Books about Cities, Written by Architects and Urban Theorists.
(Left to Right) Rome, New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.
(Left to Right) Collage City, Congestion City, Sign City, Ecological City, Da-me City, and Groundless City.
(Left to Right) Rome, New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.
(Left to Right) Collage City, Congestion City, Sign City, Ecological City, Da-me City, and Groundless City.
Architects love cities. When they are not drawing building plans, architects are most likely dreaming about cities, sketching cities, walking in cities, taking selfies with cities, and writing about cities. Influential architectural texts today are often not about famous buildings, but famous cities: Rome (Rowe and Koetter's Collage City, 1978), New York (Rem Koolhaas' Delirious New York, 1976), Las Vegas (Venturi's Learning from Las Vegas, 1972), Los Angeles (Banham's Four Ecologies, 1971), Tokyo (Kuroda and Atelier Bow-Wow's Made in Tokyo, 2001), and Hong Kong (Frampton, Solomon, and Wong's Cities Without Ground, 2012), to name a few. Maybe the fascination is part of the job description: as designers of the built environment, architects should naturally be amazed by the grandest of all man-made environments. Or maybe it's a sign of the times: for the first time in history, more people on Earth live in urban areas than in rural areas (United Nations, 2009). Over the next two decades, China will move 250 million people into cities (New York Times, 2013). It seems that, to become a proficient architect nowadays, architects need to not only be skilled in construction details and fancy visuals, but also be sophisticated urban designers. To survive, architects have to love cities.
Architect: I love you [city]. You are mysterious and beautiful.
City: [silence] Okay.
But there's a problem: while architects love cities, cities don't usually love them back. This unrequited love, like most failed relationships, is the result of many factors. For one, architecture is a niche design profession, and architects have very little real influence in urban design. Most of the built environment is already planned by engineers and dictated by developers. According to architecture critic Kenneth Frampton, "Architects, in any event, are only responsible for less than 10 percent of the built environment" (2008). If you were a city, would you care about something that gives you less in return than sales tax? Furthermore, some architects are terrible at communicating their ideas to cities and the public; for all their fancy renderings and diagrams, architects usually don't say - or know - how exactly their buildings will boost city revenues, gentrify neighborhoods, or melt a parked car. Architects may not be directly responsible for these issues, but they ought to know the full impact of their designs. Should architects commit to loving cities they barely know, or that they may destroy? Finally, cities don't love architects because architecture tends to be invisible, lying in the background as a set piece for the theater of daily life. As philosopher Walter Benjamin puts it, "Architecture has always represented the prototype of a work of art the reception of which is consumed by a collective in a state of distraction." Can you love art that is hiding in plain sight? Can cities and their people really love something indirectly, or understand something only in fleeting attention?
City: Why should I waste time and money on you architects, if you will never be direct with me, or really understand me, or have very little to contribute physically?
Architect: ...because I draw pretty things and make you beautiful?
City: Are you calling me ugly, elitist scum?
Both: [silence]
The truth is that architects are not the only people who love cities. Lots of people do: tourists, artists, engineers, planners, politicians, bankers, children, the elderly - people from all walks of life. With their boundless resources and amenities, cities attract people, and people like people. Cities like architects too, but maybe treat them as distant acquaintances. Acquaintances can bring you valuable connections, much as landmark architecture - museums and monuments - can generate tourism and rebrand cities. Distant friends can also be unreliable - poorly planned architecture can increase psychological stress, make places less attractive, and put cities in debt. Compared to city officials, whose job is to run and improve cities, or tourists, who shower cities with cash and attention, architects seem like terrible lovers of cities.
City: I have many other fish in the sea, I don't need you architects. Engineers build my skyscrapers, artists paint my streets, and developers make me rich. Why should I care about you?
Architect: Because I am always there, like a guardian angel! When you are distracted, when you are not looking, you will notice my works of art. My art is always in the background, observing and recording and beautifying...
City: Non! You are not the only one! There is another.
To save this failing relationship, architects should look to another medium for guidance - architecture's counterpart in the arts, a medium that is also consumed "in a state of distraction," that also documents and beautifies spaces, that also loves cities - but that has also made cities fall in love with them too: movies.
City: I love you [filmmaker]. Your work makes me feel special and beautiful.
Filmmaker: I know. Everyone knows and loves movies.
