Living the City - (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

On the personal narratives that exist alongside architecture

Cities are full of stories--running in parallel, contradictory, overlapping and inseparably linked. Such stories are told in Living the City, referencing various projects from architecture, art and urban planning.

The book aims to show processes and possibilities for action in cities based on more than 50 projects from all over Europe. The publication first looks at urbanites before expanding into emotionally and poetically charged stories that consider basic activities such as loving, living, moving, working, learning, playing, dreaming, and participating in the city. The book is published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name at the former airport in Tempelhof, Berlin.

Contributors include: Assemble, ateliermob, Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine, Civic Architects, Crimson Historians and Urbanists, Eutropian, Larissa Fassler, Jeppe Hein, Thomas Hirschhorn, Lacaton & Vassal, No Shade, Olalekan Jeyifous, Ahmet Ögüt, Planbude, raumlaborberlin, Rotor DC, The Black Archives, White Arkitekter and Zones Urbaines Sensibles.

Review Quotes

Presenting the 50-plus projects across eight chapters, each one prefaced by puzzle-like collages akin to the cover; these images illustrate the overlapping and contesting nature of doing projects in European cities. And although the projects follow one after the other, the density of words and images reads like a rapid-fire presentation of ideas focused on, as the title alludes, living in cities.--John Hill "A Daily Dose of Architecture Books"