FROM FLUX TO FRAME M A A R T E N VA N AC KE R
society, law & economics l architecture
society, law & economics
From Flux to Frame
Kinshasa
Designing Infrastructure and Shaping Urbanization in Belgium
Tales of the Invisible City
Reprint of a reference work!
Filip De Boeck & Marie-Françoise Plissart
Maarten Van Acker
DESIGNING INFRASTRUCTURE AND SHAPING U R B A N I Z AT I O N I N BELGIUM
maarten van acker is Professor of Urbanism at the University of Antwerp and an urban designer.
Bridging the gap between infrastructure and urbanism Daily traffic jams, discussions whenever a new infrastructure project is launched, the health debate about car emissions … The tense relationship between infrastructure and its surroundings becomes clearer to us every day. Infrastructure and urbanism seem to belong to two different worlds. Whilst infrastructure design belongs to the domain of the engineer, urbanism is often part of the overlapping disciplines of architecture, social science, and policy studies. From Flux to Frame is in the forefront of publications that set out to bridge the gap between those disciplines, and sheds a new light on two centuries of urban planning and transport history. The author investigates the spatial impact of highways, motorways, canals, tramways, and railways on the surrounding landscape by applying a new methodology that combines classical historical literature with innovative mapping techniques. The book features an abundance of previously unpublished historical illustrations of exceptional quality, making this an attractive book for various levels of readership. Also of interest
Making a New World. Architecture and Communities in Interwar Europe Rajesh Heynickx, Tom Avermaete (eds) € 49,50 / £43.00, isbn 978 90 5867 909 3, hardback, kadoc-Artes 13 n
Reading African cities into contemporary theory – reprint of a richly illustrated reference work Through the lens of the photographer and through the author’s gaze, the complex urban landscape of Kinshasa is carefully brought into the picture in this book. The Congolese capital city appears to be difficult to tame, and impossible to capture in one master narrative. With the exhibition that accompanied the release of their Kinshasa book, the authors won a Golden Lion at the 11th International Architecture Bienniale in Venice, 2004. In this internationally acclaimed publication Kinshasa: Tales of the Invisible City, anthropologist Filip De Boeck and photographer Marie-Françoise Plissart provide a history not only of the physical and visible urban reality that Kinshasa presents today, but also of a second, invisible city as it exists in the mind and imagination of its inhabitants. Their beautifully illustrated publication is now again made available. Based on longstanding field research, it provides insight into local social and cultural imaginaries, and thus in the imaginative ways in which local urban subjects continue to make sense of their worlds and invent cultural strategies to cope with the breakdown of urban infrastructure.
filip de boeck is Professor of Anthropology at KU Leuven. marie-françoise plissart is a photographer.
‘This is an important book, extraordinarily rich in ethnographic detail about Kinshasa. Scholars and graduate students will find this book very useful in understanding the urban realities of Kinshasa and more broadly the impact of globalization on African cities.’ – Fassil Demissie, DePaul University, Chicago, Urban Affairs Review, Volume 42 Number 6, July 2007 ‘Also of interest n
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€ 49,50 / £44.00
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isbn 978 90 5867 958 1 December 2013 Paperback, 17 x 23 cm ca. 450 p. English
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Global Horizon: Expectations of Migration in Africa and the Middle East Knut Graw, Samuli Schielke (eds) € 39,50 / £35.00, isbn 978 90 5867 906 2, paperback
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€ 45,00 / £39.00 isbn 978 90 5867 967 3 October 2013 Paperback, 17 x 24 cm 288 p. Illustrated English
