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Architectural Positions. On Architecture, Modernity and the Public Sphere
Tom Avermaete, Klaske Havik, Hans Teerds
 The changing public sphere is one of the crucial themes of contemporary architectural debate. In today’s world, where can we find collective spaces in which people can meet and form public opinion?
Contemporary thinkers such as Lieven De Cauter, Michael Sorkin, and Bruce Robbins argue that urban diversity is now giving way to growing worldwide uniformity. Public life is gradually moving from the squares and the streets to hotel lobbies, shopping malls, and entertainment centres.
As the twenty-first century begins, architects still face the task of designing public buildings and spaces – whether libraries, squares, or airports. They are in search of forms they can use to connect the many different gradations of the public sphere that exist today.
Architectural Positions presents the views of thirty-six international architects who, over the past fifty years, have made their voices heard in the debate on the public sphere. They include Aldo Rossi, Rem Koolhaas, Mathias Ungers, Daniel Libeskind, Luis Barragán, and Peter Eisenman. The essays in this book give an overview of the past fifty years of architectural discourse on this theme. A detailed introduction provides background and context, focusing on the links between architecture, modernity, and the public sphere.
Paperback / 400 pages / text English / January 2009
At NAi Boekverkopers/Booksellers for € 39.50
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Non-places / Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity
Marc Auge, translation by John Howe
 Most people spend an increasing amount of time in soulless, impersonal places: motorways, airports, in front of cash machines, TVs and computers. For the author, this is symptomatic of the experience of "supermodernity" or late-capitalist existence. The invasion of modern life by these "non-places" is central to this work.
The book explores the distinction between "place", encrusted with historical meaning and creative of social life, and "non-place", to which individuals are connected in a uniform, bureaucratic manner and where no organic social life is possible. Marc Auge is the author of "Pouvoirs de Vie, "Pouvoirs de Mort", "Genie du Paganisme", Un Ethnogue dans le Metro" and "Domaines et Chateaux".
Paperback / 122 pages / Itext English / 1995
At NAi Boekverkopers/Booksellers for € 19.95
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The Rise of the Creative Class and How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life
Richard Florida
 The Washington Monthly 2002 Annual Political Book Award Winner The Rise of the Creative Class gives us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do today-and where we might be headed. Weaving storytelling with masses of new and updated research, Richard Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy.
The Rise of the Creative Class chronicles the ongoing sea of change in people's choices and attitudes, and shows not only what's happening but also how it stems from a fundamental economic change. The Creative Class now comprises more than thirty percent of the entire workforce. Their choices have already had a huge economic impact. In the future they will determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities will thrive or wither.
Paperback / text English / 2003
At NAi Boekverkopers/Booksellers for € 17.95
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Living in the Lowlands / The Dutch Domestic Scene 1850-2004
Aaron Betsky, Hans Ibelings, Jean-Paul Baeten, JaapJan Berg, a.o.
 We tend to take our homes, streets, neighbourhoods and cities for granted. But what were the ideas behind the design of the environments in which we live? What were the designers' original intentions?
Living in the Lowlands tells the story of two centuries of housing in the Netherlands. This story includes accounts of the famous Plan Zuid in Amsterdam and the post-war reconstruction of Pendrecht in Rotterdam, as well as the new town of Almere - the nation's housing construction laboratory - and Ypenburg's experiments in housing.
Bringing together models, photographs, sketches and drawings by many famous architects, including P.J.H. Cuypers, J.J.P. Oud, H.P. Berlage, Van den Broek en Bakema, Adriaan Geuze and Rem Koolhaas/OMA, the book displays a broad selection of treasures from the Netherlands Architecture Institute's collection. Moreover, the book sheds new light on our everyday environment by showing the passion and care with which architects created it.
Paperback / 240 pages / text in English / 2004
At NAi Boekverkopers/Booksellers for € 34.50
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Back from Utopia. The Challenge of the Modern Movement
Hubert-Jan Henket, Hilde Heynen
 The Modern Movement in architecture advocated an approach that would keep pace with technological developments, do justice to the needs of the rising masses and convey an image of universality, freedom and openness. Pioneers like Le Corbusier, Gropius and Mies van der Rohe created a sober architecture free of ornament whose aesthetic appeal relied upon the play of interpenetrating volumes and effects of transparency. This architecture was bound up with a utopian impulse, in that its promoters firmly believed that the creation of a better architecture would automatically lead to a better world. Decades later we are witnessing both the positive and the negative results of this endeavour. After the all too rapid condemnation of the Modern Movement by its post-modernist critics, it is now time for a more balanced reassessment. This book brings together 42 contributions by leading voices from the world of architecture and architectural history. Authors critically discuss the values of the Modern Movement, its multiple manifestations, its connections with colonialism, the promises it did not keep and the paradoxes it gave rise to. In a variety of ways, ranging from cartoons, collages and poems to essays and scholarly texts, they comment upon the significance of the Modern Movement today.
Paperback / text English / 2002
At NAi Boekverkopers/Booksellers from € 37,50 for € 19.50
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