The Manhattan skyline is one of the great wonders of the modern world. But how and why did it form? Much has been written about the city's architecture and its general history, but little work has explored the economic forces that created the skyline. This book chronicles the economic history of the Manhattan skyline. In the process, the book debunks some widely-held misconceptions about the city's history. Part I lays out the historical and environmental background that established Manhattan's real estate trajectory before the Skyscraper Revolution at the end of the 19th century. The book begins with Manhattan's natural and geological history and then moves on to how it influenced early land use and neighborhood formation, and how these early decisions eventually impacted the location of skyscrapers. Part II focuses specifically on the economic history of skyscrapers and the skyline, investigating the reasons for their heights, frequencies, locations, and shapes. The book discusses why skyscrapers emerged downtown and why they appeared three miles to the north in midtown, but not in between. Contrary to popular belief it was not due to the depths of Manhattan's bedrock, nor the presence of Grand Central Station. Rather midtown's emergence was a response to the economic and demographic forces that were taking place north of 14th Street after the Civil War. The book also presents the first rigorous investigation of the causes of the building boom during the Roaring Twenties. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the boom was largely a rational response to the economic growth of the nation and city. The last chapter investigates the value of Manhattan Island and the relationship between skyscrapers and land prices. Finally, an Epilogue offers policy recommendations for a resilient and robust future skyline.

Building Community is an in-depth, wide-ranging survey of contemporary apartment buildings, not as raw canvases for interior decoration but as a building type of growing significance. An introduction presents the history of multiple-occupancy housing through its most innovative 20th-century exemplars, from the urbane blocks of Auguste Perret and Henri Sauvage in Paris, to the landscaped housing estates of Weimar Germany and the visionary schemes of Le Corbusier. The heart of the book features 39 recent or ongoing projects, designed by leading international studios and rising talents. Buildings range from social housing and micro apartments to urban villages, megastructures and innovative high-rises. Each project is considered for the way in which it enriches the lives of residents and the city, and is shown through drawings and photographs, taken from the street and within. The book also includes interviews with such contemporary masters of apartment design as Michael Maltzan, Lorcan O'Herlihy, Edouard Francois and Bjarke Ingels. As our cities grow more crowded, it is critical that we produce creative buildings that enhance the lives of their inhabitants, their surroundings and the urban environment as a whole. Building Community offers dozens of proven successes to designers and apartment-dwellers. With 348 illustrations in colour

This sure-to-be-controversial work examines the failure of city planning in America, the results of that failure as seen in the day-to-day lives of our cities, and the reasons behind that failure. Hommann contends that, although desperately needed, by and large city planning has no effect on urban development in this country where developers are supreme. For the most part, local planners must deal with a daily fiction regarding their involvement in developmental decisions, a fiction that ultimately drives many into alternate pursuits. After tracing the history of American development and planning, the author argues that greed settled this country and continues to control economic and developmental decisions, accompanied in this century by criminal conspiracy. The result is the civic deprivation that debilitates millions of Americans culturally, socially, and economically. This study will be of interest to scholars, students, and professionals in planning, urban studies, architecture, public administration, sociology, political science, housing, civil engineering, traffic engineering, transportation planning, city management, and environment; legislators, local politicians, civic leaders, lawyers dealing in public policy and land development, as well as enlightened citizens from the business world.

The Life Eclectic is a stunning interiors book that celebrates the individuality of eclectic decorating styles through 15 homes of creatives from around the world. Featuring homes of the world's most well-respected creatives, including Studio MacLean, Manfredi della Gherardesca and Martin Brudnizki, The Life Eclectic is a celebration of individuality, and embracing the joy that fluidity in taste can bring. How often have you leafed through an interiors book and wondered how you might be able to recreate the eclectic, joyful and chic style of famed designers, when your mis-match belongings seem to juxtapose in all the wrong ways? The Life Eclectic is an interiors book that through carefully selected case studies of homes from the UK, US, Australia, France and Denmark, shows how highly regarded designers, artists, gallerists and writers curate their treasured (and varied) possessions to glorious effect.

Alvar Aalto (1898-1976) made a unique modernist mark. Influenced by both the landscape and the political independence of his native Finland, he designed warm, curving, compassionate buildings, wholly set apart from the slick, mechanistic, geometric designs that characterized much contemporary European practice. Whether a church, a villa, a sauna, or a public library, Aalto's organic structures tended to replace plaster and steel with brick and wood, often incorporating undulating, wave-like forms, which would also appear in his chair, glassware, and lamp designs. An adherent to detail, Aalto insisted upon the humanity of his work stating: "Modern architecture does not mean using immature new materials; the main thing is to work with materials towards a more human line." Many of Aalto's public buildings such as Saynatsalo Town Hall, the lecture theatre at Otaniemi Technical University, the Helsinki National Pensions Institute and the Helsinki House of Culture may be seen as psychological as well as physical landmarks in the rebuilding of Finland after the ravages of war. About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Architecture series features: an introduction to the life and work of the architect the major works in chronological order information about the clients, architectural preconditions as well as construction problems and resolutions a list of all the selected works and a map indicating the locations of the best and most famous buildings approximately 120 illustrations (photographs, sketches, drafts, and plans)

