and error to learn from, this has all been tried before, and anyone who knows what they're doing should be able to cite when, where, and what was the result.
2 people found this helpful
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jewmakin
5.0 out of 5 stars Our cities are in trouble
Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2020
Verified Purchase
Undoubtedly with the best of intentions every new idea under the sun has been thrown at them for the past century to solve the many problems they face. During that time no other author has taken up the subject of Classic Planning. In the Art of Classic Planning Dr. Nir Buras unpacks for the reader the embedded wisdom of the previous 5,000 years of city building that carries many a legacy of beautiful places created to meet the aspirations of their community. All of the above is conveyed in a common sense approach that is free of jargon and readily accessible to the professional planner, city official, and engaged citizen alike. The Art of Classic Planning is not merely a “must have” book for the old library, it is a once in a generation treatise that contains within its pages the power to heal the world. - Patrick Webb
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jewmakin
5.0 out of 5 stars Our cities are in trouble
Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2020
Undoubtedly with the best of intentions every new idea under the sun has been thrown at them for the past century to solve the many problems they face. During that time no other author has taken up the subject of Classic Planning. In the Art of Classic Planning Dr. Nir Buras unpacks for the reader the embedded wisdom of the previous 5,000 years of city building that carries many a legacy of beautiful places created to meet the aspirations of their community. All of the above is conveyed in a common sense approach that is free of jargon and readily accessible to the professional planner, city official, and engaged citizen alike. The Art of Classic Planning is not merely a “must have” book for the old library, it is a once in a generation treatise that contains within its pages the power to heal the world. - Patrick Webb
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5 people found this helpful
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Zachary Kane
5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for all architects and planners
Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2021
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This is a beautifully bound book that presents a wealth of design knowledge and history. Truly a must have resource. The book is just the start of the process though. The author's Classic Planning Institute should also be explored by anyone with an interest in the book.
2 people found this helpful
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daniel
5.0 out of 5 stars Great source!
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2020
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Well written in an easy to understand language.
You feel that you are traveling the world while reading the book. Great source for planners, aficionados, architects, community builders, futurists...

Daniel
2 people found this helpful
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Carl Hauser
5.0 out of 5 stars Primer on Planning
Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2020
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Excellent! Very comprehensive, well-written, and supported by relevant examples. Definitely, a book for your permanent library.
2 people found this helpful
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David Brussat
5.0 out of 5 stars A new bible for city planners
Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2020
Nir Buras has written the indispensable book for professional planners, and it should open the eyes of architects as well. Here are some paragraphs from my review of the book from my blog Architecture Here and There.

This comprehensive, fascinating and brilliant volume by Nir Haim Buras, who founded the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, is subtitled “Building Beautiful and Enduring Communities.” So one might well assume that it rejects the planning practices of the past century. In fact, it urges planners to embrace anew the planning practices that worked for thousands of years before the onset of those we suffer under today.

“It’s not good because it’s old, it’s old because it’s good.” I don’t know who said that or whether the motto may be found somewhere in this book. Anyhow, that is the spirit of the planning enshrined herein.

Buras traveled around the world to research and photograph the urbanism that preceded and ought to succeed the modernist scheme that oppresses the globe today. You can open the book and pop your finger on any paragraph to find inspiration for why such a switcheroo is overdue. “This is truly the mother of all planning books,” writes Leon Krier. For planners and architects alike, it would be the mother of all Christmas gifts.

One of the feats of Classic Planning arises from Buras’s skill at mixing quotation and narrative so as to clarify the vagaries of modernist rhetorical mishmash. Modernist writing has only grown more convoluted and ambiguous in recent decades. More creative techniques of pettifoggery are required to mask the increasingly evident failure of the modernist project.

It’s easy to become spellbound by Buras’s narrative of modernism’s history. How delicious it was to read, among many other choice passages, his description of Le Corbusier's urban follies, such as the ideas that led to his Plan Voisin to replace central Paris with towers sixty stories in height.

My joy at Buras’s thumping of modernism knows no end, but soon he takes up his own cry that “there is no need to repeat the litany of negatives” and proceeds to Parts II and III of the book, “Classic Planning Fundamentals” and “Classic Planning Applied.”

Buras notes that in the Serengeti plain of prehistory, human (and animal) brains were wired to read details in their field of vision to locate information about the existence of food and of danger. Today, in our mostly more pacific environments, these brain functions have evolved from solving problems of survival to those involving the desire for beauty. Of course, notwithstanding modernist theory, beauty and function are not at all mutually exclusive but are, rather, mutually reinforcing. This relates to both architecture and planning. Indeed, a well-planned city or town might be usefully compared, I think, with a well-designed building.

There is a lot of gold to mine in The Art of Classic Planning. I have not done it full justice here. The book should be the new bible for the planning profession. It should be on the bookshelf and indeed on the desktop or nightstand of anyone interested in cities. And I wish to emphasize again that it would make a classic Christmas present for a friend or loved one, or for oneself.
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Top reviews from other countries

Hollie Whitehead
5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Planning should be THE text book for building cities
Reviewed in Canada on April 25, 2020
Verified Purchase
Classic Planning is a masterwork book. The depth & breadth of the ancient-rooted wisdom and knowledge Dr. Buras has managed to compose into a single volume is astonishing. It takes a unique life experience and visionary perspective to discern what is of value and to distill it down into the clear, simple principles that stand the test of time, which Classic Planning achieves in spades. This book offered me a completely new and profound way of looking at cities and their plans (or lack thereof); it is comprehensive, razor sharp, and actionable. The author brings us into the company of great minds like Plato, Aristotle, and Vitruvius, and weaves historic threads together with today’s data, cutting-edge science, and sustainability in a way that makes me wonder how any city could be planned or built without consulting this book. We are reminded that the city itself is a noble, aspirational pursuit. To my mind, this ought to become THE textbook for urban planners to work with. It seems to me that Classic Planning gives architects and planners our best opportunity to build every city as a legacy city, enduring in beauty for centuries to come. I am heartened and inspired by books like this. If I could give it more than five stars I would.

