Urban histories

[danielmak]

I went with a general thread title in case someone else is interested in something similar for another city. I'm wondering if anyone has recommendations for any books about Madrid or Barcelona that are written from an urbanist perspective (for lack of a better term). I'm less interested in a straight history and perhaps something a bit more literary and/or views the cities from a different perspective. I'm thinking about something along the lines of Richard Cobb's Paris and Elsewhere, Mike Davis' City of Quartz (about Los Angeles), Luc Sante's Low Life (NYC's Lower East Side), or Iain Sinclair's Lights Out for the Territory.

[ursus arctos]

Urban histories

I am not aware of anything, but am similarly intrigued.

Robert Hughes tried with Barcelona, but didn't get it.

[ad hoc]

Urban histories

I thought the Hughes book was good, but then I'm perhaps misunderstanding what is meant by "urbanist" here.

[danielmak]

Urban histories

ad hoc wrote: I thought the Hughes book was good, but then I'm perhaps misunderstanding what is meant by "urbanist" here.

Language is letting me down or I'm not coming up with the right terms (hence the list of examples). I guess I'm thinking about someone who is connected to the everyday life of the city versus someone who is good at doing a lot of archival work only and interested more in big names about big places.

[ad hoc]

Urban histories

Ah, OK. Hughes manages to tell the story of Barcelona through a mixture of "standard history" and stories (some of which are about big names but many of which are fascinating and little known), so I think he qualifies on the second part more or less, but he is not of the city in the way that the first part suggests, and as you might expect from an art critic his focus is more the architecture and the look of the city than the way its people lived, I'd say. Urbanist in the sense that the book is very much about the growth of the city the planning (and lack thereof) and the way the place became what it is, but not urbanist in the way that I now understand you are using it.

Still, it's a good book though.

[Geoffrey de Ste. Croix]

Urban histories

Walter Benjamin’s 1000 page plus Arcades Project focuses on the arcades of 19th Century Paris to critique the bourgeois 19th Century of the city. It is a challenging read split into 36 sections and remained unfinished on his suicide at the Franco-Spanish border in 1940, but it is fascinating just to dip in randomly to pick up the various observations, epithets and aphorisms of a Paris brought sumptuously to life.

Marshall Berman’s All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience Of Modernity presents a broad study of how modernity developed within Cities. He takes his examples as Paris, St Petersburg and New York. It’s a very accessible read and a wonderful one too.

[danielmak]

Urban histories

Yeah, Berman's book would be another that I would add to the list. I've read that and I have Benjamin's Arcade's book but only just cracked it since it's not one to carry around for the commute without needing to see a chiropractor after.

All of that is to say that I'd second GSC's post if anyone is looking for something in the cities he mentions in his summaries.

So, I'd love to find something like these books about Madrid and Barcelona. I will check out the Hughes book for sure.

[Incandenza]

Urban histories

Perhaps not what you are looking for here, and I'm sure you're already aware of it, danielmak, but I'll take the thread as an opportunity to once again say that William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis, about Chicago, is one of the best history books that I've read.

[Benjm]

Urban histories

Nothing to do with the query, danielmak, but please can you remind me who the publisher was for your book about DIY shows?

[danielmak]

Urban histories

Benjm wrote: Nothing to do with the query, danielmak, but please can you remind me who the publisher was for your book about DIY shows?

The publisher for the DIY book is Microcosm. I've been happy working with them. Another good one in the US for that sort of thing is PM Press.

[Benjm]

Urban histories

Thanks - I was asking more with a purchase in mind than as a potential competitor!

[danielmak]

Urban histories

Benjm wrote: Thanks - I was asking more with a purchase in mind than as a potential competitor!

Thanks. Luckily there's been no competition in terms of other folks interested in writing about DIY punk. At least not that I've found. Everyone that I've met through this project has been amazing (including other folks writing about punk with whom I'll do some readings in the US in a few months). So if you do decide to write something, check out these two publishers.