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3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
medium-paced
i’m finally free!!!!!!!! (force finished this book b/c i spent money on it)
the type of book i don’t even want to donate or resell to a used bookstore, lest some other poor soul pick it up and decide to read it.
unsubstantial ramblings from a crotchety old cishet white man who can’t keep up with the times, exoticizing and doomerizing the unfamiliar while reminiscing rose-colored pasts. everything he likes is an “open system” and everything he dislikes is a “closed system”. and i guess a few decades ago, if you were respected enough as a white male intellectual in your own field, you were basically given free rein to say whatever you wanted about other fields you have little actual understanding of, and the audience would just stand back and clap adoringly. but it’s 2018 (2025). get with it.
also “ancient Chinese Shintoism” my fucking ass. shinto is a native japanese religion. get your fucking racist ass straight.
the type of book i don’t even want to donate or resell to a used bookstore, lest some other poor soul pick it up and decide to read it.
unsubstantial ramblings from a crotchety old cishet white man who can’t keep up with the times, exoticizing and doomerizing the unfamiliar while reminiscing rose-colored pasts. everything he likes is an “open system” and everything he dislikes is a “closed system”. and i guess a few decades ago, if you were respected enough as a white male intellectual in your own field, you were basically given free rein to say whatever you wanted about other fields you have little actual understanding of, and the audience would just stand back and clap adoringly. but it’s 2018 (2025). get with it.
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
While it first unfolds as a straightforward, chronological intro to modern civilisation's master city planners, Building and Dwelling quickly unravels as a kaleidoscopic, multi-faceted exploration of how to build a healthy city, packing thoughts on the art of conversation, the role of migrants, how to engage with the community and alleviate poverty. Sennett writes beautifully, blending history, social sciences, anecdotes and plenty of emotion to produce a dense but incredibly rich text that was a pleasure to read. You'll be amazed at how many references, concepts and ideas Sennett manages to pack into a mere 300 pages, further still at how long it will take you to read it.
Interesting topics and historic perspective adressed. Last 1/3 of the book, however, I really started to loose my focus. Wouldn’t have mind if all that was left out..
Building and Dwelling is the final book in Richard Sennett's trio on the skills people need to sustain everyday life - craftsmanship (The Craftsman); cooperation (Together) and finally, shaping the physical environment. In Building and Dwelling, Richard Sennett grapples with the role of planners and urbanists. He draws a distinction between the "ville" and the "cité", where the former refers to the built environment and the latter refers to how people dwell in it (although Sennett does note that the English phrase 'built environment' doesn't do justice to the idea of the "ville"). Should the role of the planner, of urbanism, be to serve the local community, to reflect and support the way they live; or is it to shift society to the way it "should" be living?
Sennett argues that the urbanist "should be a partner to the urbanite, not a servant - both critical of how people live and self-critical about what he or she builds". Sennett argues that cities, as complex ecosystems, need to be open. Open forms can "make urban places complex in a good way" - Sennett highlights 5 elements: (i) creating public spaces where synchronous activities can draw different groups together and invite them to mix; (ii) introducing both monumental and mundane markers to "punctuate" the urban landscape to help draw attention to (nondescript) elements in the urban environment and orientate people; (iii) creating porosity in the city by creating "membranes" that allow for flows and exchange, rather than impermeable boundaries at the edges (whether between a building's exterior and interior, or between neighbourhoods); (iv) using "type-form" structures that people can adapt and appropriate rather than fixed forms that are built to address a specific (static) need but fail to adapt as the context evolves; and (v) "seed planning" instead of master planning.
The current obsession with smart cities illustrates how technology can end up creating a closed, rather than open system. Sennett argues that we should use technology to "coordinate rather than control activities…focus[ing] on people as they are, in all their Kantian crookedness, rather than on how they should be…single citizens and groups have more control over feedback. The coordinative smart city honors limitations on its own data, then processes and relates that information to other groups". This works with complexity, gives people the data to help them make decisions and develops human intelligence. By contrast, technology used to control activities - "sensors read[ing] citizen behaviour, as in speeding or electricity usage, whether the citizen wants to be read or not; feedback is involuntary" - creates a "prescriptive city" where choice and agency are removed and where [technology's] prescriptions privilege efficiency over other considerations.
I had found Together to be pretty hard-going and Building and Dwelling was a much more enjoyable read for me. Partly because I like reading about cities and the first section of the book, on how urbanism has evolved and shaped cities was full of fascinating case studies and nuggets. Like how the nineteenth century was the age of black clothing which created an anonymous uniform for urban inhabitants, making it difficult to read strangers. This was in contrast to 18th century London and Paris, "whose streets were full of colours; people's dress in the ancien regime city marked not just their place in the social hierarchy, but more particularly the professions or trades they pursued (butchers wore striped red-and-white scarves; pharmacists sported rosemary in their lapels)".
