Context and Modernity

Abstract

Book reviewed in this article:

Good Neighbors: Affordable Family Housing Tom Jones, William Pettus, and Mike Pyatok McGraw Hill

The Architecture of Affordable Housing Sam Davis

Democratic Architecture: Practical Solutions to Today's Housing Crisis Donald MacDonald

The Shape of the Holy: Early Islamic Jerusalem Oleg Grabar

Weaving a Tapestry of Resistance: The Places, Power, and Poetry of a Sustainable Society Sharon E. Sutton

The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit Thomas J. Sugrue

Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit June Manning Thomas

America's 5 and 10 Cent Stores: The Kress Legacy Bernice L. Thomas     

Five new Palaearctic species of Platygastrinae (Hymenoptera,Platygastridae) and two new synonymies

ABSTRACT

The following five species are described as new to science: Inostemma muelleri sp. n., Metaclisis iranica sp. n., Platygaster curvistriata sp. n., Platygaster nepalica sp. n. and Prosynopeas antoni sp. n. The type material of Metaclisis ocalea (Walker) is described, and M. ocalea (Walker) and M. montagnei Maneval are synonymised with M. areolata (Haliday).     

Book Reviews

Abstract

Book reviewed in this article:

Karel Teige/1900–1950: L'Enfant Terrible of the Czech Modernist Avant-Garde Eric Dluhosch and Rostislav ?vácha, eds.

Modern Architecture in Czechoslovakia and Other Writings Karel Teige

10 × 10 Vivian Constantinopulus, editor     

Plan Reviews

The Unheavenly City by Edward C. Banfield: Little, Brown &; Company, Boston, Massachusetts, 1970. 308 pp. $6.95

Design For Development: The Torontocentered Region: by The Government of Ontario: Queen's Printer, Toronto, 1970.

Design For Development: The Midwestern Ontario Region: by The Government of Ontario: Queen's Printer, Toronto, 1970.

Housing: The Social And Economic Elements: By Wallace F. Smith: University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1970. 511 pp. $12.95

The Urbanization Of America: An Historical Anthology: Edited by Allen M. Wakstein: Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1970. 502 pp. $5.50

Chicago: Growth Of A Metropolis: by Harold M. Mayer and Richard C. Wade: University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1969. 510 pp. $32.00

Town Planning In Frontier America: by John Reps: Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1969. 473 pp. $13.50

Monumental Washington: The Planning And Development Of The Capital Center: by John Reps: Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1967. 221 pp. $12.50

Geographic Perspectives On Urban Systems: With Integrated Readings: by Brian J. L. Berry and Frank E. Horton Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1970. 564 pp. n. p.

Explanation In Geography: by David Harvey: St. Martin's Press, New York, 1970 (published in 1969 in Great Britain). 503 pp. n.p.

Network Analysis In Geography: by Peter Haggett and Richard Chorley: St. Martin's Press, New York, 1970. 348 pp n.p.

Reparations: by Arnold Schuchter J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, New York, 1970. 275 pp. $6.95

Rural Poverty And Regional Progress In An Urban Society: by Chamber of Commerce of the United States The Office, Washington, D.C., 1969. 268 pp. $3.00

Book Notes: The Unprepared Society: Planning For A Precarious Future: by Donald N. Michael Basic Books, New York and London, 1968. 132 pp. $4.95

The Citizen'S Guide To Urban Renewal: by Carl G. Lindbloom and Morton Farrah Chandler-Davis Publishing Co., Trenton, Trenton, N. J., 1968. 192 pp. n.p.     

Dutch Green Planning More Reality than Fiction

Atlanta: Race, Class and Urban Expansion Larry Keating. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2001. 256 pages. $69.50, $22.95 (paperback).

Race, Neighborhoods, and Community Power: Buffalo Politics, 1934–1997 Neil Kraus. State University of New York Press, Albany, 2000. 294 pages. $59.50, $19.19 (paperback).

Urban Inequality: Evidence from Four Cities Alice O'Connor, Chris Tilly, and Lawrence D. Bobo, editors. Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2001. 559 pages. $36.

The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space, and Economic Change in an American Metropolis Barry Bluestone and Mary Huff Stevenson. Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2000. 461 pages. $39.95.

