Symbols, Space, and the City
by William J. Mitchell
MIT Press, 2005
Comments: I just finished reading Placing Words – Symbols, Space, and the City, written by William J. Mitchell, Professor of Architecture and Media Arts at MIT. The book is ostensibly a series of essays on the relationships between urban spaces and communication, but many of them seem only thinly related to that theme. The majority are derived from a monthly column he wrote for the Royal Institute of British Architects Journal. Each piece stands on its own, without being tied to any overarching thesis, so they are very approachable for casual reading.
The author has fairly strong political views and at times he veers into these in ways that somewhat burden some of the essays, but he's also very astute regarding the topic and makes several perceptive observations about the state of modern architecture and urban life. Some of these ideas are captured succinctly with great insight or humor, such as:
On University Architecture:
"They would not give tenure to a professor who merely recycled the same old stuff between covers calibrated for maximum marketability, and they should not give campus space to buildings that do no better."On New Technologies in Architecture:
"Today the venture capitalists are reading business plans for nanotechnology startups and Prince Charles is having nightmares not just about modernist concrete, but about runaway self-replicating gray goo."On Security Controls in Public Spaces:
"When the centers of our cities are closed and secured against their own citizens, we can have no doubt that the hard men are winning."On Architecture of the Museum of Modern Art:
"The iPod aesthetic is entirely consistent with a position that the Modern has upheld from its inception: art is signal, context is noise, and the task of a museum is to manage the signal-to-noise ratio."On Urban Landscapes in Television:
"Then came Dallas--with its brilliantly engineered representation of a truly mundane and boring city as a redneck Xanadu, and its artful reworking of Jane Austen's contrasts of city and country house manners."Perhaps the most enjoyable essay is near the end, wherein the author describes his upbringing in a small, remote Australian town, and how the trains were an essential connection to everything beyond. Through very witty and capable writing he warmly relates a nostalgia and fondness for the times and places of his youth. In doing so he also demonstrates that writing about intimacies often provides the greatest creative payoff.
Overall, I found it to be a very interesting and enjoyable book. The writing is sharp and the stories are insightful. If you have a passing interest in urban affairs, architecture and the media, and don't mind a few political jibes, then you may enjoy it as well.
Copy Notes: Paperback
