Book Review: Recombinant Urbanism
Recombinant Urbanism: Conceptual Modeling in Architecture, Urban Design, and City Theory by David Grahame Shane, published by Wiley, 2005. Paperback, 344 pages. (Amazon)
This history and manifesto of urban-modeling techniques is all about threes. It starts with the three stage sets of Sebastian Serlio (the Noble, the Comic, and the Satyric) from his Mannerist treatise The Five Books of Architecture. It continues with Kevin Lynch's three "normative" models (the City of Faith, the City as a Machine, and the Organic City), in many ways the basis for Shane's book. Variations on Lynch's three are also found in Cedric Price's "The City as an Egg" (boiled, fried, scrambled) and the Young Planners' three urban patterns (Archi Città, Cine Città, and Tele Città). Each of these groupings of three basically tell the same story, the evolutionary stages of urban form: the compact pre-industrial city with a highly defined center, the sprawling industrial city with its logic of production and consumption, and contemporary cities characterized by multiple centers acting as attractors (of people and goods).
Shane further breaks down cities into three constituent elements: enclaves, armatures, and heterotopias (the last was originally postulated by Michel Foucault but not entirely worked out as its development was interrupted by his death). Enclaves are simply buildings or groups of buildings that contain individuals and functions. Armatures are the circulation networks that connect enclaves and move people and goods. Heterotopias are "the other", those things that cannot be contained within the normative enclaves of societies. Shane further explains that each stage of urban form is characterized by one element being stronger than the rest, so the City of Faith stresses enclaves, the Machine City stresses armatures, and the Organic City stresses heterotopias. That is not to say that the other elements are not present. Rather they exist in a subsidiary state to the dominant urban element, due to many factors, such as power structures and technology.
More threes are injected when Shane even further breaks down the urban elements into three different types, relating to the normative urban models. Without going into detail on these, the three heterotopias that close the book are the most complex concepts but also the most important to Shane in terms of looking at the city. Ultimately he breaks free from the bounds of three in his proposal of an emerging city form and the future evolution of the city. Shane arrives at this via a lucid analysis of city theory, urban design, and architecture that instills the reader with a fresh vocabulary, a new way of thinking about the city, and henceforth its future.
This history and manifesto of urban-modeling techniques is all about threes. It starts with the three stage sets of Sebastian Serlio (the Noble, the Comic, and the Satyric) from his Mannerist treatise The Five Books of Architecture. It continues with Kevin Lynch's three "normative" models (the City of Faith, the City as a Machine, and the Organic City), in many ways the basis for Shane's book. Variations on Lynch's three are also found in Cedric Price's "The City as an Egg" (boiled, fried, scrambled) and the Young Planners' three urban patterns (Archi Città, Cine Città, and Tele Città). Each of these groupings of three basically tell the same story, the evolutionary stages of urban form: the compact pre-industrial city with a highly defined center, the sprawling industrial city with its logic of production and consumption, and contemporary cities characterized by multiple centers acting as attractors (of people and goods).
Shane further breaks down cities into three constituent elements: enclaves, armatures, and heterotopias (the last was originally postulated by Michel Foucault but not entirely worked out as its development was interrupted by his death). Enclaves are simply buildings or groups of buildings that contain individuals and functions. Armatures are the circulation networks that connect enclaves and move people and goods. Heterotopias are "the other", those things that cannot be contained within the normative enclaves of societies. Shane further explains that each stage of urban form is characterized by one element being stronger than the rest, so the City of Faith stresses enclaves, the Machine City stresses armatures, and the Organic City stresses heterotopias. That is not to say that the other elements are not present. Rather they exist in a subsidiary state to the dominant urban element, due to many factors, such as power structures and technology.
More threes are injected when Shane even further breaks down the urban elements into three different types, relating to the normative urban models. Without going into detail on these, the three heterotopias that close the book are the most complex concepts but also the most important to Shane in terms of looking at the city. Ultimately he breaks free from the bounds of three in his proposal of an emerging city form and the future evolution of the city. Shane arrives at this via a lucid analysis of city theory, urban design, and architecture that instills the reader with a fresh vocabulary, a new way of thinking about the city, and henceforth its future.
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