Urban Forms

"Thus, this book, by a very happy coincidence, becomes a true history of 20th-century urbanism; it brings together the most significant, perhaps even the most unique, works carried out in the cities of the century – Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt – based on their own scales. With the examples it chooses, it creates both a perfect panorama and a theoretical lesson and subject for discussion."
Manuel de Solà-Morales

"If I had to describe this study in a single word, I would say it deals with a death struggle. This is the death struggle of the building block, a specific spatial organization that is the distinguishing feature of the classical European city, transformed by the 19th century and abolished by the 20th century. Therefore, we can say that behind the building block, we want to grasp the evolution of a particular understanding of the city.
This is how we began to introduce this work in 1975. At that time, it was a topic that might have seemed original, even strange. Dealing with the form of the city was not yet considered a panacea for all ills."
Philippe Panerai