Prismatic Metropolis: Inequality in Los Angeles Lawrence D. Bobo, Melvin L. Oliver, James H. Johnson, Jr., and Abel Valenzuela, Jr., editors. Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2000. 611 pages. $39.95.

Detroit Divided Reynolds Farley, Sheldon Danziger, and Harry J. Holzer. Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2000. 309 pages. $27.95.

The Atlanta Paradox David L. Sjoquist, editor. Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2000. 300 pages. $27.95.

Transforming New Orleans and Its Environs: Centuries of Change Craig E. Colten, editor. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 2000. 265 pages. $49, $19.95 (paperback).

Color and Money: Politics and Prospects for Community Reinvestment in Urban America Gregory D. Squires and Sally O'Connor. State University of New York Press, Albany, 2001. 202 pages. $19.95 (paperback).

Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck. North Point Press, New York, 2000. 290 pages. $30, $18 (paperback).

How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Roads Not Taken Alex Marshall. University of Texas Press, Austin, 2000. 243 pages. $24.95 (paperback).

Picture Windows: How the Suburbs Happened Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen. Basic Books, New York, 2000. 298 pages. $27.50.

Travel by Design: The Influence of Urban Form on Travel Marlon Boarnet and Randall Crane. Oxford University Press, New York, 2001. 224 pages. $60.

SafeScape: Creating Safer, More Livable Communities through Planning and Design Al Zelinka and Dean Brennan. Planners Press, American Planning Association, Chicago, 2001. 285 pages. $75.

What Government Can Do: Dealing with Poverty and Inequality Benjamin I. Page and James Roy Simmons. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2000. 409 pages. $29.

Toward Sustainable Communities: Transition and Transformation in Environmental Policy Daniel A. Mazmanian and Michael E. Kraft, editors. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999. 323 pages. $25 (paperback).

Constructing Sustainable Development Neil E. Harrison. State University of New York Press, Albany, 2000. 174 pages. $54.50, $17.95 (paperback).

Safeguarding Our Common Future: Rethinking Sustainable Development Ingrid Leman Stefanovic, State University of New York Press, Albany, 2000. 234 pages. $65.50, $21.95 (paperback).

Bidding for Business: The Efficacy of Local Economic Development Incentives in a Metropolitan Area John E. Anderson and Robert W. Wassmer, W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Kalamazoo, MI, 2000. 244 pages. $35, $17 (paperback).

Captives of the Cold War Economy: The Struggle for Defense Conversion in American Communities John J. Accordino. Praeger, Westport, CT, 2000. 221 pages. $68.

Consensus Planning: The Relevance of Communicative Planning Theory in Dutch Infrastructure Development Johan Woltjer. Ashgate Press, Aldershot, UK, 2000. 294 pages. $74.95.

Urban Planning in a Changing World: The Twentieth Century Experience Robert Freestone, editor. E &; FN Spon, New York, 2000. 293 pages. $74.99.

The American Statehouse: Interpreting Democracy's Temples Charles T. Goodsell. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, 2001. 240 pages. $35.

Urban Planning, Housing and Spatial Structures in Sub-Saharan Africa: Nature, Impact and Development Implications of Exogenous Forces Ambe J. Njoh. Ashgate, Brookfield, VT, 1999. 270 pages. $69.95.

Neighborhood Poverty, Volume I: Context and Consequences for Children Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Greg J. Duncan, and J. Lawrence Abner, editors. Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2000. 334 pages. $16.95 (paperback).

Neighborhood Poverty, Volume II: Policy Implications in Studying Neighborhoods Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Greg J. Duncan, and J. Lawrence Aber, editors. Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2000. 238 pages. $13.95 (paperback).

Urban Planning and Development Applications of GIS Easa Said and Yupo Chan, editors. The American Society of Civil Engineers, Reston, VA, 2000. 283 pages. $39.

Homes and Hands: Community Land Trusts in Action Deborah Chasnoff and Helen S. Cohen, directors. Women's Educational Media, producer. New Day Films, 1995. 36 minutes. $125.     

