Items related to Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past
Synopsis
A long-sought reprint of this classic of architectural history and criticism, surveying a movement that would inspire architects, fantasists, and filmmakers alike.
It is an architectural concept as alluring as it is elusive, as futuristic as it is primordial. Megastructure is what it sounds like: a vastly scaled edifice that can contain potentially countless uses, contexts, and adaptations. Theorized and briefly experimented with in built form in the 1960s, megastructures almost as quickly went out of fashion in the profession. But Reyner Banham's 1976 book compiled the origin stories and ongoing mythos of this visionary movement, seeking to chart its lively rise, rapid fall, and ongoing meaning.
Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past is part of the recent surge in attention to this quixotic form, of which some examples were built but to this day remains - decades after its codification - more of a poetic idea than a real architectural type. Banham, among the most gifted and incisive architectural critics and historians of his time, sought connections between theoretical origins in Le Corbusier's more starry-eyed drawings to the flurry of theories by the Japanese Metabolist architects, to less intentional examples in military architecture, industry, infrastructure, and the emerging instances in pop culture and art. Had he written the book a few years later he would find an abundance of examples in speculative art and science fiction cinema, mediums where it continues to provoke wonder to this day.
A long-sought study by an author who combined imagination, wit, and pioneering scholarship, the republication of Megastructure is an opportunity for scholars and laypeople alike to return to the origins of this fantastic urban idea.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Other Popular Editions of the Same Title
Search results for Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past
Stock Image
Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past
Seller: Tim's Used Books Provincetown Mass., Provincetown, MA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Soft cover. Condition: Good. Not a library book. No marks in text. Ships promptly, in a cardboard enclosure, from Tim's Used Books, open shop in Provincetown, Massachusetts, buyers and sellers of good used books at fair prices since 1991. Seller Inventory # 24022010
Quantity: 1 available
Stock Image
Megastructure: Urban Features of the Recent Past
Published by
Thames and Hudson, London, 1976
ISBN 10: 0500272050
ISBN 13: 9780500272053
Used
Soft cover
Seller: RZabasBooks, Toronto, ON, Canada
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Slight bump at the tail of spine. Slight wear to covers. Seller Inventory # 012387
Quantity: 1 available
Seller Image
Megastructure : Urban Futures of the Recent Past
Published by
Thames & Hudson, London, 1976
ISBN 10: 0500272050
ISBN 13: 9780500272053
Used
Soft cover
Seller: Springhead Books, Rochester, United Kingdom
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. Contents: Introduction: dinosaurs of the modern movement -- Antecedents, analogies and me?gastructures trouve?es -- beginners and begetters -- Megayear 1964 -- Fun and flexibility -- Megacity Montreal -- Megastructure in academe -- Megadecadence: acceptability and exploitation -- Epilogue: the meaning of megastructure -- Appendix: Maki on megastructure. 224 pages, ill. ; 26 cm. Slight shelf wear and tanning to edges, blind stamp of previous owner on contents page, small chip to head of spine, no inscriptions, tight and square binding. Photographs available on request. All books dispatched same or next working day in robust packaging. Seller Inventory # 015556
Quantity: 1 available