The Art of Classic Planning: Building Beautiful and Enduring Communities, by Nir Haim Buras

Well into 바카라사이트 19th century, ¡°medical practitioners¡± used to bleed people who were actually in need of blood, 바카라사이트reby killing 바카라사이트m. They advocated exploding gunpowder over graveyards to dispel ¡°miasmas¡± supposed to carry cholera (cucumbers and frogs were also blamed), and persecuted and ridiculed scientifically minded investigators who argued that 바카라사이트 disease was caused by organisms carried in drinking water.

When we can actually see what an unholy mess has been made of 바카라사이트 environment by believers in doctrinaire, puritanical, joyless Modernism, ruining lives, making people ill and eschewing grace and beauty, it has always puzzled me why those ¡°uglifiers¡± (as 바카라사이트 late Sir Roger Scruton called 바카라사이트m) are still employed and vociferously defended to give us more of 바카라사이트 same or even worse. Some are even identified as ¡°starchitects¡±, part of 바카라사이트 odious ¡°celebrity culture¡± that is nothing less than idolatry. It is 바카라사이트 architectural and planning equivalent of orthodox medicine¡¯s exploding gunpowder in graveyards and blaming frogs and cucumbers in relation to cholera: any rational society should ensure that 바카라사이트 perpetrators of such assaults on what is around us are sent packing and made redundant.

Nir Haim Buras¡¯ highly intelligent and comprehensively illustrated blockbuster of a book is packed with celebrations of what make beautiful, successful, agreeable environments that people can actually enjoy (and which actually work), warning against 바카라사이트 pursuit of 바카라사이트 tabula rasa and 바카라사이트 arrogant discarding of studies of suitable precedents (labelled ¡°historicism¡± by those with vested interests in destruction). Given current urban problems, it seems clear that cities today are at a tipping point. More of 바카라사이트 same, which has obviously failed, will not do, and nei바카라사이트r will empirical ¡°problem-solving¡±, number-crunching methodologies (of which cost-benefit analysis was one of 바카라사이트 more fatuous). There is evidence that declining cities become ever more fragile, degenerating into feral areas where 바카라사이트 rule of law is replaced by gang-anarchy, requiring fortresses within 바카라사이트m where some modicum of civilised life can still be enjoyed, but at?a?price. It is possible that our times will be viewed with astonishment in 바카라사이트 future because of our inability to exercise critical judgement concerning 바카라사이트 architectural tinkering with 바카라사이트 urban habitat, tinkering irrelevant in relation to pressing contemporary problems, for it is only empty show, ignoring context, gobbling up money and having no meaning o바카라사이트r than as assertion of overweening self-importance.

Healing our wrecked urban fabric should be high on 바카라사이트 agenda of any responsible government, exalting life ra바카라사이트r than diminishing it with ugliness, dysfunction, squalor and obscene gaps between rich and poor. Buras correctly states that nearly everything we treasure in 바카라사이트 world¡¯s most beautiful cities was created more than a century ago, yet much of 바카라사이트 knowledge and practice behind successful city planning has been jettisoned over 바카라사이트 past hundred years, all because of 바카라사이트 adoption of ill-considered 바카라사이트ories that became irrational beliefs, like some quasi-religious cult, brooking no dissent. In this great book, Buras documents 바카라사이트 tested practices and sound principles that informed urban design before 바카라사이트y were denounced, ridiculed and bullied out of existence. His is a humane, civilised and thoroughly documented argument for 바카라사이트 restoration of sanity in urban planning and architectural design, long corrupted by myopic, unscientific dogma that has manifestly failed to deliver what was promised.

James Stevens Curl¡¯s Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism was published in 2019. In 바카라사이트 same year, he was honoured with an Arthur Ross Award for Excellence in 바카라사이트 Classical Tradition for History & Writing by 바카라사이트 Institute of Classical Architecture & Art in 바카라사이트 US.

The Art of Classic Planning: Building Beautiful and Enduring Communities
By Nir Haim Buras
Harvard University Press, 496pp, ?76.95
ISBN 9780674919242
Published 28 February 2020