Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New ArchitectureVerso Books, 2015 M10 13 - 304 pages What makes the city of the future? How do you heal a divided city? In Radical Cities, Justin McGuirk travels across Latin America in search of the activist architects, maverick politicians and alternative communities already answering these questions. From Brazil to Venezuela, and from Mexico to Argentina, McGuirk discovers the people and ideas shaping the way cities are evolving. Ever since the mid twentieth century, when the dream of modernist utopia went to Latin America to die, the continent has been a testing ground for exciting new conceptions of the city. An architect in Chile has designed a form of social housing where only half of the house is built, allowing the owners to adapt the rest; Medellín, formerly the world’s murder capital, has been transformed with innovative public architecture; squatters in Caracas have taken over the forty-five-story Torre David skyscraper; and Rio is on a mission to incorporate its favelas into the rest of the city. Here, in the most urbanised continent on the planet, extreme cities have bred extreme conditions, from vast housing estates to sprawling slums. But after decades of social and political failure, a new generation has revitalised architecture and urban design in order to address persistent poverty and inequality. Together, these activists, pragmatists and social idealists are performing bold experiments that the rest of the world may learn from. Radical Cities is a colorful journey through Latin America—a crucible of architectural and urban innovation. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Dictators and Revolutionaries | 37 |
A Platform for Change | 67 |
The Favela Is the City | 99 |
The City Is Frozen Politics | 139 |
A Pirate Utopia | 175 |
The City as a School | 207 |
Social Urbanism | 231 |
On the Political Equator | 259 |
Acknowledgements | 285 |
Other editions - View all
Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture Justin McGuirk Limited preview - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
23 de Enero activist architect Alemão Alfredo Alto Comedero Antanas Mockus Aravena architecture barriadas barrio blocks Bogotá Bolivarian revolution border Brazil Brillembourg building built cable car called Caracas cent Chávez Chile citizens city centre city's civic complex comunas create culture decade developing Echeverri economic Fajardo Favela-Bairro favelas floor housing estates idea informal city infrastructure Iquique Jailson Jáuregui Klumpner land Latin America Le Corbusier living look mayor Medellín ment Metrocable Milagro million Mockus Mockus's modernist neighbourhood neoliberal Olympic organisation park Parque Peñalosa Pérez Piedrabuena policies political politicians poor PREVI problem programme public space Quinta Monroy radical residents revolutionary Rio's Rocinha San Agustín San Diego San Ysidro says Cruz scheme sense slums social housing squatters squatting storeys street swimming pool thing Tijuana tion Tlatelolco Torre David tower TransMilenio Túpac Amaru Turner U-TT Venezuela villas miseria violence walls zone