Short description:

This book explores how journals mediate and transform our understanding and experience of buildings urban spaces and architectural cultures.

Long description:

Writing Spaces examines some of the most important discourses in spatial theory of the last four decades, and considers their impact within the built environment disciplines. The book will be a key resource for courses on critical theory in architecture, urban studies and geography, at both the graduate and advanced undergraduate level.

'This book is an essential read for local scholars of architecture as a critique of the context in which Western ideas and discourse are produced. It is also didactic, as a carefully crafted academic study it is a useful piece of precedent for anyone tackling serious scholarship in architecture. As an example of case study methods of analysis it is exemplary.'
- The Journal of South African Architects

'In examining the development and impacts of each journal's urban discourse, Crysler lucidly reveals how scholarly conventions, fashions and communities have played pivotal roles in defining exactly what we think of when we ask ourselves : "what is a city"?'
- Steve Graham, Professor of Urban Technology, Newcastle University, UK

'Highly recommended to anyone interested in architecture, the design of cities, urban semantics, or the relationship between theory and practice within specific communities of discourse.' - Ulf Strohmayer, Professor of Geography, National University of Ireland, Galway

'Crysler's penetrating examination of scholarly journals illuminates the academic discourses of architecture and urbanism in this important and original book. His illuminating analysis is an important contribution to the critical theory of these fields. It should raise the self-awareness of both scholars and practitioners.' - Margaret Crawford, Professor of Urban Design and Planning Theory, Harvard Design School, USA

'Written in a critical mode, the book gives a selective overview of several important academic debates of the past four decades ... a valuable contribution to discourse on built forms, thanks to the critical questions he raises.' ? International Journal of Urban and Regional Research

Table of Contents:

1: Introduction 2: Silent Itineraries: Making Places in Architectural History 3: Strategies of Disturbance and the ^D<"Generation of Theory^D>" 4: Unsettled Traditions and Global Modernities 5: Economies of Representation 6: Bodies of Theory 7: Conclusion. Bibliography. Index.