Ruined Skylines

Aesthetics, Politics and London's Towering Cityscape
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-0-367-78466-9
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 220 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 348 g

Reihe: Routledge Research in Architecture

This book examines the skyline as a space for radical urban politics. Focusing on the relationship between aesthetics and politics in London’s tall-building boom, it develops a critique of the construction of more and more speculative towers as well as a critique of the claim that these buildings ruin the historic cityscape. Gassner argues that the new London skyline needs to be ruined instead and explores ruination as a political appropriation of the commodified and financialised cityscape. Aimed at academics and students in the fields of architecture, urban design, politics, urban geography, and sociology, Ruined Skylines engages with the work of Walter Benjamin and other critical and political theorists. It examines accounts of sometimes rebellious and often conservative groupings, including the City Beautiful movement, the English Townscape movement, and the Royal Fine Art Commission, and discusses tower developments in the City of London – 110 Bishopsgate, the Pinnacle, 22 Bishopsgate, 1 Undershaft, 122 Leadenhall, and 20 Fenchurch – in order to make a case for reanimating urban politics as an art of the possible.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gassner, Günter

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Städtebau, Stadtplanung (Architektur)
• Geisteswissenschaften Architektur Gebäudetypen Öffentliche Gebäude, Gewerbliche Bauten

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of figures

Acknowledgments

The new London skyline

- Conservative representations

A tall-building boom

Conservatism

Ruination

Outline of the book

- Visual and political representativeness

The notion of the skyline

Form, power, finance, function

Political skylines

Agency

- Composition

Western views

Compositional wholeness

Townscape

Image

Wholeness

- Sequence

Skyline profiles and sky gaps

Linear sequence

Occupying the line

Optical space

- Aesthetic and speculative value

Reframing building height

Aestheticising and beautifying

The skyline as a monad

Open totality

- History

Enshrinement as heritage

History as a process

Inward history

Historical progress

The orderly city

- Meaning

Linear and painterly

Religion as capitalism

Allegories and symbols

Baroque folding

Resistance

- Political images

Ruination

Conservatism

A tall-building boom

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Günter Gassner is Lecturer in Urban Design at the School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University, Wales, and an architect. His research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of critical theory and spatial practices. He specialises in questions about relationships between aesthetics and politics, history and power, and urban visions and visualisations.