Tight spaces; hard architecture and how to humanize it (A Spectrum book)

" Airports where chairs are bolted to the floor to drive patrons into food and drink concessions...picnic tables cemented into the earth, making large parties--or even sitting in the shade--impossible...public toilets, advertised as indestructible by manufacturers, that drive vandals to the use of dynamite in a desperate attempt at a human imprint.

These are just a few examples of what Robert Sommer, author of the best-selling PERSONAL SPACE, Sommer examines the "New Brutalise" in architecture--the trend toward windowless concrete homes and office buildings; barren, cheerless campuses; sterile, uncomfortable public parks and airports.

Sommer argues that these alienating environments are producing subtle but debilitating psychological effects in all of us, and that public attention should be refocused on the psychological causes--not just the results--of seemingly wanton vandalism directed against impersonal public architecture. He says, for instance, that, 'Graffiti in the New York subways is considered a problem --the depressing and squalid environment isn't.'

TIGHT SPACES convincing fly portrays the alienation engendered by unresponsive design and present ts a lively and moving plea for humanizing 'hard architecture.' "