City Assembled: The Elements of Urban Form Through History
This final book by noted architectural historian Kostof, who died in 1991, is a companion to The City Shaped ( LJ 10/1/91; LJ's Best Books of 1991, LJ 1/92, p. 56). Here he considers the parts that make up the city through time--walls, urban divisions, public places, the street, and the urban process. The book is wide-ranging in time and space and presents the fruits of a lifetime of looking, but it is fragmented, appearing to be almost an assembly of notes for a more considered work or for The City Shaped. Still, the author is an astute observer, and his remarks are frequently illuminating for specialists and novices alike. This survey of the microparts of cities will be of interest primarily to professionals and historians but also to urban inhabitants, the same audience addressed by William Whyte ( City: Rediscovering Its Center , LJ 2/1/89).- Jack Perry Brown, Art Inst. of Chicago Lib.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.