Dream Cities: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the World

This survey of prominent architectural trends through the 19th and 20th centuries serves as a concise historical primer of mainly American urban development, though it fails to live up to some of the promises Graham makes early on (American Eden); he is a versatile writer whose enthusiasm can’t quite tie the book together. When Graham writes that “architectures are expressions of the desires of their designers and builders: these forms intend to shape people and thus shape the world,” he sets up a goal that may be too lofty to meet through the history of different styles and their leading architectural proponents. Graham’s precise encapsulations of architects’ biographies and philosophies hit the relevant highlights with a lively, accessible style; he deftly captures Bertram Goodhue, a prominent borrower of neoclassical styles whose ideas informed the Art Deco movement, and the rural utopianism of Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision. The author is less convincing when he argues for the lasting impact of the New Urbanism approach or the Japanese-influenced Metabolism movement, among other innovations, in brief sections that fail to go beyond mentions of the most representative buildings. An exception is his examination of the influence of the shopping mall and how Victor Gruen’s take on shopping centers was first adapted cheaply, then transformed by James Rouse to create highly successful “festival marketplaces” such as San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square and Boston’s Faneuil Hall. His assertion that a place has “the ability to trigger aesthetic emotion” and “can reinvigorate cities” reaches beyond biography and addresses the wider effects of architectural change. 59 b&w photos. (Jan.)