Architect: ...well, uh, some architects like my work. My clients notice my work! Sometimes.
All: [silence]
Everyone appreciates movies. People love movies because they entertain and relate. Films have narratives and characters that audiences care about and sympathize with. Films engage the senses, creating visual and musical spectaculars. They imagine worlds inside worlds, entertains our imagination and challenges reality. Films translate human memory and emotion; they tell the story of being human.
Cities love movies because movies communicate their stories. Movies, good or bad, tell the passage of time in cities - the intersecting and diverging lives, the wide and narrow streets, the urban noise and quiet rooms, the struggles and triumphs, the hopes and dreams. Movies create powerful impressions of urban spaces, combining history and imagination into new spatial perspectives and stories. Movies create romantic visions of cities long gone, cities of the future, or cities that never existed. They can generate frenzied tourism and inspire fantasy cities like Disneyland and Harry Potter. In their power to inspire the masses, films about cities, especially classics like Fritz Lang's Metropolis, have probably contributed more than to urban thinking and experience than nerdy architecture books for architects.
And movies, unlike buildings, can't melt cars. They just crash them on screen.
So why can't architects profess their love of cities like filmmakers do? Aren't architecture and film equally powerful art forms? Sure, architecture is physical, functional, and habitable, and people cannot reside in the fantasy worlds of film (though many wish they could), but both mediums deal tremendously with time and space.
As disciplines that communicate urban ideas and capture urban life, film just triumphs. Compared to elaborate drawings and singular spaces, narratives do a much job of communicating life and possibility in the city. Through the eyes of the characters, the audience can start to imagine all the events and drama that unfold in a space, more so than scaled figures and renderings. Combined with great music and cinematography, movies can fully capture the spirit of a city in ways that architecture can only strive to do.
So why don't cities love architects like filmmakers? Besides all the reasons listed above, it is because while architects are good at understanding spaces, many are terrible at communicating stories. Stories are important to cities because cities are stories, and stories captivate the public. Architecture is built for people and also for their stories. Filmmakers have known this for a long time; in the modern history of architecture, only a handful of architects have really taken film and stories to heart. Bernard Tschumi, with his Screenplays and Manhattan Transcripts (1976-1981), is one practitioner who began his career studying the intersection of architecture and event in the city. More recently, Atelier Bow-Wow's Graphic Anatomy I and II (2007 and 2014) chart the relationship between constructing buildings and occupying them.
Architects often leave after completing a building, leaving their work, good or bad, to melt into the urban background. Their urban writings don't have a wide audience, and their work and stories are all but forgotten. To win the hearts of cities again, architects should tell stories like filmmakers do: immersive, personal, and driven by characters.
Architect: All right, all right. I will tell stories now, just like those womanizing filmmakers. Can you give me another chance? I'll prove my affection to you.
City: Fine...You can start by telling me a movie you like. Tell me a story where I am a main character. Tell me...a love story.
Architect: I'll tell you six.
(Continue in Part II)
Architect: I love you [city]. You are mysterious and beautiful.
City: [silence] Okay.
But there's a problem: while architects love cities, cities don't usually love them back. This unrequited love, like most failed relationships, is the result of many factors. For one, architecture is a niche design profession, and architects have very little real influence in urban design. Most of the built environment is already planned by engineers and dictated by developers. According to architecture critic Kenneth Frampton, "Architects, in any event, are only responsible for less than 10 percent of the built environment" (2008). If you were a city, would you care about something that gives you less in return than sales tax? Furthermore, some architects are terrible at communicating their ideas to cities and the public; for all their fancy renderings and diagrams, architects usually don't say - or know - how exactly their buildings will boost city revenues, gentrify neighborhoods, or melt a parked car. Architects may not be directly responsible for these issues, but they ought to know the full impact of their designs. Should architects commit to loving cities they barely know, or that they may destroy? Finally, cities don't love architects because architecture tends to be invisible, lying in the background as a set piece for the theater of daily life. As philosopher Walter Benjamin puts it, "Architecture has always represented the prototype of a work of art the reception of which is consumed by a collective in a state of distraction." Can you love art that is hiding in plain sight? Can cities and their people really love something indirectly, or understand something only in fleeting attention?
City: Why should I waste time and money on you architects, if you will never be direct with me, or really understand me, or have very little to contribute physically?
Architect: ...because I draw pretty things and make you beautiful?
