A Radical Normal: Propositions for the Architecture of the City (Grundlagen/Basics)

The cycle of production and consumption, artificially ­accelerated by advertising and marketing, has charac­terised our society for decades. This cycle has recently also taken hold of the architecture of the city, leading to a waste that is both economically and ecologically unacceptable. The destruction of buildings that are not actually obsolete is just as questionable as the production of extravagant architectures for which there is no real need. This book is a protest against the merciless globalisation of the city and its dissolution into faceless, inhospitable peripheries. At the same time, it puts forward alternative strategies of urban design to counteract such globalisation and dissolution. It formulates a different approach to urbanism, one which views the city not as a ­carnivalesque display of vanities but as a sophisti­cated spatial construction that lays down the conditions for a productive, sociable, serene, and happy life.