Selected Theories of Urban Growth and Structure

A COMMUNICATIONS THEORY OF URBAN GROWTH M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, 1962. by Richard L. Meier

“THE URBAN PLACE AND THE NONPLACE URBAN REALM” by Melvin M. Webber in Webber (ed.), EXPLORATIONS INTO URBAN STRUCTURE, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1963.

“A THEORY OF URBAN FORM” by Kevin Lynch and Lloyd Rodwin Journal of the American Institute of Planners, XXIV (November, 1958), 201–214.

“URBAN STRUCTURE AND URBAN GROWTH” by Albert Z. Guttenberg Journal of the American Institute of Planners, XXV (May, 1960), 104–110.

TRANSPORTATION AND URBAN LAND Resources for the Future, Inc., Washington, D. C., 1961. by Lowdon Wingo, Ir.

URBAN GROWTH DYNAMICS by F. Stuart Chapin, Jr. and Shirley F. Weiss, eds. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1962. (Especially initial part of Chapter 1 and Chapter 13.)     

Town and Country Planning in England's Northeast Section

Abstract

A SYMPOSIUM OF CURRENT PLANNING THEORY: Planning for America , By GEORGE B. GALLOWAY AND ASSOCIATES. Henry Holt and Co., New York; 713 pages, price $3.

A TEXTBOOK ON SUBDIVISION: Subdivision Regulations: An Analysis of Land Subdivision Control Practices. By HAROLD W. LAUTNER. Public Administration Service; 346 pages, price $3.75.

EMPLOYMENT IN THE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF RESOURCES: Development of Resources and Stabilization of Employment in the United States. By THE NATIONAL RESOURCES PLANNING BOARD; 409 pages, price $1.20.     

A Review of “Transport and Ethics: Ethics and the Evaluation of Transport Policies and Projects”

URBAN GROWTH DYNAMICS IN A REGIONAL CLUSTER OF CITIES by F. Stuart Chapin, Ir. and Shirley F. Weirs John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 1962. 484 pp. $8.95.

THE COMMUNITY ECONOMIC BASE STUDY by Charles M. Tiebout Committee for Economic Development, New York, N. Y., 1962. 86 pp., 6 figs., 12 tables. $1.50.

INDUSTRIAL RENEWAL by Chester Rapkin and others Bureau of Urban Affairs, New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal, New York, N. Y., 1963. 77 pp., 12 figs., 29 tables.

INTENSITY OF DEVELOPMENT AND LIVABILITY OP MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING PROJECTS: DESIGN QUALITIES OF EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN HOUSING PROJECTS by Robert D. Katz (F.H.A. Technical Study TS 7.14.) Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1963. v + 115 pp. 79 illustrations, 3 appendices. $2.00.

LAKE EUROPA: A NEW CAPITAL FOR A UNIFIED EUROPE by 1, Marshall Miller New York: Books International, 1963. 114 pp. $3.75.

CONTROLLING LONDON'S GROWTH by Donald L. Foley University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, 1963. 224 pp. $5.00.

LONDON 2000 by Peter Hall Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1963. 220 pp. Illustrated. 55s.     

Landscape design as research: an emerging debate

How I Made the World: shaping a view of landscape

Jay Appleton

Hull, University of Hull Press, 1994, ISBN 0–85958–620–0, 255 pp.

Regency Gardens

Mavis Batey

Princes Risborough, Shire, 1995, ISBN 0–7478–0289–0, 96 pp, £5.99

Walter Burley Griffin: landscape architect

Peter Harrison, edited by Robert Freestone

Canberra, National Library of Australia, 1995, 105 pp., ISBN 0–642–10644–4 (pb); 0–642–10645–2 (hb)

Landscape Review, 1995 Issue 2, ‘Languages of Landscape Architecture‘

Canterbury (NZ), Lincoln University Press, ISBN 0–909049–01–7, 64 pp

Land Art

Gilles A. Tiberghien

London, Art Data, 1995, 311 pp., col. and b. &; w. illus., ISBN 09–488–3517–6, $45.00

Geomorphology of Desert Dunes

Nicholas Lancaster

London, Routledge, 1995, ISBN 0–415–06093–1, £55.00, hb, ISBN 0–415–06094‐X, £17.99, pb     

Market Planning,Market Planners,and Planned Markets

Abstract

From the Review Editor

Planning Theory Dialogues in Urban and Regional Planning, Volume 1 Bruce Stiftel and Vanessa Watson, editors. Routledge, New York, 2004. 384 pages. $130.

