Urban Literacy Reading and Writing Architecture

Literature offers valuable insights into how people experience, use and imagine places. In an accessible yet scientifically underpinned manner, Urban Literacy offers new methods for reading and writing all sorts of places, from architecture to urban space. The literary approach in this book stems from criticism of a lack of attention for the above-mentioned aspects in the architectural and urban planning debate: experiencing, using and imagining. This book brings together a variety of disciplines and theoretical approaches by means of three literary concepts: description, transcription and prescription. It translates them into the domain of architecture and urban planning, among other things through analyses of the work of Steven Holl, Bernard Tschumi and Rem Koolhaas.