The art & biography of cities

[Note: links for this entry in either blue or purple]

The picture above illustrates one of my utmost pleasures: reading in bed. For example, bed is where I pursue my interest in the art & architecture of urban environments & how they function as evidence of social & cultural history. This blog entry outlines that interest & provides some resources, both written & visual, for those of you also attracted to the subject.

Works of Scholarship & Analysis.

Donald J. Olsen, the author of The City as a Work of Art: London, Paris, Vienna.

Olsen argues that a city's art & archetecture provide access to social & cultural history, offering insights into class differences, family and social organization, among other categories. As a Library Journal reviewer observes [quoted on Amazon] "the city is interpreted... as a vessel of civilization itself, a theater of historicist consciousness."


London: The Biography, by Peter Ackroyd.

Just get it & read it. Brilliant & now available in paper, but worth spending extra for the cloth edition.

New York Rises, photos by Eugene de Salignac, essays by Michael Lorenziniand Kevin Moore.

"From 1906 to 1934, Eugene de Salignac shot over 20,000 stunning 8x10-inch glass-plate negatives of New York City...." [see Amazon for brief review]

New York Underground: The Anatomy of a City, by Julia Solis.

This book explores New York City's subterranean-scape, i.e. story of a city through its sewars. Pictures & text offer a fascinating & unlikely tour. [Amazon, although on backorder]

Urban geography through Mystery.

See entries: October 23, 27-29, 2006 for British social & cultural biography-through-geography from 1929 through the present.

October 21 entry for the cultural geography of Southern California, 1950s-late 1970s.

Visual Arts.

Galleries of the Museum of Modern Art [MoMA]