Methods, Information Systems, and Mapping Beyond Benefit Cost Analysis: Accounting for Non-Market Values in Planning Evaluation Donald Miller and Domenico Patassini, editors. Ashgate, Hampshire, England, 2005. 338 pages. $99.95.

Planning and Urban Design Standards American Planning Association. John &; Sons, Hoboken, NJ, 2006. 736 pages. $200.

Land Use, Zoning, Growth Management, Planning Law Economics and Contemporary Land Use Policy: Development and Conservation at the Rural-Urban Fringe Robert J. Johnston and Stephen K. Swallow, editors. Resources for the Future, Washington, DC, 2006. 288 pages. $70, $36.95 (paperback).

Community Development and Neighborhood Planning Rebuilding Urban Places After Disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina Eugenie L. Birch and Susan M. Wachter, editors. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2006. 416 pages. $34.95 (paperback).

New Urbanism and American Planning: The Conflict of Cultures Emily Talen. Routledge, New York, 2005. 328 pages. $147, $44 (paperback).

Tomorrow's Cities, Tomorrow's Suburbs William H. Lucy and David L. Phillips. American Planning Association, Chicago, 2006. 354 pages. $55.95 (paperback).

Revitalizing the City: Strategies to Contain Sprawl and Revive the Core Fritz W. Wagner, Timothy E. Joder, Anthony J. Mumphrey, Jr., Krishna M. Akundi, and Alan F. J. Artibise, editors. M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, 2005. 360 pages. $94.95, $39.95 (paperback).

Youth Crime and Youth Culture in the Inner City Bill Sanders. Routledge, New York, 2004. 256 pages. $122.50.

Transportation Street Smart: Competition, Entrepreneurship, and the Future of Roads Gabriel Roth, editor. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ, 2006. 581 pages. $59.95, $29.95 (paperback).

Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources City and Environment Christopher G. Boone and Ali Modarres. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2006. 240 pages. $76.50, $25.95 (paperback).

International Planning and Development German Annual of Spatial Research and Policy: Restructuring Eastern Germany Sebastian Lentz, editor. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2007. 190 pages. $89.95.

Return to the Center: Culture, Public Space, and City-Building in a Global Era Lawrence A. Herzog. University of Texas Press, Austin, 2006. 299 pages. $55, $24.95 (paperback).

Planning and Urban History The New Suburban History Kevin M. Kruse and Thomas J. Sugrue, editors. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2006. 300 pages. $60, $24 (paperback).     

Book Reviews

Anthony Vidler, Warped Space: Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000.

Harry F. Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper: Architect of the Nineteenth Century, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.     

Imagining culture and the city in planning history: some reflections on the public and private

Geography, planning and policy making. P. T. Kivell and J. T. Coppock (eds), GeoBooks, Norwich, 1986. 310 pp, £25.00 $41.25, ISBN 0 86094 211 2

Counterurbanization. International case studies of socio‐economic change in the rural areas. Ronald Perry, Ken Dean and Bryan Brown, GeoBooks, Norwich, 1986. 280 pp, £25.00 $41.25, ISBN 0 86094 205 8

The twentieth century American city: problem, promise, and reality. Jon C. Teaford, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1986. 192 pp, $20.00 cloth ISBN 0 8018 3094 X $8.95 paper ISBN 0 8018 3096 6

San Francisco, 1865–1932: politics, power and urban development. William Issel and Robert W. Cherny, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1986. 294 pp, $35.00, ISBN 0 520 05263 3

The limits of power: great fires and the process of city growth in America. Christine Meisner Rosen, University Press, Cambridge, 1986. 395 pp, £30.00, $39.50, ISBN 0 521 30319 2

Critical issues in urban economic development. Volumes I and II. Victor A. Hausner (ed.), Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986–7. 235 pp and 207 pp, £22.50 each, ISBN 0 19 823226 7 and ISBN 0 19 823268 3

