In the middle of the Lebeaustraat in Brussels, sandwiched between neo-Renaissance and neo-Gothic houses, stands an Art Nouveau jewel designed by Victor Horta: the Frison House. It was

commissioned by Maurice Frison, a lawyer and friend of the architect, and was built in 1894-1895. Horta designed not only the house, but also all its furniture and decoration, right down to the smallest detail: from door handles to marble fireplaces, from mosaic floors to elegant banisters, from wall lamps to th...

Jaap Bakema and the Open Society is the first extensive publication on the Dutch architect and the remarkable production of his office Van den Broek and Bakema. His ideas on the open society are extremely relevant to the current debates about how to involve citizens in city building and creating alternative systems to crumbling welfare states. This historical document will highlight both his most relevant and less known work through texts, archival materials and photography. The book contains...

The Dageraad is a world-famous social housing complex located in Berlage’s Plan Zuid. It was designed by the architects Michel de Klerk and Piet Kramer in the style of the Amsterdam School.

The initiative to build it was taken by a workers cooperative that managed shops and wanted to provide the workers with good quality housing. Important Dutch politicians were involved in its realisation, among them Amsterdam’s Alderman Floor Wibaut, who is still honoured at the complex today. In 2001,...

Cities around the world are working to build more livable environments, better-quality public spaces, more resilient and sustainable urban economies, lower resource impacts, greater social equity, and other goals of a “new urban agenda.” In this process, the American movement advanced by the Congress for the New Urbanism has been unquestionably influential, if sometimes controversial. This volume presents a distillation of key essays by CNU proponents in their own words, as well as perspe...

This special issue brings together the work of the EU COST Writing Urban Places network. Using narrative approaches to analysis and design, the network highlights the specificity of local urban cultures in contemporary European cities. Drawing on research from a range of disciplines (architecture, urban studies, literary theory, sociology, media studies), the issue explores spatial approaches that promote responsible, site-specific and socially inclusive design strategies for European cities....

The Netherlands was made by humans. Cities, polders, the landscape and even nature reserves have all clearly been shaped by man. The country’s planned development is as unique as it is famous.

This book describes the intriguing history of spatial planning in the Netherlands from the late Middle Ages to the present day. Where does this strong tendency towards regulation and planning come from? Did these thousands of plans always come together? Or did planners and urban designers sometimes ge...