It was fascinating reading about Haussman's Paris, Ildefons Cerdà Barcelona and Frederic Law Olmsted's Central Park. How Hausmann's Paris "privileged space [through which people move] over place [where people dwell]. Its transport networks connected people spatially, but diminished their experience of place". Sennett points out that our desire "not to be stuck in traffic…is a sensation we take for granted as natural - but it's a historical construction of our sensibilities…whereas our pre-modern ancestors…took slow movement through a city for granted". With Hausmann came our expectation that a "good city" was one where there was mobility. Yet, by allowing people to move through Paris at faster speeds, by building up the "networked ville", this has diminished people's awareness of place and hence, the cité. Or how Cerdà sought to create an equitable and social city with the additive grid, but this monocultural approach of building up Barcelona ran the risk of reducing diversity and hence resilience. Or how Olmsted, by siting Central Park on land that was farmed by free blacks and the Irish since the early 19th century, "destroyed this existing, integrated, rural life for the sake of a visionary, integrated, urban life". How Central Park is artifice designed to create the impression of nature, an illusion created to draw people to its grounds. In all three cases, they illustrate how the modern city lacks self control; these plans were not determined by citizens but were "arbitrary assertions of power, the first enabled by an emperor, the second by an unelected committee of notables, the third by a committed of planning commissioners who had not exposed the possibility of Central Park to much public discussion…national states, international businesses and ubiquitous bureaucracies rule".
Sennett offers many thought provoking points to mull over.
#1: Like how we need to look beneath the surface to assess the vitality and value of a place. Which Times Square to we privilege, for instance? The Times Square pre-clean up which was dirty and dingy but also contained thriving furniture workshops, small restaurants and bars serving local workers, or the Times Square of today which is glitzy and shiny with "packaged entertainment, chain-store places to eat, standardized hotels" and bustling with tourists but avoided like the plague by locals? Sennett argues that Olmstead "inaugurated a certain emphasis on removing the signs and sites of labour in his planning of sociable spaces in the city, the equating of sociability with artifice so that the city itself becomes a kind of theatre".
#2: Or how might we "connect to the past - a past whose passing one might regret - without turning the city into a museum"? (Sennett uses Shanghai's Xintiandi as an example, which is now restored albeit sanitised and quoting James Salter, "an illustration of life rather than life itself".)
#3: Or how "the idea that the oppressed will bond in solidarity is both naïve and factually rare. Oppression does not beget integraton. Rather solidarity is a necessary fiction to be conveyed to a dominant power: we are strong because united. The oppressed need to learn how to act as though this were true, to act out the fiction, make it believable.:
#4: That "class differences are not experienced today in the same way as are cultural differences of race, religion or ethnicity. When people of different classes mix together up close, invidious comparisons are dawn; inequalities hurt personally." The concept of meritocracy exacerbates this as failure to succeed in life is taken as a personal indictment while conversely, success in life is seen as affirmation of one's personal merit.
#5: That innovation and creativity is about overcoming constraints and obstacles. Therefore "an office, as much as a laboratory or an artist's studio, should allow people to dwell on difficulties". The irony is that in the case of Google, which prides itself on innovation, has designed a Googleplex that minimises resistance, where Googlers are encouraged to "play ping-pong…use the chill-out rooms whenever you are tired….as though the nicer [the offices] are, the more creative people will be."
#6: How might we create connection to a place if a city privileges space over place (like Haussman's Paris)? Rather, we should enable walking knowledge of the city to be developed by making provisions for sidewalks, alleys, benches, public water fountains and public toilets;
Sennett argues that the urbanist "should be a partner to the urbanite, not a servant - both critical of how people live and self-critical about what he or she builds". Sennett argues that cities, as complex ecosystems, need to be open. Open forms can "make urban places complex in a good way" - Sennett highlights 5 elements: (i) creating public spaces where synchronous activities can draw different groups together and invite them to mix; (ii) introducing both monumental and mundane markers to "punctuate" the urban landscape to help draw attention to (nondescript) elements in the urban environment and orientate people; (iii) creating porosity in the city by creating "membranes" that allow for flows and exchange, rather than impermeable boundaries at the edges (whether between a building's exterior and interior, or between neighbourhoods); (iv) using "type-form" structures that people can adapt and appropriate rather than fixed forms that are built to address a specific (static) need but fail to adapt as the context evolves; and (v) "seed planning" instead of master planning.
The current obsession with smart cities illustrates how technology can end up creating a closed, rather than open system. Sennett argues that we should use technology to "coordinate rather than control activities…focus[ing] on people as they are, in all their Kantian crookedness, rather than on how they should be…single citizens and groups have more control over feedback. The coordinative smart city honors limitations on its own data, then processes and relates that information to other groups". This works with complexity, gives people the data to help them make decisions and develops human intelligence. By contrast, technology used to control activities - "sensors read[ing] citizen behaviour, as in speeding or electricity usage, whether the citizen wants to be read or not; feedback is involuntary" - creates a "prescriptive city" where choice and agency are removed and where [technology's] prescriptions privilege efficiency over other considerations.
