Richard J. Williams

This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the recent history of urban life. It argues that the contemporary city is uniquely anxious, caught between nostalgia for the past, and uncertainty about the future. At a crucial moment in the history of the city, it cuts through the urban propaganda spread by architects and politicians. This study will be of interest to students and practitioners alike.

English Urbanism in the Late Twentieth Century

The Anxious City

Throughout the centuries there have been many wonderful stories told. Stories of gods, heroes, monsters and the individuals who have changed their own fates, and the story that is about to be told is no different. This is the story of an average boy who will learn what it means to be a hero and how to change fate, not only his own but that of others as well. While the main character may seem like an unlikely hero, he has all of the qualities that many great heroes have had in the past. Within this young man beats the heart of a champion, but like many champions he will be tested. This young man's name is Michael Richardson and he is about to go on the journey of a lifetime.

And the Manacle of the Gods

Michael

Reyner Banham (1922–88) was a prolific, iconoclastic critic of modern architecture, cities, and mass culture in Britain and the United States, and his provocative writings are inescapable in these areas. His 1971 book on Los Angeles was groundbreaking in what it told Californians about their own metropolis, and architects about what cities might be if freed from tradition. Banham’s obsession with technology, and his talent for thinking the unthinkable, mean his work still resonates now, more than thirty years after his death. This book explores the full breadth of his career and his legacy, dealing not only with his major books, but a wide range of his journalism and media outputs, as well as the singular character of Banham himself.

Reyner Banham Revisited

We tend to think cities look the way they do because of the conscious work of architects, planners and builders. But what if the look of cities had less to do with design, and more to do with social, cultural, financial and political processes, and the way ordinary citizens interact with them? What if the city is a process as much as a design? Richard J. Williams takes the moment construction is finished as a beginning, tracing the myriad processes that produce the look of the contemporary global city. This book is the story of dramatic but unforeseen urban sights: how financial capital spawns empty towering skyscrapers and hollowed-out ghettoes; how the zoning of once-illicit sexual practices in marginal areas of the city results in the reinvention of culturally vibrant gay villages; how abandoned factories have been repurposed as creative hubs in a precarious postindustrial economy. It is also the story of how popular urban clichés and the fictional portrayal of cities powerfully shape the way we read and see the bricks, concrete and glass that surround us. Thought-provoking and original, Why Cities Look the Way They Do will appeal to anyone who wants to understand the contemporary city, shedding new light on humanity’s greatest collective invention.

Why Cities Look the Way They Do

Transient Shutdown Analysis of Low-temperature Thermal Diodes

Alan N. Andersen

Garry D. Cook

The ten-year research program and the Kapalga fire experiment at CSIRO in Australia has provided a wealth of knowledge about savanna ecosystems and the critical but poorly understood role of fire. The frequent low intensity fires examined in this volume characterize fire in the tropics and are a dominant force in shaping the structure and function of tropical ecosystems. Contributors discuss fire in relation to rainfall, groundwater, and the mammals and plants in the ecology and management of ecosystems. Among the management issues addressed are: habitat management, endangered species, protection of people and property, erosion and nutrient depletion, integration of knowledge from indigenous people and western science, and atmospheric pollution from fire smoke. This book will be valuable to tropical and savanna ecologists, fire ecologists and fire managers throughout the world, whether they are interested in plants, animals, soils or in the landscape as a whole.

The Kapalga Experiment

Fire in Tropical Savannas

Throughout the centuries there have been many wonderful stories told. Stories of gods, heroes, monsters and the individuals who have changed their own fates, and the story that is about to be told is no different. This is the story of an average boy who will learn what it means to be a hero and how to change fate, not only his own but that of others as well. While the main character may seem like an unlikely hero, he has all of the qualities that many great heroes have had in the past. Within this young man beats the heart of a champion, but like many champions he will be tested. This young mans name is Michael Richardson and he is about to go on the journey of a lifetime.

During the mid-1960s, sculptors in the USA and Europe simultaneously lost interest in making objects. Instead, under banners such as Anti-Form and Arte Povera, they began to present undifferentiated matter as sculpture: industrial felt, lead, dirt, vegetables, even live animals. Such heaps, arrays and environments seemed to mark the end of modern sculpture. They dominated sculptural debate at the time of their appearance, and they have since proved enormously influential on contemporary art.

Art in the United States and Europe, 1965-1970

After Modern Sculpture

Mark Crinson

The German tradition -- The architectural unconscious-Steinberg and Baxandall -- Modernism-institutional and phenomenal -- From image to environment-Reyner Banham's architecture -- The new art history -- October's architecture

A Historiography

The Architecture of Art History

Set against a backdrop of breathtaking natural beauty, Brazil’s striking modernist architecture has long garnered international acclaim. But these well-known works are not fully reflective of the built environment of Brazil, and with this volume, Richard Williams unearths the rich architectural heritage of Brazil. Spanning from 1945 through today, the book examines Brazilian architecture beyond the works of renowned architects such as Oscar Niemeyer and the “Carioca” architects of Rio de Janeiro. Williams investigates issues such as the use of historic architecture, the importance of leisure and luxury, the role of the favela as a backdrop and inspiration for development, and the rapid growth of cities. From the designated world heritage site of Brasilia—a capital city that was planned from the ground up—to the installation work of artists such as Hélio Oiticica, Brazil delves into the origins and far-reaching influence of Brazil’s architectural modernism. At a moment when Latin America is of increasing importance in global business and culture, Brazilwill be an essential read for all scholars of architecture and Latin American history.

Modern Architectures in History

Brazil

Massive modern skyscrapers, obelisks, towers—all are structures that, thanks to their phallic shape, are often associated with sex. But other buildings are more subtly connected, as they provide the frameworks for our sexual lives and act as reminders of our sexual memories. This relationship between sex and buildings mattered more than ever in the United States and Europe during the turbulent twentieth century, when a culture of unprecedented sexual frankness and tolerance emerged and came to dominate many aspects of public life. Part architectural history, part cultural history, and part travelogue, Sex and Buildings explores how progressive sexual attitudes manifest themselves in architecture, asking what progressive sexuality might look like architecturally and exploring the successes and failures of buildings' attempts to reflect it. In search of structures that reflect the sexual mores of their inhabitants, Richard J. Williams visits modernist buildings in Southern California, the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, the Playboy Mansion in Chicago, the Seagram in New York, communes from the 1960s, and more. A fascinating and often funny look at a period of extraordinary social change coupled with aesthetic invention, Sex and Buildings will change the way we look at the buildings around us.

Richard J. Williams

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