City: Are you calling me ugly, elitist scum?
Both: [silence]
The truth is that architects are not the only people who love cities. Lots of people do: tourists, artists, engineers, planners, politicians, bankers, children, the elderly - people from all walks of life. With their boundless resources and amenities, cities attract people, and people like people. Cities like architects too, but maybe treat them as distant acquaintances. Acquaintances can bring you valuable connections, much as landmark architecture - museums and monuments - can generate tourism and rebrand cities. Distant friends can also be unreliable - poorly planned architecture can increase psychological stress, make places less attractive, and put cities in debt. Compared to city officials, whose job is to run and improve cities, or tourists, who shower cities with cash and attention, architects seem like terrible lovers of cities.
City: I have many other fish in the sea, I don't need you architects. Engineers build my skyscrapers, artists paint my streets, and developers make me rich. Why should I care about you?
Architect: Because I am always there, like a guardian angel! When you are distracted, when you are not looking, you will notice my works of art. My art is always in the background, observing and recording and beautifying...
City: Non! You are not the only one! There is another.
To save this failing relationship, architects should look to another medium for guidance - architecture's counterpart in the arts, a medium that is also consumed "in a state of distraction," that also documents and beautifies spaces, that also loves cities - but that has also made cities fall in love with them too: movies.
City: I love you [filmmaker]. Your work makes me feel special and beautiful.
Filmmaker: I know. Everyone knows and loves movies.
Architect: ...well, uh, some architects like my work. My clients notice my work! Sometimes.
All: [silence]
Everyone appreciates movies. People love movies because they entertain and relate. Films have narratives and characters that audiences care about and sympathize with. Films engage the senses, creating visual and musical spectaculars. They imagine worlds inside worlds, entertains our imagination and challenges reality. Films translate human memory and emotion; they tell the story of being human.
Cities love movies because movies communicate their stories. Movies, good or bad, tell the passage of time in cities - the intersecting and diverging lives, the wide and narrow streets, the urban noise and quiet rooms, the struggles and triumphs, the hopes and dreams. Movies create powerful impressions of urban spaces, combining history and imagination into new spatial perspectives and stories. Movies create romantic visions of cities long gone, cities of the future, or cities that never existed. They can generate frenzied tourism and inspire fantasy cities like Disneyland and Harry Potter. In their power to inspire the masses, films about cities, especially classics like Fritz Lang's Metropolis, have probably contributed more than to urban thinking and experience than nerdy architecture books for architects.
And movies, unlike buildings, can't melt cars. They just crash them on screen.
So why can't architects profess their love of cities like filmmakers do? Aren't architecture and film equally powerful art forms? Sure, architecture is physical, functional, and habitable, and people cannot reside in the fantasy worlds of film (though many wish they could), but both mediums deal tremendously with time and space.
As disciplines that communicate urban ideas and capture urban life, film just triumphs. Compared to elaborate drawings and singular spaces, narratives do a much job of communicating life and possibility in the city. Through the eyes of the characters, the audience can start to imagine all the events and drama that unfold in a space, more so than scaled figures and renderings. Combined with great music and cinematography, movies can fully capture the spirit of a city in ways that architecture can only strive to do.
So why don't cities love architects like filmmakers? Besides all the reasons listed above, it is because while architects are good at understanding spaces, many are terrible at communicating stories. Stories are important to cities because cities are stories, and stories captivate the public. Architecture is built for people and also for their stories. Filmmakers have known this for a long time; in the modern history of architecture, only a handful of architects have really taken film and stories to heart. Bernard Tschumi, with his Screenplays and Manhattan Transcripts (1976-1981), is one practitioner who began his career studying the intersection of architecture and event in the city. More recently, Atelier Bow-Wow's Graphic Anatomy I and II (2007 and 2014) chart the relationship between constructing buildings and occupying them.
Architects often leave after completing a building, leaving their work, good or bad, to melt into the urban background. Their urban writings don't have a wide audience, and their work and stories are all but forgotten. To win the hearts of cities again, architects should tell stories like filmmakers do: immersive, personal, and driven by characters.
Architect: All right, all right. I will tell stories now, just like those womanizing filmmakers. Can you give me another chance? I'll prove my affection to you.
City: Fine...You can start by telling me a movie you like. Tell me a story where I am a main character. Tell me...a love story.
Architect: I'll tell you six.
(Continue in Part II)
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