"Urban life is humankind’s biggest experiment to date, our cities are constantly evolving and adapting to climate and economy. The cities we have today are not necessarily the ones we need, but big and small innovation is rethinking visions of urbanization. Together with pioneering research and design lab SPACE10, we present future-orientated design which enhances quality of life and makes our urban spaces more vibrant. As technology and urban life edge ever closer, The Ideal City explores the ambitious actions and initiatives being brought to life across the globe to meet tomorrow’s demand in clever, forwarding-thinking ways. From pedestrian infrastructure to housing, the book uncovers what is being discussed at the forefront of urbanism through expert essays and profiles."--

The concept of the 'ideal city' is, perhaps, more important today - when planners and architects are so firmly confined by considerations of our immediate environment - than ever before. Yet it is a concept which has profoundly influenced the western world throughout history, both as a regulative model and as an inspiration. Rosenau traces the progress of the concept from biblical sources through the hellenistic and Roman empires to the Renaissance and the later Age of Enlightenment, when the emphasis shifted from religious to social considerations. She goes on to discuss the resultant nineteenth-century ideal planning, when the idea of social betterment was approached with a specific and conscious effort. This book was first published in 1983.

"In this richly illustrated book, the author explores the ability of ideal cities to stimulate reflection and change, and suggests under what conditions they might continue to exercise their vital function in relation to the urban environment of the future. The ideal cities presented by Ruth Eaton exist for the most part in the virtual domain of ideas, treading the fine line between dream and nightmare." - book jacket.

An Ideal Theater is a wide-ranging, inspiring documentary history of the American theatre movement as told by the visionaries who goaded it into being. This anthology collects over forty essays, manifestos, letters and speeches that are each introduced and placed in historical context by the noted writer and arts commentator, Todd London, who spent nearly a decade assembling this collection. This celebration of the artists who came before is an exhilarating look backward, as well as toward the future, and includes contributions from: Jane Addams • William Ball • Julian Beck • Herbert Blau • Angus Bowmer • Bernard Bragg • Maurice Browne • Robert Brustein • Alison Carey • Joseph Chaikin • Harold Clurman • Dudley Cocke • Alice Lewisohn Crowley • Gordon Davidson • R. G. Davis • Doris Derby • W. E. B. Du Bois • Zelda Fichandler • Hallie Flanagan • Eva Le Gallienne • Robert E. Gard • Susan Glaspell • André Gregory • Tyrone Guthrie • John Houseman • Jules Irving • Margo Jones • Frederick H. Koch • Lawrence Langner • W. McNeil Lowry • Charles Ludlam • Judith Malina • Theodore Mann • Gilbert Moses • Michaela O’Harra • John O’Neal • Joseph Papp • Robert Porterfield • José Quintero • Bill Rauch • Bernard Sahlins • Richard Schechner • Peter Schumann • Maurice Schwartz • Gary Sinise • Ellen Stewart • Lee Strasberg • Luis Miguel Valdez • Nina Vance • Douglas Turner Ward As well as the founding visions of theatres from across the country: The Actors Studio • The Actor's Workshop • Alley Theatre • American Conservatory Theater • American Repetory Theater • Arena Stage • Barter Theatre • Bread and Puppet Theater • The Carolina Playmakers • The Chicago Little Theater • Circle in the Square Theatre • The Civic Repertory Theatre • Cornerstone Theater Company • The Federal Theatre Project • Ford Foundation Program in Humanities and the Arts • The Free Southern Theater • The Group Theatre • The Hull-House Dramatic Association • KRIGWA Players • The Living Theatre • La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club • The Mark Taper Forum • The Mercury Theatre • Minnesota Theater Company (Guthrie Theater) • The National Theatre of the Deaf • The Negro Ensemble Company • The Negro Theatre Project, Federal Theatre Project • The Neighborhood Playhouse • New Dramatists • The New York Shakespeare Festival • The Open Theater • Oregon Shakespeare Festival • The Performance Group • The Provincetown Players • The Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center • The Ridiculous Theatrical Company • Roadside Theater • The San Francisco Mime Troupe • The Second City • Steppenwolf Theatre Company • El Teatro Campesino • Theater '47 • The Theatre Guild • The Theatre of the Living Arts • The Washington Square Players • The Wisconsin Idea Theater • Yale Repertory Theatre • The Yiddish Art Theatre Todd London is in his 18th season as artistic director of New Dramatists, the nation’s oldest center for the creative and professional development of American playwrights. In 2009 Todd became the first recipient of Theatre Communications Group’s (TCG) Visionary Leadership Award for “an individual who has gone above and beyond the call of duty to advance the theater field as a whole, nationally and/or internationally.” He’s the author of The Importance of Staying Earnest: Writings from Inside the American Theatre, 1988-2013 (NoPassport Press), Outrageous Fortune: The Life and Times of the New American Play (with Ben Pesner, Theatre Development Fund), The Artistic Home (TCG), and The World’s Room, a novel (Steerforth Press), among others. His column, “A Lover’s Guide to American Playwrights,” tributes to contemporary

