PRESERVING THE WORLD’S GREAT CITIES: THE DESTRUCTION AND RENEWAL OF THE HISTORIC METROPOLIS
What happens when the soul of a city is corrupted by greed, political ambition, ignorance, despair, or apathy, when its architectural character and eminence are leveled, built over, forgotten? When beauty made and nurtured over centuries is tossed away on momentary whim, erased forever—as by Joseph Stalin with the festive spires of Moscow. Even after Lenin had directed they be saved. In a landmark volume, author Anthony M. Tung has collected the tales of cities beloved for their memorable forms—and the unique urban cultures that they housed—contrasting their thoughtless destruction with the story of those who fought, and sometimes even risked their lives, to save them.
Preserving the World’s Great Cities is an innovative account of the ancient and modern metropolis. Tung’s research led him around the world for a look into the heart of our most cherished urban places. He relates how the Renaissance Italians, in their quest to make the capital of Christianity, cannibalized a 1500-year-old Imperial Roman cityscape for its gleaming marble slabs, whose re-cut blocks are situated still, reconfigured one by one, by the rolling waters of the Tiber. How Kublai Khan raised a metropolis of peerless artistry, lost in fiery conquest, rebuilt to another degree of ancient splendor, but bulldozed in modern times by blinding ideology. How the citizens of Warsaw defied the plans of Adolf Hitler to level their architectural heritage, hiding drawings of a thousand handsome structures in the crypts of a monastery just beyond the reach of the 'Destruction Squads' so they might rebuild their landmarks in the aftermath.
Tung follows the fate of singular historic cities across the tragedies of the twentieth century: communism, fascism, war, poverty, pollution, over-population, and so-called post-war 'urban renewal' that eviscerated the modernizing metropolis. Yet even in the face of such daunting problems, he finds surprising acts of social invention in places like Charleston, Jerusalem, Berlin, Venice, Singapore, Amsterdam, New York, Warsaw, Rome, Athens, Vienna, Mexico City, Paris, London, and Kyoto, opening new doors to the future of cities and affirming the resilience of the human spirit.
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“This is an important contribution not only to the literature of urban studies and city planning, but to architectural history and sociology.” – Publishers Weekly
“For each city he provides a brief and remarkably vivid account of its history and built fabric. Tung's breadth of vision and rapid-fire insights recall Lewis Mumford at his best.” – The Washington Post
“This might seem a dry textbook exercise, something of little interest beyond graduate classes in architectural history or the narrow circles of passionate preservationists, but it turns out to be a sequence of remarkable chronicles.” – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“This is a book not just for academics or students or professional policy-makers, though all of them would be well advised to pick up a copy. No, this book is for any lover of cities or history. It is an epic, or rather, 18 little epics packed into one important book.” – architecturalrecord.com
"Beautiful and compelling . . . " – Minneapolis Star Tribune
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Preserving the World’s Great Cities: The Destruction and Renewal of the Historic Metropolis
By Anthony M. Tung
Hardcover edition: Clarkson Potter, New York, 2001
Softcover edition: Three Rivers Press, New York, 2001
Japanese edition: Kaiji Shobol Publishers, Kyoto, 2006
Chinese edition: Tsinghua University Press, Beijing, 2014
Drawings and maps by the author.
Photographs by Janet Vicario and Anthony Tung.
ISBN 0-517-70148-0
For those who are intrigued, the book is out-of-print in English, though Amazon generally has some copies new and used. But in China and Japan it still is available, for those who read in these respective languages.
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table of contents
Introduction
The Awakening of a Conservation Ethic
1. The Century of Destruction
2. The City That Devoured Its Glory: Imperial and Renaissance Rome
3. The City That Rewrote Its Past: Fascist and Modern Rome
The Culture of Conservation in Cities
4. The Heritage of War: Warsaw
5. The Tragedy of the Megacity: Cairo
6. Ideological Conflict with the Past: Moscow and Beijing
7. Preservation and Economic Justice: Singapore
8. Preservation and Social Conscience: Amsterdam and Vienna
9. The City of the Gods Besieged: Athens
10. The Comprehensible Urban Visage: London and Paris
11. Tourism versus the Habitable City: Venice
12. Politics and Preservation in the Modern Metropolis: New York
13. Reversing the Culture of Destruction: Kyoto
The Widening Ethic of Preservation
14. The City Redeemed: Berlin, Moscow, New York, and Mexico City
15. The City As a Living Museum: Charleston and Jerusalem
Bibliographic Sources
Acknowledgements
Index