Sense of the City: An Alternate Approach to Urbanism

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Mirko Zardini Editor

CCA Publications and Lars Müller Publishers, Montreal and Zurich, 2005, English

Nonfiction, Urban Design

ISBN: 9780920785737

Accompanied the exhibition “Sense of the City” organized by the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, held from October 25, 2005 - September 10, 2006. Challenging the dominance of vision, Sense of the City: An Alternative Approach to Urbanism proposes a new approach – a “sensorial urbanism” whose aim is to analyze urban phenomena in terms of luminosity and darkness, seasons and climate, the smell of the air, the material surfaces of the city, and sounds. How do we perceive the urban settings that constitute the habitat of an ever greater proportion of the world’s population? In recent years, we have sought to better understand subtle, sensorial qualities of the urban environment, looking at how our perception, judgement, and tolerance of these phenomena are culturally and historically determined.

With texts by Constance Classen, David Howes, Norman Pressmann, Emily Thompson and Mirko Zardini.

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This book and the exhibition it originally accompanied challenge the dominance of the visual in exploring perceptions of the city that have traditionally been ignored, repressed, or maligned, offering complex analyses of the comforts, communication systems, and sensory dimensions of urban life—thus advancing a new spectrum of experience and engagement.

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