After the City

by Lars Lerup

An architect's view of the new metropolitan consciousness and the suburban metropolis as the future frontier. The city's reign over our senses, our moods, our very ways of being is outmoded. The suburban metropolis has superseded the city. The new building materials are electricity, telephony, weather, time, and so forth. Consequently, according to Lars Lerup, architecture and architects must be rethought.Until now, architects have been trained to serve the elite few, as reflected in a belief in customization and the uniqueness of each project. Instead, Lerup holds, architectural educators should promote teamwork and the design of authorless objects, combined with an integration of design and practice. Before we can rethink the architectural curriculum, however, we must rethink the metropolis.And rethink the metropolis is just what Lerup does. In an intellectually far-ranging yet intensely personal manner, he moves from contemplation of the form and philosophical implications of the Pantheon to a discussion of how Levittown residents seek and create community. The result is an exhilarating work with profound practical implications. Unlike the many who view suburbia with paranoid dismay, Lerup takes an optimistic view of the new, open metropolis―for him not the site of unavoidable uniformity and mediocrity, but an exciting new frontier.

Genres: Design, Architecture, Cities, Urbanism

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 3, 2000

Reviews

[Sean Billy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I began reading this book because I'm about to enter Rice for a masters in architecture and this is one of the definitive books written by the current (although on his way out this summer) dean. I thought the first section was cleverly written and his description of the different aspects of the city and middle landscape was really interesting. It was in the third section, "Architecture Reconsidered" that I thought the book became less purposeful and uninteresting. He began to describe the different systems/movements/architectural devices used within and between buildings as in a catalog. Not only has this been done before numerous times, his was very incomplete and seemed as if only a reference to a series of objects he built for an exhibition. The fourth and last section gave me some more insight and I thought the ideas were made clear, but I don't think he was able to completely tackle the larger problem he set up. He spoke of the middle landscape with a new understanding of 'distance' and new relationships to nature. Although I think he is pointing in the right direction, I think the book focused too much on the city of Houston itself and had a lot of ideas that he mentioned briefly and then left without completing the open ended thought. Overall "After the City" was just not satisfying.