A sweeping history of American cities and towns, and the utopian aspirations that shaped them, by one of America’s leading urban planners and scholars. The first European settlers saw America as a paradise regained. The continent seemed to offer a God-given opportunity to start again and build the perfect community. Those messianic days are gone. But as Alex Krieger argues in City on a Hill, any attempt at deep understanding of how the country has developed must recognize the persistent and dramatic consequences of utopian dreaming. Even as ideals have changed, idealism itself has for better and worse shaped our world of bricks and mortar, macadam, parks, and farmland. As he traces this uniquely American story from the Pilgrims to the “smart city,” Krieger delivers a striking new history of our built environment. The Puritans were the first utopians, seeking a New Jerusalem in the New England villages that still stand as models of small-town life. In the Age of Revolution, Thomas Jefferson dreamed of citizen farmers tending plots laid out across the continent in a grid of enlightened rationality. As industrialization brought urbanization, reformers answered emerging slums with a zealous crusade of grand civic architecture and designed the vast urban parks vital to so many cities today. The twentieth century brought cycles of suburban dreaming and urban renewal—one generation’s utopia forming the next one’s nightmare—and experiments as diverse as Walt Disney’s EPCOT, hippie communes, and Las Vegas. Krieger’s compelling and richly illustrated narrative reminds us, as we formulate new ideals today, that we chase our visions surrounded by the glories and failures of dreams gone by.

Imagine waking up to the gentle noises of the city, and moving through your day with complete confidence that you will get where you need to go quickly and efficiently. Soft City is about ease and comfort, where density has a human dimension, adapting to our ever-changing needs, nurturing relationships, and accommodating the pleasures of everyday life. How do we move from the current reality in most cites—separated uses and lengthy commutes in single-occupancy vehicles that drain human, environmental, and community resources—to support a soft city approach? In Soft City David Sim, partner and creative director at Gehl, shows how this is possible, presenting ideas and graphic examples from around the globe. He draws from his vast design experience to make a case for a dense and diverse built environment at a human scale, which he presents through a series of observations of older and newer places, and a range of simple built phenomena, some traditional and some totally new inventions. Sim shows that increasing density is not enough. The soft city must consider the organization and layout of the built environment for more fluid movement and comfort, a diversity of building types, and thoughtful design to ensure a sustainable urban environment and society. Soft City begins with the big ideas of happiness and quality of life, and then shows how they are tied to the way we live. The heart of the book is highly visual and shows the building blocks for neighborhoods: building types and their organization and orientation; how we can get along as we get around a city; and living with the weather. As every citizen deals with the reality of a changing climate, Soft City explores how the built environment can adapt and respond. Soft City offers inspiration, ideas, and guidance for anyone interested in city building. Sim shows how to make any city more efficient, more livable, and better connected to the environment.

The classic work on the evaluation of city form. What does the city's form actually mean to the people who live there? What can the city planner do to make the city's image more vivid and memorable to the city dweller? To answer these questions, Mr. Lynch, supported by studies of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City, formulates a new criterion—imageability—and shows its potential value as a guide for the building and rebuilding of cities. The wide scope of this study leads to an original and vital method for the evaluation of city form. The architect, the planner, and certainly the city dweller will all want to read this book.