Building and Dwelling, Richard Sennett
Building and Dwelling, Richard Sennett
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Building and Dwelling
Ethics for the City

Author: Richard Sennett

Narrator: Danny Campbell

Unabridged: 13 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 11/28/2023


Synopsis

A reflection on the past and present of city life, and a bold proposal for its future

In this sweeping work, the preeminent sociologist Richard Sennett traces the anguished relation between how cities are built and how people live in them, from ancient Athens to twenty-first-century Shanghai. He shows how Paris, Barcelona, and New York City assumed their modern forms; rethinks the reputations of Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, and others; and takes us on a tour of emblematic contemporary locations, from the backstreets of Medellín, Colombia, to Google headquarters in Manhattan.

Through it all, Sennett laments that the "closed city"—segregated, regimented, and controlled—has spread from the Global North to the exploding urban centers of the Global South. He argues instead for a flexible and dynamic "open city," one that provides a better quality of life, that can adapt to climate change and challenge economic stagnation and racial separation.

With arguments that speak directly to our moment—a time when more humans live in urban spaces than ever before—Sennett forms a bold and original vision for the future of cities.

About Richard Sennett

Richard Sennett is the Centennial Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and former University Professor of the Humanities at New York University. He lives in London and New York City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Astrid on December 20, 2020

The final lines of the book summarize my impression quite well: richness of meaning rather than clarity of meaning. No doubt there's brilliance in here, and some ideas I really enjoyed, but I'm not a fan of the way the book is constructed, mixing abstraction with anecdotes, name dropping, and litera......more

Goodreads review by Jacques on September 18, 2020

I'd like to believe Richard Sennett has written better books than this one. Or, at least, more focused ones. This feels like a sampler of a lifetime of theory and practice in numerous walks of architecture and urban theory. But unless these fields are completely new to the reader, the book's everyth......more

Goodreads review by Dan on September 27, 2018

In this book Richard Sennett talks about the "ville" and the "cité", i.e. the built environment and the life that goes on in that environment, and tries to identify how urban planners can design cities that are good to live in. It's a very meandering discussion, taking in literature, philosophy and......more

Goodreads review by Nicolas on August 05, 2018

Building and Dwelling is one of the best books I have read in the past couple years in terms of influencing my thinking about a particular subject. In this book, Richard Sennett weaves together history, philosophy, literature, and plenty of urban design theory to provide a comprehensive overview of......more

Goodreads review by Peyton on December 29, 2023

Academic jargon and aimless thoughts abound, which is a shame because there’s some great ideas hidden in here. A friend without subject matter expertise started reading this and recommended it to me but she had to DNF around 50 pages because it was so dense. I have two masters degrees and have done r......more