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sarahkomas's review
informative
reflective
slow-paced
2.5
More like an academic essay. Needed more pictures
shawcrit's review
5.0
This is a really excellent, enjoyable and accessible book examining a series of case studies of urban and architectural development throughout Latin America. I was expecting this to be a more academic text, but McGuirk's tone is conversational and easy to follow, as well as precise and meaningful when it branches in to critical analysis.
The are two main arguments that I get from this text. 1) Instead of demarcating between "formal" and "informal" cities, with the latter being seen as temporary and problematic phases of urbanity that will ideally lead to formalization, we have to consider informal cities as possessing their own possibilities. Informal cities demonstrate alternative forms of social, economic, and political organization rather than inherently "bad" ones. 2) Architectural development is not an end in itself. Its political value is in the way that alternative forms of urban and architectural development deploy certain organizations, politics, and communities in new configurations (and by "alternative" and "new configurations" I mean against the grain of neoliberal development). These are not particularly novel observations (as I'm sure McGuirk would acknowledge). The excellence of this book is the way that these messages are intertwined with really solid and fascinating first-hand accounts of these spaces and interviews with the leaders and the communities that make these "radical cities" possible. McGuirk is more of an observer letting people who were directly involved in these developments a platform to narrate their own ideas and experiences.
The are two main arguments that I get from this text. 1) Instead of demarcating between "formal" and "informal" cities, with the latter being seen as temporary and problematic phases of urbanity that will ideally lead to formalization, we have to consider informal cities as possessing their own possibilities. Informal cities demonstrate alternative forms of social, economic, and political organization rather than inherently "bad" ones. 2) Architectural development is not an end in itself. Its political value is in the way that alternative forms of urban and architectural development deploy certain organizations, politics, and communities in new configurations (and by "alternative" and "new configurations" I mean against the grain of neoliberal development). These are not particularly novel observations (as I'm sure McGuirk would acknowledge). The excellence of this book is the way that these messages are intertwined with really solid and fascinating first-hand accounts of these spaces and interviews with the leaders and the communities that make these "radical cities" possible. McGuirk is more of an observer letting people who were directly involved in these developments a platform to narrate their own ideas and experiences.
shanta94's review
2.0
He presents some interesting ideas (none of which are his own) but the absolutely condescending tone he uses to describe the people he meets (especially indigenous people) is absolutely insufferable. He also lacks so much context, his writing had a strong I’ve been here for like a week and I’m gonna act like I know more about this place than the people who live here.
The topic is so fascinating but he wasn’t the right guy for this I guess, the tone especially bothered me as someone who is Latin American.
The topic is so fascinating but he wasn’t the right guy for this I guess, the tone especially bothered me as someone who is Latin American.
tony's review
4.0
Much gets written about the mass-urbanisation happening in China and Africa, but Latin America is often strangely overlooked, even though it went through almost identical patterns half a century ago, and in some countries has over 80% of the population living in cities. In the process it experimented with many different approaches, often swinging rapidly back-and-forth between housing as a basic human right for the government to provide, and the sometimes-ideological, sometimes-merely-pragmatic, ideal that people (by which, of course, we mean the poor), should build their own houses.
In more recent times, cities such as Medellín in Colombia have been internationally recognised as places that have been completely transformed (in this case, from the murder capital of the world) largely through architecture, and the region is full of architecture-as-activism projects.
And so McGuirk, previously editor of international architecture magazine, Icon, sets off on a tour of Latin America to find out how much the reality lives up to the hype. (The short answer: It doesn't, but it's still impressive anyway.)
The book takes an extended look at numerous approaches to city-building (in the loosest sense): from the very basic level of providing housing (PREVI in Perú, and the Quinta Monroy "build people half-a-house and let them build the rest" approach in Chilé); through the gentrification of the favelas in Rio and the effects of the city building out for the Olympics and the World Cup; the transformation of public spaces (such as Medellín's library parks); the crucial importance of transport infrastructure in cities where being poor can add two hours to how long it takes to get to work … or a hospital; what happens when 3000 people take over an abandoned 45-storey corporate skyscraper as a squat (with no elevators); or when mega-cities get big enough to span national boundaries; to Antanas Mockus’ attempts to transform Bogotá primarily through transforming the people themselves.
These all make for fascinating stories, and the author does a good job of avoiding oversimplification — understanding, and reiterating constantly, that there are no easy answers to many of the questions that these projects are attempting to deal with (or themselves raise), and that it’s often unclear to what extent any of these can be successfully replicated elsewhere.
