Existing histories of modern architecture typically give their highest
praise to private houses and their most severe condemnation to
architect-authored urban plans, often neglecting the built works that
are no smaller than a single building and possibly as large as an urban
block, the middle or institutional scale, where culturally significant
urban transformation actually takes place.
Urban architecture is a timely topic as today cities worldwide are
suffering accelerated urbanisation, which is often dehumanising and
destructive, especially to the unbuilt environment, airs, waters and
soils. The middle or institutional scale is shown to activate and
actualise latent potentials for cultural experience and environmental
intelligence, allowing the city to surprise itself and delight in its
discoveries.
In Projecting Urbanity, David Leatherbarrow, via author-architect
texts by his former doctorate students, lays out the basis for a
revision of modern architecture's contribution to cities and their
culture. Presenting a series of texts featuring buildings or their parts
of various scales - from the construction detail, to the room or garden,
to ensembles within a neighborhood - the contributors introduce concepts
for contemporary and future urban architecture, together with richly
indicative examples from the past several decades.
While architecture cannot "solve" today's urban problems, it certainly
has a role to play in their productive transformation, articulating
opportunities for life and culture that are more humane, less wasteful,
and more beautiful.