The elusive city; five centuries of design, ambition and miscalculation. Jonathan Barnett, Harper and Row, New York, 1986. 210 pp, $23.50, ISBN 0 06 430377 2

The conservation of ecosystems and species. Gareth E. Jones, Croom Helm, London, 1987. 277 pp, £27.50, ISBN 0 7099 1463 6

Medicine and industrial society. A history of hospital development in Manchester and its region, 1752–1946. John V. Pickstone, University Press, Manchester, 1985. 369 pp, £35.00, ISBN 0 7190 1809 9

The paradox of professionalism: reform and public service in urban America, 1900–1940. Don S. Kirschner, Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn., Contributions in American History, 119, 1986. 195 pp, $32.95, ISBN 0 313 25345 5

An organisational approach to regional planning. Mario Rui Martins, Gower, Aldershot, 1986. 244 pp, £18.50 ISBN 0 566 00515 8

The tenant movement in New York City, 1904–1984. Ronald Lawson (ed.), Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1986 289 pp, $35.00 cloth $15.00 paper, ISBN 0 8135 1158 5

The Scottish thirties. An architectural introduction. Charles McKean, Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh, 1987. 200 pp, £17.50 hb ISBN 0 7073 0493 8, £8.50 pb ISBN 0 7073 0493 6

Hikaku Toshi Keikaku Josetsu (Introduction to comparative urban planning; land use controls in Britain and the US). Shun‐ichi Watanabe, Sanseido, Tokyo, 1985. 304 pp, ¥3600, ISBN 4 385 30895 0

Arabic‐Islamic cities. Building and planning principles. Besim Selim Hakim, KPI, London, 1986. 192 pp, £35.00, ISBN 0 7103 0094 8

Imagining tomorrow: history, technology, and the American future. Joseph J. Corn (ed.), MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1986. 237 pp, $17.50 cloth, ISBN 0 262 03115 9     

Book Review

Francis Strauven. Aldo van Eyck: The Shape of Relativity, Amsterdam: Architecture & Natura, 1998.

Vincent Ligtelijn. Aldo van Eyck, Works (trans. Gregory Ball), Boston: Birkhauser, Verlag, 1999.     

Cryopetrophyte communities of the West Sayan Ridge

Abstract

The paper presents research in eco-coenotic features of cryopetrophyte communities of the Osevoi Ridge in the Western Sayan Mts. All communities studied are in the association Saxifrago oppositifoliae–Rhodioletum quadrifidae. This association includes all communities with a predominance of alpine and arctalpine petrophytes, which are largely facultative and obligate calciphile plants. The coenoflora of the association Saxifrago oppositifoliae–Rhodioletum quadrifidae is represented by 54 species of higher vascular plants. The dominant species in its structure are those of Holarctic distribution and species generally confined to the Altai-Sayan mountain region, with Papaver pseudocanescens, Poa smirnowii, Sajanella monstrosa, Saussurea foliosa and Saxifraga melaleuca being endemics. In the structure of the belt-zonal groups, arctalpine and alpine species dominate. Among ecological groups, obligate and facultative petrophytes, generally cryophytes, are dominant. The predominance of some particular belt-zonal and ecological groups of species indicates greater specificity of the environmental conditions in which the communities were formed and are currently being formed.     

Book Notes

URBAN RESEARCH METHODS Edited by lack P. Gibbs D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., Princeton, N.J., 1961. xxii + 625 pp. 89 tables. 43 figs. 5 graphs. 5 charts. $12.00.

STREETCAR SUBURBS: THE PROCESS OF GROWTH IN BOSTON, 1870-1900 by Sam B. Warner, Jr. Harvard University Press and the MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1962. xxi + 208 pp. 11 maps. 1 chart. 66 fig. $6.50.

LAND USE IN THE RURAL-URBAN FRINGE: A CASE STUDY OF NEW CASTLE COUNTY, DEL. by William M. Crosswhite and Gerald F. Vaughn     

The Palmach History Museum,Tel Aviv

In 1928 the Austrian architect and engineer Franz Löwitsch (1894–1946) published the article ‘Sensation of Space and Modern Architecture’ in Imago , the psychoanalytical journal edited by Sigmund Freud. Based on Richard Semon's theories of Mneme, which Löwitsch connected to psychoanalytical theories, the prevalence of dissimilar sensations of space throughout the stages of the development of western architectural history is presupposed, and Löwitsch offered an explanation of how their symbolic meanings reflected psychological conditions of a particular time and culture.

