AD 219 CITY CATALYST

Description

AD 219: City Catalyst: Archtecture in the Age of Extreme Urbanisation
The city has become an important new starting point in the quest for architecture. At a time of extreme urbanisation, unharnessed urban growth has led many architects to rethink the way that buildings are designed for the global metropolis. It is no longer practical or desirable to impose the standardised, idealized planning of the 20th century. Rather than viewing the city as a fixed entity, architects are now seeking direct inspiration from the existing urban environment and learning from its ever-changing state that resists predetermination. The city, in all its complexity, has become a realm of invention and a space for possibilities where new designs can be tested. This is as apparent in the work that architects are undertaking in the informal settlements, or favelas, of Latin America, as in the more regulated spaces of Chicago, London or Tokyo. Favouring an inclusive way of viewing the city, no aspect of the urban world is any longer rejected outright, and architects and urban designers instead find potential and learn from the underlying dynamics of the contemporary city. This attitude highlights the generative capacities of the city and finds new ways of engaging it. At the very least, it advances an architectural thinking that engages the city on its own ground, abets its potential and seeks opportunities in the existing condition.

CONTENTS

• Alexander Eisenshmidt: Introduction
• Alexander Eisenshmidt: The City’s Architecural Project: From Formless City to Forms of Architecture
• Jesse le Cavalier: Patrons & Prototypes: Walmart’s Catalytic Urbanism
• Kyong Park: Localising the Global
• Daniela Fabricius: Revolution of the Ordinary
• Edward Denison: Chna’s Macro-Planning Policies: Architectural Catalyst or Constraint?
• Keller Easterling: We will be making Active Form
• Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss: Counterpoints With Crisis
• Jürgen Mayer H: Metropol Parasol, Seville
• Ron Witte: The Perfect Storm: Urbanism and Architecture
• Albert Pope: The Unified Project
• Yoshiharu Tsukamoto: Void Metabolism
• Sean Lally: Urban Wash
• Kunlé Adeyemi: African Water Cities
• Michelle Provoost and Wouter Vanstiphout: Make no Big Plans
• RE Somol: Shape and the City
• Sarah Dunn and Marin Felsen: Too Big to Fail
• Clément Blanchet: Park des Expositions (PEX), Toulouse: A Condenser for Diversity
• Adriaan Geuze and Matthew Skjonsberg: Dancing with Entropy
• Alexander Eisenshmidt: Importing the City into Architecture: An Interview with Bernard Tschumi
• Caroline Bos: Hello Stranger. Phenomenology and Topography of the Megacity

144 pages, color ills / 21 x 27,5 cm / English