Our cities and neighborhoods are composed of Urban Building Blocks and a knowledge of these elementary components is part of the basic equipment of city planning. It is absolutely essential for urban design that one understands their form and structure, their functional conditions, and the differentiation into private and public spheres, as well as the ways they are networked into their surroundings. Study of these city building blocks represents a first step toward understanding, and successfully developing the built structure of the city as a physical and social habitat.

Themes are - the row, - the block, - the courtyard (the block in reverse), - the passageway, - the line, - the solitaire, - the group, - the "shed."

Albert Kahn is probably the most important industrial architect of the 20th century. With his factory for the Ford T-models, designed for mass production, he found himself at the beginning of modern industrial architecture. His industrial buildings inspired the architects of European Modernism. They were the examples by which the structural rationality of Kahn's industrial developments became the guiding principle for the New Building movement up until today. The unrivalled monograph with its numerous photographs, plan layouts, site plans, and virtual 3D models comprehensively documents the buildings of Albert Kahn, which he was able to construct in a very short time due to his system-based working method - in the USA but also in the Soviet Union, Brazil, Sweden, France, China, Japan, and Australia.

Aktuelle Perspektive auf Palladio Weltweit werden Architekturen darauf getrimmt, mediale Aufmerksamkeit auf sich zu ziehen. Palladio, der bedeutendste Architekt der Renaissance, steht am Anfang dieses Trends: Seine Architekturbilder basieren auf dem Vorrang der orthogonalen Projektion. Das Entwerfen und das Darstellen sind davon durchdrungen - dies wird nicht nur im Falle der Abbildungen seiner Vier Bucher, sondern auch bei seinen realisierten Gebauden selbst anschaulich. Aus dieser Perspektive lassen sich viele, stark diskutierte Arbeiten Palladios neu verstehen. Der Autor analysiert das gebaute Werk in diesem Sinne und zeigt: Sowohl im Inneren wie im AEusseren pragt die Frontalitat des Betrachterstandpunkts massgeblich den architektonischen Entwurf und in der Folge auch die Raumwirkung. Palladios grosse Wirkung ist unbestritten, er wird weltweit rezipiert. Gebaude erzeugen Bilder: Palladio steht als Bildermacher am Anfang eines aktuellen Trends. Die Aspekte der Bildlichkeit sowie der Raumlichkeit sind hochaktuell.

Our cities and neighborhoods are composed of Urban Building Blocks and a knowledge of these elementary components is part of the basic equipment of city planning. It is absolutely essential for urban design that one understands their form and structure, their functional conditions, and the differentiation into private and public spheres, as well as the ways they are networked into their surroundings. Study of these city building blocks represents a first step toward understanding, and successfully developing the built structure of the city as a physical and social habitat. Themes are - the row, - the block, - the courtyard (the block in reverse), - the passageway, - the line, - the solitaire, - the group, - the "shed".