Dimensions
162 x 240 x 35mm
"The city has undergone a radical transformation over the last fifty years. We now live in a world where vast sums are pumped into creating 'iconic' architecture: monuments that project the idea of prosperity and posterity, but are subject to the whims of turbulent economies and fashions. Factories become luxury apartments, shopping parades give way to megastores, office blocks tower above city centres - all designed to create a sense of identity and, crucially, worth. That is, until the cracks start to show. Taking seven cities at seven key moments over the last fifty years, Tom Dyckhoff traces the story of urban life from the joyless mass housing developments of Paris in 1958 - that would play a key role in the spring riots a decade later - to the empty designer homes that encircle Dublin today as the tiger economy enters its death throes. He shows how a new urban blueprint was designed to fit our consumer economy and rolled out en masse across the world, to cities like Portland, Barcelona, London, and even Portsmouth - in most cases without the funds or skills to back it up. And he shows how we will all have to learn to live with the consequences."
