The charged void

About this book

"British architects and urbanists Alison and Peter Smithson first rose to prominence in the 1950s. Many of their ideas, social, architectural, and urban, profoundly influenced generations of practitioners, students, and academics.... The Charged Void: Urbanism is the companion volume to The Charged Void: Architecture; the two comprise the complete works of Alison and Peter Smithson. The Charged Void: Urbanism collects the urban form projects from the Smithsons' extensive and prolific collaboration, as well as building projects with specific implications for urban form. The work is ordered thematically in fourteen chapters: cluster, cohesion, pavilion and route.... More than a collection of work, this book represents a record of a careful and highly focused thought process concerned with the qualities of urban life - a ... collection of observations, decipherings, commentaries, and recommendations for understanding and improving the complex nature of the city."-- "The Charged Void: Urbanism is the companion volume to The Charged Void: Architecture; the two together comprise the complete works of Alison and Peter Smithson. For the designers, architecture and urbanism were inseparable: buildings encapsulate urban ideas; urban systems are the means by which buildings function effectively. This second book collects both urban and architectural designs that have specific implications for city form into fourteen thematic chapters: the Team X Doorn Manifesto with its worked examples (Close Houses, Fold Houses, Terraced Crescent Houses); large-scale designs such as the Berlin Hauptstadt, Hamburg Steilshoop, and the Kuwait Urban Form Study; and built manifestations of urban ideas, notably the Economist Building of 1959-64. More than a collection of work, The Charged Void: Urbanism represents a record of a focused thought process concerned with the qualities of urban life—a thoughtful and witty collection of observations, decipherings, and recommendations for understanding and improving the complex nature of the city."--