The Good Metropolis - From Urban Formlessness to Metropolitan Architecture

• Survey of seminal 20th century urban theorists
• Locations are Berlin, Chicago, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, New York and Paris
• A richly illustrated and passionate plea for the city as a human habitat

Architecture has always been engaged in a dialogue with its context, i.e. the city—a relationship often dominated by tension. The architectural avant-garde in particular is commonly understood in its opposition to the existing metropolitan terrain: it positioned the form of the individual building against an – assumed - urban formlessness. The publication explores this dichotomy and analyzes the works of important urbanists, ranging from August Endell, Karl Scheffler, Ludwig Hilberseimer and Reyner Banham to Rem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi. Thus The Good Metropolis develops a theoretical and historical framework for understanding the complex relationship between architecture and the city.

A richly illustrated and passionate plea for the city as a human habitat.

About the author

Alexander Eisenschmidt, Associate Professor of Architecture at University of Illinois at Chicago.