Well written, flowing read and a great path to access the ideas behind the structure of cities. However the book is incomplete of typology of ideas, US centered in its examples and does not cover the use of spaces enough compared to the thinking that led to their creation.

Nevertheless a very productive read... ( )

Архитекторам хорошо — самые чудные их фантазии часто реализуются, а нам-то приходится в них жить. Впрочем, со временем мы привыкаем и перестаем замечать. Да и архитектор, как правило, хочет как лучше: рационально обустроить пространство или чтобы сверху было красиво.

Книга «Города мечты» рассказывает о семи инновациях в градостроении, которые сперва были в диковинку, а теперь сами собой разумеются. Трудно даже представить, какие баталии сопровождали появление таких привычных констант, как параллелепипеды многоквартирных домов, широкие проспекты и бульвары и гигантские торговые центры. Каждое нововведение сопровождается информацией об архитекторах, претворивших его в жизнь, его конкретных целях по «изменению человека» и часто неожиданных результатах реализации. Фотографии со всего мира служат наглядной иллюстрацией удачных и не очень попыток: если вы считали, что ваш спальный район выглядит убого, взгляните на гонконгский Кин Мин.

From the acclaimed landscape designer, historian and author of American Eden, a lively, unique, and accessible cultural history of modern cities--from suburbs, downtown districts, and exurban sprawl, to shopping malls and "sustainable" developments--that allows us to view them through the planning, design, architects, and movements that inspired, created, and shaped them.

Dream Cities explores our cities in a new way--as expressions of ideas, often conflicting, about how we should live, work, play, make, buy, and believe. It tells the stories of the real architects and thinkers whose imagined cities became the blueprints for the world we live in.

From the nineteenth century to today, what began as visionary concepts--sometimes utopian, sometimes outlandish, always controversial--were gradually adopted and constructed on a massive scale in cities around the world, from Dubai to Ulan Bator to London to Los Angeles. Wade Graham uses the lives of the pivotal dreamers behind these concepts, as well as their acolytes and antagonists, to deconstruct our urban landscapes--the houses, towers, civic centers, condominiums, shopping malls, boulevards, highways, and spaces in between--exposing the ideals and ideas embodied in each.

From the baroque fantasy villages of Bertram Goodhue to the superblocks of Le Corbusier's Radiant City to the pseudo-agrarian dispersal of Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City, our upscale leafy suburbs, downtown skyscraper districts, infotainment-driven shopping malls, and "sustainable" eco-developments are seen as never before. In this elegantly designed and illustrated book, Graham uncovers the original plans of brilliant, obsessed, and sometimes megalomaniacal designers, revealing the foundations of today's varied municipalities. Dream Cities is nothing less than a field guide to our modern urban world.

Enjoyable as a basic intro to architectural styles, but heavy on ideas and weak on practical matters. Dragged when giving too much backstory - and while I’m not an architect, felt there are more styles than those mentioned. ( )

Overall a good overview of the various different trends that have influenced modern city planning. The only chapter that dragged a bit was the one on metabolism and megastructures, which struggled to bring together the disparate elements being covered, and I found was only lively when covering Expo 67. As it is the concluding chapter, ending on the note of Foster's Apple spaceship building doesn't really help to integrate all of the previous chapters; a separate concluding chapter would have been better. ( )