The story of Britain's market halls-built to replace traditional open-air markets throughout England, Wales, and Scotland-is a tale of exuberant architecture, civic pride, and attempts at social engineering. This book is the first history of the market hall, an immensely important building type that revolutionized the way Britons obtained their consumer goods. James Schmiechen and Kenneth Carls investigate the economic, cultural, political, and social forces that led to the construction of several hundred market buildings in the two centuries after 1750. The market hall was frequently vast in scale, revolutionary in plan, and elaborately ornamented-indeed, it was often the most important architectural statement a proud town might make. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary records, the authors show how municipal authorities used market buildings to improve the supply and distribution of food, convey social ideals, control social and economic behavior, and declare a town's virtues. For the Victorians, Schmiechen and Carls argue, the enormous investment of energy, seriousness, and funding in the market hall reflected a belief that architecture was a primary agent of social reform and improvement. Generously illustrated with more than 180 drawings and photographs, this book also includes a Gazetteer with information about some 300 specific market buildings. Published with assistance from the Annie Burr Lewis Fund

This book examines the planning and implementation of policies to create sustainable neighborhoods, using as a case study the City of Sydney. The authors ask whether many past planning and development practices were appropriate to the ways that communities then functioned, and what lessons we have learned. The aim is to illustrate the many variations within a city and from neighborhood to neighborhood regarding renewal (rehabilitation), redevelopment (replacement) and new development. Case study examples of nine City of Sydney neighborhoods note the different histories of planning and development in each. Features of the studies include literature searches, field work (with photography), and analysis. The authors propose a set of sustainability principles which incorporate elements of the twenty seven principles of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development Part One explores sustainable urban planning, and the importance of planning tools that enable best planning outcomes for communities and investors. Common factors in the nine case study neighborhoods are renewal, redevelopment and development pressures affecting Sydney from the 1970s to 2014. Also discussed are the differing circumstances of planning faced by authorities, developers and communities in each of the study areas. Part Two of the book is focused on the case study areas in City of Sydney East area: Woolloomooloo and Kings Cross. Part Three covers case study areas in Sydney's Inner South area: Chippendale, Redfern and Waterloo District. Part Four surveys the Inner West suburb of Erskineville. Part Five looks at the City West area, including the Haymarket District and the Pyrmont and Ultimo District. Part Six concentrates on the North West area suburb of Glebe. Part Seven of the book looks at the growth area of South Sydney District, which includes the suburbs of Beaconsfield, Zetland and the new localities of Victoria Park and Green Square. The authors recount lessons learned and outline directions of planning for sustainable neighborhoods. Finally, the authors challenge readers to apply the lessons of these case studies to further advances in sustainable urban planning.

From the first idea to the opening day, the project is followed step by step through a long picture-report. Phrases by Renzo Piano serve as comments for the pictures and guide the reader though this journey. The main text, that can be found at the end of the book, is the testimony of Renzo Piano himself, recorded for this special occasion. Moreover, some sketches have been made especially for this book. The choice not to use any caption for the pictures, but to leave Renzo Piano's voice as a guide for the reader, has the aim to transmit the sense of gradual discovery that is experienced when entering the museum. Our objective is to create a collection of "unique" books, that allow the reader to share with us at every stage of the project, this extraordinary adventure that is "building".

For nearly a century the Garden City movement has represented one end of a continuum in an ongoing debate about the future of the modern city. In 1898 Ebenezer Howard envisioned an experimental community as the alternative to huge, teeming cities. Small, planned "garden cities" girdled by greenbelts were to serve in time as the "master key" to a higher, more cooperative stage of civilization based on ecologically balanced communities. Howard soon founded an international planning movement which ever since has represented a remarkable blend of accommodation to and protest against urban changes and the rise of the suburbs. In this interconnected history of the Garden City movement in the United States and Britain, Buder examines its influence, strengths and limitations. Howard's garden city, he shows, joined together two very different types of late-nineteenth-century experimental communities, creating a tension never fully resolved. One approach, utopian and radical in nature, challenged conventional values; the other, the model industrial towns of "enlightened" capitalists, reinforceed them. Buder traces this tension through planning history from the nineteenth-century world of visionaries, philanthropy, and self help into our own with its reliance on the expert, bureaucracy, and governmental policy, shedding light on the complex changes in the way we have thought in the twentieth century about community, urban design, and indeed the process of change. His final chapters examine the world-wide enthusiasm for "New Towns" between 1945-1975 and recent political and social trends which challenge many fundamental assumptions of modern planning.

This book is based on multidisciplinary research focusing on low-carbon healthy city planning, policy and assessment. This includes city-development strategy, energy, environment, healthy, land-use, transportation, infrastructure, information and other related subjects. This book begins with the current status and problems of low-carbon healthy city development in China. It then introduces the global experience of different regions and different policy trends, focusing on individual cases. Finally, the book opens a discussion of Chinese low-carbon healthy city development from planning and design, infrastructure and technology assessment-system perspectives. It presents a case study including the theory and methodology to support the unit city theory for low-carbon healthy cities. The book lists the ranking of China's 269 high-level cities, with economic, environmental, resource, construction, transportation and health indexes as an assessment for creating a low-carbon healthy future. The book provides readers with a comprehensive overview of building low-carbon healthy cities in China.

Here is a comprehensive development plan written as if vital communities, indigenous peoples, women, and the environment really mattered. This alternative type of development planning goes beyond statistics to incorporate the interests of the people that live in the community. As an experiment in development education and planning, one of the authors led a group of the country's leading undergraduates into the field in Ecuador to complete an empirically based study and to prepare an alternative set of recommendations and models. A clearly written book that offers new insights for developmental specialists as well as educators and students in international development, anthropology, economics, public policy, planning, and Latin American studies at the undergraduate and graduate levels.