The Good Metropolis: From Urban Formlessness to Metropolitan Architecture

Alexander Eisenschmidt | Visionary Cities Project, Essay, No Density, Territory and mobility, Urban Paradigms

Analysis, Architecture, Built environment, Challenge, City, Collective city, Collective development, Density, Economy, Essay, History, Industrial context, Innovation, Investigation, Metropolis, Philosophy, Population, Public Catalyst, Technology, Territory, Theory, Transformation, Urban planning, Urban research, Urban strategy, Urbanization

Excerpt from The Good Metropolis by Alexander Eisenschmidt published by Birkhäuser.

The subject of this book is the productive tension between the city and architectural form. It seeks to reevaluate the relationship between these two realms in which architecture’s inherent predisposition toward form is often matched only by the city’s ability to avoid it. While design is defined by intention and deliberation, the urban environment frequently appears aimless and conflicted, even accidental, fostering a tendency to view urbanization as undermining and negating architecture’s effectiveness. This book, however, traces an alternative discourse of architecture’s relationship to the city.