According to novelist and critic Matthew Stadler in his new book, Deventer, the Netherlands has long been a place where “homeless drunks” debate museum design in soup kitchens and “housewives have opinions about architects.” It was from this localized foundation that Dutch architecture gained, in the last few decades, unprecedented international attention, as architects like Rem Koolhaas rose to prominence and shook up the status quo. There’s no better setting, then, for a book that believes sincerely in architecture’s potential to change the world.
Reading the cumbersomely titled House of Outrageous Fortune: Fifteen Central Park West, the World’s Most Powerful Address is a lot like watching an episode of VH1’s The Fabulous Life Of… Should we feel envious? Disgusted? Or should we just let ourselves be hypnotized by its shmoozy, clubby charm?
What should we call the design, construction, and study of the built environment? “Geography” is too broad. “Regional planning” sounds like a job reserved for bureaucracies. “Urban planning”—the usual catchall term—is a holdover from the profession’s early years, when industrial blight was one of America’s biggest domestic problems. Today we are worrying about our cities for different reasons, and our suburbs and open spaces are demanding equal concern. How do we retrofit our aging suburbs? Can design foster stronger communities? What does sustainable development really mean? These questions all fall under the subject of urban planning. So what’s a better
