Architecture and Public Space - Introduction of a New Book

The Golden Section Publishing presents a new book, which is already the fourth in the series of texts on modern and contemporary architecture.

Architecture and Public Space
Texts on Modern and Contemporary Architecture IV
Petr Kratochvíl (ed.)

The topic of public space is today one of the key themes in architectural discourse and an important motive for urban policies and plans. But what is so new about the topic of public space that it attracts the attention of creators, politicians, and theorists at architectural exhibitions, conferences, and in the media?
Perhaps it is precisely the modern uncertainty of public space: its questioning, the disintegration of its physical form and traditional functions, and the renewed search for its new forms and new content.
The selection of texts by leading architects, urban planners, sociologists, and lawyers attempts to capture the ambiguity of public space as both a physical and social space while also highlighting differing evaluative stances, oscillating between the announcement of a crisis and disintegration of public space on one hand and a positive search for new forms and programs on the other.

Petr Kratochvíl: Public Space as an Object of Architectural Theory and Creation
Richard Sennett: Spaces of Democracy
Hans Paul Bahrdt: Public and Private as Basic Forms of Urban Community
Peter Marcuse: The Threat to Publicly Used Space in Times of Urban Stagnation
Margaret Crawford: The World in the Shopping Mall
Paul Goldberger: Disconnected Urbanism
Klaus Selle: Public Spaces of European Cities – Disintegration and Decline, or Transformation and Revival? Arguments and Counterarguments.
Oriol Bohigas: The Form of Public Space
Manuel de Solà-Morales: The Impossible Project of Public Space
Juhani Pallasmaa: Dwelling in Space and Time – The Loss and Return of Public Space
Vito Acconci: Public Space in Private Time
Adriaan Geuze: Streets
Jan Gehl: Public Spaces for Changing Public Life
Jürgen Bruns-Berentelg: Public Urban Spaces and the Emergence of the Public Sphere – HafenCity Hamburg

From the texts of authors Richard Sennett, Hans Paul Bahrdt, Peter Marcuse, Margaret Crawford, Paul Goldberger, Klaus Selle, Oriol Bohigas, Manuel de Solà-Morales, Juhani Pallasmaa, Vito Acconci, Jan Gehl, and Jürgen Bruns-Berentelg, compiled and with a foreword by Petr Kratochvíl.

Translations of the texts by Petr Kratochvíl
Responsible editor Jana Tichá
Graphic design Tomáš Machek (Side2)
Typesetting and prepress Side 2
Printing and binding Didot, Prague
Published (c) Golden Section, o.s., Prague 2012
First edition

ISBN 978-80-903826-4-0
165 pages, 191x220 mm

Processed within the research project GA ČR no. P409/11/2220 “Architecture and Public Space”. The book is published with financial support from the Czech Architecture Foundation and the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.