Paradigm Islands Manhattan and Venice Discourses on Architecture and the City [Hardcover]

Concerning architecture and the city, built, imagined and narrated, this book focuses on Manhattan and Venice, but considers architecture as an intellectual and spatial process rather than a product.

A critical look at the making of Manhattan and Venice provides a background to addressing the dynamic redefinition and making of space today. The gradual processes of adjustment, the making of a constantly changing dense space, the emphasis on forming rather than on figure, the incorporation of new forms and languages through their adaptation and transformation, make both Manhattan and Venice, in different ways, the ideal places to contextualize and address the issue of an architecture of the dynamic.

Part 1: Paradigm Islands  Part 2: Frames  1. Learning from Manhattan, Designing the Frivolous: Rem Koolhaas from Delirious to Junkspace  2. Building on Tension, Learning from Venice: Manfredo Tafuris History Between renovatio and Continuity  Part 3: Makings  3. Manhattan Grid: the City as a Script  4. Manhattan Surfacing: Central Park  5. From Grid to Grid Effect  6. Venice Traces: Grids, Mats, Tentacles  7. Venice Impossible: Representations of the Dynamic  Part 4: Readings  8. Manhattan: Performance, Artificial Chorality and Exhibitionism  9. Venice: Normative Chorality, Masks, Tenderness  Part 5: Modern(s)  10. Le Corbusier and Manhattan  11. Le Corbusier and Venice  Part 6: Contemporaries  12. The City as Event: Bernard Tschumi in Manhattan  13. Topology to Diagram: Peter Eisenman Between Venice and Manhattan  14. The City as Diagram. Gianugo Polãp