Author : Michael Sorkin
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9780374523145
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (231 download)
Book Synopsis Variations on a Theme Park by : Michael Sorkin
Download or read book Variations on a Theme Park written by Michael Sorkin and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1992-03 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's cities are being rapidly transformed by a sinister and homogenous design. A new Kind of urbanism--manipulative, dispersed, and hostile to traditional public space--is emerging both at the heart and at the edge of town in megamalls, corporate enclaves, gentrified zones, and psuedo-historic marketplaces. If anything can be described as a paradigm for these places, it's the theme park, an apparently benign environment in which all is structured to achieve maximum control and in which the idea of authentic interaction among citizens has been thoroughly purged. In this bold collection, eight of our leading urbanists and architectural critics explore the emblematic sites of this new cityscape--from Silicon Valley to Epcot Center, South Street Seaport to downtown Los Angeles--and reveal their disturbing implications for American public life.