The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History - Softcover

Kostof, Spiro

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0821220160 ISBN 13: 9780821220160

Publisher: Bulfinch, 1993

Synopsis

Spanning the ages and the globe, Spiro Kostof explores the city as a "repository of cultural meaning" and an embodiment of the community it shelters. Widely used by both architects and students of architecture, The City Shaped won the AIA's prestigious book award in Architecture and Urbanism. With hundreds of photographs and drawings that illustrate Professor Kostof's innovative ideas, this has become one of the most important works on urbanization.

About this title

About the Author:

Spiro Kostof (1936-1991) was a professor of Architectural History at the University of California at Berkley, and also taught at M.I.T., and at Yale, Columbia, and Rice universities. His many books include The Architect: Chapters in The History of the Profession (1977) and A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals (1985), now a standard text. He edited America by Design (1987), the companion to a five-part television series that he presented. Kostof also published The City Shaped with Bulfinch Press in 1991.

From Library Journal:

Kostof has done it again; in prolific fashion he has produced another standard textbook. This time his subject is cities rather than architecture, which he covered in A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals ( LJ 6/1/85). This book will appeal especially to designers, architects, and planners, as it organizes its subject matter according to what form it takes (grids, diagrams, skylines, etc.) rather than chronologically, topically, or typologically, as do other surveys of urbanism. Kostof is a master tour guide, blessed with an easy writing style, a piquant, welcoming mind, and a worldwide mastery of his subject matter. This book is certain to become a classic in its field comparable to Lewis Mumford's Culture of Cities (1933) and Mark Girouard's Cit ies and People ( LJ 10/15/85).
- Peter Kaufman, Boston Coll.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bulfinch
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0821220160
• ISBN 13: 9780821220160
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352