In the Life of Cities
Editor: Mohsen Mostafavi

What is it that gives places their individual qualities and defines the life of a city? Architects and urbanists are accustomed to describing and creating the organizational structures, the layouts and physical attributes of our cities. But what are the relations between the design of a city—its form—and the life engendered by that form? Responding to this question is the inspiration for this book. Contributors from a wide range of fields address the inseparability of urban life and urban form in cities as diverse as Baku, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Detroit, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Mumbai, Paris, Quito, St. Petersburg, Tel Aviv, Tirana, and Toronto. Portfolios of contemporary photography assert the layered realities of urban life today.

Published in conjunction with the exhibition, In The Life of Cities by the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Lars Müller Publishers, 2012