Berlin was shaped by the events of the twentieth century in a
process of "automatic urbanism." More than any other metropolis,
the city absorbed the forces of that epoch - modernity, fascism,
two world wars, Stalinism, socialism, the Cold War, revolt,
capitalism - and gave them form. This book shows how even today,
opposed ideological, political, economic, and military forces
continue to produce unplanned structures and activities and urban
phenomena beyond the categories of urban design and architecture
that conceal rich potential. Berlin reveals particularly clearly
phenomena that have shaped urban development in the twentieth
century in other places as well: conglomeration, collision of
borders, destruction, void, mass, metabolism, and simulation. The
present book, which caused a sensation when first published in
German twenty years ago, is now being published in English for the
first time. Its surprising and informative analysis of Berlin as a
prototype of the modern city destroys the ideologies of heroic
modernity as well as the new nationalisms and shows how the modern
city "as found" can become the point of departure for new forms of
context-specific architecture and urban planning. Taking Berlin as
a prototype, Philipp Oswalt's lucid analysis describes how much the
built environment of cities is influenced by the unintended
side-effects of political, economic, and technological processes.
This "automatic urbanism" reveals modernist master-planning and
national building traditions as being a myth. Instead, the book
offers a both socially and ecologically more sensitive, more
responsible approach to develop cities "as found." Saskia Sassen,
Columbia University New York This English edition of Philipp
Oswalt's now-classic study could not be more timely. Every effort
to understand the modern city must contend with Berlin, the
twentieth century's anti-capital. Its lessons, presented here with
singular insight and authority, remain necessary to anyone thinking
about what that word - "city" - might still mean today. Reinhold
Martin, Columbia University New York Berlin has never only been a
theatre in the battle between ideas and ideologies. Rather, it has
always been the material means by which these ideas clash against
each other. If the struggle for our futures must take place in
Berlin, as our historical moment seems to demand, there is no
better guide than Philipp Oswalt's now classic Berlin: City Without
Form. His scholarly ingenuity and perceptive architect's eye are
only matched by a commitment to the future of his city. Eyal
Weizman, Goldsmiths/University of London
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