Aldo Rossi, a practicing architect and leader of the Italian architectural movement La Tendenza, is also one
of the most influential theorists writing today. The Architecture of the City is his major work of architectural
and urban theory. In part a protest against functionalism and the Moden Movement, in part an attempt to restore
the craft of architecture to its position as the only valid object of architectural study, and in part an analysis
of the rules and forms of the city's construction, the book has become immensely popular among architects and design
students.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Urban Artifacts and a Theory of the City
Chapter 1: The Structure of Urban Artifacts
The Individuality of Urban Artifacts
The Urban Artifact as a Work of Art
Typological Questions
Critique of Naive Functionalism
Problems of Classification
The Complexity of Urban Artifacts
Monuments and the Theory of Permanences
Chapter 2: Primary Elements and the Concept of Area
The Study Area
Residential Districts as Study Areas
The Individual Dwelling
The Typological Problem of Housing in Berlin
Garden City and Ville Radieuse
Primary Elements
The Dynamic of Urban Elements
The Ancient City
Processes of Transformation
Geography and History: the Human Creation
Chapter 3: The Individuality of Urban Artifacts; Architecture
The Locus
Architecture as Science
Urban Ecology and Psychology
How Urban Elements Become Defined
The Roman Forum
Monuments; Summary of the Critique of the Concept of Context
The City as History
The Collective Memory
Athens
Chapter 4: The Evolution of Urban Artifacts
The City as Field of Application for Various Forces; Economics
The Thesis of Maurice Halbwachs
Further Considerations on the Nature of Expropriations
Land Ownership
The Housing Problem
The Urban Scale
Politics as Choice
Preface to the Second Italian Edition
Introduction to the Portuguese Edition
Comment on the German Edition
Notes
Figure Credits and Publishing History of The Architecture of the City
Index of Names