By connecting Semon's theory with psychoanalytical deliberations that equip the inherited memory of spatial sensations with pleasurable or unpleasurable emotions, Löwitsch furthermore argued that spatial sensations produce spatial concepts, and that the dominating shapes and forms of the architecture of a time therefore reflect the dominance of a particular inherited sensation of space. The unifying psychological make-up of a populace thus leads to spatial concepts that form an architecture which reflects these concepts and contain symbols that possess ‘satisfying powers’ valued by the majority of people of that particular time and place.

But Löwitsch's theory speaks of more than a mere justification for the usefulness of psychoanalytic theory as a methodology for the humanities. Löwitsch contrasted his findings meticulously with Oswald Spengler's controversially critiqued book The Decline of the West , Karl Scheffler's The Spirit of the Gothic and Eckhart von Sydow's Primitive Art and Psychoanalysis . The discussion of these contemporaneous writings that essentially sought to find the driving forces for the development of styles helps in formulating Löwitsch's final hypothesis. Here, he proposes the emergence of an ‘energetic space’ in architecture, which is the prevalent sensation of space that he predicts to emerge in the near future. His ultimate aim was not to enter academic discourse but rather to provide a scientifically based explanation, with which the impact of space on the inhabitant can be measured, explained and utilised in architectural practice.     

Alvin Boyarsky (1928–1990)

Abstract

Book reviewed in this article:

Sverre Fehn: Works, Projects, Writings, 1949–1996 Christian Norberg-Schulz and Gennaro Postiglione     

Book Reviews

Abstract

A recent paper on the origin of crucks (Hill, VA 36) relies on the linguistic roots of the word furca, to suggest that it refers to forked posts rather than cruck blades, and that cruck construction did not appear until c. 1250. This response proposes that Hill's linguistic arguments are untenable. The evidence of both standing buildings and documents is only consistent with crucks having a much earlier origin, probably in the early twelfth century, with base-crucks appearing in about 1200.     

Architecture theory in graphic narrative: The Strange Case of Mister X

This essay begins with a review of Mister X, a comic serial taking architectural modernism as its point of departure. The graphic narrative renders a dystopian view of architecture and urbanism, as well as a biting critique of the architect as theorist. Rather than demonstrating that architecture is mute and impotent, however, the Mister X story theorises architecture as unpredictably powerful and effective, albeit malicious. The essay examines four architectural failures suggested by the Mister X text, identifying how these limitations of the formal, material object of architecture are, paradoxically, its very possibilities for social effect.     

Book reviews

Housing in Scotland. Hector Currie & Alan Murie (Eds). Chartered Institute of Housing. Policy and Practice Series, £15.00 paperback. ISBN 0 901607 91 6.

The Home: Words, Interpretations, Meanings and Environments. D. Benjamin (Ed.). Avebury, Aldershot 1995, £37.00 hardback. ISBN 1 856628 8889.

Rethinking Local Democracy. Desmond King & Gerry Stoker (Eds). Macmillan, London, 1996, 233 pp, £13.95, paperback. ISBN 8039 8864 8.

An Introduction to Social Housing. Paul Reeves. Arnold, London, 1996, 273 pp, £13.99, paperback. ISBN 0 340 661976.

Representing the City: Ethnicity, Capital and Culture in the Twenty‐First Century Metropolis. Anthony D. King (Ed.). Macmillan Press, London, 1996, £13.99, paperback. ISBN 0 333601920.

Homeless. Gerald Daly. Routledge, London, 1996, 293 pp., £14.95. ISBN 0415 12029 2.

The Environmental Impact of Land and Property Management. Yvonne Rydin (Ed.). Wiley, Chichester, 1996, 196 pp., £45.00 hardback. ISBN 0 471966126.

Conservation and the City. Peter Larkham. Routledge, London, 1996, 329 pp., £17.99 paperback. ISBN 0 415 079478.