First published in 1987, this book provides a wide-ranging account of how modern cities have come to look as they do ― differing radically from their predecessors in their scale, style, details and meanings. It uses many illustrations and examples to explore the origins and development of specific landscape features. More generally it traces the interconnected changes which have occurred in architecture and aesthetic fashions, in planning, in economic and social conditions, and which together have created the landscape that now prevails in most of the cities of the world. This book will be of interest to students of architecture, urban studies and geography.

The Modern Urban Landscape: 1880 to the Present

Arts & Photography

Edward Relph

Architecture

Routledge

Why do the cities of the late twentieth century look as they do? What values do their appearance express and enfold? Their sheer scale and the durability of their materials assure that our cities will inform future generations about our era, in the same way that gothic cathedrals and medieval squares tell us something of the Middle Ages. In the meantime, our urban landscapes can tell us much about ourselves.
For E. C. Relph, the urban landscape must be envisioned as a total environment―not just streets and buildings but billboards and parking meters as well. The Modern Urban Landscape traces the developments since 1880 in architecture, technology, planning, and society that have formed the visual context of daily life. Each of these shaping influences is often viewed in isolation, but Relph surveys the ways in which they have operated independently to create what we see when we walk down a street, shop in a mall, or stare through a windshield on an expressway. 
Two sets of ideas and fashions, Relph argues, have had an especially important impact on urban landscapes in the twentieth century. An "internationalism" made possible by new building technologies and more rapid communications has replaced regional style and custom as the dominant feature of city appearance, while a firm belief in the merits of self-consciousness has imposed logical analysis and technical manipulation on such commonplace objects as curbstones and park benches. "As a result," writes Relph, "the modern urban landscape is both rationalized and artificial, which is another way of saying that it is intensely human."

Johns Hopkins University Press

The Modern Urban Landscape (Routledge Revivals)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Edward Relph. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Edward Relph

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Edward Relph. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Modern Urban Landscape: 1880 to the Present

The Modern Urban Landscape: 1880 to the Present

The Modern Urban Landscape (Routledge Revivals)