The travelogue-interview style of writing can drag and grate at times (particularly when he goes full-blown architecture nerd, wandering Peruvian social housing projects playing spot-the-architect: “That’s clearly a Stirling, but is that a van Eyck or an Alexander?”), and the book presupposes a quite high level of understanding of architectural topics, assuming that the reader needs no further explanation for the continual references to Le Corbusier, Brutalism, etc. This makes the book a difficult read at times, particularly in the early chapters, which is particularly disappointing, as there’s no real reason why this should be so. The book will be interesting and useful to many non-architects, and providing a simpler entry-point to some of the concepts would have made it much more accessible. Thankfully I found the subject matter compelling enough to plough on through the worst parts. The areas I had known something about previously have had much too little written about them in English, so this is a very welcome addition, even with these flaws.
I was also slightly surprised to find only a single passing remark to Porto Alegre’s now-widely-copied approach of Participatory Budgeting, and none at all to initiatives like Belo Horizonte’s “People’s Restaurants”, or São Paulo banning all public advertising as noise pollution. But there’s room for many books on all these topics — and hopefully there are indeed many more to come.
[Advance review copy provided through edelweiss]
In more recent times, cities such as Medellín in Colombia have been internationally recognised as places that have been completely transformed (in this case, from the murder capital of the world) largely through architecture, and the region is full of architecture-as-activism projects.
And so McGuirk, previously editor of international architecture magazine, Icon, sets off on a tour of Latin America to find out how much the reality lives up to the hype. (The short answer: It doesn't, but it's still impressive anyway.)
The book takes an extended look at numerous approaches to city-building (in the loosest sense): from the very basic level of providing housing (PREVI in Perú, and the Quinta Monroy "build people half-a-house and let them build the rest" approach in Chilé); through the gentrification of the favelas in Rio and the effects of the city building out for the Olympics and the World Cup; the transformation of public spaces (such as Medellín's library parks); the crucial importance of transport infrastructure in cities where being poor can add two hours to how long it takes to get to work … or a hospital; what happens when 3000 people take over an abandoned 45-storey corporate skyscraper as a squat (with no elevators); or when mega-cities get big enough to span national boundaries; to Antanas Mockus’ attempts to transform Bogotá primarily through transforming the people themselves.
These all make for fascinating stories, and the author does a good job of avoiding oversimplification — understanding, and reiterating constantly, that there are no easy answers to many of the questions that these projects are attempting to deal with (or themselves raise), and that it’s often unclear to what extent any of these can be successfully replicated elsewhere.
The travelogue-interview style of writing can drag and grate at times (particularly when he goes full-blown architecture nerd, wandering Peruvian social housing projects playing spot-the-architect: “That’s clearly a Stirling, but is that a van Eyck or an Alexander?”), and the book presupposes a quite high level of understanding of architectural topics, assuming that the reader needs no further explanation for the continual references to Le Corbusier, Brutalism, etc. This makes the book a difficult read at times, particularly in the early chapters, which is particularly disappointing, as there’s no real reason why this should be so. The book will be interesting and useful to many non-architects, and providing a simpler entry-point to some of the concepts would have made it much more accessible. Thankfully I found the subject matter compelling enough to plough on through the worst parts. The areas I had known something about previously have had much too little written about them in English, so this is a very welcome addition, even with these flaws.
I was also slightly surprised to find only a single passing remark to Porto Alegre’s now-widely-copied approach of Participatory Budgeting, and none at all to initiatives like Belo Horizonte’s “People’s Restaurants”, or São Paulo banning all public advertising as noise pollution. But there’s room for many books on all these topics — and hopefully there are indeed many more to come.
[Advance review copy provided through edelweiss]
vicky1425f's review
5.0
Gran lectura para conocer más sobre cómo crecen las ciudades y que soluciones se implementaron en Latinoamérica (con y sin éxito) para enfrentar el déficit habitacional. Prosa muy dinámica y entretenida y buenas fotos a color.
fleece's review
5.0
SO SO SO SO GOOD.
kind of inaccessible? in that- i don't have the architectural/historical/philosophical/political background. (i mean we learned about le corbusier in high school but it was all about FORM, i don't know if we touched on his political(?)/social housing shit at ALL, thanks ap art history lol). and like, my knowledge of for ex. neoliberalism is really informal, and of free trade agreements and washington consensus i pretty much only know that they wreck everything. DESTROY CAPITALISM
buuut, from my very limited pov, really good coverage and understandable despite not knowing a LOT
kind of inaccessible? in that- i don't have the architectural/historical/philosophical/political background. (i mean we learned about le corbusier in high school but it was all about FORM, i don't know if we touched on his political(?)/social housing shit at ALL, thanks ap art history lol). and like, my knowledge of for ex. neoliberalism is really informal, and of free trade agreements and washington consensus i pretty much only know that they wreck everything. DESTROY CAPITALISM
buuut, from my very limited pov, really good coverage and understandable despite not knowing a LOT
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