The book interprets and recombines, within a subjective trajectory, some roots, pathways and conceptual frames of the planning thought that worked either as dissenting imaginations or generative source to critically question the modernist epistemologies. Critical planning and design is presented in this book as a field of research inspired by critical urban theory and developed along with ideas and theories that prove to be radical, alternative, dialectical to the mainstream history of planning.
In this book, scholars present what they consider as the most important books in the field of planning, public policy and design. They have been asked to write about a book and its author, in their preferred manner. This freedom allowed passionate and original contributions.
Three main threads - the three parts of the book - shape the choices of the authors. The first concerns the reconstruction of some genealogical roots of planning (including Cerdą, YonaFriedman, Alberto Magnaghi, and Ian McHarg). The second thread groups the authors who dialogue with contemporary protagonists of the planning debate (including John Friedmann, Leonie Sandercock, Doreen Massey, David Harvey, Tom Sievert, and Patzy Healey). The third thread includes authors who dig into relevant writings in social and philosophical sciences (including Max Weber, Charles Lindblom, Henri Lefebvre, Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, Georges Didi-Huberman, Robert Nozick, Pand hilip K Dick).
The book is addressed to researchers of planning and urban studies, who value the critical re-reading of some fundamental books. Including thoughtful and critical arguments on influential thinkers of the past two centuries, the book will enable students, scholars and researchers of planning, design, political science, geographical, environmental, and urban studies to better understand the socio-spatial and ecological transformations under the contemporary transitionwhile relying on a usable past. The book is also addressed to a wider audience of readers interested in the problems of the city and space.
Introduction: Critical planning and design: Walking through roots and
dissenting imaginations.- Part 1: Roots.- Giancarlo Pabas trilogy of Luoghi
comuni (Common Places, 1998), Movimenti urbani (Urban Movements, 2003), Corpi
urbani (Urban Bodies, 2010): Influential Italian critical planning
thinking.- Ildefonso Cerdą, Teorķa General de la Urbanización, 1867: An
innovative approach.- LOrdine politico della Comunitą (The Political Order
of Community) 2014: Concrete community and territorial principle in Adriano
Olivettis thought.- All the layers of an ecological commitment at the
frontier: Ian McHarg, Design with Nature, 1969.- L' Architecture de survie
(1978) is back talking to EU cities in crisis: The provocative message by
Yona Friedman as a key for the present and future urban agenda.- Part 2:
Planning pathways.- John Friedmann, The Good Society (1979): Panning pathways
for a just society.- David Harveys Urbanization of Capital (1985): Why it
helped me so much.- A place in the world? Places, Cultures and Globalization,
1995. Doreen Masseys lessons: Is the world really shrinking or is the
geography of the world teaching us openness and diversity?.- Patsy Healey and
Collaborative Planning (2005): Re-thinking democracy in the reasoning in
public arena.- Utopian tension: Sandercocks inspiring journey Towards
Cosmopolis (1998).- Zwischenstadt | Inbetween city. Thomas Sieverts, Cities
Without Cities: An interpretation of the Zwischenstadt, 2004.- Part 3:
Conceptual frames.- Inquiry and change: The troubled attempt to understand
and shape society, 1990: The radical contribution of Charles E. Lindbloms
self-guiding society and probing volitions.- Rediscussing Robert Nozicks
Anarchy, State and Utopia, 1974.- Property titles to land and issues of
distributive justice.- Blade Runner,
1982. Do Androids dream of electric
sheep?- Philip K Dicks science fiction and Maschinenmenschen in Metropolis.-
Max Weber, Die Stadt (1922), English edition, Max Weber, The City,edited and
traslated by Don Martindale and Gertrude Neuwirth, The Free Press, 1958.-
Antonio Gramsci and the prison notebooks.- Le droit ą la ville, 1968: Reading
Lefebvres the right to the city in planning perspective.- The trouble with
Henri: The production of urban space from theory to research.- Gilles
Deleuze & Félix Guattari, Mille Plateaux, 1980: "The good use of
philosophy".- Georges Didi-Huberman, La survivance des lucioles (2009). The
thickness of time: going beyond the surface of the present to understand
contemporary territories.
Prof. dr. hc. Camilla Perrone has obtained a PhD in Urban, Regional and Environmental Design (2002). She works as an associate professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Florence (UniFi) Italy, where she teaches Urban Policy and Spatial Strategic Planning and founded the Research Laboratory of Critical Planning and Design (2015).
Her current fields of interest cover the following areas: critical planning and design; urban political ecology, diversity and interactive design; social, spatial and environmental justice; inter-scalar urbanisation and strategic planning; city and regional planning.
Currently, she is President of the Scientific Committee of the Italian Study Center for Urban Policies (Urban@it). In addition, she serves in multiple roles in Italian, European and international Associations such as the Italian Society of Urban Planners (SIU), AESOP (Association of European Schools of Planning), Inura (International Networkof Urban Research and Action).