I had found Together to be pretty hard-going and Building and Dwelling was a much more enjoyable read for me. Partly because I like reading about cities and the first section of the book, on how urbanism has evolved and shaped cities was full of fascinating case studies and nuggets. Like how the nineteenth century was the age of black clothing which created an anonymous uniform for urban inhabitants, making it difficult to read strangers. This was in contrast to 18th century London and Paris, "whose streets were full of colours; people's dress in the ancien regime city marked not just their place in the social hierarchy, but more particularly the professions or trades they pursued (butchers wore striped red-and-white scarves; pharmacists sported rosemary in their lapels)".
It was fascinating reading about Haussman's Paris, Ildefons Cerdà Barcelona and Frederic Law Olmsted's Central Park. How Hausmann's Paris "privileged space [through which people move] over place [where people dwell]. Its transport networks connected people spatially, but diminished their experience of place". Sennett points out that our desire "not to be stuck in traffic…is a sensation we take for granted as natural - but it's a historical construction of our sensibilities…whereas our pre-modern ancestors…took slow movement through a city for granted". With Hausmann came our expectation that a "good city" was one where there was mobility. Yet, by allowing people to move through Paris at faster speeds, by building up the "networked ville", this has diminished people's awareness of place and hence, the cité. Or how Cerdà sought to create an equitable and social city with the additive grid, but this monocultural approach of building up Barcelona ran the risk of reducing diversity and hence resilience. Or how Olmsted, by siting Central Park on land that was farmed by free blacks and the Irish since the early 19th century, "destroyed this existing, integrated, rural life for the sake of a visionary, integrated, urban life". How Central Park is artifice designed to create the impression of nature, an illusion created to draw people to its grounds. In all three cases, they illustrate how the modern city lacks self control; these plans were not determined by citizens but were "arbitrary assertions of power, the first enabled by an emperor, the second by an unelected committee of notables, the third by a committed of planning commissioners who had not exposed the possibility of Central Park to much public discussion…national states, international businesses and ubiquitous bureaucracies rule".
Sennett offers many thought provoking points to mull over.
#1: Like how we need to look beneath the surface to assess the vitality and value of a place. Which Times Square to we privilege, for instance? The Times Square pre-clean up which was dirty and dingy but also contained thriving furniture workshops, small restaurants and bars serving local workers, or the Times Square of today which is glitzy and shiny with "packaged entertainment, chain-store places to eat, standardized hotels" and bustling with tourists but avoided like the plague by locals? Sennett argues that Olmstead "inaugurated a certain emphasis on removing the signs and sites of labour in his planning of sociable spaces in the city, the equating of sociability with artifice so that the city itself becomes a kind of theatre".
#2: Or how might we "connect to the past - a past whose passing one might regret - without turning the city into a museum"? (Sennett uses Shanghai's Xintiandi as an example, which is now restored albeit sanitised and quoting James Salter, "an illustration of life rather than life itself".)
#3: Or how "the idea that the oppressed will bond in solidarity is both naïve and factually rare. Oppression does not beget integraton. Rather solidarity is a necessary fiction to be conveyed to a dominant power: we are strong because united. The oppressed need to learn how to act as though this were true, to act out the fiction, make it believable.:
#4: That "class differences are not experienced today in the same way as are cultural differences of race, religion or ethnicity. When people of different classes mix together up close, invidious comparisons are dawn; inequalities hurt personally." The concept of meritocracy exacerbates this as failure to succeed in life is taken as a personal indictment while conversely, success in life is seen as affirmation of one's personal merit.
#5: That innovation and creativity is about overcoming constraints and obstacles. Therefore "an office, as much as a laboratory or an artist's studio, should allow people to dwell on difficulties". The irony is that in the case of Google, which prides itself on innovation, has designed a Googleplex that minimises resistance, where Googlers are encouraged to "play ping-pong…use the chill-out rooms whenever you are tired….as though the nicer [the offices] are, the more creative people will be."
#6: How might we create connection to a place if a city privileges space over place (like Haussman's Paris)? Rather, we should enable walking knowledge of the city to be developed by making provisions for sidewalks, alleys, benches, public water fountains and public toilets;
I received a copy of this book from a Goodreads giveaway.
This book is about urban planning and city development. I thought it would be more sociological in nature than it actually is. The author writes about various city planners and how their ideas are different and how they work for the city in which they designed. I thought one of the more interesting passages was about the development of Central Park in NYC.
This book is about urban planning and city development. I thought it would be more sociological in nature than it actually is. The author writes about various city planners and how their ideas are different and how they work for the city in which they designed. I thought one of the more interesting passages was about the development of Central Park in NYC.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Very informative. Great little excursion into the world of constructing cities and places we can call home.
A bit more academic than I expected so probably not best placed to review. Leans heavily on philosophy if that's your bag. I would have preferred to delve into more situational examples.
M'ha agradat molt, he entès amb l'estómac l'estratègia adaptativa de què parla, de treballar amb l'entorn i no contra ell
informative
medium-paced