‘Exquisite Corpse’ was a game played by the surrealists in which someone drew on a piece of paper, folded it and passed it to the next person to draw on until, finally, the sheet was opened to reveal a calculated yet random composition. In this entertaining and provocative book, Michael Sorkin suggests that cities are similarly assembled by many players acting with varying autonomy in a complicit framework. An unfolding terrain of invention, the city is also a means of accommodating disparity, of contextualizing sometimes startling juxtapositions. Sorkin’s aim is to widen the debate about the creation of buildings beyond the immediate issues of technology and design. He discusses the politics and culture of architecture with daring, often devastating, observations about the institutions and personalities who have dominated the profession over the past decade. Their preoccupation with the empty style of ‘beach houses and Disneyland’ has consistently trivialized the full constructive scope of contemporary architecture’s possibilities. Sorkin’s interventions range from the development scandals of New York where ‘skyscrapers stand at the intersection between grid and greed’, through the deconstructivist architectural culture of Los Angeles, to the work and ideas of architects, developers and critics such as Alvar Aalto, Norman Foster, Paul Goldberger, Michael Graves, Coop Himmelblau, Philip Johnson, Leon Krier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Rogers, Carlo Scarpa, James Stirling, Donald Trump, Tom Wolfe and Lebbeus Woods. Throughout Sorkin combines stinging polemic with a powerful call for a rebirth of architecture that is visionary and experimental—a recuperated ‘dreamy science’

Sorkin, Michael, 1948-

Verso Editions

New Left Books

Verso Books

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

Introduction -- Philip Johnson: The Master Builder As A Self-made Man -- Let A Hundred Styles Blossom -- Aalto Et Al. -- The World Of All Possible Bests -- Drawings For Sale -- Wolfe At The Door -- Explaining Los Angeles -- The Path Always Taken -- Tower Hungry -- The Big Man On Campus -- The Official Style -- Som Story -- Scarpa, In The Details -- The White City -- Mr. Wright -- Que Serra Sera -- Why Goldberger Is So Bad: The Case Of Times Square -- Reforming The Institute -- Tipping The Circle: Will The World's Tallest Building Replace The Coliseum? -- Save The Whitney -- Two Primitives -- Another Low-tech Spectacular -- Ferry Godfathers -- Dump The Trump -- Leaving Wright Enough Alone -- The Invisible Man -- Freed, At Last -- A Bunch Of White Guys (and Three Japanese) Sitting Around Talking -- The Real Thing -- Mask Of Medusa -- The Name Game -- Dwelling Machines -- Canticles For Mike -- Machine Dreams -- Silicon Implants In Brooklyn -- Alan Buchsbaum 1935-87 -- Reconstructing The Holocaust -- Zaha Hadid -- True West -- The Garden In The Machine -- Minimums -- Corb In New York -- Canon Fodder -- Drawing Pleasure -- Brave New Worlds -- Skyscrapers From A To Z -- Decon Job -- Where Was Philip? -- Et In Arcadia Ego: Emilio Ambasz's States Of Nature -- Richard Rogers, Lloyd's And After -- Auto Da Fe -- George Ranalli: The Domestic Apparatus -- Post Rock Propter Rock: A Short History Of The Himmelblau -- Footnotes To Pesce -- Ciao Manhattan. Michael Sorkin.

x, 365 p.: 24 cm

2023-06-28