RICHARD SENNETT BUILDING AND DWELLING ETHICS FO THE CITY /ANGLAIS (ALLEN LANE) - Softcover

SENNETT RICHARD

Softcover

ISBN 10: 071399875X ISBN 13: 9780713998757

Publisher: PENGUIN UK, 2018

Synopsis

In Building and Dwelling, Richard Sennett distils a lifetime's thinking and practical experience to explore the relationship between the good built environment and the good life. He argues for, and describes in rich detail, the idea of an open city, one in which people learn to manage complexity. He shows how the design of cities can enrich or diminish the everyday experience of those who dwell in them. The book ranges widely - from London, Paris and Barcelona to Shanghai, Mumbai and Medellin in Colombia - and draws on classic thinkers such as Tocqueville, Heidegger, Max Weber, and Walter Benjamin. It also draws on Sennett's many decades as a practical planner himself, testing what works, what doesn't, and why. He shows what works ethically is often the most practical solution for cities' problems. This is a humane and thrilling book, which allows us to think freshly about how we live in cities. The experience and wisdom of the author are visible on every page. His voice is distinctive and engaging. It should attract anyone interested in the physical circumstances of civilization.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Sennett's previous books include The Fall of Public Man, Flesh and Stone and Respect, as well as the two previous volumes in his Homo Faber trilogy, The Craftsman and Together. He was founder director of the New York Institute for the Humanities and now teaches urban studies at the London School of Economics and at Harvard University, and researches labor relations in Columbia University's Center for Capitalism and Society. He has won the Amalfi and Ebert prizes for sociology and in 2006 was awarded the Hegel Prize by the City of Stuttgart.

Review

Constantly stimulating ... a lateish-life appraisal of what Richard Sennett has read, written and, most vitally, witnessed on the street or in the marketplace in the tradition of the sharp-eyed, sharp-nosed flaneur taking in every sensation -- Jonathan Meades * Guardian * Sennett leavens the big ideas with snapshots of real life. ... It reads like a summation of a life lived in cities and is, ultimately, a paean to their unpredictability, a call for tolerance and a celebration of difference -- Edwin Heathcote * Financial Times * He has brought to the study of urban life a perception that includes literature, philosophy, art, sociology and economics, as well as his personal experiences -- Rowan Moore * Observer * Distils into a single volume his thoughts on how urban design shapes the ways in which we relate to one another ... Sennett is as passionate as ever about the richness and complexity of public life ... The nub of Building and Dwelling is that the open city is a demanding place ... one that requires us to embrace difference, even if we do not identify with it. Typically idealistic, typically urbane [it is] well-timed for the disputes of our day -- Justin McGuirk * New Yorker *

Edition details

• Publisher: PENGUIN UK
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 071399875X
• ISBN 13: 9780713998757
• Binding: Paperback