Postmodern Urbanism

Since the 1960s, many architects and urban planners have reacted against the drab universalism and inhuman scale of modern architecture and urbanism, seeking instead to recover a sense of community and place. It is apparent to these architects and planners, as well as segments of the general public, that something needs to be done to improve the physical landscape and the sense of desolation it arouses. Efforts to do so have been grouped under the rubric "postmodern urbanism." While this late- twentieth-century quest for meaning has elicited nostalgia for cities of the past, it has not been accompanied by a desire to relinquish technological innovations that raise the standard of living, or the pursuit of progress and modernity.

Postmodern Urbanism examines these important and complex issues that directly affect our cities and neighborhoods in a book that has been widely heralded for its clarity and insight.

Nan Ellin is currently an assistant professor at the School of Architecture at Arizona State University. She is also the editor of Architecture of Fear.

"Nan Ellin has written the best review of the postwar theories of urban design. Those who read Postmodern Urbanism will be enlightened; those who write afterward can only imitate." -- Robert A. Beauregard, New School for Social Research