— Hollie Olivia Whitehead
Verité Design Group Inc.
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Hollie Whitehead
5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Planning should be THE text book for building cities
Reviewed in Canada on April 25, 2020
Classic Planning is a masterwork book. The depth & breadth of the ancient-rooted wisdom and knowledge Dr. Buras has managed to compose into a single volume is astonishing. It takes a unique life experience and visionary perspective to discern what is of value and to distill it down into the clear, simple principles that stand the test of time, which Classic Planning achieves in spades. This book offered me a completely new and profound way of looking at cities and their plans (or lack thereof); it is comprehensive, razor sharp, and actionable. The author brings us into the company of great minds like Plato, Aristotle, and Vitruvius, and weaves historic threads together with today’s data, cutting-edge science, and sustainability in a way that makes me wonder how any city could be planned or built without consulting this book. We are reminded that the city itself is a noble, aspirational pursuit. To my mind, this ought to become THE textbook for urban planners to work with. It seems to me that Classic Planning gives architects and planners our best opportunity to build every city as a legacy city, enduring in beauty for centuries to come. I am heartened and inspired by books like this. If I could give it more than five stars I would.

— Hollie Olivia Whitehead
Verité Design Group Inc.
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One person found this helpful
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Roger Blake
1.0 out of 5 stars Defect in Production - Page 309/310 Torn - In Two Copies !
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 3, 2020
Verified Purchase
This is a five star book - so why the one star rating - to warn folks. I discovered my copy had a 2"x1" tear on page 309/310 which was definitely a production fault - the book was sealed and the tear had been trimmed with the text block. So I asked for a replacement which just came. Imagine my annoyance to discover EXACTLY the same fault - the same size, the same place, and the same nice carefully trimmed damaged page edge. How many copies are like this I do not know but I really want a decent perfect copy. I also cannot imagine a production process could produce an identical fault just once in a book - faulty machinery but why on just that page. I am contacting the publishers.

I suggest people check their copies. I would like to know how many others this affects. The book is just too nice to be less than perfect!

UPDATE: The publishers were really nice and helpful and are checking all their stock for this fault and ordering me a copy without the fault (thankfully they do exist I'm told).
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Pedro P. Palazzo
5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough review of traditional urban design
Reviewed in Spain on August 10, 2020
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This book starts with a general critique of contemporary urban processes, regulations, and form. This part is somewhat skewed towards an American perspective, but still useful to an international audience. The remaining chapters of the book offer a general theory of urban growth and design, discussing several theories and approaches including, but not limited to, New Urbanism. The whole book is a treasure trove of principles, arguments, and examples demonstrating the power, resilience, and feasibility of traditional urbanism.
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Pierre Gauthier
4.0 out of 5 stars Bewildering!
Reviewed in Canada on December 18, 2020
Verified Purchase
This 475-page, large-sized, high quality and very substantial work certainly was a costly production. The author apparently visited 100 cities in preparation for it and financial support by the Richard Driehaus Foundation is mentioned. The result displays many characteristics of a textbook … but sadly does not quite pass the test.

Like a textbook:

• it covers much ground, starting with a thorough history of city planning, passing to “fundamentals” and finally to a slew of applications;
• it is pedagogically organized and written quite synthetically, given the amount of information conveyed;
• it is abundantly illustrated with maps and photographs (though many of these appear somewhat amateurish with building façades partially or completely in the shade);
• it includes abundant footnotes, that cover no less than 46 pages;
• it quotes many seminal works that may be consulted for further information, although a formal bibliography is surprisingly not provided;
• it is published by Harvard University Press.

Unlike most textbooks:

• a single author is identified; the short biography provided underscores his 30-year experience as a consultant in strategic planning and transportation design but does not mention that he is a university professor or in any way linked to academia;
• he brashly quotes again and again his own projects as exemplary, notably in Washington, D. C. and Portland, Maine;
• no pretense at objectivity is borne; on the contrary, the author’s theses are vehemently defended, to a point perhaps of being self-defeating as some readers may feel overwhelmed.

The book does provide a clear-headed look at the results of modernist planning and architecture and very definite views on what should be done to correct the situation, essentially reintroducing beauty as a basic design criterium, along with utility and durability. Some may denote contradictions. For instance, roundabouts are presented as the best solution to managing traffic intersections but are not necessarily congruent with the traditional street grid that is advocated and are associated in classic planning with parks rather than the built environment. Others may be skeptical with respect to the psychological foundations of beauty that are presented or to the inclusion of the Classical Greco-Roman orders of architecture in a discussion of architectural literacy that covers the whole planet. Traditional Japanese or Indian temples certainly do without them!

Overall, despite its shortcomings, this book is recommended as a very worthwhile investment in time and money for all interested in urban planning and the future of our cities.
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