Megastructure : urban futures of the recent past / Reyner Banham ; foreword by Todd Gannon ; design by Chris Grimley.

By: Banham, Reyner, 1922-1988Contributor(s): Gannon, Todd [writer of foreword.] | Grimley, Chris [designer.]Material type: TextTextLanguage: English Publisher: New York, New York : The Monacelli Press, 2020Copyright date: ©2020Edition: Facsimile editionDescription: 232 pages : illustrations, plans ; 26 cmContent type: text | still image Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 9781580935401 (hardcover)Subject(s): Megastructures | City planningLOC classification: NA9053.M43 B36 2020
Contents:
Foreword / Todd Gannon -- Introduction: dinosaurs of the modern movement -- Antecedents, analogies and mégastructures trouvées -- Beginners and begetters -- Megayear 1964 -- Fun and flexibility -- Megacity Montreal -- Megastructure in academe -- Megadecadence: acceptability and exploitation -- Epilogue: the meaning of megastructure -- Appendix: Maki on megastructure.
Summary: It is an architectural concept as alluring as it is elusive, as futuristic as it is primordial. "Megastructure" is what it sounds like: a vastly scaled edifice that can contain potentially countless uses, contexts, and adaptations. Theorized and briefly experimented with in built form in the 1960s, megastructures almost as quickly went out of fashion in the profession. But Reyner Banham's 1976 book compiled the origin stories and ongoing mythos of this visionary movement, seeking to chart its lively rise, rapid fall, and ongoing meaning. Now back in print after decades and with original editions fetching well over $100 on the secondary market, 'Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past' is part of the recent surge in attention to this quixotic form, of which some examples were built but to this day remains -- decades after its codification -- more of a poetic idea than a real architectural type. Banham, among the most gifted and incisive architectural critics and historians of his time, sought connections between theoretical origins in Le Corbusier's more starry-eyed drawings to the flurry of theories by the Japanese Metabolist architects, to less intentional examples in military architecture, industry, infrastructure, and the emerging instances in pop culture and art. Had he written the book a few years later he would find an abundance of examples in speculative art and science fiction cinema, mediums where it continues to provoke wonder to this day. A long-sought study by an author who combined imagination, wit, and pioneering scholarship, the republication of Megastructure is an opportunity for scholars and laypeople alike to return to the origins of this fantastic urban idea.
Item type Current library Shelving location Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode
Books MEF Üniversitesi Kütüphanesi
Genel Koleksiyon NA 9053 .M43 B36 2020 (Browse shelf (Opens below)) Available 0020269

Includes bibliographical references (page 227) and index (228-230).

Foreword / Todd Gannon -- Introduction: dinosaurs of the modern movement -- Antecedents, analogies and mégastructures trouvées -- Beginners and begetters -- Megayear 1964 -- Fun and flexibility -- Megacity Montreal -- Megastructure in academe -- Megadecadence: acceptability and exploitation -- Epilogue: the meaning of megastructure -- Appendix: Maki on megastructure.

It is an architectural concept as alluring as it is elusive, as futuristic as it is primordial. "Megastructure" is what it sounds like: a vastly scaled edifice that can contain potentially countless uses, contexts, and adaptations. Theorized and briefly experimented with in built form in the 1960s, megastructures almost as quickly went out of fashion in the profession. But Reyner Banham's 1976 book compiled the origin stories and ongoing mythos of this visionary movement, seeking to chart its lively rise, rapid fall, and ongoing meaning. Now back in print after decades and with original editions fetching well over $100 on the secondary market, 'Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past' is part of the recent surge in attention to this quixotic form, of which some examples were built but to this day remains -- decades after its codification -- more of a poetic idea than a real architectural type. Banham, among the most gifted and incisive architectural critics and historians of his time, sought connections between theoretical origins in Le Corbusier's more starry-eyed drawings to the flurry of theories by the Japanese Metabolist architects, to less intentional examples in military architecture, industry, infrastructure, and the emerging instances in pop culture and art. Had he written the book a few years later he would find an abundance of examples in speculative art and science fiction cinema, mediums where it continues to provoke wonder to this day. A long-sought study by an author who combined imagination, wit, and pioneering scholarship, the republication of Megastructure is an opportunity for scholars and laypeople alike to return to the origins of this fantastic urban idea.