City by Design - Phoenix - An Architectural Perspective of the Greater Phoenix Valley 2009英文电子图书.pdf

FoREWORD by Grady Gammage Jr. , Gammage Burnham Having the some nome as a prominent landmark building probably distorts my view of the importance of architecture to quality of life. But buildings ore where we live, and undeniably they shape our aggregate sense of self. In Phoenix. we ore blessed with on extraordinary natural setting In which to place a city: stunning, unique, and a little scary, full of prickly plants and venomous creatures. That natural setting challenges architects and builders in many ways. Shelter here needs to protect against heot and light, not cold and wet as with the older ports of the U.S. Without lush forests and big trees to envelop Individual buildings, they tend to stand out and remain visible In the landscape. The mythology of the West and the lost frontier In the lower 48 also has a history of spawning eccentric visions of city form . Distinctly different visions, Fronk Lloyd Wrights Broodocre City-the ultimate outomoblle-:llrected sprawl-and Paolo Solerls Arcologies-hlgh- denslty Implosions of humanity-both rose from the nearly blank canvas of the Sonoron desert. In 1999 1wrote a book called Phoenix in Perspective. In It, I tried to explain to our populace of transplants the nature of this place:why Itwas here, why It came to look the way it did, what we could do to nudge the futu re